Beyond the Boundary Part 2 Episodes 5-8

One of the most dangerous Youmu in existence has been vanquished by two societal outcasts.  The victory opens new doors for Mirai Kuriyama and Akihito Kanbara.  Still see as dangerous individuals, they begin to develop genuine friendships, especially Mirai.  However, this newfound happiness can only last for so long.  A Youmu more powerful than the Hollow Shadow is closing in, one with the power to bring even Youmu to their knees.  As Mirai seeks to settle a personal matter from her past, Akihito finds his future in jeopardy from unseen forces that threaten to unleash his inner Youmu once again.

Sitting through this second set of episodes for Beyond the Boundary, something kept bothering me for a good chunk of the first half.  When these concerns lessened in the second half, I realized why the feelings I was experiencing were so familiar.  Beyond the Boundary is trying to blend together a couple of popular genres, one of which is more Kyoto Animations bread and butter than the other.  Typically, KyoAni is renowned for its slice of life/school life Anime like Free, K-On and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.  The far latter of those examples has a lot of what Beyond the Boundary has, a supernatural element that was blended into the school theme dynamic.  I bring this up because while Haruhi Suzumiya struck a decent balance between classroom humor and scifi/supernatural mysteries, Beyond the Boundary isn’t blending quite as well.  Part of this comes from the lowbrow and sometimes downright cringy humor.  Another part is the bulk of the cast isn’t that compelling.  For the most part though, the drama works far better, even if that is marred by an overabundance of crypticness that annoys the hell out of me.  With all that said, does this mean I like or disliked Beyond the Boundaries second act?
 
I wont say that Mirai and Akihito weren’t due for a breather after their big battle with the Hollow Shadow.  It was such a game changing experience for both of them and they deserved a bit of a break.  Problem is, we suddenly went from some deep introspection into Akihito’s burden of trying to contain the beast withing and Mirai working through her own past to Akihito constantly fetishizing Mirai’s looks with the help of the equally cringe worthy Hiroomi.  Seriously, for the better part of two episodes, Akihito doesn’t hesitate to get his own heart racing just finding new ways to describe how attracted he is to Mirai because of her glasses and Hiroomi supports him because it can feed into his gag worthy little sister fetish.  Mitsuki doesn’t really help matters either considering she reacts to the boys depravity with such deadpan disdain.  It also doesn’t paint Mitsuki in a good light either when she reveals to Mirai that she and Hiroomi are mostly friends with Akihito just to keep an eye on his Youmu half.  Plus, the whole argument that Mitsuki presents that Spirit World Warriors are always alone…the heck does that even mean?  Point is, poor Mirai is constantly victimized, Akihito and Hiroomi act like sleazeballs and Mitsuki could care less and acts superior in every way.  Not the best wait to present your core cast.
 
While Episode 5 tried to give me a reason to care about Mitsuki (it didn’t), Episode 6 is more of a mixed bag.  It’s meant to be a straight up, played for laughs episode but…ehhhhh I don’t know.  The plot revolves around a (very horny) Youmu who likes cute girls and Kpop tunes who will douse you in a very nasty juice when threatened and itll make you smell something fierce for days.  It feels like Mirai couldn’t even get a win as she was constantly sprayed even when the Youmu was captivated by her beauty (granted Mitsuki screwed up the sneak attack plan).  And then we got the crescendo of the episode: trying to catch the Youmu’s attention with a full on song and dance routine.  It’s silly but damn if the song isn’t catchy and KyoAni isn’t showing off some amazing animation with the dance choreography.  It’s not quite the Hare Hare Yuki Dance of Haruhi Suzumiya but its still fun stuff.  Wont say it saves the episode, which feels unnecessary, but yeah, I liked the dance sequence, there.
 
Once that episode was in the bag, it was back to the more serious stuff.  Mirai faced off with Sakura and her weird staff…spear…chainsaw spear with a machine gun attachment…look its all over the place design wise and also kind of cool too.  Not only was this an emotionally charged duel with a good ending, but it also brought back the dazzling action and swordplay that has minor echoes of an Ufortable Fate series.  This was shown in even greater capacity when Izumi, Mitsuki and Hiroomi’s big sister, leapt into a field of weakened Youmu and cleaned up dozens of them in one of the deadliest dances of death I would love to see more of in this show.  The character work might be shoddy but KyoAni is impressing the hell out of me with the gorgeous artwork and choreography of the fight scenes.
 
The latter half of this set again took a more welcome and serious turn.  Doesn’t mean it wasn’t free of the usual stuff that annoys me about a world behind the one we know that’s shrouded in mystery.  Maybe I’m not keeping up with things as well as I could but a lot of characters both seem to know and don’t know more than they know.  Izumi is full on aware of whatever Miroku is up to but isn’t saying squat to anyone else.  I’m still not thrilled with the notion that her siblings are basically on a long term observe and report assignment with Akihito.  What’s the deal with this alleged Society of Spirit World Warriors and are they really that dangerous?  What’s Miroku’s endgame now that he’s had Sakura fulfill her purpose even though she didn’t realize she was being sued?  I get that some of these are plot points yet to be answered but when everyone isn’t being horny and perverted, theyre being cryptic as heck about how the world of Beyond the Boundary works.
 
While there hasn’t been a lot of full on horror elements in this series, I did like the cliffhanger of Akihito opening his Youmu side eye.  It’s one of the few actual scary moments so far and I wonder how much The Calm is going to affect his berserker mode in the next and final set of episodes.  I guess everything will be revolving around this titular Beyond the Boundary that’s crossing over town and Miroku has plans for both Akihito and Mirai.  Whatever those plans are, keep the dirty desires under lock and key for a while and give me some freaking clarification on a few things and hopefully I wont have to wait til the follow up movies for those.  Anyway, feelings are pretty mixed at this point.  I’m not hating this show but I’m also not too thrilled with it either.  We’ll see whether or not the final episodes can balance those scales when we check out the Series Finale of Beyond the Boundary, This Wednesday at the Gundam Anime Corner.