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loyally-unfaithful · 4 years ago

Text

—; even if i am fooling myself, my feelings are true . (4)

word count: 5.3k

pairing: origami cyclone | ivan karelin / gn!reader

genre: hurt/comfort

summary: even if he was lying to you by pretending to be your lover, he told himself it was worth it. it made you happy. it helped you. he’s helping you. this ruse is only done in good faith.

if it were to make you smile, if it were to help you brighten up, then all his lies and deceptions could be forgiven, he rationalised.

a/n: this chapter do be monologue city,,,

i have arthritis i would like a refund for my bones.

the hero knows he promised to see you again the next day, but it’s been a few days now since he has last seen you. you must be back at home by now. alone. were you okay? he can’t help but feel worried about you due to your limited mobility. guilt stings even more painfully now that he had calmed down. he has virtually subjected you to a prolonged radio silence after leaving abruptly.

and he still needed to tell you the truth...

the hero had put off meeting you again, because it meant seeing you again. it meant he had to tell you the truth. it meant he’d no longer be able to meet you.

he chastised himself. what was expecting? really, what did he expect to happen? he berated himself, guilt clawing at him. what was he doing, impersonating your lover? he felt ill. he should’ve stopped meeting you after that campaign ended. but for reasons that escaped him, he continued. was it selfishness? was it greed? what pushed him to continue? whatever had happened, it wasn’t supposed to. he was just supposed to check in on you, make sure you’re getting on well, and move on in his life. he was supposed to stay neutral, indifferent, objective. you were just any other stranger that he would help throughout his career as a hero. but you had been so lovely and so unassuming that he must’ve…? without realising it, he had gotten himself too involved and was now in too deep, allowing his shameful self to form feelings for your kind and beautiful self. trying to distance himself from you to no avail, he found himself uselessly fighting feelings that have sprouted without his permission. he was fighting a losing battle, and a war that wasn’t tilting into his favour. he had hoped that these stubborn feelings would disappear, hopefully sooner rather than later, but it seemed that they refused to leave him alone.

the blond let out a harsh sigh. he’s noticed he has been doing that a lot, much more that usual. when it went well it went wonderfully, sublime; when it went badly it went awfully, dreadful.

he can’t keep going like this.

it’s not fair for you.

it’s not fair for him.

he can’t lead you on, and he can’t continue to delude himself.

each step he took to your residence were heavier than the last. listlessly, he dragged his feet. it had rained last night, making this walk even more unpleasant and gloomy. concluding what was both the slowest and fastest walk he had ever had the displeasure of taking, he lifted his gaze off of the pavement to take in your house. it was superficially identical to the other houses in the neighbourhood, but then again, houses in this district of the bronze stage often looked the same. it was a modest one-storey house, which felt anything but modest. it looked oppressive, intimidating. it terrified him. what was in store for him within those walls terrifying him further.

knowing that simply anticipating would do him no good, ivan shook his head, trying to shake his nervousness away, to no avail. he tried willing his legs to move, to get closer to your house, with no success. fixed in place, immobilised by dread. he stood idle, head turned down, in front of your home for what felt like an eternity, surprised that you hadn’t noticed the stranger in front of your property first.

he sighed.

the pathetic puddle by his feet reflected an even more pathetic him.

he stared silently at kotetsu’s reflection under him: « you’ve gotta tell them. they deserve to know. ». with a disappointed sigh, he gazed back at the small pool who gazed back with his disappointing face. he, “kotetsu”, had told himself to tell you the truth. but did he have the courage to?

no longer able to bear taylor’s silent judgement, ivan lifted his head and slowly climbed up the front steps to your front door.

the puddle, murky as it always was, remained as unbothered as it had always been.

his finger hovered over the doorbell. did he have the courage to? he bit his lips hard enough to draw blood. could he meet your eyes? momentarily retracting his hand, he resisted submitting to his anxiety and willed himself to push the bell.

ivan could hear the ringing echoing inside your walls.

and then silence.

one beat.

two beat.

then another.

were you not home?

you always had very quiet steps, he told himself. everything is ok.

his knee jerk reaction to the prolonged silence was to take it as a sign that today wasn’t the day. a message from a power above telling him that he can postpone it for another day… whenever that other day was. his usual reaction would be to take this as an opportunity to throw in the towel and go home. but for you (and for himself), he’ll fight his impulse to cower away.

but still… this silence was slightly concerning.

had something happened to you?

the hero’s mind jumped through different conclusions to rationalise your lack of response.

maybe you went out…

maybe you weren’t awake…

what if you had hurt yourself and couldn’t get bac—

he reached out to ring the doorbell yet again, but stopped halfway as the door creaked open.

« how can i help y— taylor? » you had sounded as surprised to see him as he was to you.

oh. you were ok. he breathed out in relief. you were ok.

« please, come in, you offered, moving out of the way. sorry to make you wait, i wasn’t… i wasn’t expecting to see you… sorry about the mess… you mumbled. »

the hero gulped, fighting the fear that rose up within him from hearing the door click closed behind him. he can’t run away. no going back now: he had to tell you the truth. taking his mind off of his nerves, he decided to look around and observe the interior of your house. you said “mess” but the house is more or less in order, unless you were referring to the few stacks of books that littered your house. still... he struggled to call it a mess, as the odd misplaced books here and there didn’t even feel out place within your humble abode: it blended with the other decor into the stylish deep green walls and light brown tiles. the only thing he could qualify as being messy would be the light covering of dust that was slowly gathering on some of the furniture’s surface, along with the few papers and knickknacks strewn about, but they were out of the way enough that nothing ever seemed cluttered.

to his delight, the curios have all been of japanese origins, from the hand fans (« an ōgi! » he noted excitedly.) to the rough stacks of woodblock prints (« where did they get so many ukiyo-e prints? » he asked himself.). in fact, closer inspection would suggest that quite a few of the furnishings decorating your house were japanese in nature: the tapestry hung on your wall (he was sure those were called a tenugui.), the forgotten matcha tea set on the kitchen counter (« there was even a chasen?! »), and the japanese pottery and porcelain safely tucked into a glass cupboard (he wonders if he could get the opportunity to use the hagi ware chawan amongst the set.). he had to stop himself from literally beaming in excitement and dashing to ogle the wares. who would’ve known you’d have such a collection in your house? he needed to calm down, lest he attracted your suspicion, and swallowed his bubbling elation.

he followed your lead to wherever you were walking back to, inquisitively taking in his surroundings, distracting his mind from his previous anxieties.

