This week’s episode involves Shinkurou attempting to do his job with the trouble of keeping Murasaki out of harms way. Murasaki, despite having good intentions of trying to help Shinkurou, only causes him more trouble. The second part of the episode covers the “aftermath” of the incident as well as a glance into Shinkurou’s past.

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Summary

Shinkurou arrives at Kunou Tadashi’s office to negotiate the stop of intimidation of Hanamura Kindergarten. Shinkurou states that Tadashi is suspected of breaking into the principal’s home and stealing the land rights to the kindergarten. Tadashi, at first, denies that he even knows of Hanamura Kindergarten, but after being shown evidence of his involvement by Shinkurou, he reluctantly gives up the land rights in exchange for Shinkurou and his informant to keep quiet about the evidence. During this time, Murasaki is dragged in by Tadashi’s minions and starts causing quite a ruckus inside the office.

As Tadashi gives up the papers to Shinkurou, Murasaki starts to yell out that Tadashi was being dishonest. Shinkurou attempts to quiet Murasaki down and drags her out of the office. The two about to enter the elevator as another one of Tadashi’s minions attacks Shinkurou. Murasaki attempts to help Shinkurou despite him telling her to run away. She gets knocked to the ground and another minion comes out from the room and pulls out a knife on her. After seeing this, Shinkurou snaps and quickly dispatches the two thugs. Shinkurou reenters the office revealing a mysterious horn-like bone extending out of his arm. Tadashi and his other underling attempt to shoot at Shinkurou, but he simply deflects the bullets using his horn and takes them out. During this time, Yayoi arrives at the scene and rescues Murasaki.

On the car ride home (from Benika), Yayoi yells at Shinkurou for neglecting his job to protect Murasaki and states her distrust for him handling the job. However, Benika still entrusts the job with Shinkurou. The next day, Murasaki apologizes for being a hindrance to Shinkurou that night. Shinkurou goes to school as normal and Murasaki attempts to clean up the room with the help of Tamaki. Shinkurou reports back to Ginko and tells her that while he did do his job, it might not be safe to say that there won’t be any more threats to the kindergarten. Later on at school, Yuuno notices that Shinkurou used his horn, which confirms that the “horn” is related to Yuuno’s family, the Houzukis.

When Shinkurou arrives at home from school, he takes Murasaki to the public bath again. Murasaki tries to display her independence by attempting to bathe herself. As they walk home from the bath, Murasaki asks Shinkurou about his past and it is revealed that he was saved by Benika during a hostage incident. An airport was bombed and the children that survived were taken hostages and among them were Shinkurou and Ginko. Shinkurou’s parents died during the bombing, but no word of what happened to Ginko’s parents, if anything. After being saved, Shinkurou followed Benika and was put in the care of Yuuno’s family to learn the Houzuki-ryuu.

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Impressions

Kure-nai is just getting better and better. This week we were able to learn more about Shinkurou and his past as well as seeing Murasaki maturing a little. We were also able to witness a more outspoken side to Yayoi who is normally without much to say.

During Murasaki’s uproar in the beginning, all I could think was “OMG. Just shut up!” which is a bit strange. On the train scene where she was yelling at the punks, I could understand her feelings and was actually supporting her. However, due to the drastic change in situation, I couldn’t support her inability to keep quiet in the yakuza office. Her accusations could have put Shinkurou in more trouble than needed which is what kind of happened in the end. But even after the incident, Murasaki returned to her normal cute self the next day. Murasaki’s attempts to clean and bathe herself really show growth in her character. While she still has her moments, Murasaki is really trying to become independent and not the spoiled princess she used to be.

So now we finally know what the deal was with Shinkurou’s arm. It was clear that something was wrong with his arm from the very first episode, but I really didn’t expect a horn to come out of it. Seeing that was certainly surprising and to learn that it originated from the Houzukis is interesting as well. I’m thinking that part of the reason why Shinkurou didn’t beat the crap out of those yakuza guys in the beginning was because he didn’t want Murasaki to see that he possessed something so monstrous. I can’t think that his reluctance to fight was to protect Murasaki because he totally failed to do that.

Shinkurou’s past wasn’t as exciting as I hoped it would be. I was actually expecting some mysterious thing to happen and that would be the cause of his arm. But, being in a hostage situation and gaining the “horn” somewhere else doesn’t really seem that mysterious and exciting to me. It’s not really important and the story is still great as it is, but I was just expecting a little more in that department.

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