All the build-up is starting to pay off as we enter the final stretch and the answers to the mysteries begin to be revealed. In this episode, we learn more about Takuto’s birth and the fact that Head is actually his father.

So, I’d like to point out that I totally called Head being Takuto’s father from episode 16. 🙂 Cue ten thousand Darth Vader jokes here. Head seems to have been passed over in inheriting the mark from his own father in favor of Takuto. I wonder if Head even realizes that Takuto is his son, with his heart stuck in zero time? I suppose he can’t be that clueless, even though he doesn’t seem to realize how long ago Takuto’s mother left. This also seems to put Head’s relationship with Sakana-chan in a new light, to say the least.

Keito’s first aid skills were awesome in this episode too! Finally we have an anime character who isn’t completely incompetent in an emergency! I wonder how many people die in Japan every year because everyone is too embarrassed to perform CPR? And she even ripped her clothes up too. (… I’ll skip the obvious sequence of dirty jokes here about sucking the venom out vs. CPR, spitting it out…)

This episode raised plenty of new questions in the place of the ones it answered, however. Did the eyepatch guy ever have a son? I wonder if he is related to Sugata somehow, since his arranged marriage seems quite familiar. It also seems to suggest that Takuto’s mother may have been a maiden – is that an inherited position as well? Maybe Takuto and Wako are actually related and we can have the Keito x Takuto ending. I’m pretty sure that Wako and Sugata’s exchange in the courtyard is not what Takuto thought though.

Also, who is the person who Head is waiting for to wake up? He could also be related to Sugata, since his unconscious state is reminiscent of the aftereffects of the King’s pillar. There’s also still an open question as to why Takuto and / or his grandfather are at a higher stage than everyone else. Is this related to why Head was passed over? There are so many questions left unanswered, particularly regarding the history of the island and the Kiraboshi. But at this rate we’re in for a spectacular finale.