I’ll say it again – this adaptation has done an admirable job finessing the pacing issue. Apart from a couple eps in the middle that showed the strain, Kowloon Generic Romance has progressed at a very natural pace. Not only is that remarkable given the effectively one episode per volume status, it’s a mystery with a ton of exposition and subterfuge to boot. It’s difficult to overstate how much harder that made an already hard job. Anyone would love to have seen this show with ideal pacing, and maybe that makes the difference between “great” and an absolute masterpiece. But great is still great, and Kowloon will certainly be prominently heard from when the year-end rolls around.
Speaking of exposition, we’re down to one episode left and most of the mystery has effectively been solved. Yuulong’s realization that the quality needed to see the third Kowloon is not nostalgia but regret – poignantly and poetically revealed when he was struck with his own – explains a lot. Gwen, Yaomay, Xiaohei, obviously Kudou – all the “originals” are accounted for in that department. It’s rather fitting that the last big mystery is the existence of Reiko herself, which isn’t neatly explained away by anything we’ve learned so far. She is the protagonist, after all.
Reiko’s latest vision is seemingly of Kujirai-B buying some pills on the black market. Presumably they’re from Hebinuma Pharmaceuticals, and seem likely to be directly connected to her death. Reiko learning the true nature of that event seems like the obvious watershed moment for her character, and she’s determined to face it head on. Xiaohei-kun gets his watershed moment this week. Reiko finds him and drags him to see Xiaohei-chan, who’s having a problem with her smoke alarm. Given the likely (now confirmed) reason why Xiaohei-chan existed it’s unsurprising that she and Xiaohei-kun were able to meet. But that doesn’t mean the moment wasn’t existentially traumatic for him.
Unfortunately, Gwen spills the beans to Hajime about Xiaohei’s true identity. In doing so he effectively “kills” female Xiaohei, though he can’t really be blamed – there’s no way he’d made that connection yet. It’s when he sees the noraneko shelter he’d built behind the Goldfish Cafe appear after he mentioned it to Hajime that the scales are lifted from his eyes. Gwen probably doesn’t immediately consider the implications for Xiaohei-chan, but this does confirm what I’ve long believed – this Kowloon is connected directly to Kudou-san’s memories.
Even if we know that, and that Yuulong was correct in his “regret” analysis, we still don’t really know the why. But when Xiaohei (who never had it in him to kill Reiko, “real” or not) and Yaomay more or less come to accept their past and resolve to confront it head-on rather than keep running from it, their ability to see Kowloon disappears. What this says about Hajime – both in terms of his relationship with his own regrets and his future – is unsettling.
That leaves only Miyuki and Gwen, then – along with Hajime obviously – as originals in this Kowloon. Except that Yuulong can see it now too, having awakened his own regrets about his past with Miyuki. Miyuki’s revenge quest, Hajime’s feelings for Reiko and Kujirai-B, Yuulong and Gwen’s feelings for Miyuki – all are crucial elements. But ultimately it’s Reiko’s identity that stands as the central pillar of this entire mystery and the story surrounding it. In the end I think the Third Kowloon – like the two that preceded it – is doomed to disappear. It shouldn’t exist. That’s undeniably sad in itself, but it will be even more so if its disappearance takes Reiko with it. Until we learn the true nature of her existence, we won’t know what her fate will be.
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