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After winning a year’s worth of snacks, Koh and Melt are wowed by Asuna’s great luck. On the way home, she finds one of her favorite snacks isn’t in the bags they’re carrying, so she retraces her steps to look for it.
But she runs into a pair of creeps who want to force her into clubbing. A young man comes by and tries to stop them. They look to beat him up, but the guy is able to defend himself without ever throwing a punch.
The creeps leave. He makes sure Asuna is alright and she thanks him. She asks if he’s a boxer, but he replies with “I guess” and smiles before walking away.
Just then, Kureon pops up and decides to make a Minosaur from him.
Later, Koh and Melt are already taking on the Minosaur who is able to reflect all their attacks. Koh tries a strong attack on the Minosaur, but it again reflects it. Asuna sees the reflected attack is about to hit the young man who saved her earlier and she hurries over to save him too.
Kureon accidentally angers the Minosaur and they run off.
Asuna sees the young man has injured his hand, but he is more concerned with the injury to her arm. He bandages her up. She thanks him and introduces herself. He introduces himself as Kenta Mori.
Koh calls Asuna and she hurries back after thanking Kenta.
Back home, the boys are discussing how to defeat the Minosaur. Asuna has something to say, but Koh and Melt repeatedly shut her down and tell her to just keep her mouth shut. Asuna storms out.
Asuna sulks at the park a little. Tyramigo visits her to cheer her up. She decides to prove to the boys that she can contribute just as much so she goes to look for Kenta using KunkunSoul.
Asuna finds Kenta on a bridge watching a young man with a broken hand upset while trying to draw. He appears to be upset.
Asuna approaches Kenta and asks if Kureon made him eat green goop. But the Minosaur appears and Asuna explains that it sucks out Kenta’s life energy until he dies.
Asuna morphs and takes on the Minosaur herself. But the Minosaur just reflects all her attacks. Kenta runs over to make sure she’s okay. Asuna tells him it’s too dangerous here, but she sees his injured hand and realizes that could be the Minosaur’s weak point.
Asuna tries attacking the hand, but it doesn’t work. The Minosaur instead shoots at her and she collapses, forcing her to demorph.
The Minosaur approaches Asuna, but Kenta runs over. He tells Asuna she doesn’t need to trouble herself for him. Asuna says he’ll die otherwise. “That’s fine,” Kenta replies before he walks away.
Asuna loses consciousness and comes to with Koh and Melt finding her with Tyramigo’s help. Melt scolds Asuna for not telling them about who birthed the Minosaur if she knew earlier.
Asuna reminds them how they told her to shut her mouth and Melt tries to double down. But Koh stops him and gives permission for Asuna to finally speak.
Asuna tells them about Kenta and how he wants to die. She says they need to help him. Melt tells her to deal with that while the boys take care of the Minosaur.
Kureon is excited to see the Minosaur growing well. Waizuru pops in, fascinated at the new Minosaur. He decides to make things more amusing. Thinking Waizuru has already left, Kureon calls him stupid. But Waizuru is actually right behind him.
Up on the rooftop of the factory, Asuna finds Kenta who tells her to just leave him alone. She asks him the reason he wants to die.
Kenta explains that the young man by the water earlier is his friend Kawamura. Kenta had gotten into a fight with someone and Kawamura, worried about Kenta’s boxing career, defended him. But that only left Kawamura with the injured hand and now unable to draw.
Asuna says Kawamura wouldn’t be happy if Kenta died. But Kenta insists that he destroyed Kawamura’s dream.
Asuna says Mori-kun is a good guy and that he can do something to help his friend achieve his dream. For sure, Kawamura will be able to forgive him.
Just then, Kawamura suddenly appears and says he doesn’t blame Kenta for what happened. He holds out his hand and Kenta shakes it, happy to hear the words from his friend. Kawamura pulls Kenta into a hug.
But Kawamura suddenly changes his tune and says he’s just kidding. Of course he blames Kenta for taking his dream away from him and he will never forgive him for that.
Kenta becomes even more distraught and the immense minus feelings fly directly to the Minosaur, embiggening it.
Asuna catches Kenta as he collapses. But the Minosaur’s embiggening causes the whole area to violently rumble. Asuna has to quickly grab Kenta after he falls over the side of the roof railing.
Asuna struggles to hold on to Kenta. She tells Kawamura to help her pull Kenta up. But Kawamura just laughs. Turns out “Kawamura” is just Waizuru wanting to drive Kenta even more into despair.
Waizuru mocks Asuna and laughs, saying she should beg for Kenta’s life. Asuna says she would never beg for anything from him. Her anger reaches a boiling point and she is able to yank Kenta up in the air and catch him in her arms.
Asuna carefully lays Kenta down on the floor and faces Waizuru. She says she will never let forgive anyone who plays around with people’s lives.
