[Fish Sandwich]

I might be blowing my load talking about this right now, given how next week is likely to play out, but this episode made the whole metaphor of Gavv's powers snap into focus for me with a newfound clarity, so I'm going to go ahead and try and elaborate on that.

The thing I loved the most in this episode -- an episode that includes everything from an obvious showstopper like a Sugihara-directed climax featuring all of Gavv's forms in one episode for the first time (complete with triple gummy action!) all the way down to something as minor and personal as Hanto at that little cafe on Toei's lot that's quickly becoming my favorite recurring set in these shows -- is actually the focus on what a positive influence Sachika is in Shouma's life.

Not exactly a twist, when I've already made it clear how much I like her character plenty of times, but I still think it's worth noting how much the show can draw me into something as simple and domestic as two people baking a cake, and make that into meaningful drama. And thanks to it being even more obvious than usual this time around, it clicked for me that a big part of why I feel that way is because the drama in scenes like that connects to the flashy action every bit as directly as the machinations of the Stomach family.

It's so much of what makes the storytelling in these shows fascinating to me. They start with a marketable motif or toy gimmick, and then that somehow leads them step by step to a compelling narrative. The basic concept this year came from the idea that candy and other such sweets are a symbol of happiness and joy. I thought I had a pretty solid grasp on how that feeds into everything going on already -- the show obviously being about Shouma fighting to protect his and others' happiness from monsters who literally eat happy people -- but I'd been overlooking the true significance of the show's most central gimmicky feature until hearing what Shouma said after transforming into Bushel Form here.

Of all the very, very smart things Gavv has been doing, tying the Gochizo directly to the kindness Shouma receives from others is ~probably~ the most smart? Because, thinking back, it's almost *always* been that way, right? Even those very first gummies were a gift from someone. The warmth Shouma finds in his present becomes the power to overcome the pain of his past. It's a struggle that's happening internally being represented in the most literal and external way possible, and again, that right there is why I never get tired of this stuff.

I've still got most of the show to hopefully find better ways to articulate what I'm feeling, but this episode really had me further appreciating the beauty of what Gavv gets to explore through having Shouma as a protagonist. The things he's been denied for so much of his life are things a lot of people get to take for granted, so there's an overall lesson in there about how precious those things truly are, and I'm finding that frequently leaves me with a lot to think about, which is always a good thing in a story.