Season Two episode predictions

At least Kakuriyo is promoted at the Crunchyroll main banner during the first half of the week!

Because how fast Season Two is cruising now, it’s clear now we will only have one cour (but I hope we will have two opening themes to set the tone for the latter half of the cour). Thus we only have a maximum of nine more episodes if we are going with 13 episodes. If we’re going with 12 episodes, then we only have eight more episodes… Thus, I thought it’s useful to predict the arrangement of the remaining episodes for Season Two so that we can at least hope for some congruent storyline. Again, this is just my prediction, and I may totally be wrong. I am assuming we will have only 12 episodes in total, because this production team skimps so much.

Below is my educated guess on the remaining Season Two episodes. Use it just as a guidance, please.

Ep 5: Aoi feeding Takechiyo-sama, Aoi and Sasuke-kun shopping for macaroon ingredient at downtown Yōto, and Aoi was spirited away to the ancient cemetery where she met Ōdanna-sama in his shadowy jyaki form (Vol 7 Ch 3 and Ch 4). If they squeeze the storyline further, Aoi would be attacked by Raijū again here at the cemetery, but Byakuya and Sasuke-kun would rescue her. Byakuya would spirit (or teleport) himself, Sasuke-kun and Aoi to Shimon’s place (Shimon is Dr Saraku’s older brother). Byakuya might tell Aoi here that Tenjin-ya without the incumbent Ōdanna-sama is not the Tenjin-ya he wants to dedicate his life to. Skipping the whole conversation with Shimon over dandelion tea (unlike in the novel), Sasuke-kun and Aoi would directly return to Tenjin-ya. I still hope to see Aoi’s surprise as she saw her own hairpin (on how it glows and blooms more and more) (Vol 7 Ch 4).

Ep 6: After returning to Tenjin-ya, Aoi decides to feed the rest of Tenjin-ya crew with some temarizushi. Ginji, Ai-chan and Chibi would help her. This is where Aoi realises that she does have an important role to do because you cannot really wage a war against the tyrants without a full stomach. However, since this Vol 7 Ch 5 story can only fill 1-2 minutes of the current anime speed, I think Vol 7 Ch 6 will come next. However, beforehand, I hope we will have Ginji staring at his hand for a few seconds as he stops short of caressing Aoi’s hair. I think Ep 6 will thus have Aoi making macaroons for Takechiyo and Hatori visiting Seikamaru to eat some borsch soup and to tell Aoi about Zakuro. I hope we’ll get a shot of how Aoi is jealous or at least insecure about Zakuro being a former close ally of Ōdanna-sama. IMO, Aoi will visit the Nui-no-in Mansion again, where she learned that Takechiyo-sama has been whisked back to the Palace, by the order of the King. Byakuya would secretly appear and concoct a plan to infiltrate the Palace with Aoi and Sasuke-kun. 

Zakuro, art by Laruha

Ep 7: this is a blank spot for me because I haven’t finished translating Vol 7 Ch 7. I have started translating it though, partly because I am annoyed at the numerous details we lost due to S2 speed. However, this is where the Three Musketeers (Byakuya, Aoi and Sasuke-kun) will infiltrate the Palace. I originally thought that they were going to search for Ōdanna-sama, but after translating Vol 7 Ch 4, I realised that Aoi and Byakuya would realise by then that Ōdanna-sama was not in the dungeon anymore. So, the Three Musketeers actually sneaked into the Palace for Aoi to meet Takechiyo and for Byakuya to air some grievance to the King. This episode might be where we’ll see the King (whom most of us would have guessed as the purple-haired ayakashi who ate hamburger at the Nighthawk). I do hope that we’ll get some flashback of Byakuya’s life with his Muromachi wife Suzume. The Kakuriyo public might learn of Ōdanna-sama being a jyaki here. The episode might end with Aoi deciding to visit the Northern Land.

Ep 8: we may just have the entire Vol 8 squeezed here. That includes Aoi meeting up with Kasuga, her husband Kiyo-dono, and some dudes in the Northern Land. I haven’t translated Vol 8 as you know, so I have very little idea of what happens there. It might end with either Aoi embarking on the Bunmon airship with Ōgondōji-sama to see Ōdanna-sama… or with Ōdanna-sama himself waking up in Ōgondōji-sama’s villa, reading some newspapers that vilify him for being a jyaki.