« i, uh… no one’s been home since i went to the hospital. you walked back towards your open living room. and i’ve kinda been putting off cleaning. you laughed. – don’t worry about it… he assured you, still taking in this unknown territory. »

briefly, he let his attention back to you and to where you walked: to your open living room, which was connected to your kitchen. further to the side, he could see the stairs that led to your suspended bedroom. it seemed that this house had more or less the same make and architecture as tiger’s apartment, though with drastically different decor, he noted. though with more than less difficulty, you managed to get around your house just fine. despite your pronounced limp you continued at a regular, albeit slowed, pace. your gait was sometimes slowed by the fact that you sometimes had to hang on some of the fittings to maintain your balance and ivan had to fight the urge to rush over and help you walk.

you probably wouldn’t like for him to encroach on your newfound autonomy, he figured.

after finally reaching the living room, you had carefully sat yourself down on the floor in front of the coffee table. noticing the crafting papers and shavings surrounding where you sat, he thoughtlessly asked: « were you making something? no wonder you took a bit to respond. i’m sorry for interrupting you... – mhm, i’m just making menko cards. you elaborated as you carefully positioned your impaired leg. and it’s alright, you couldn’t have known. – menko cards? his interest was piqued. – yeah, just thought it would be fun, you shrugged. wanna help? – sure! he answered delightedly, failing to hide the eagerness in his voice. i mean, why not… you just laughed at his childlike enthusiasm. – i’d really appreciate it you could help me cut out the picture, you asked. »

he eased himself down next to you, trying his hardest not to appear bothered by your proximity. everything is ok. he’ll help you in this last activity. because it had interested him. because he wanted to treasure the last moments he got to spend with you. the very last. he doesn’t like the finality of that, but the truth had to be said. guilt stung like an open wound whenever he remembered that he was lying to you. he wouldn’t be mad if you condemned him for “exploiting” you. if he were to tell you the truth there was no way you’d forgive him, much less continue to seek out his affection. your resentment would be well deserved, even if the thought of being disliked by you hurt him.

his despair grew as he thought of the aftermath. it would leave him heartbroken, but what about you? you would’ve been deceived, not once but twice: by both he and your former lover. he really didn’t think this decision through, did he? this was a selfish and cruel scheme to begin with. just a misguided attempt to assist someone who didn’t even asked for his assistance. he doesn’t want to doubt your resilience, but surely, if he came clean you’d be deeply saddened and devastated again… he didn’t want to be the reason you felt lost again and returned to being miserable. he didn’t want to be the cause of your melancholy, the cause of a relapse. but that was exactly what he was going to cause you, wasn’t it? he was the cause of your grief and strife.

if this ended with him broken-hearted, he’d end up shattering whatever had remained of yours and leave you inconsolable.

this was a mistake. he’d caused you more pain than solace. this was a mistake. lies and sweet words aren’t what would have saved you. they weren’t what you needed. this was a mistake.

what would he even say? a “sorry” wouldn’t suffice. not even the sincerest apology would fix this. those words would only hurt you more.

he made his bed, now he had to lay in it. if only he never roped you into this.

spirit down again, he sighed and looked upon the table to tackle his newly appointed objective. a sharp contrast from the rest of your orderly home, the table was cluttered with random bits of paper and cardboard (both circular and rectangular, of various sizes), different crafting materials like scissors and box cutters, and hero related paraphernalia.

« people don’t usually make menko cards… he muttered. why not just buy the hero cards (‘my own are still collecting dust aren’t they…’)? he quizzed, flipping around a finished card of himself. despite his doubting tone, he carefully placed the work back down and got to cutting the few images off of few magazine pages. – that would be too easy. you shrugged. besides, i was planning to gift them to my niece. the bugger has bought everything i could find, and well… afford, in the shops. you admitted. – that makes sense… he replied, focusing on the task at hand. – the rascal loves all of this hero stuff but she absolutely loves sky high, you chuckled. it’s all she talks about. it’s like she lives and breathes the guy, said she wanted to be a hero and help people like he did. » you pretended to be annoyed, but he could hear the fondness in your voice. even though he’s supposed to start distancing himself from you, to start preparing himself for the upcoming heartbreak, he can’t help but continue to be endeared by you.

this was all so… incredibly mundane. everything just felt so incredibly ordinary. your interactions, the things you did together. it’s like it’s always been this way. the things you spoke about, and even the silence that you would share. there was always a certain comfort to be had together. it’s like this was normal, and he was the one you were always with. it’s like this was a routine. who knows, maybe in a different world, one where you two had met through different circumstances, maybe the two of you would’ve gotten together, he mused. but he had already ruined any chance of that he concluded. maybe had your lives gone a different way… maybe in another lifetime.

maybe this life wasn’t the one he was supposed to meet you in.

you sighed, straightening your back, before curling over your work once more: « sky high’s power is wind manipulation right? you pursed your lips. if i had that kind of power, i’d just spend most of my day flying to places. can you imagine? never having to put up with traffic? you rambled thoughtlessly. »

unbeknownst to you, ivan’s mind wandered back to a few years ago when he learnt that without the involvement of his custom made jetpacks sky high’s power could only allow him to float, and fought to stifle the laugh that crept up his throat. oblivious, you asked, sounding half-curious half-bored as you continued to abuse the material under your hands: « hey love, if you could have any next power in the world, what would you pick? »

ivan tilted his head towards you, and let his hand drop back down on the carpeted floor. change his ability for a different one? any kind at all? he took the time to ponder it, seriously considering the question. of course, he admired kotetsu’s and barnaby’s hundred power, but could he really utilise that correctly, what with the constraints? what about edward’s power? he had an actual chance to be a hero with his ability… or even lunatic and his fearsome control over his devastating blue flames. if he could use that for good? to help people? there were too many different abilities, each one more capable than the one he actually possessed.

« hmm… i guess… anything that’s useful; something that can be used to help others. he answered truthfully. i’m sorry, that must’ve been really vague. he laughed nervously. you shook your head with a smile. – that’s very noble of you, you praised as you continued working. truthfully, i envy your integrity. you confessed. – mm? why is that? what next power would you have chosen? he inquired. – oh, like if i had a second next power? you replied absentmindedly, focused on a particularly stubborn piece of cardboard which refused to cut. »

wait. did he hear that right?

« are… are you a next? » he asked, sounding something like perturbed.

« hmm? »

« is there something you’r… »

there wasn’t any need to elaborate: your face had said it all. like a criminal caught red-handed, your expression was the perfect picture of shock. he would even think you were scandalised. you pressed your lips into a thin line, eyebrows knitted in dismay.

« must’ve be a freudian slip… » you tried to laugh, neither of you amused. « it’s really nothing noteworthy or important— » you started on a lie, but grimaced slightly.

catching unto your tic, he pleaded, voice serious: « tell me the truth… please… »

you shifted in you seat uncomfortably, eyes dashing across your room looking at everything except his eyes. you were deeply aware of the eyes laser-focused on you, locked onto you to the point where you swore it could bore through you. you sighed and resigned yourself to telling him the truth. the entire truth, and nothing but the truth. it’s not like you could lie to his face: « before i tell you, do you promise not to leave before i finished explaining everything? you opened your mouth and closed them again. you’re free to hate me all you want, but please don’t… you turned away and bit your lips. »

he didn’t know what to anticipate. was your ability that alarming? he nodded, preparing himself for… whatever you were going to reveal to him.

