[Fish Sandwich]

Nice of Kiramager to give me one last Ayumi Shimo episode before the show wraps up. Do I even need to say that I liked this one?

It's fundamentally different from the kind of standalone fun that gave us scripts about rap battles, but I can appreciate the symmetry of Kiramager having its final episodes involve both the writers from all the way back with Episode Zero, and as a lead-in for the next three, I think Arakawa is pretty well set up for success by this opening act.

As usual, I think a big key here is how the episode remembers to create a little bit of extra emotional investment on top of the base drama of the final boss showing up. I can't pretend bringing back Kakihara one more time is some major stake that every viewer is sure to be on the edge of their seat about, but, well, first of all, entirely personally, she made those couple of prior appearances count, so at the very least, I totally want to see these wacky kids go to that amusement park. But beyond that, I think what I'd like to stress is just that the script felt the need to zoom in on such a small part of the larger problem at all. It doesn't only frame the threat as affecting some intangible statistics – the random civilians who we only ever see reacting to danger in crowd shots – it puts things on a more personal level by also making it about people too. It might seem like a minor point, and, I don't know, maybe it is, but I honestly think little things like this can make a huge difference on the impact of a story.

The other facet of the plot that does a lot to generate some more interest beyond "bad guys doing bad things" is obviously the way it tricks the audience with that flashback at the start, which serves the purpose of reminding you there's perhaps an earnest place all of Garza's negativity stems from, which combined with Juuru's weird admiration of Rising Garza's cool factor, all points to a final showdown that will be about more than just, again, hitting a bad guy who is doing bad things, which is always nice. I'm very curious to see where this all goes, or if there are any more curveballs the show is going to throw in those last couple weeks. All three of the main villains are in pretty interesting places here at the end (Yodonna hasn't exactly moved recently, but she kinda doesn't need to!), and I look forward to seeing how that all shakes out specifically because I don't know for sure where it's all going.

It's an exciting start to the end, is maybe all I can really say! Unlike the usual Shimo episode, it's hard to talk about this one on its own merits, with it so distinctly being a "part one", but I really did love it all the same, even if I can only put so much of that into words.