Ep 9: I really hope we at least have two episodes (Episodes 9-10) for Volume 9, because it contains a lot of Ōdanna-sama’s backstory (please please please). If this scenario happens, then we have the first half of novel Volume 9 here in Episode 9. It might end with Ōdanna-sama telling Aoi that the thing she ate during the Kind Ayakashi (the Ginji-version) visit was Ōdanna-sama’s own psychic core (i.e., his own psychic heart)… because it’s quite a cliff-hanger.

Ep 10: this episode might be about Ōdanna-sama being recaptured by Kurogai Shogun and his troops. We hopefully will see Aoi crying out as Ōdanna-sama being taken away, but not without him cryptically saying what his favourite food was. Then we would see Ōgondōji-sama’s appearance, telling Aoi to find the truth behind some closed doors. We should also see Aoi preparing the meals for Ōdanna-sama for, like, one second, before she goes back to Yōto with Dr Saraku, O-Ryō, Akatsuki, Chibi and Ai-chan. I hope we’ll see Dr Saraku’s weird rocket here!

Ep 11: assuming we’re on 12 episodes, this should be where Aoi rescued Ōdanna-sama and gave him a square kiss with the tongue (Vol 10 Ch 5). I hope, really hope, that we’ll have one full episode of this rescue. I hope we will get to see Shirō’s psychic form guiding Aoi towards the dungeon at the start of the episode. However, it seems we will have Vol 10 Chapters 1-4 squeezed into the first few minutes (because those chapters contain the plan on infiltrating the underground dungeon to rescue Ōdanna-sama). If they want a cliff-hanger, they might end the episode with Ōdanna-sama and Aoi arriving at the Hachiyō Night Meeting in the nick of time. 

Ep 12: we might be ending this season with Vol 10 Ch 6 where our team defeated Raijū, Ōdanna-sama’s position being reinstated, and Ōdanna-sama properly proposed to Aoi (though the girl beat him first in Vol 10 Ch 5). I really hope there’s a jump of three years to allow Aoi to finish her undergraduate degree (I always think it’s so nice and very josei^ – instead of shōjō – for Yuma Midori-sensei to include this bit), and Setsu (yes, Ōdanna-sama’s real name is Setsu, y’all!) picking up Aoi as she graduated.  

As I said: not a fan of the speed, but I do admit that two full novel volumes without Ōdanna-sama is a lonely affair. Hence, I will just take it as it is and see the silver linings.

However, I cannot make excuses for the bad animation, for it has steered some very loyal fans away from Season Two, unfortunately… (but I totally understand them).

I hope if somehow magically S2 is well accepted (despite the whole animation hiccup), Gonzo and Makaria will release the splice-of-life series containing Volumes 11-13 and little tidbits left behind (like, Aoi- Ōdanna-sama’s orchard date in Vol 6 Ch 1-3).

Or shall we have Kadokawa Studio taking over that splice-of-life series? It’s not unheard of for a series to be taken over by another studio… and if Kadokawa is taking over it, it makes sense, because Kakuriyo is an IP of Kadokawa…

At least, have the Kadokawa Studio handles the animation part of it; they'd know what to do!

My apologies Gonzo and Makaria, but, for us, Kakuriyo is a very important work, and cutting back on animation budget does no fan service here for the loyal fans… please understand that. So, please take this work seriously. Do not listing producers and animation teams who have very little grasp of Japanese culture and also bad at drawing characters. It does nothing good to the series. 

I do feel bad writing this because the Kakuriyo anime Twitter – ehm, x – account has been very faithful to promote the series. I think the bad decision lies squarely at the executives.

Footnote:

^Just on josei vs shōjō: the former is the genre for more mature women (say, women post-high school), while the latter is for younger girls (say, up to high school). With all due respect to high-schoolers (because I was one of them once a long long time ago)… and not to say that there are no high schoolers who love Kakuriyo… but you can see how Kakuriyo is different from the generic high school anime. For one, the heroine is not in a hurry to fall in love, and when they do fall in love, it was done in a grown-up (or at least realistic) way. The way Kakuriyo sees jobs and other societal issues (like injustice towards the native inhabitants of Kakuriyo) is also very josei.

To throw more examples, “With You and the Rain” is also a josei anime, though it doesn’t have amorous love there. Interestingly, although “Kono Oto wo Tomare” is set in high school, the way Kudo and Satowa fell in love was the slow burn that is typical of josei genre. I would put Horimiya in the mixture of shōjō-josei category for the way they realistically portray love relationships, despite it being set in high school.