« it’s honestly nothing incredible… you started. i couldn’t be a hero with it… i swear. it’s... you paused, as you tried to find the right words to divulge your ability. the right words to explain it clearly without making it into a fuss.

lie detection, you said, plainly, without much relish or fanfare. um... my ability only allows me to see through lies, or anything meant to deceive: lies, half-truths, manipulations, omission of detail… you hesitated. illusions.

i guess, neither of you ever noticed… they, um, taylor, didn’t know either… »

it’s shocking how easily this fabricated world crumbled.

you knew? what do you mean?? ivan had sat facing you, frozen in place. by fear, confusion, apprehension. he felt embarrassed, ashamed. were you just playing along to spare his feelings? he really should’ve told you earlier. look at where his inaction led him.

he should’ve been the one who came clean, instead of forcing you to tell the truth on his behalf.

« how long…? half wanting and not wanting to know the truth. he had a guess. if what you had said was true then... how long have you known? »

still not facing him, you cast your gaze downwards, clasping your hands together: « since the first time… when i saw you, i knew you weren’t the real taylor and just assumed it was you, origami. what with your involvement during the campaign and all... i’m guessing i’ve assumed correctly?

the hero sat motionless, but made no attempt to disprove your assumption. if what you had said about your ability was true, then there would be no point to lying.

at first i really… didn’t understand why you kept visiting me, as my former partner no less. i still don’t, for that matter… though i’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have good intentions. i knew it was you, so i was a bit standoffish and suspicious when we first met… i thought you wanted to take advantage of me while i was helpless to stroke your own ego, or conduct some sort of ploy to boost your own popularity. i’m... really sorry for assuming something like that about you… i’m not sure where i got that idea as you never seemed to be that kind of person... you had been so sincere when i asked why you kept visiting me and kept pretending… well not pretending, you seemed to have genuinely cared about me, that i guess i started to drop my guard and trusted you.

your eyes were tinged with a sadness and confusion that he wished to get rid of, but it was no longer his place. it never was his place. you shook your head.

i’m really sorry. i really truly am for not letting you know sooner instead of letting it go this far… at first i… i played along because i didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable or feel humiliated by revealing that i could see through your disguise, and i wanted to wait for you to come clean first. but i guess… somewhere along the lines you’ve become a part of my routine and i’ve become quite fond of spending my time with you. of you. you quickly added. i know that i was going through a vulnerable moment of my life, which may have made me too trusting, but i really mean it: i’m really happy that i met you that day. i know you were just playing your role and that nothing ever meant anything… and i’m aware that you could’ve just… up and left whenever you got tired of dealing with my crap. even though it’s all fake, i’ve really enjoyed the time we got to spent together and i’m really happy i got to be with you. i’m really happy for being able to get to know you as a person, origami. »

you tried to smile to convey your gratefulness, but it came out wrong. it wavered and was visibly bittersweet. as you said that, your voice held such remorsefulness that baffled him. it was his fault in the first place, trapping the both of you in a punishment of his own creation. he should be the one apologising to you, he should be the one begging you for forgiveness as he explained himself. he should be the one who told you the truth. you had every reason to feel disgusted by him and hate him, and yet, here you were putting yourself down for his sake.

you were slightly surprised when you heard him respond, his voice no longer bearing that confident tone and smooth accent that you had recognised to be taylor’s. instead it was the boyish voice you had come to know was origami cyclone’s. but this time, it was devoid of any energy and lacked the boisterous intonation that often accompanied his words: « no, i- i’m the one who should apologise: i should’ve been the one to tell you the truth… if anyone should feel angry or betrayed, it should be you… i was the one who decided to set this all up after all…

after facing you, it was his turn to look away, avoiding your gaze.

i didn’t mean let it go this far … lying to you to this extent and for this long… but of course, i allowed it to get out of hand… i’m sorry, i should’ve told you sooner, if i ever made you uncomfortable at any point during this whole mess i’m really sorry. i... it was stupid. you never reached out for help and i’m sure you would’ve gotten through this just fine by yourself. my intent was never to manipulate you for my own gain or to use you… i had wanted to help you, naively thinking that i could fix you… it was selfish of me to just force my way into your life and help you, even though you never asked for mine. it was foolish to think i could just… pull the wool over your eyes like that, and it was unfair to you.

the blond considered stopping there, allowing a tangible silence, even more oppressive than the tension, to invade the room. should he tell you? should he…? he tried his best to summon a renewed determination. it was high time that he was honest to you, he told himself. honest to you. honest to himself, as well.

i suppose it’s pointless to lie to you, so i’ll tell you the truth: i... i— the circumstances in which we met were less than ideal, and i wished that we could’ve gotten to know each other differently, but… during the course of… whatever it is we had, i had stupidly hoped that the closeness i felt between us wasn’t imagined, and that you felt the same affection for me as i did for you.

despite his fear, he dared himself to turn back to where you had sat, bracing himself for what your eyes held. will it be repulsion? hostility? regret? vilification? he was scared, but even so he faced them.

my appearance may have not been mine, but my actions were. you’re free to doubt the validity of my words, but… even though i was pretending to be someone else i- my feelings are true. »

finding himself surprised for the umpteenth time that day, you fully turned to face him. you didn’t seem to be reacting badly, but you weren’t reacting much at all. you simply sat there, stunned at his display of honesty. were you combing through his words to detect any possible lies? he figured he deserved that level of distrust, after doing nothing but lie to you. he knows he shouldn’t feel so relieved when he wasn’t even in the clear yet, but at least you weren’t reacting badly and he was infinitely grateful for your seemingly infinite graciousness.

finally, you seemed to have recovered your voice: « i believe you. »

three words. three simple words that managed to lift all the weight off of his shoulders. you believed him. he didn’t deserve your forgiveness, and yet you gave it to him freely.

« could i see… no, nevermind. you had retracted your hesitant request. i’ve already made you go through too much for my sake. i’m grateful for being able to see you, regardless of who you look like. »

he shook his head, relenting: « you deserve to know the truth. it’s the least i could do after everything i made you endure… » with a blue flash, “taylor” disappeared. in their place was a young man with a mop of unruly blond hair. he fidgeted nervously with his hands under the baggy purple varsity jacket he wore, which coupled with his hunched posture, made him look smaller than he probably was. his striking and alluring purple eyes seemed to be permanently locked into an expression of worry and refused to meet your eyes. « i’m sorry… i’m probably way off from what you expected... » he muttered, dejectedly.

not expecting any sort of positive reaction for his underwhelming appearance, he turned his amethyst eyes elsewhere. he waited for your reaction, anticipating the worst. always anticipating the worst.

in one swift motion, you reached out to embrace him tightly. his body tensed up, having been caught off guard by the sudden affectionate gesture. his hands dropped from their hovering around your form as his wide eyes ran wildly across the room before they returned to settle on you. confusion laced his voice as he softly called out your name. he didn't know what to do with his arms as you wrapped your arms around him ever so gently. should he return… your gesture? but his arms laid uselessly next to him, still too stunned by your response.

yet again, he felt that same tingly feeling where you held him. the warmth that you brought to him reawakened those butterflies, making him feel light and fuzzy. is this ok? is feeling like this ok? is liking you ok?

