We’ve made our way to episode 6 and I’m going to try and keep it brief since, as I’ve talked about way too much already, it’s a heatwave. Riko is currently deciding on the value of organs. She thinks they’re overrated. Kaja stops her from offering up something she can’t get back while Nanachi says she just wants to stay here with Mitty. Kaja has the sense to drag Riko out of there safely and we jump to the opening theme.
The luring seems to be in full effect right now. With the villagers being unable to leave the village they instead try to lure a creature into the village to kill it and add its value to the village. Unfortunately the villagers aren’t particularly good at killing this creature. Riko realizes Prushka might be in danger and goes to retrieve her. It turns out she was fine and looks very improved and cool now.
“It’s an instrument in the form of a crystalized person.” Vueko remarks. The jeweler tells Riko to take it and run, as the dangerous creature approaches. Also, the jeweler was way too into carving Prushka, and it’s probably best they only talked about it after Riko left the shop. The weird jeweler then gets brutally murdered and Kaja says that this creature has been in the village before. That’s a bad sign.
Juroimoh of the three great sages fights the creature. Vueko remarks that they’re the one who’s taken on the role now. I don’t recall seeing a Juroimoh during the quick flashback episode we got to Vueko and them’s past, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a Juroimoh there, just that my memory is bad. The shopkeeper that taught Riko letters last episode shows up and reveals their name to be Moogie. I have no idea how to gender most of these creatures since the main giveaway is their voice, so I’m going to keep it as neutral as possible. If anyone has a better idea about this, let me know.
The creature goes to the center of town, where the market is. Riko is waiting here and she has short hair now. Even cooler, she’s using Kaja as a motorbike while the creature chases them. The CGI is a bit jarring at times, but I think it’s done well enough where it’s not a big issue. Riko and Kaja go through a strange force field and set off a bomb, blowing the creature into a net to capture it. With Riko’s leadership and some good teamwork the remaining villagers then take out the creature. Riko decides to name the creature Oogasumi and then describes her tactic.
Riko describes that she can be selfless in her selfishness without it being contradicting and Oogasumi wasn’t quite dead yet. With it about to hit Riko, it instead grabs Maa who jumps in front of her to protect her and Riko has a vision of human Prushka before blowing her whistle.
Blowing the whistle has summoned Reg, who looks at least a little bit different now. He’s more powerful and Riko recalls Bondrewd explaining that white whistles allow her to drag out the true power of relics. Now that everything has been resolved and we’re safe again, Wazukyan shows up to explain how the creature works. Basically everything’s been resolved and Reg’s armor goes back to its normal colors. Wazukyan argues that the suffering and horror the villagers experienced is better than boredom and then leaves again. He does leave with Riko the idea that any part of Faputa would be enough value to get Nanachi back. That’ll go great. Reg goes back to Faputa and Riko asks Vueko about Faputa. Moogie and Kaja both say they don’t know who Vueko is. Vueko then reveals to our protagonists that she’s one of the survivors of the suicide squad Ganja, who came here looking for the city of the golden sun. In the manga, we had no idea what this meant at the time, but in the anime we’ve already had a little bit of the three sages’ backstory. Vueko talks about Irumyuui. I had no idea what this referred to in the manga because I thought it was just another word in their strange language. I definitely find that watching this show again in anime form makes a lot of things less confusing. It’s still a really weird story, but I actually feel like I’m properly understanding the flow of the narrative right now. Let me know if you guys feel like it’s easy to follow or not. I’m curious if front loading part of the three sages arc improved the story as much as I think it has. I’m going to go sit outside and read some manga now, thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 