| Title: | Summertime Rendering |
| Episode: | 07: Enemy |
| Synopsis | |
| After realizing than Shin is a Time Traveler, Nagumo comments that "It most likely wasn't me that made the reveal". She also asks him if he has met her younger brother; he hasn't. At some point, Nagumo wakes up someone known as Ryuunosuke. She reads Shin's summary of the events he has experienced in the first three loops. Shin realized that the plot of her novel, 'Swamp Man', is actually a true story about a Shadow. She says 14 years ago a Shadow killed her family. She won't go into detail, for fear that Shin might be killed by a Shadow and his memories be copied. That would reveal a crucial 'secret' of hers. She says that once your Shadow is killed they can't copy you again; Nezu has managed to kill his own. Nagumo will say that she has come to save Shin. He tells her that they must fix things within 54 hours, before the Summer Festival. Shin wants Mio's Shadow to be dealt with first; Nagumo and Nezu will help, but insist that the Kobayakawas be handled first. Shin predicts they will fail, since Shiori's Shadow was alive on the 24th in an earlier loop. He wants to accompany them, so that he will at least know what went wrong. At the Kobayakawa residence, Shin and Nezu wait outside as Nagumo prepares to enter alone. Shin wonders who she is talking to on her cell phone first. Nagumo rings the doorbell and, pretending to be unaware of any threat, is allowed inside. Nezu explains that since Shin claimed she'd still be alive on the 24th, she is trusting him and taking her chances. Shin asks Nezu if she has dual personalities; sort of, he says. Ryuunosuke is her double, he says--he's her twin brother. Funny thing is, She found him dead on Mt. Takanosu 14 years ago. He seemed to have been devoured by wild dogs but had in fact been strangled, like Ushio. Ryuunosuke (it was actually him who entered the apartment, not Nagumo) kills both of Shiori's Shadow parents, but finds her to be surprisingly tough. Shadow Shiori flees from the building but Nezu and Shin intercept it. If a Shadow's shadow is 'pierced' in three places it will be immobilized--and, they discover, will be unable to transform out of it's human form. Nagumo concludes that this is a different sort of Shadow than she has encountered in the past. Shadow Shiori admits to having killed Ushio. Shin demands to know what their ultimate goal is. "The end", it says. It says the end is coming and as a result it will take it's family and leave (Nagumo wonders what this line might mean). It argues that since the copies of humans made by Shadows are 'perfect', killing them is like killing the original person. It taunts Shin, and asks him to become a Shadow along with it. Ryuunosuke kills it. "For a Shadow to die, damage that would be lethal to a human must be dealt to its flat form"--that was Nagumo's sister's hypothesis, but in this case it seems to have been wrong. Shin observes that these copies act like they are the original humans. Somehow, Nagumo's mind seems to take control of the body that Ryuunosuke had been using until now. Next, the three go to the Kofune residence. Shin walks in and momentarily thinks Mio is already a knife wielding Shadow. He realizes that he needs to keep everything other than killing Shadows as close to last time as possible. Any changes he makes will result in changes by others as well, and if that were to happen his knowledge of the future will no longer be useful. He thinks he hears Mio behind him--but it is actually Ushio. | |
| Comments | |
| What was the 'reveal' that Nagumo mentions at the beginning? She says a Shadow killed her family 14 years ago--yet she mentions having a twin brother and a sister. At first I thought Ryuunosuke must be a cross dressing guy who poses as Nagumo; then, after the two seemingly switch places, I thought maybe only Nagumo's physical body exists but the minds of all three siblings still do and they can take turns controlling the body. But we saw Nagumo wake Ryuunosuke up in his room early in this episode, didn't we? Maybe the answer is the 'secret' Nagumo feels she cannot risk giving away. The reason I take the trouble to compile these exhaustive summaries of episodes is because this is a truly fascinating show--the best of the Spring 2022 season, in my opinion--and I want to keep track of all pieces of evidence in order to be able to fully follow the plot. Most anime are not worth anything like that much effort. | |