« stop saying stuff like that about yourself, origami… you keep underselling yourself. you’re incredible, you’re kind, and yet you’re humble. your voice was soft as you spoke. i wasn’t just waxing poetics when i praised you, not just lip service to appeal to you because i could see behind your trick. i meant it when i said i admired you. even before i met you, i’ve admired you. »

you pulled away, if only to place your hands on either side of his face and to lift his eyes, making him face you, properly face you, for the first time in a long time. he was taken aback by how gentle and soft your gaze was. who were those kind eyes for? surely not him. he didn’t deserve such honest adoration. there was no reason for admiration, contentment, or appreciation to have their eyes on him. and yet, those compassionate eyes continue to gaze back at him. your beautiful eyes continued to look back at his own dull eyes.

was this really ok after everything he put you through? was it really ok to derive so much comfort from your hold?

you hoped your continued eye contact conveyed your sincerity.

« origami, you’re one of the most selfless and brave person i’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing, and now i’ve come to learn that you’re handsome to boot. you never cease to amaze me in the best way possible, and im so so grateful that you’re still here ori— finally waking from his daze and regaining some semblance of control over his limbs, he moved his arm to return your hold and wrapped them closely around you. he allowed the warmth he felt to fully consume him and buried his face in the crook of your neck, trying to get as physically close to you as possible. – ivan. he whispered in your ear, almost afraid. – ivan…? you echoed. – … my name is ivan. – is that so? then... thank you, ivan. thank you so so much. thank you for being here for me. thank you for everything. »

he knows now with certainty that he adores the way his name sounded with your voice. he couldn’t see your face from the position you were in, but he could imagine your captivating smile. the same one he adored so much. your careful hands had traveled to his head, stroking his hair, playing with an errant lock, and he adores your touch.

the small kindling that you had lit turned into a newfound courage that consumed him like wildfire. this unwanted and foolish adoration he held for you had proven itself to be phoenix, renewing itself as heartfelt and profound.

if you had allowed it, then he’s sure it was ok to be like this. to like being with you.

he adored you. and he hopes you adored him in kind.

« i— »

as he was about to say something, his communicator beeped relentlessly and he has never hated that sound more in his life until now. taken slightly by surprise, you both let go of each other and looked confused at each other—though he was intimately aware of where you rested your hands when you let go of each other: one on his shoulder, the other one on his hip. the latter of which he thoughtlessly gripped with his free hand, keeping it in place, not willing to part from you quite yet. not willing to let go quite yet. he whipped his right hand up, fumbling between taking this call and apologising to you for having interrupted what had been a very pleasant moment, the unexpected call flustering him. up until now, it had never annoyed him quite to this extent. he grumbled something you didn’t quite catch. his gaze flicked back and forth, from you, to his communicator, back to you.

he needed to take this, he needed to be there for agnes’ briefing. it was time sensitive, but so was the thing he wanted to tell you. he was torn: he needed to tell you something. he needed to answer before his employer forcefully answered his call for him and intruded.

« i… »

the indecision was clear in his eyes, so instead you made the choice for him: « it’s alright, go. »

you let your hand trail up his jaw, and placed it there. his attention was immediately brought back to you and the pleasant buzzing that often followed your touch. you smiled as you felt his hand follow your own and moved to rest it atop yours.

« i’ll be cheering for you, love. »

a/n: might fuck around and make a fluffy sequel who knows

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jgfiles · 8 years ago

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Re-watching Joker Game: Ep 2 Joker Game Part 2

So, as I proposed a re-watching, here I go doing the re-watching. Hopefully someone else will join! ^_-

Mind you, what follows are my ramblings over Ep 2, comprehensive of my impression on how the frames were structured and so on with some occasional reference to the other Joker Game media.

Also, for personal comfort, I’ll use the characters’ names even if the anime hasn’t stated them yet. In short, as this is a re-watching and not a first watching, you’ll also get a telling that’s mixed with my knowledge of the future. Consider yourself warned.

And now, let’s start.

The musical background is ‘Sakudō’ [策動 Planning] which, I guess, is meaningful of what we’re going to be shown… even though it might not exactly seems so at first glance.

In fact Ep 2 starts with showing us… a photo of a newborn baby…

…no, actually what we’re seeing is only part of a photo of a family, father, a soldier in uniform, mother in a traditional kimono and the newborn baby in his mother’s arms. The father’s uniform is the old one so it’s clear this picture was taken prior to the fact we saw being played in the previous episode of ‘Joker Game’.

We go on with many scenes of daily life for children.

We see children playing, at school, reading tales… they might seem very ordinary scenes but actually, everything in them is tinged with reference to the Army. Starting from the father that was a soldier in uniform we see that the Menko (cards) the children are playing with depict soldiers,

…the children chasing each other are actually playing war wearing helmets and chasing ‘enemies’ with toy rifles…

…at school they draw on the blackboard soldiers, military ships and military planes…

…they read magazines about soldiers…

…they play with a toy military aeroplane…

…watches soldiers parade with excitement and bows to them…

…and, in the end, they’re taught to bow to the portrait of the emperor, who’s in his military attire…

All this while a voice reciting the Imperial Rescript to Soldiers and Sailors (軍人勅諭 Gunjin Chokuyu “Imperial commander”) is the REAL background music to the scene, way more than ‘Sakudō’ is. The rescript is repeated TWICE but it’s as if it flows continuously and, if you’re not familiar with it, you won’t really realize when it ends and when it starts anew, it penetrates the scenes, showing us how it’s subtly shaping the children’s minds as, at a certain point, we see don’t see the children anymore but we see a Military Academy School Principal reading the rescript to soldiers in a military academy and, among those soldiers in the military academy, listening to the rescript, there’s Sakuma.

And now we can realize he was among the children, that he likely was the baby we saw at the beginning, we basically were shown how he grew up in a world where everything revolved around the Army and how he ended up embracing this as, not only we see him being in a military academy but, the next scene shows him reading out loud the rescript with firmness.

The plan to make him a perfect Imperial Army soldier came to its end. Sakuma has embraced the Army life and the Army beliefs, probably without even realizing it. They had permeated all his life and now they’re part of him. The planning of Sakuma, the soldier, has ended with a success. Sakuma now lives according to the beliefs in which they wanted him to believe.

