Funny thing. This episode of Kai to Otome to Kamikakushi reminded me of Dansai Bunri no Crime Edge. And the funny part is, I don’t remember ever saying that about another anime. Like, not once (though maybe I have and forgot). Crime Edge is such a deeply weird series that – while it does have a lot of old Gainax aura (and Gainax staff) in itself, there’s just not much that’s anything remotely like it. Crime Edge was a series that was broadly disliked but which I loved, so coming from me this is a compliment. I don’t find Mysterious Disappearances to be on the same level, but it’s certainly interesting.
It’s still hard to tell exactly what’s going on here, but the picture is being filled in at least in outline form. The third key figure introduced is Oto (Yukimura Eri). Ren refers to her as his little sister but I don’t take anything at face value here (especially as her name could be short for “imoto”. The whole thing with “a ticket to Yami Station” has something to do with her (the station attendant is played by 87 year-old legend Nozawa Masako). Ren refers to helping her go “back where she belongs; she notes they should go together. The “curiosities” he collects are seemingly to try and get her a ticket, but he lies to her and says this time he didn’t have enough.
Curiosities are almost certainly the major MacGuffin with Kai to Otome to Kamikakushi. There are apparently a lot of them around, and something is willing to pay for them. And those “!” street signs are what Ren calls “markers” – left behind as a symbol of wrongness whenever a curiosity appears. Oh, and not everyone can see those markers – the Adashino siblings (if that’s what they are) can, for example, but Ogawa Sumireko cannot.
The terminology is flying thick and dense in this ep, and speaking of Sumireko, she’s now what Ren calls a “bearer”. As in she bears the curse she invoked, and now she can transform at will. Which seems very convenient, to be honest. Especially since she can even pick the age, for example high school – which is the age she has to be to infiltrate Oto’s school. Which Ren is asking her to do because there have been strange incidents at said school, a prestigious all-girls combined JHS/HS, and he believes them to be connected to a curiosity.
Once things go to school, the story pretty much descends into camp, though not in a bad way. Sumireko is thrilled at the idea of voyeuring a bunch of nubile young girls all day, but Oto – who’s irritated that she seems to be stealing Ren’s attention – tells her to hide in a toilet stall all day. Eventually she winds up in an empty classroom with a bunch of Oto’s horny middle school classmates, who instantly start pumping her for explicit tales of her sexual exploits (worth remembering that she confessed to being a virgin in the premiere). And Oto trots out an insult I’d never heard before – “danchizuma” (apartment wife). And apparently it’s a common thing here, because there seems to be a series of porno films bearing the name…
As for the mysterious events at the school, that’s girls turning into “dribblers“. They start slobbering and pass out, and only recover by getting out of the school. The dojikko teacher is the one behind it (apparently because she likes to lick up their drool?). This all gets pretty surreal and absurd (again, more than a whiff of Crime Edge to it) but pretty entertaining if you don’t get analytical about it. If I’m honest this sort of show isn’t normally my thing, but I find myself enjoying the craziness so far – we’ll see if Mysterious Disappearances has the legs for the full marathon, though.
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