This episode took a step in the right direction by focusing on Mashu, who has so far not had much of an opportunity for development. The time spent in this episode helped, but she still feels rather bland as a character. She was born only recently, and assets are usually treated as only property, so I suppose that her underdeveloped personality makes sense. She is much more likable than a certain other newborn, at least. But honestly, she and Kimimaro both just sort of bore me. The budding romance between them definitely isn’t helping matters. Falling in love with your own future is rather narcissistic.

The earlier half of the episode focused on Souichiro’s past, who abandoned his musical ambitions to learn business from his father. His little sister was sick in the hospital, and went into a coma after Souichiro’s father went bankrupt, partially because his father wouldn’t spend the money to bring her to a better hospital.

Souichiro at least has an interesting backstory, and does something besides walking around being indecisive. Maybe he should be the main character instead of Kimimaro. But there’s one thing that bothers me about Souichiro: his voice. I’m not sure why. I usually don’t have any problems with character’s voices (unless they’re squeay little girls like Aria). But somehow Souichiro’s voice just doesn’t seem to fit his character. He always sounds so relaxed and smooth, which doesn’t really fit my image of him (or wouldn’t if it weren’t for his voice).

There are only four episodes left, and I can’t really see how this is going to resolve in that time frame. Mainly because there isn’t any conflict. I gather that there’s supposed to be some kind of abstract philosophical decision between the present and the future, but this all just seems kind of silly to me. Obviously you would want to have both a present and a future. Maybe the final boss will be the past, who feels left out. This could explain why he’s stealing all the skyscrapers from the present.