A side note here. For western viewers it can be a little hard to realize the children are bowing to the Imperial Portrait because the visual doesn’t show clearly to what they’re bowing. That’s because it’s taboo to have the emperor and his family portrayed in Japanese media unless it’s for historical, educational, or informative purposes, hence the anime couldn’t show us the picture of the emperor as a whole. For a Japanese person it would be easy enough to figure that’s the Imperial Portrait. For us, the fact that the photos are obscured and that, later, we’ll see only a particular of the emperor’s photo, his hand, makes things much harder. It couldn’t be helped though, so let’s not complain about this.

‘Kikan’ [機関 Agency] starts and we gets Sakuma telling us a shortened version of his explanation of what D Agency is that he gave us in the past episode. This summarized version will become the version we’ll hear at the beginning of each episode.

It’s worth to note though that in the previous narration Sakuma ended with ‘And then, finally, only eight students remained. No… eight monsters.’ while now he says ‘And so a brand-new intelligence agency was created. It’s name is D-Agency.’ The change sort of remarks how before the boys were still… in training… but now… now they’re effective members of D Agency, spies. Training time has come to a end, they’re at their first mission. They’re spies of D Agency.

The scenes that are shown during this don’t tell us much as they’re just scenes we saw in the previous episode of the boys’ training when the longer monologue was played. In the future episodes, when this summary will be repeated, the scenes that will be played will always be different but will continue not telling us much as they’ll always be a ‘summary’ of the past episode. This bit will become just a recurring bit to introduce each Joker Game episode. In a way it remarks its episodic nature and how one can pick up on watching it at whatever point in the story and still get it just fine.

Then this ends and we get…

…the opening, with the music of ‘Reason Triangle’ by Quadrangle and that’s exactly the same it was for Ep 1 and will remain the same through all the episodes, only now we can recognize almost everyone, not just Sakuma.

This leads us to realize that the spies are presented in the opening in a manner that’s different from Sakuma, as if to remark he’s not one of them. We’ve Miyoshi, then Kaminaga and Odagiri, who all had a relevant role in the past episode.

A break and then we meet Amari and Hatano… and while Amari did get to do something in the past episode… well Hatano didn’t really had a role so gold star to who remembered him.

Then we’ve our boy, Sakuma, and then Jitsui, Fukumoto and Tazaki who, again, had little role in the past episode… and then a guy we still hadn’t meet, Gamō. He’s presented in the same manner as the other spies and I’ve already mentioned how we’ve an effect as if a shoot breaks a mirror… as if we were actually seeing him through a mirror which is a nice hint that Gamō will at first looks to us as if he were one of the D Agency boys, but then we’ll discover he’s not…

This trick works even better because in the official web Gamō is listed as one of the main characters (though back then his profile reported less info) and who’s familiar with the novel or the ‘D no Maō’ manga might have known Gamō WAS one of the D boys. We might even end up thinking that the shoot is a hint that ‘Joker Game’ is going to change things and kill him, not to have him being from another agency.

Oh, and there’s Yūki, of course. It’s interesting how we’ll have a picture showing half the face of the 11 main characters (they included Sakuma and Gamō) but then we’ll see that in the ending picture that they won’t be among the ones who will collect around Yūki. Another hint those two won’t become D Agency spies.

Anyway the opening ends and we resume with ‘Joker Game’.

Well, actually we get a ‘flashback’ of around 1 minutes and 20 second of the search through Gordon house, how this is the second time they searches his house, how the boys come up empty and how Sakuma realizes there was nothing for them to find and that he might have been the one who drew out the joker again.

Nothing really noteworthy here, in short it’s just an attempt to refresh our memory on what happened in the previous episode.

I’ll say the episode’s story truly start when we see Sakuma sitting on the ground, legs crossed while ‘Kinan’ [危難 Danger] is playing. Fitting BGM by the way, considering the situation.

Well, we don’t quite know it’s Sakuma the one who’s seated as he’s giving us his back but we can guess. The camera, and therefore our gaze, is at Sakuma’s level. We can see the legs of everyone else and they seem more imposing and taller than they really are.

Sakuma is doing something calmly though. It takes little to realize he’s unlatching the buttons of his jacket and undershirt and leaving them open. Yes, he’s leaving his stomach exposed and he’s doing it with calm and firmness because yes, Sakuma is going to commit Harakiri and he’s going to do it without showing a ounce of fear. Although in the past episode we saw he wasn’t exactly happy and serene with this development, now we can see he’s not hesitating. If before he was worried he might have drawn the joker again… well, now he’s not worried anymore. He’s decided.

The camera moves to face him. Even if the camera is slightly over him (and we can see he has disposed of his weapons and his hat as well as… well, enjoy the view of his abs as it’s worth mentioning Sakuma has a very nice body… ^_^;;;) we can see Sakuma is perfectly composed and concentrated. This guy is ready to go through this, he won’t hesitate. Sakuma is a cool guy.

The camera moves to show us the others who’re watching. Behind Sakuma we can see that Gordon is basically gleeful. No idea why he’s behind Sakuma though, as if he so much want to see the show he should stand in front of him. Well, okay, visually for the anime later it’ll work better if he’s behind Sakuma… but I’d like to have a rational plot reason for this as well. Let’s assume maybe he’s afraid to be sprayed with blood, okay?

The camera is only slightly below Gordon. Next to him we see there’s Miyoshi whose expression is exactly the opposite. Miyoshi isn’t smiling anymore and his eyes are hidden by the visor. While he’s not looking upset… well, he lacks the serene air Sakuma has.

The next scene shows the others. They’re standing in front of Sakuma and they’re… more or less like Miyoshi. Eyes obscured by the visor and lack of smile. They aren’t upset but they aren’t even serenely calm.

They seem more… like impersonal judges, though I don’t think they’re there to judge Sakuma… or anyone else. I’ve said it many times (here, here and here and probably somewhere else too… ^_^;) but I don’t think the plan was to allow Sakuma to commit Harakiri. I’m more in the camp of them not thinking that he would go and sit down and prepare to commit Harakiri and once he instead sit down and prepared himself to commit it they were all ‘ops, now who stops him?’. It helps ‘D no Maō’ had Miyoshi personally stop him from committing it.

So yes, I think that is Sakuma hadn’t figured out things they would have stopped him before he were to commit Harakiri. But anyway let’s go back with the episode because Sakuma is about to be awesome.

Sakuma calmly takes his sword and brings it in front of himself.

Now… I’m not an expert but when he holds the sword in front of himself he reminds me of someone doing the ToRei (刀礼 “salute to the sword”) but it might be just me. Sakuma’s ritual suicide isn’t exactly following the ritual as we know it. He’s not in Seiza position, he’s keeping the sword at his side and not in front of himself (though it seems in some versions one keeps it at his side), he’s not cleansing the sword with water and… well, normally you don’t use a sword but a Tanto (a knife Samurai style) or a Wakizashi (a short sword) because to do it right, you need a shorter blade.

