Kaze no Stigma Episode 17 - The Way to Defeat a Magician

Screenshots

Summary

Kaze no Stigma finally gets back to the main arc of the story, after a series of butchering filler / short story episodes… presenting us this introductory episode to this climactic arc of KnS. In this episode, images of a computer screen with the message “Do you long for power?” have been shown at the start and throughout this episode, showing how it has a central role in this arc, but that will still have to be revealed in the later episodes.

Utsumi from Nanase’s class has been taking indecent photos of the women in their school, who even installed hidden cameras in the girls’ locker room. Nanase finally steps up, and together with the other women who became Utsumi’s victim, they give him the punishment he deserves. Ayano once again does some work with Kazuma and runs into some guy hitting on her (some scene was cut from the anime). The guy shows them his ‘buffness’ when he was simply ignored by the two and Kazuma wonders why he couldn’t just have let them go without any complaints. Kazuma insults the guy for his taste on women, at the same time making him face the fact that Ayano will never go out with someone like him because she’s a “morally strict and steadfast lady” (meant as a sarcastic remark, since Kazuma is most likely insulting Ayano’s unlady-like-ness).

The guy feels insulted for being ignored and attacks them. Kazuma fights back and knocks down the guy with several blows. Kazuma asks Ayano for his coffee, unhappy and grumpy to find out that she already drank it. “I hate it when people take things from me”, he complains. Ayano diverts Kazuma’s attention to the guy he knocked down, and Kazuma says that Kirika can just take care of this matter, seeing how this case concerns the special investigation unit. Ayano doesn’t seem too happy that Kazuma is entrusting this to Kirika. Kazuma who notices the discontent in Ayano’s face teases her by ‘assuring’ her that she’s certainly stronger when it comes to duels, which doesn’t make her feel any better.

Ayano leaves and sees Utsumi all bruised from the beating he got from the girls. Utsumi was suspended for only three days due to what he did, and sworn how he won’t forgive the girls who did this to him. Coincidence as it might seem, the girls involved in the incident seemed to have been cursed by Utsumi (as the rumors also say), that they either fall ill, experience car accidents, or are thrown in a state of confusion. The only one left unharmed is Nanase, whom the students believe will be ‘devoured’ last because she’s the ‘main dish’. Utsumi comes back to class after his suspension as a totally new person, considering himself as one of the ‘chosen ones’. He confronts Nanase and shows her his newfound powers, one of which is this energy wave blast he calls ‘Akihabara’ (the famous place in Japan where otakus abound), and his ‘real power’ of putting curse upon people (which is what he did to the other girls).

Nanase wasn’t shaken one bit by Utsumi’s threatening, and even tells him that having this power doesn’t change the fact that he’s a lowlife. He was about to attack Nanase when she uses her stun gun(s) on him, rendering him unconscious on the ground. Ayano and Yukari were involved in this plan, and with Utsumi captured, they are also able to help out the police in their investigation on this case. Kirika praises Yukari for the report she made regarding her findings on the case, and asks her to help them out, seeing how she can certainly be a great asset to their team. Yukari is more than willing to accept this, and Ayano couldn’t do anything against her decision after she looks at her with sparkling puppy dog eyes. Kirika of course was delighted to have her in the team, and tells them to contact Kazuma if ever they need his help since he’s also on this case.

Kazuma was tasked to accompany a new police hired into the Special Investigation Unit, but Ayano was doubtful that he will actually support a newbie like him. Just as Ayano expected, Kazuma is simply staying still as he watches the new hire tormented in battle. Kazuma finally lends a hand after the newbie runs out of bullets to attack the guy with the Hell Hound, and gets scared out of his wits to the point of wanting to quit his job already. They weren’t able to finish their task however, as Kazuma becomes dumbfounded as he sees a girl who looks like Tsuoi Rin near the scene, letting the perpetrator get away in the process.

Thoughts

The first thing that crossed my mind when I saw Lapis (the girl who looks like Tsuoi Rin) near the end of the episode was “KnS is finally back!”, seeing how it finally went back to the main arc (w00t!). It seems that GONZO was finally able to pull off some budget for KnS now, since the animation quality has become loads better than before. This episode was a good introduction to this climactic arc, presenting us with several events and questions to be answered as this arc progresses. The computer screen for example, is shown to have a central role in the scheme of things happening in the city, whose mysteries are yet to be revealed. What we only know so far is that this has something to do with the sudden appearance of people with extraordinary powers, who’s turning the entire city into a live RPG battleground.

