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Episode 6: Raison D’être
Overview
After Michiru’s storyline, it seems the show is not planning to lighten up the mood.
Trigger Warning(s): Suicide
Review (with Spoilers)
It seems with nearly every other episode I find myself a bit surprised by what Grisaia no Kajitsu plans to offer. For while there were once fears that this would be a struggle to get through, now with Yuuji helping each girl, one by one, I have a renewed interest. Leading to the focus of “Raison D’être” which is Yumiko Sakaki.
Topic 1: The Bodyguard – Yuuji & Yumiko
With Yumiko’s father being the one who had Mihama academy built, and him expecting that her tutelage there would lead to her being ready to become the heir to the Tohin Railway Group, he seems tired of waiting and wants his daughter home now. Something he tasks Julia, and Yuuji, to help with. How? Well, to scare her back into her father’s arms and home. Something which includes using Julia’s men to make it seem her life is threatened.
Commentary
With us knowing how the school came about, now I’m left wondering why did he make the school so big, much less why is it so selective with its students? For while, in the beginning, I thought they were all former soldiers of some kind, now it seems only Yuuji and maybe Sachi were soldiers. As for everyone else? Well, it is rather hard to say. For, in Michiru’s episode, it seemed like she was a normal middle class girl. So how did she find out about, and get into, Mihama is confusing to me.
Though, with that said, it does help explain why Yumiko was so mad Yuuji got in. Since, likely, she had quite a bit of control on who got to get in due to her father.
Topic 2: A Sordid Past – Yumiko
After Yuuji fights off Julia’s men, Yumiko begins to go over all the issues she has with her father, as well as most who were part of the Sakaki family. It begins with her mother having a daughter, not being able to have more children, getting ill, and them both being ostracized; then her father taking a mistress and having a son; and it ends with her mother dying, due to suicide, her brother dying, due to sickness, and her being welcomed back to the family since there weren’t any other alternatives.
As for Yumiko’s mental state during all this? Well, her mother was her rock until she said, “If only you were born a boy,” and with Yumiko having no friends, and just people gossiping about her, we see her use that retractable blade for the first time on someone.
Commentary
With most shows usually saving the best for last, which likely will be Amane, it makes me wonder how future backstories will be handled? Will they continue to mostly be sad, and a bit depressing, or will each character not necessarily have a sob story? Either way, I think Yumiko’s was well done but, for some reason, my sensitive self didn’t end up crying. Which I can only assume is because they put all of Yumiko’s story in one episode, thus making everything seem a bit condensed.
Topic 3: School Shooter Yumiko – Yumiko & Yuuji
The title of episode 2 ends up representing the end of this episode. For with Yumiko sick of her father trying to control her life, she takes to drastic means. Meaning, when he comes to transfer her to a school abroad, she takes out a gun and begins shooting at him. Then, when she runs out of bullets, she takes a grenade and seemingly commits suicide. The true end result though is that Yuuji, and Julia, planned out everything so Yumiko Sakaki may have died, but the person who was given that name still lives. Leaving Yumiko free of not only the Sakaki curse, but free of hating her parents for she learns it was the family business, and not them, which made them the way they were/are.
Commentary
Though it is nice to see Yumiko being given a new life, the only thing I found myself focusing on was Yuuji and Julia for now I’m really curious as to who they are and who they work for. If just because it is now obvious they don’t work for a government agency, so who is backing them exactly? For between Yuuji being a teenaged soldier, of some kind, and Julia seemingly having an army at her command, as well as having access to obscure information like who are Michiru’s alternative personality’s parents, I’m hoping as things are revealed about the girls, so will things be revealed about Yuuji.
But, if there is one thing I must say I like, aside from how deep this show is getting, it is that the show no longer feels like a harem. For while Yuuji flirts, as do the girls to a point, he seems to be more like a big brother than someone in pursuit of any of them. For, as seen with Amane, Michiru, and now Yumiko, he isn’t acting like Araragi, in the Monogatari series for example. Instead, he is still kind of heartless, a bit mean, but seemingly capable of enough empathy to try to help in his own unique way.
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