If you think you can stomach this sort of things there’s an interesting short film by Mishima Yukio depicting First Lieutenant Takeyama Shinji committing ritual suicide in 1936 (which would be 3 years before this episode takes place). The movie is called Yūkoku (憂國 “Patriotism”), it’s dated 1961 and you can find the suicide scene on youtube here.

If you’ll watch the movie you’ll see that, even with a Wakizashi, you’ll wrap the blade with cloth because you’ll have to perform it by holding the blade (remember? There’s the length problem here, that’s double with a Katana that’s longer than a Wakizashi) and if Sakuma doesn’t do it and his Katana is something like remotely sharp… well, he’ll end up cutting his fingers away before managing to cut his belly… -_-;;;

To be honest maybe Sakuma was, first preparing himself spiritually (the manga seems to imply this), hence the cross-legged position instead than seiza, and then he was about to prepare his sword when he took it from his side (where’s the water though? Or something with which he could wrap the blade?), when it dawned on him what had happened and called the whole Harakiri thing off. In short, the cutting part was still a bit far away and we just were lulled into the idea that it was about to happen because we don’t know about all the details of the ritual…

Or the ‘Joker Game’ staff didn’t check all those small details but merely copied the scene from the ‘D no Maō’ manga where again Sakuma is sitting cross-legged and is trying to stab himself with a sword by holding it by the Tsuka (柄 “hilt”).

Or maybe Sakuma is following another version of the ritual. Although it was codified in Edo time… well, it was practiced by a longer time and the code went through some variations. I saw Japanese pictures depicting Harakiri done by people sitting cross-legged so… no idea, sorry.

I don’t know, I couldn’t find info about the staff talking of how Sakuma was going to commit suicide, if someone has them or can request for them I would love it if he were to share.

Anyway, Sakuma is about to unsheathe his Katana when…

No… let’s stop here for a moment and go back a little. Remember how the previous episode ended with the camera high over Sakuma? As Sakuma is about to commit suicide… well, the camera is not so high over him. When we saw him from behind, at the beginning, it was on his same level. Yes, we got everyone else was towering over him but the camera didn’t present Sakuma as someone in a low position. He was acting with honour, he was going through this.

The camera is slightly above him when we stare at him from the front, but only slightly. It’s more to tell us that Sakuma is about to ‘humbly take responsibility’ than to tell us that this man is below our gaze.

When Sakuma bring his sword in front of himself the camera takes care to be placed at a distance, and probably on a rather low position, so that it can film everyone and look more or less at the same level with everyone.

Although Sakuma is the only one who’s sitting down and therefore below everyone else, the visual doesn’t depict him as someone who’s symbolically below everyone else. He’s calm, he’s in control, he’s on an even level with the camera. Sakuma is going through this as cool as it’s humanly possible.

The camera remains at the same level as Sakuma when he unsheathes the sword. Even though Sakuma has been forced into this… the visual isn’t depicting a helpless and scared man but a calm and confident man who’s going through this with dignity and honour. In this he’s strongly different from the Sakuma of ‘D no Maō’ who was tormented by doubts that what he was doing was useless and was even trembling. Anime Sakuma is closer to his novel counterpart who was calmly thinking to commit Harakiri until he figured out things (though he figured the out sooner than anime Sakuma… novel Sakuma is the most awesome Sakuma among the bunch, though I love them all…)

Anyway, as I was saying, Sakuma unsheathes the sword and sees… the light.

Well, actually it’s just a SMART visual effect. As soon as the Katana starts slipping out of the scabbard the blade reflects the light… only the anime turns this light into… well, basically a blinding light as everything becomes white.

In this white background the memory of Yūki warning Sakuma that killing or committing suicide would be bad choices comes to his mind. We can really say he ‘saw the light’ even in a metaphorical way.

‘Dasshutsu’ [脱出 Escape] begins to play as Sakuma is about to find a way to escape committing Harakiri.

Sakuma’s eyes widens and he remembers bits of his experiences at D Agency, Yūki repeating his words that spies are cowards/unfair, Miyoshi commenting they weren’t playing poker, Yūki telling him that Japan was so worried about the rules for the façade it never noticed the nature of the game being played, Miyoshi explaining him what tautology is, Yūki remarking that the spies will have to make them invisible when they’ll be scattered around the world.

All the while the visual overlays on Sakuma’s memories cards falling from above until the Joker appears and that will be when Sakuma will realize things. It’s smart because while the past time the falling cards were used to imply Sakuma had drawn the joker again, here they subtly imply this time Sakuma managed to play the joker game correctly.

A break here.

The previous episode in its final draft cut out the scene in which they discussed about the Tennosei system and the respect that the Army pays to the emperor. It wasn’t an exactly minor cut as the cipher is hidden behind the IMPERIAL PORTRAIT and no one in the Military Police had checked the portrait exactly due to the belief the emperor is a god and his portrait is something venerable. From the novel is also cut the part in which it was mentioned that people who had dared to touch the portrait had then been forced to commit suicide due to social pressure. In short, apart from the children bowing to the emperor, we had really little in regard to how devoted to the emperor the people in the Army were.

So the anime really had to do its best with what it had to help us realize how Sakuma figured out things.

First we had Sakuma reminding how Yūki was against killing or committing suicide because it would leave behind a corpse. It’s a hint the boys didn’t want Sakuma to become a corpse because they were taught to avoid leaving corpses behind. This is not D Agency way. So why did Miyoshi set up such situation?

The second memory might be the answer. Because Sakuma has accused spies of being coward so Miyoshi wanted to see if he was better than them. Is it just this?

The third memory is of Miyoshi, telling him he wasn’t playing the game Sakuma was thinking he was playing, and the forth is of Yūki telling him of how Japan was too worried with the rules of the façade to realize what was going on. Sakuma too, in a way, had been so worried to play along the rules he had been taught, he hadn’t realized the boys might not want him to commit suicide, he hadn’t realized that the boys were ‘playing a different game’ from the one he was thinking they were playing. They weren’t there planning to act as Military Police, but as spies.

So? So Sakuma wasn’t just only worried by the rules that dictated he would commit Harakiri, but also by others. The memory of Miyoshi reminding him what tautology is, of how they can end up worshipping the wrong thing due to faith combined with the one of Yūki reminding him of how spies will have to make them invisible does the trick.

Yūki always rambled about how spies should make themselves invisible and yet he sent them out in plain sight. Yūki and the boys should know about Mutō inspecting the place and finding nothing… that’s why Yūki sent them like this, because like this Gordon would lower his guard. But which was the purpose of having Gordon lower his guard if the place had been inspected already and nothing was found? To have Sakuma commit suicide? No, that was just Miyoshi’s twisted idea of a funny joke, they actually were there because the cipher was really there, hidden somewhere, and if the Military Police hadn’t found it, it was because the cipher was hidden somewhere that would make it invisible to their eyes due to their faith, their rules.