We’ve also seen much about Nanase in this episode, about how she’s the sporty type of person admired by both boys and girls in school for her athletic prowess and her overall coolness. It was briefly mentioned in the earlier part of the novel, particularly in volume 2… which I contemplated on including in this Deep Frying Post of mine, but decided not to mention it yet :3 I admire her much more after this episode, where we’ve seen how she possesses the courage to stand up for what she believes in (it’s even more clearly depicted in the novel), despite being in a pinch. You can just imagine the fear she might be experiencing that time… a normal person facing a lunatic (somewhat) guy with super powers… But Nanase didn’t chicken out, and become poised as usual… and confronted Utsumi without giving in to this fear. She was even more admirable in the novel, where much of the pressure she faced as she was blamed for the accidents that happened to the girls was clearly shown. Nanase might look suspicious as she was shown to have this dark and gloomy expression, with not much events shown to explain why she looks that way (I’ll just mention it in my deep frying).

Although… the ‘Akihabara’ attack… was really such a lame way to call it T__T I know it perfectly describes the freaky Utsumi, but it still, sounds lame… x___X Oh, and the author didn’t make use of this ‘Akihabara’ name for this attack. Utsumi simply mentioned ‘Uwaahhhhh’ as he lets out his energy ball, which the author describes as his “Kame**meha” (censored due to copyright reasons) :p

One thing to note though, about Utsumi’s deeds… is how it wasn’t given much focus and detail. Remember how in one of the “Utsumi attack” scenes, one of the girls was screaming “Stop, I beg of you! I’ll heed whatever you say!” But then nothing else was shown after that… not much of the gravity of the situation was really portrayed. What really happened however was that… as much of a maniac and freak Utsumi is, he obviously asked for her body in return (mentioned in the novel) >.> It somewhat shows some inconsistency in the animators’ part, because (once again) if they don’t want KnS to be as dark as it’s portrayed in the novel, then they should’ve just cut that scene with the girl o_O

Going back to my other thoughts… we’ve also seen yet another aspect in Yukari’s life, which makes her more of an interesting (and mysterious) character overall. She never fails to provide entertainment to the whole KnS world :p Yukari seems to be keeping much secrets with regards to her true abilities / identity. Her (uncanny) information-gathering capability is clearly beyond normal. It’s like she’s a born hacker or someone who works as a spy :p I hope much more about Ayano’s two friends (especially Yukari) will be shown later on.

A (teeny bit) of Ayano’s cute side was shown this time, with her mischievous deed of drinking Kazuma’s coffee (it should’ve been Wulong Tea by the way… I don’t know what their reasons are for changing that). I think Ayano knows well that Kazuma is going to react that way, which is another factor that made her decide to do that, aside from wanting to get back at Kazuma for all that he’s been doing to her :p Ayano has spent a considerable amount of time with Kazuma that she also knew how Kazuma will treat the newbie in the Special Investigation Unit (and also because it’s also similar to how Kazuma treats her most of the time). The only difference is that Ayano’s a strong-willed person and is able to fight with her powers, unlike that newbie who’s pretty much a weakling ^^;;;

Seeing Ayano ‘pout’ at how Kazuma suddenly mention about Kirika was cute as well Nothing much was mentioned about it in the episode, but Ayano was thinking about how Kazuma relies on Kirika much much more than her. It’s like her abilities are not good enough to meet his ‘standards’ (which is actually true, given Ayano’s weaknesses at this point)… and Ayano was contemplating on that

As we’ve also witnessed in the first few episodes of KnS, Kazuma is still hung up on Tsuoi Rin, and is haunted by this past of his. This is going to turn out even worse than what we’ve seen in Kazuma in the Misao incident (becoming cold and heartless, trying to justify Misao’s actions…), since Tsuoi Rin meant much much more to him. And enough on that… I’ll leave that for later Though I think I’ve already revealed much about this past of Kazuma in my earlier KnS posts (hidden within spoiler tags) :p