Kaze no Stigma Episode 2 – Confrontation with the Past

Ayano could still not get over the fact that Kazuma defeated her in a whim (and also Kazuma’s sarcastic comments regarding her abilities), and eats cakes to her heart’s desire as a means to vent out her anger. She blames Kazuma for the scolding and punishment she got from her father because of her “sneaking out” to join Shingo and Takuya.

With regards to what happened to the murdered Kannagis, Genma doesn’t believe that Kazuma did it. Nevertheless he finds the fact that people suspect him as a perpetrator not surprising, since with his actions, it was as though Kazuma was intentionally letting the other people believe that he was the one behind it. With Genma’s discussion with the Kannagi clan head, we find out the reason as to why he casted off his son – to allow him to find his own way of living, a life different and apart from the Kannagis. Genma says that he will bring Kazuma to their place (to discuss things), and will do everything he can to do so (to use force, if need be).

Kazuma receives a phone call from his father, where they have a short “conversation” about being “father and son” (Kazuma telling Genma if he should still call him “father”, and that it couldn’t be possible that he called simply to hear the voice of the son he hasn’t seen/heard of for the last four years), then agrees to meet up. Kazuma recalls the time his father disowned him… and how he begged him for forgiveness and not cast him off. But that was all in the past, as Kazuma is now what he considers his “new self”, and promises himself to surpass his father no matter what.

Kazuma and Genma meets up in a garden, and ends up having a battle as Kazuma was determined to confront and defeat him in battle. Genma mocks him as an “incompetent” person, and continues to taunt him throughout their battle, in order to agitate him and make him give it his all. As this battle between father and son intensifies, Genma finally unleashes his special flame Souen (Blue Flame – a kind of technique that makes use of the Fire god’s absolute power, which only 11 people from the Kannagi clan are capable of, throughout its thousand years of history).

Seeing his father get serious in this battle, Kazuma calls on the power of the Wind spirit and gathers up all he’s got. He tells Genma that the Wind is more superior than Flame (he literally said that it’s faster to summon the wind spirit compared with the flame), and defeats Genma with that last blow (Before he falls, Genma mentions “So you’ve finally found it” – referring to the fact that Kazuma has now found his own way of living, so to speak). Kazuma laughs hard at his father’s downfall, but somewhat feels empty afterwards. As though questioning if this is indeed what he wanted to achieve, he asks “What should I do now, TsuoRin(翠鈴)…?”, with no one to answer him.

Kazuma still has some kindness left in his heart, as he brings his father to the hospital first before going back to his hotel. On his way, he senses the presence of a flame-user, and sees that it was no other than Ren (who he didn’t recognize as his brother at first, because of how much he’s changed over the years). Ren came to meet his brother to persuade him about something, then Kazuma tells him to have their conversation inside the hotel, since it’s already late and he needs to rest too. Ren informs Ayano about meeting his brother in Royal Bay Hotel, and Ayano gets this fiendish idea of going to his place for payback of what he did to her before.

Inside the hotel, Ren first asks him about being a contractor, but Kazuma doesn’t answer the question and tells him to go right to the point (since Kazuma knows that’s not what he came for). And so Ren asks him if he was behind the murders of the members of the clan, and Kazuma tells him that he wasn’t the perpetrator, but no one seems to believe him. Ren then asks why doesn’t he go to the Kannagi house to explain things, since at this rate, everyone from the Kannagi will regard him as an enemy. Despite the fact that he knows Juugo Kannagi (the clan head) will believe him if he goes there even once, he has decided not to step back (or back down) even the slighest bit from the Kannagis.

“It’s not that I bear a grudge against the Kannagis up until now, but that doesn’t mean that I have forgotten what [he] did to me back then. I threw away my name as a Kannagi because of that, and neither will I step even one foot into the Kannagi household. This Kazuma Yagami will not yield to them no matter what.”, he says. Then he tells Ren that the entire Kannagi clan will perish soon (because of [that] thing), but doesn’t have any intention of helping because the Kannagis were the one who casted him away in the first place. He raises his voice and tells Ren, “Are you telling me that it is my responsibility to do something about this?”. Seeing as all his efforts to persuade his brother was a failure, Ren couldn’t do anything but cry (and Kazuma comments on how he seems to have become the bad guy now).

