Bones is a real luxury when it comes to anime. You never have to worry about cratering productions or avalanches of bad CGI for action scenes, or even conservation of resources. You just know pretty much every episode is going to be rock-solid, so relax and focus on the story. There’s some variation in the degree of stylistic flair of course – I would say Gachiakuta ranks pretty highly. But the fundamentals? They almost never have a hiccup. You get plenty of peaks and almost no valleys.
We get a bit more of Remlin (whose gender is left indeterminate, just as it was in the manga) to start out this week. They’re clearly resolved to honor Gob’s memory by being as playful as possible. That seems to be something of an ethic among the “spellcasters”, of whom the Mayor says Remlin is the sixth. They’re first drafted to do a protective spell on Rudo’s back, which they initially plan to do with a tattoo needle rather than a brush before Enjin puts the kibosh on that. Remlin works on nine Cleaners, tuckering them out severely, and the Mayor takes time to ream the two glory-hound losers stuck outside the city.
On the way back to HQ to get Rudo’s “full-face” set up, Enjin decides to stop and give Rudo a “treat” – a chance to dig through a garbage dump and pick out a few treasures. Rudo is clearly never happier than he is in this setting – this is his element. He chooses enough to fill most of the van, including a keyboard (yeah, that’s definitely backlit) he’ll put to use later in the episode. Back at HQ we finally meet the one in charge of the mask gear – August (unmistakably Miyano Mamoru). He too is an artistic soul (and the brother of the healer-giver Eishia), and gives Rudo a face which reflects his inner being as August sees it.
There’s one more bit of business to take care of before the trip to No Man’s Land. Enjin gathers his team and tells Rudo to take off his choker. Then the lot of them prick their thumbs and share their blood – which combined with the chokers allow the sharing parties to communicate remotely. It’s an interesting bit of juju that screams out for further explanation, but that isn’t forthcoming for now. The task at-hand is to hit the road in search of the mysterious woman in the borderlands.
In this case the No Man’s Land in question is Penta, which has the appearance of a great desert awash in red sand. But this is no sand – it’s the dust that the massive quantities of trash dumped by the Sphere degrades into, and creates an aggressively toxic environment. There are plenty of trash beasts to spar with, of a giant scorpion bent. Everyone gets a shot to show off their moves in a gorgeously drawn and animated battle sequence, culminating in Rudo getting a chance to finish the job against the one beast Enjin leaves intact (one suspects intentionally, just for that purpose).
It’s at this point Rudo sees a shadow in the clouds of dust, vaguely human-like. Soon enough it’s revealed to be Amo (Hanazawa Kana), a young woman with ad odd singsong speech pattern – and no mask. Amo refers to herself in the third person, and Riyo disregards Enjin’s pleas for decorum and asks her straight out if she’s the one they seek. She is, Amo says, and invites the others to come back to her house where masks won’t be needed (which begs the question of why she isn’t wearing one outside). Enjin overrules Riyo and declares they’ll all go, reasoning that if Amo is planning to betray them he’s best suited to deal with it in a measured fashion. But it seems even Enjin wasn’t prepared for what awaited at Amo’s house, and her intentions remain very dubious indeed.
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