Asuna morphs. She easily takes care of the Drunns first before turning her attention to Waizuru who just poofs away.
Asuna joins the others. She, Melt and Koh hop into KishiryuOh Ankyrose.
They realize they have to block the hole on the Minosaur’s right arm to prevent it from returning attacks. Asuna tries to focus on attacking the arm, but she knocks over a factory smoke stack which causes a domino effect that ends up blocking the arm hole with debris.
Koh, Melt and Asuna are now able to defeat the Minosaur with a Ankyrose Bomber finisher.
Asuna and Kenta are by the water watching Kawamura. Kenta says Asuna’s words helped him realize that even if Kawamura hates him, he can still do something to help him.
Asuna assures him that they can become friends again. Kenta thanks her.
Asuna returns home and the others prank her into thinking they didn’t leave her any yakiniku.
Episode Thoughts
Wow. There’s definitely a lot to unpack after this episode!
First off, I think this might have been the strongest episode since the premiere. I think it was the most well put-together episode. The story was great and it was executed well.
So, obviously, we have another episode that deals with someone ready to die and end their life. The last time we dealt with this topic, it was an unfortunate misfire on the show’s part. (And I think Ui deserved a much better episode, especially as she’s a major supporting character we should care about.)
This time, I think this was a much better episode where they were able to handle the sensitive and important issues of suicide and mental health in a more careful and effective way.
Kenta obviously feels guilty about what happened with his friend. So much so that he thinks him dying would somehow be his way of making up for his part in what happened. We never really get a clear picture of exactly how Kawamura currently feels about Kenta other than what Kenta himself says. But we can assume that there’s been a gap in their relationship, a change for the worse, for Kenta to feel this way.
Similar to Ui’s feelings in her episode, Kenta thinks he doesn’t deserve to live anymore and that the world is better off without him in it. What this episode does that Ui’s episode did not was that they had Asuna specifically, clearly and respectfully explaining to Kenta that killing himself (or in this case, allowing himself to be killed?) would do no good at all. And in fact, Kenta can do much more for his friend alive than he could if he was dead.
Now, it still wasn’t all perfect considering we didn’t really get much resolution between Kenta and Shoji Kawamura. But we can be comforted in the fact that Kenta now realizes his life is worth living and that he is still able to help his friend.
Also connected to this, we see Waizuru is definitely not just some simple comic relief villain. He basically egged on and encouraged Kenta to kill himself and was gleefully mocking him and Asuna as she was holding on to him over the side of the railing. That’s certainly very evil and despicable.
But Waizuru had zero regard for Kenta’s life, or any human life in general. And he simply sees human lives as his playthings. This adds another dimension to Waizuru’s character.
Of course, Asuna would not stand for that and she was rightfully incensed at Waizuru’s mockery.
And speaking of Asuna, this was definitely her focus episode. It started out very oddly with Koh and Melt’s out of character treatment of Asuna. They really told her to keep her mouth shut in a way that was practically misogynistic. They treated her like some lowly, dumb female. And it was shocking how Melt even attempted to double down on his treatment of her later in the episode.
Them pointing out her luck kind of also tried to belittle Asuna’s strength and intelligence. But the episode showed Asuna has the strength, the intelligence and the heart as well. Not only did she literally kick ass throughout the episode, she was able to comfort and help Kenta, proving that she herself doesn’t only rely on dumb luck. Asuna is strong. Period!
Back to Kenta’s story, the episode also kind of highlighted how you shouldn’t be getting into pointless fights. Even Kenta repelling the would-be rapists without throwing a punch was also an interesting and good lesson for the kiddies.
I also have to point out the awesome camerawork and obvious drone usage during Asuna’s battle with the Drunns. So good!
But more importantly, I really liked this episode overall. They dealt with a tough subject in a great and respectful way that children of all ages can understand. Asuna was shown to be a strong person, physically, mentally, emotionally.
While the show had to write Melt and, to a lesser extent, Koh as being horrible jerks to help support Asuna’s part of the story, it was still the most well put-together episode of the season since the premiere.
There’s really a good foundation here on Ryusoulger where they can tackle heavier and darker stuff if they wanted to even if there’s plenty of lighter aspects to it. Other seasons have been able to do that very well. And I’m still hoping Ryusoulger can do that too. I don’t think they’ve really found that balance yet. At some points, I’m not sure they’ve really decided on what the season’s story should even be.
But there’s still great potential here that’s waiting to truly be tapped.
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Now THAT was the real episode for Asuna! I totally loved her for her actions in this episode. She was very interested in Mori and vice versa LOL
I’m happy especially Asuna showed her battle spirit when she battled Druidons and Wizaru♥️And of course, boys should be careful who do they deal with! :p XD
She was so awesome this episode!