Kazuma tells his brother to wipe away his tears, and also tells him to just spend the night at his hotel and he’ll just accompany him home the next day, which makes Ren extremely happy (and hugs his brother). Kazuma thinks that he is indeed weak against his [cute little] brother’s tears. Ayano is on her way to face Kazuma, when the wind spirit starts to act up again and cuts the hotel building in half. Kazuma carries Ren and escapes through the window, and catches the glimpse of Ayano. The building collapses, and ends up “falling” on Ayano (Ayano actually thinks Kazuma was the one who did it >.>”)

Ren deduces that this is a work of a wind-user, and asks Kazuma why he wasn’t able to do anything to stop it. Kazuma tells him that he can’t intervene with [that thing's] wind, but he was able to find out about [it's] trick. Sensing the presence of enemies, he makes Ren separate from him. Kazuma comes face to face with the wind-user doing the things behind his shadows, and tells it that he won’t interfere with whatever it’s planning to do with the Kannagis, but won’t forgive him if he gets Ren involved. All Kazuma’s attacks were useless on this “guy”, and just when he still wasn’t able to hit it even once, another one of [its kind] appears and seems to have gotten hold of Ren. Kazuma fights with one of the “shadows”, but quickly disappears with a smirk on its face. He feels the presence of Ayano, and so goes straight to where Ren is to go and save him.

Thoughts:

Seeing this episode changed my earlier presumption regarding Genma’s personality. I actually thought he was such a mean father, but it wasn’t so… *aww* X3 But well given the way he disowned Kazuma that time, it can’t be helped that Kazuma would feel that way towards his father. According to Kazuma, “he doesn’t bear a grudge against the Kannagis”, but nevertheless his nonchalant attitude with regards to whatever happens to them (with the exception of Ren), still shows just how cold he can be. The reason why Kazuma came to Japan still remains a mystery… Could it be that he really came back for revenge? and was happy that someone else did what he was intending to do in the first place? I don’t really know… (unless I go ahead and spoil myself with the novels x__x). But I’m happy with this air of mystery that it continues to have…

And regarding that fight scene between Kazuma and his father, Kazuma mentioned about the wind being superior to fire (or that wind summoning is faster than flame summoning), which will make other people think “How can he be sure of that when he can’t summon flame (which means he doesn’t have first-hand experience to accurately say that, only on the basis of other people / flame users)?”. In the novel however, it simply mentions “My summoning is faster than yours.”, no mention of wind being superior to fire or anything. But I guess it’s actually assumed to be so…

Ayano was still annoying in this episode (and also stupid for thinking that Kazuma was the one who cut the building inn half to purposely make it collapse on her)… hopefully we can see her mature as the anime progresses. As for Ren… he makes my shotacon act up.. >o< He’s sooo cute!! I want to cuddle him or something.. hehe But really, he’s such a cute little brother~ Even Kazuma thinks so too. It was not explicitly shown in the manga, but in the novel, it mentions Kazuma’s thoughts when Ren hugged him, “This guy is already 12 years old, right? Is it alright for him to be this cute?” or something like that :3

Despite the fact that I am hoping for a romance development, my focus seems to have been more on the mystery enveloping Kazuma and the Kannagis. I’d still like some bit of romance, but let’s just hope it doesn’t turn lame… and becomes well-developed together with the entire plot itself. There’s actually a mention of a “Tsuo Rin” in this episode, which I assume to be a [chinese] name of a girl, who is closely connected to Kazuma. But that is another mystery yet to be revealed (though I’m guessing at this point that it’s that other girl in the opening and ending)

As for the preview of the next episode, it seems that Ren gets abducted, and the real perpetrator behind the death of the Kannagis will be revealed (or rather already revealed with this preview, as we see that this Oogami person of the wind-arts was the one behind it). The preview mentions about “taking revenge for what happened 300 years ago” or something, which is perhaps Oogami’s reason behind this vengeance. And next week, we’re going to see a glimpse of Kazuma and Ayano working together (to save Ren most likely). Looking forward to it! :3

Oh, and for people who have grown to like cute and adorable Ren (like me), here’s a bonus piccie from the novel:

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