Kamisama Dolls – 12

Episode 12 –

Well, it looks like Brains Base might not be aiming to wrap up every single plot line to this series. There are mysteries like that Amaterasu mentioned back in an earlier episode, the conflict between the families of the village, and whatever this anti-village organization is scheming; these are all things that seem like they’ll be left unresolved. On the plus side, by leaving out those plot lines, Kamisama dolls can focus in on a very notable issue that has pervaded this series for a long time; Kyouhei’s reasons for leaving the village, his dislike of the village, and why he gave up being a seki. This episode did quite a good job at building up upon his personal issues with the village, as well as make good use of Hibino as a plot device to make him go all crazy.

That being said, in hindsight the past few episodes have mainly been focused on Kyouhei’s perspective of things, so Brain’s Base probably planned on focusing on only one major issue on purpose. That does allow for some proper pacing for a hopefully good conclusion. Things did get pretty crazy here, with some over-the-top dramatic action between Mahiru, Utao, Kyouhei, Kirio, and Seishirou. The kakashi doll battles were actually rather cool, though the initial segment of the fight between Utao and Mahiru was kind of lacking. Nevertheless, you can really feel the series ratcheting up the tension with this episode, especially after Magatsuki went berserk and brutally attacked both Kyouhei and Hibino.

This does bring up a rather important question that I’d actually been pondering for a while now. Do the kakashi dolls have their own wills? We’ve seen Kukuri, Magatsuki, as well as Kuramitsuha all act of their own accord at this point. Kakashi dolls were always strange existences in this series, but after seeing how they seem to have capabilities beyond what the seki knew of, it makes their presence even more of an enigma. What in the world does their independent action hint at? There may be something deeper to the dolls than we might be aware of, and the brief time in the village a few episodes back did help reinforce that notion. Mainly, the magical forest and the details of Aki’s miraculous recovery of Kuramitsuha, are strong clues as to what the kakashi dolls might actually be.

In the end though, all of these questions aren’t terribly important to the main cast at the moment, where they are rather contending with some berserk kakashi dolls, and seemingly all hell is breaking loose. As a buildup episode, this was a fantastic way of racketing up the atmosphere and tension, with Kyouhei’s moment of rage towards the end adding even more to the conflict. We’ve only heard stories so far about how Kyouhei was an excellent seki, so how will things play out next week when it seems that he’ll be regaining control of Kukuri? Things are looking grim for now, that’s for sure.

Overall Enjoyment: 3.9/5

Screenshots are later in the post.