©Ino Asano/Shogakukan/DeDeDeDe Committee
After the insanely heavy episode we had last week, it’s nice to see an episode that isn’t completely soul-destroying – even if it’s a bit poignant.
This episode tells the story of Ai, one of the other girls in Ouran and Kakude’s friend group. Mogia asked Ai Weiwei out during her last days in high school, and they went out on a date. This bus tour not only gave us a broader look at conditions around Tokyo – namely that parts of the city have been abandoned and the aftermath of the US attack has left a real dark cloud over the city – but also surrounding situation.
Ai is the mother of the friend group—an unsurprising role since she raised her brother in a relative’s home because her parents refused to move out of refugee housing because the government paid the rent. However, despite her act of self-sacrifice, she is ultimately overcome by guilt. A big part of her felt like what she was dealing with was karmic justice. Her parents were gaming the system (thereby depriving those in need of help), and she wasn’t as sad about Kiho’s death as she thought she was.
This guilt is why she rejects the idea of becoming Mogia’s girlfriend. She feels like she doesn’t deserve someone as good as him, or that he doesn’t deserve someone as lacking as she does. To a large extent, she is sabotaging her own happiness. After all, it was obvious that the two liked each other. However, it’s also clear that she has enough on her plate that even if they try to keep things running smoothly, she might not have time for Mojiya.
However, even while dealing with heartbreak, Ai is hit with a major revelation. We know Ai and Rin are best friends—the episode even tells us that Rin transferred school to be with Ai after her home was destroyed. However, Rin is not the end-all-be-all for Ai Weiwei’s support network. Just because Ouran and Kakude are each other’s “absolute” doesn’t mean they don’t care about others. .
This makes Ai realize that, yes, her life is pretty good even though her parents and the aliens make her miss out on things like dates. She has people who love her and care about her. She’s content with her current life – which I think is a level of acceptance that many of us crave.
score:
Random thoughts:
• 95% of this episode was not in the theatrical cut.
• Fun fact: There are no subtitles for the aliens in the theatrical version.
• Is this a subtitle for the on-screen text I’m seeing? great! Now, only the question of subtitles remains. By the end of the show, we may have an anime localization that meets the benchmark standards set decades ago!
• Can I just say that I like that the subtitles don’t match the native English spoken by American tourists?
Dead Dead Demon’s Dededed Currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
