Well, after the promising setup, we get...even more setup. Slow moving, but decidedly intriguing. The "demon woman" at school is surprised that Takumi doesn't recognize her. He wonders how she knows his name, and she acts hurt, saying they're friends. She asks if he remembers her name, and he suddenly recalls her name is Rimi, although he can't figure out how he knows it. His friend Daichi shows up and tells him they've been classmates since their first year, showing Takumi a picture of the three of them as proof. Back in this storage container, Seira comforts Takumi in his confusion until he has a delusion of a bloody Rimi showing up at his door. Suddenly the real Rimi appears, trying to be friendly with him. He tells her to go home. Yua then visits and asks Takumi to take her shopping. The two head out and Yua buys plenty of otaku goods. They run into Takumi's younger sister who thinks Yua is his girlfriend. She's disappointed to find out that isn't the case, but she tells Takumi to pull himself together because it's his chance. Yua bids a fond farewell to Takumi, but not before asking for his cellphone number and email address. He doesn't have a cellphone, but he gives her his email. She sents a rabu rabu email that night and Seira gets jealous. Takumi deletes the email. Meanwhile at the police station, they're investigating the strange "newGEN" murder that Takumi witnessed. They have footage of Takumi fleeing the scene while holding one of the spikes. From the video, they can only tell his school and grade from looking at his uniform. The next day, Yua stops by Takumi's classroom, but Rimi tells her that Takumi didn't come to school today. She's also surprised that Takumi has such a lovely female friend. The day after, Yua catches up with Takumi and says she'd like to walk home with him. They take a detour, and Takumi finally notices the three frogs on Yua's bag, realzing she was probably next to him in the internet cafe. She sees him looking at the frogs and tries to take one off her bag for him, but her bag falls over and a pile of articles and information about the newGEN murders spills out. Takumi thinks she's in on it, so he tries to run away, but she stops him. She shows him one of the spikes and says she found one in his room. She's been investigating the murder, and he's the number one suspect. She then shows him the chat logs between KnightHeart (Takumi) and Shogun (the person who sent him the blood photos). She tells him that there's something strange about the chat. The time stamps on the messages don't match up. The user KnightHeart received the messages the day before the user Shogun even sent them. She says that the user Shogun is also Takumi, and that he sent those messages to himself from the future.
Is it just me, or was this episode slow? A lot of interesting things happened, but I think it could have been done in maybe two thirds of the time it took. Also, the animation is incredibly lazy. There were lots of still frames, panning, talking heads, and simple CG animation. Hopefully it means they're saving the budget for some super hardcore fight scenes in the future. And even though so much talking went on, I didn't feel much in terms of the characters. Rimi is still a complete mystery, Takumi's sister doesn't have much of a personality, and Takumi himself still seems like a snivelling loser (hopefully future Takumi/Shogun is like super GAR or something). Yua is the only one who's becoming somewhat interesting, but since I never went for the megane type, I'm not interested. I'm really looking mostly to the singer and the chick with the black hair, but they got no screentime at all this episode. Oh well. I shall be patient. The mystery is definitely drawing me in. I just wish it would move a little faster.
--Ou-bento
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