And so Sakuma finally can do the connection between invisible people and invisible places. Where would he never look due to the teaching he went through? Due to his faith?

His eyes widen again and another memory comes to his mind. We saw it at the beginning of the episode. Him being taught to bow to the imperial portrait from a very young age.

Another memory dawns on him, the photos showing how Gordon also worships the portrait of the emperor. Remember how there were two of them as to it that was important?

Anyway Gordon worshipping the portrait wouldn’t be bad per se, if Gordon was really just a Japanese enthusiast it would make sense Gordon might have decided worshipping the emperor as well… but Gordon is a spy hiding himself behind the façade of the Japanese enthusiast… so his faith can’t be sincere. Someone really devoted to the emperor wouldn’t hand Japanese ciphers to Japan’s enemies.

So why did he choose to play the role of a Japanese enthusiast when just an engineer would have been enough? To keep in his home a place that no Japanese would inspect, no, they wouldn’t do so much as to touch it, not even the military police would dare to consider it a possible hideout, even if this place is in plain view, even if they would go so far as to bow at it. No one would search something behind the imperial portrait, no one would do so much as to touch it.

Sakuma now has his answer and sheathes his sword.

There’s something really beautiful here. Gordon is confused by this and complains. The camera is high over Sakuma, this helpless man who was about to commit suicide… only Sakuma is putting away his sword because Sakuma… yeah, he’s going to take charge now! Go, Sakuma, go!

Close up of Sakuma’s lips as his words are going to change the turn of the story.

Sakuma speaks in English and tells where the cipher is. He could have spared himself this as both Miyoshi and Gordon understand Japanese and so he could have said it in Japanese but, I think, it’s a jab to both of them. To Miyoshi, who bragged Military Police can’t understand English with the subtle implication they’re dumb and ignorant guys and to Gordon, who also felt so much smarter than them and used their faith at his advantage. Sorry guys, Sakuma can speak English as well and even figure out things. I’m so proud of him I’ll hug him if I could.

Note another very cool visual effect. The camera first gives us a close up of Gordon… then moves backward so as to include Sakuma who’s in front of Gordon as well… but visually we can see it as Sakuma surpassing Gordon and leaving him behind. Gordon is totally shocked here.

(On a personal note while I’m typing all this I’m so hyper for how Sakuma was awesome that my dog is giving me odd glances… ^_^;;;)

‘Yakudō’ [躍動 Dynamic] begins to play.

And now that we’ve seen Gordon’s reaction, let’s see Miyoshi’s. In fact, after the close up of Gordon that ended up showing us how Sakuma metaphorically left him behind and surpassed him, we’ve a close up of Miyoshi. At first we see that he’s not smiling and with his eyes hidden by his visor… same as we left him prior to Sakuma figuring things up.

Then Miyoshi raises his head, his eyes become visible (which is normally a visual clue he’s showing his true feelings) and he smiles.

Miyoshi is pleased Sakuma managed to figure things out on his own and… gracefully accepts his ‘loss’. Sakuma has proved himself and Miyoshi is the one who says ‘yes sir’ and runs to obey his orders, touching the imperial portrait to get the cipher.

Real close up of Gordon, so close up that the frame can contain only half of his shocked face.

He’s trying to process what’s happening and, while he’s doing so, Sakuma helps US to process what’s happening by explaining in an inner monologue how he figured things out. Basically the visual is again using a very smart trick. The anime knows not everyone might have figured things out, so it’s as if it’s saying to us, if you’re as surprised as Gordon by this sudden development… well, listen to Sakuma’s inner monologue as he explains to you how he figured out things. Well, it’s sort of creepy to be compared to Gordon… but it’s visually very smart.

Also interesting is how they had Miyoshi running toward the portrait… (while another fitting BGM plays, ‘Ka-kyoku’ [佳局 Good Arrangement]) but we actually see his back and he’s like running in slow motion.

As Miyoshi grows closer and closer to the imperial portrait, Gordon finally finds in himself the ability to move from his frozen position. First he screams him to stop, sweating and eyes so wide you can see the capillaries in them.

Then we see Miyoshi had reached the portrait. The visor hides his face. He’s just a nameless, faceless person/threat for Gordon, someone who’s SLOWLY reaching for the imperial portrait. Gordon screams again to stop, it’s just his mouth we see and then his arm stretching helplessly toward Miyoshi… but he’s too slow, too far. Over his outstretches hand, in overlay, we see Miyoshi stretching his hands as well, about to reach the imperial portrait.

It’s sort of awesome as the scene well deliver how the situation should have felt for Gordon. The slow motion of course works well to let Sakuma do the exposition but, in many cases, it’s also how a person in a situation similar to Gordon, perceives the pace at which things are moving. Everything seems in slow motion.

The scene ends here. We won’t see Miyoshi touching the portrait and through all his monologue Sakuma hadn’t mentioned it in Japanese once. In a way, even the anime is shy of showing us someone really touching the portrait and just hints at how the touching will be inevitably done.

The new scene starts by showing us the street in which D Agency is. We can see that the sun is slowly setting. Beautiful sunset, by the way, I love the lights and how they’ve placed the sun behind a building in this scene. And, symbolically, D Agency, the place where spies are, is in the shadows. Cool.

No musical background is used here and, for a while, it will continue not being used.

Now we don’t know in which day exactly we are but we know it’s spring. Let’s assume it’s April. In April the sun sets in Tokyo at around the 18:00… or 6:00 PM. As the sun isn’t set completely and it won’t be for a while we can assume it’s earlier than 6:00 PM. Let’s say… 5:00 PM? The boys went to investigate Gordon’s house at 8:00 AM. They supposedly spent there half a hour or a little more (Miyoshi said they would find the cipher in half a hour but I guess arresting Gordon might have taken some time). So… this means that loosely 8 hours went from when the boys arrested Gordon to when Sakuma reported to Yūki?

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe we’re just at the end of a long day in which many things happened and this meeting between Sakuma and Yūki is just concluding Sakuma’s day at D Agency.

After all we’ll later discover that Gordon was carried to D Agency and interrogated there and that Yūki and Sakuma discussed what to do with him (and, probably, with the ciphers). After all, when Sakuma reported to Mutō the day after, it’s probably morning… but during that report he’ll tell us all that Yūki plans to do with Gordon… and that we didn’t see being discussed previously. So well, likely we just had a huge time skip during which many things happened but we weren’t meant to know them yet.

Anyway, back to the scene, Yūki is standing, his back to Sakuma, looking outside the window. The camera it’s at his same level as we hear Sakuma saying he has a question.

In the next shoot we see that Sakuma is behind him. His figure as he asks Yūki if he knew the Military Police had already inspected Gordon’s house, is small compared to Yūki’s and almost completely covered by him. Although the camera isn’t below Sakuma but on an even level with him (and Yūki), it’s clear that Yūki is the dominating figure here. He’s the one in control, the one who knows. Sakuma is right behind him but he’s BEHIND him. He’s figuring things out but well, the masterplan is Yūki’s. No matter how cool our Sakuma was before, he simply can’t compete with this man.

