I digress. Watching Kamisama Dolls again reminds me of how much the animation sucked. At least, it's glaringly obvious in this particular episode. So anyway, this is about episode 7; the flashback episode which shows Kyouhei and Aki's childhood, and what made them who they are now. In essence, this is much like the flashback of Akemi Homura. Both flashbacks that was done extremely well, to a very powerful effect, but left quite a different aftertaste. Homura's episode left me reeling with awe but I was going "crap, this is tragic". This episode left me terribly depressed, but I went "man, I can't wait to see what happens next".
First, a bit of a recap. Aki is already a kid shunned by the public back in the village, but it was never implied that he was anything more than a bit of a dick. He had a deep grudge with the village, but he wasn't a homicidal maniac. Yet. We're still seeing a fairly clean and innocent version of Aki.
Then came Chihaya-sensei. She was a cheerful and charming teacher that everyone likes, including Kyouhei. That was until the asshole of the village, Atsushi, set his eyes on her. Atsushi's heritage and position in the village lets him do almost whatever he wants with little consequences, which is why he sexually harass Chihaya endlessly. Chihaya, of course, rejects his crude advances.
But unlike everyone thought, Chihaya had a hole in her heart. She unwittingly had sex with one of her ex-student's parents, which shattered her image in the student. Her trauma was exploited by Atsushi for the rejection and the fact was exposed to the entire village, which causes her mind to break. Once again, she unwittingly filled her widened hole in her heart with Aki, whom she linked her ex-student to.
Unfortunately Atsushi caught wind of that as well. Be it out of spite or jealousy, he kidnapped Chihaya and raped her. Or maybe it was gang-rape, by members of Atsushi's group. The kidnap also serves as a trap for Aki, whom they want to make a casserole with.
Then, well...
At that moment, Aki's silent rage regains him the control of Kuramitsuha.
And... the rest is history. Aki got branded as a traitor for the murders, Chihaya's included, got locked away for good, got Kuramitsuha sealed, and Aki has never been the same again. All because his lover got raped and killed.
This is the scene that made it to one of my most memorable moments in 2011. These aren't simply violent scenes, but more like tragic scenes. The silhouette of Kuramitsuha spinning and dicing everyone in slow motion isn't made that way to glorify the violence; it's to mark the turning point in Aki's life, where he decided to make the whole world his enemy. The Chiaki Ishikawa song that was played during this scene made it unbelievably dramatic. In the good way.
This is what I'm like after the episode ended.
