Kaze no Stigma Episode 16 – Father and Son

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Many people have been wondering what has happened to Genma ever since he’s been hospitalized… well, he finally got out and decided to take a break and relax in the onsen. He coincidentally goes with Kirika, for reasons not really disclosed. Soushu who wasn’t aware of Genma’s onsen plans, schemes yet another plot to get Ayano and Kazuma together, imagining their vivid and steamy ‘love scene’ as well. Yukari and Nanase together with Ren gets dragged into this plan, which he thought will be fool-proof. That is, until he finds out that it might end up being a father and son clash, as Genma will be going to the same onsen as well.

Seeing how oddly similar the situation is with the amusement park event, Kazuma was quick to find out that this is yet another one of Soushu’s devious schemes. And just as Soushu predicted about Kazuma and Genma, their sudden meeting turns into violent bouts of jabs and jolts as they give each other a ‘warm’ welcome of insults. Ayano knows she’s powerless to stop this fight, and despite the possibility that Ren could stand in between, his life will be put at a great risk. Just when they were out of ideas to stop the brawl, Kirika manages to calm them down with her subtle gestures of redirecting their attention towards something else (food).

Minutes later, the father and son continue their brawl and Kirika once again stands in between them. The last round of their fight happens in the men’s bath where they are still wet and wild, with nothing covering them but their towels. On the other side of the onsen are Ayano and the other girls, who bumps into Catherine who’s thinking about what Kazuma said earlier regarding ‘konyoku’ (mixed bath), where she was able to witness Kazuma’s ‘manliness’. She brags about how she was able to take a bath together with Kazuma despite not knowing that it’s what ‘konyoku’ is referring to. This stirs up Ayano’s anger, who calls Catherine a perverse woman and challenges her to a duel once again. This duel was interrupted by an unexpected visit by Kazuma who was sent flying by one of Genma’s attacks.

Kazuma manages to knock down Genma and lends his hand to help him get up, moving Ayano to tears as she thinks about how this fight was indeed their form of ‘communication’. Kazuma however hasn’t gone out-of-character and uses this as a means to further deliver a blow to his father, making Ayano demand Kazuma to take back what she felt earlier. Before they can finish their conversation, Genma retaliates and hits Kazuma for the last time, and tells his son that they have to postpone their fight some other time because they’ve already done much damage to the hotel / onsen.

Kazuma sustains a number of injuries from the fistfight with his father and Ayano tends to his wounds. Yukari, Nanase and Ren are happy to see this tender moment between the two lovebirds, who surprisingly diverts from their usual quarrel and actually manages to have a sweet conversation about the earlier battle. Ayano mentions how Kazuma seemed to had fun in their fight, and Kazuma continues to be stubborn and doesn’t admit this. Instead, he confesses about how it made him feel refreshed, especially how he was able to deliver all those punches to his father whom he used to regard as someone whom he can never be at par with. Kirika on the other hand is the who tended to Genma’s wounds, who thinks that he must be proud of his own son for being able to make him suffer this much damage. Like father, like son, and Genma never admits to this, regarding Kazuma as someone inexperienced and still has a long way to go. Kazuma on the other hand thinks that his father is getting old and should retire already :p

Thoughts

The poorly animated fight scenes as well as the overall mood portrayed in this episode (excluding the serious and sweet scenes at the end) show how much the animators are so not taking this show seriously (though I think that has already been established long before >_<). They seem to have gone all out in butchering Kaze no Stigma that they’ve not only made Catherine out of character, they also inserted her in this episode just for the heck of it (and who knows where she has gone by the end of the episode… still dreaming about Kazuma? >__<’’) They have also turned Soushu into some matchmaking freak who even vividly imagines her daughter being laid (He must be imagining these things, but not this way…) I do admit that it’s fun seeing Soushu this way, but it just doesn’t quite fit his original ‘image’.

They have also included Kirika in this episode, causing much intrigue as to what’s the real score between her and Genma. The episode does explain that there’s really nothing between them, but of course the audience would still be thinking otherwise. Just think that it’s not in the novel, so the possibility of Genma and Kirika having a relationship is close to nil.
The last minutes of this show made this episode worth watching at the very least (I can actually skip much of the previous parts and still won’t feel I lost anything). Unlike in the first battle between Kazuma and Genma, the anime actually decided to show us how tricky and conniving Kazuma can be (which his father Genma has fallen into yet again), hence staying true to his original character. The tender scene between Ayano and Kazuma makes me a happy yet not quite contented fangirl, since it should’ve been more sweet in the novel. We should’ve seen Ayano really smiling sweetly as he lovingly stares at Kazuma~ and Kazuma didn’t really complain about Ayano tending to his wounds… he humbly accepted it :3

I think I’m in the mood to somewhat retell the story as it’s mentioned in the novel, so that’s gonna be my deep frying for this one :3

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