Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

[Night 8: The Dark Law Chapter - Hole Woman]

You know, I honestly didn’t know what to think when I first saw the episode title “Hole Woman”. Though of course after a while my mind started to wander to certain thoughts….

I’m just going to guess that the Vessel of the Golden Dragon is none other than Tatsuma. I’m guessing this much based off of the opening of the first episode and the shot in the opening sequence that has people circling around him as a kid in a worshiping-type manner (though I think it could be a game that children play…). It’ll be interesting to see how Tatsuma manages to turn up the heat if this is true (which I think it is). We get to meet some more new characters this time around. Aside from the freaky hole woman, we meet two shrine maidens and Daigo’s master. They seem to be connected with the battle/struggle that our heroes are facing in some way. Kodzune clashes against Tatsuma again in this episode. He seems to be quite disturbed by Tatsuma which only further leads me to believe that Tatsuma is the Vessel of the Gold Dragon. I’m guessing that whatever that is must be quite a powerful entity.

Komaki is also sort of the focus of this episode because of her connection with the antagonist. The hole woman’s name is revealed to be Sakura at the very end of the episode and it seems she used to be an archer just like Komaki back in middle school. In the present her right arm is broken and she accuses Komaki of having something to do with it. I don’t think Komaki did it but if she did then it certainly wasn’t on purpose. Her character just doesn’t give off the type of vibes of a person who’d intentionally hurt another just to win a competition. Sadly, Sakura killed herself which reflects the saying that she and Komaki created together in the past “If I couldn’t pull a bow, I’d die.”. I really liked the realism at the end of the episode with Komaki and Aoi’s reactions to seeing Sakura’s dead body. Komaki threw up which shows that she still isn’t used to seeing dead human bodies and, of course, Aoi cried her eyes out because she was unable to do anything. It was a pretty sad sight to see.