Yūki shifts his position slightly as he answers. He doesn’t turn to Sakuma and he answers Sakuma’s question with a question ‘what makes you think that?’. Generally a shift in the position visually (and well, psychologically) implies nervousness, discomfort.

Yūki probably doesn’t know what Sakuma is thinking right now. Sakuma can turn against him, as Yūki likely knows Miyoshi had put Sakuma in an unpleasant position and Yūki has allowed it, instead than stopping Miyoshi and explaining things to Sakuma. Sakuma can held him responsible. He can attack him… and use the incident against D Agency. Sakuma doesn’t have to accept Yūki’s plan about what to do with Gordon and the cipher.

Even though Yūki outranks Sakuma, in his role as liaison Sakuma evidently has some sort of authority which is why, when he’ll explain things to Mutō, it’ll be from an ‘I allowed it to happen’ position instead than an ‘I was forced to obey to the Lieutenant Colonel’ position.

LOL, I’ll be interested in finding exactly how the power relationship between Sakuma and Yūki works but it’s a bit too hard to find info about this sort of things in Japan in this time period.

Anyway, Sakuma can make things more troublesome for Yūki if he decides to be uncooperative. I’m willing to bet Yūki would still be capable to handle them just fine but they won’t be as easy as they could be if Sakuma decides to be cooperative.

So let’s go back to the story.

Sakuma… doesn’t attack Yūki. As Sakuma explains his reasoning… two trams coming from opposite direction, cross the street at the same time. It’s probably symbolic of how, although Yūki is a spy and Sakuma is a soldier, they sort of reached a ‘common ground’, an ‘understanding’ of some sort. Even if their beliefs go in opposite directions, for a moment they came into contact.

Sakuma explains why he came up with that idea and what he thought Yūki wanted to obtain, which was for Gordon to keep his guard lowered against this second inspection.

A side note here. It seems that the subs did a mess with this bit as they seem to imply Yūki wanted to avoid troubles for the Military Police in a future THIRD inspection… while other sources says that what Yūki wanted was for his fake Military Police unit to have less troubles. The second interpretation actually makes more sense as they’re the one who expose and arrest Gordon in the end and turn into a double spy (so there would be no need for a THIRD Military Police inspection) so I’ll go with this interpretation.

So, as we were saying, Sakuma doesn’t accuse Yūki. He thinks Yūki had at heart the positive result of the mission. He doesn’t blame him for not informing him about the whole thing (that was Mutō’s duty, not Yūki’s) and hey, Sakuma is even right in his thinking.

We won’t heat Yūki confirming it, actually Yūki will say nothing in the anime, but we’ll see Yūki’s mouth reflected on the window and we’ll see the corners of his lips turning up in a smile. Yūki is clearly pleased with this development. I think that he’s probably thinking he and Sakuma are finally starting to get along in the right way. It took them a year to get at this point… talk about being slow…

Anyway the idea of seeing the reflection of Yūki’s smile instead than the smile itself is interesting. Yūki is a spy and he’s also used to present a deceptive image of himself. It’s as if to say that the reflection is showing us his true feelings, the feelings nor Sakuma or anyone else was meant to see (Yūki is still giving his back to Sakuma… and to us… so we can’t see he’s smiling, yet his reflection reveals it).

In ‘D no Maō’ when Sakuma did the same question Yūki only praised him for figuring out things with his own brain, which, I guess, implies that yes, Sakuma guessed right. In the novel Sakuma makes no questions, we just read his inner monologue in which he explains how he reasoned out that Yūki should have known about the search beforehand. Anyway our dear boy Sakuma had guessed everything correctly. Yūki knew about how the search happened.

The discussion probably went on… or not… we don’t really know. The scene ends here.

The next scene remains without musical background and starts with Sakuma leaving Yūki’s office and closing the door behind himself. As Sakuma turns to walk away he sees Miyoshi leaning against a wall. Miyoshi turns and smiles at him. Through the whole scene… the camera will remain even. There’s no more one who’s below and one who’s over. They’re equal.

And it’s sort of to deliver this point that we see that in the next frame the camera is showing them both to us. They’re still… distant one from the other and the scene slightly moves from Miyoshi to Sakuma. They haven’t reached an understanding yet. Miyoshi’s words as he asks Sakuma if he’s going to the General Staff Headquarters and comments how the Colonel will be shocked as well as his laugh, feel like a remark to Sakuma. Our boy is unhappy with himself and we can see that, as he sees Miyoshi laughing, Sakuma lowers his head and asks him if he’s there to make fun of him. He’s sort of depressed and his gaze is downcast.

Sakuma has awesomely handled a damn complicate situation but he has figured out that, as Miyoshi has implied in the previous episode, his faith had made him blind to something important (and also likely that Miyoshi had put him in that situation for his own amusement) and he probably is pretty sure that Miyoshi understood things way before he did… so Sakuma feels the other has a right to mock him. He doesn’t feel equal to Miyoshi.

And, more important, he can’t understand that Miyoshi isn’t there to mock him.

Miyoshi, in fact, is honestly surprised by Sakuma’s words.

I think his previous words were supposed to mean that the Colonel should be shocked that Sakuma could succeed where Mutō had failed. I don’t think he wanted to put Sakuma and Mutō on the same boat. I think Miyoshi appreciated how Sakuma was going to stay honest to his principles and therefore was willing to commit Harakiri where Sakuma’s superior officer instead was only worried to push the blame for his mistake on someone else.

And here I think that we have Miyoshi in his most honest moment in these two episodes.

He admits that his intention now wasn’t to make fun of Sakuma, that he has changed his opinion about Sakuma (which implies his previous opinion about him wasn’t right hence for once Miyoshi admits he was wrong, someone please take notes of this) and that he hadn’t expected Sakuma to figure out things. Basically Sakuma has surpassed his expectations on him. We saw in the previous episode that Miyoshi has a low opinion of people in the Army… yet Sakuma managed to handle what Miyoshi thought he wouldn’t know how to handle. Miyoshi doesn’t look at Sakuma as he says so. His gaze his lowered and sort of introspective. Embarrassed? Who knows.

Still, I think that this also implies Miyoshi didn’t plan to let Sakuma commit Harakiri. We know that’s not the D Agency’s style and, since Miyoshi didn’t expect Sakuma to figure things out and he was in charge of things… well, it was his duty to pull Sakuma out of that predicament. How, we’ll never know. But well, let’s take this as some sort of peace offering from Miyoshi and a Miyoshi-style attempt at bonding and make friends.

Sakuma though, still isn’t looking at him. Miyoshi is sort of praising him but Sakuma doesn’t cheer up at that.

Miyoshi stands (he was leaning against a wall… which can look as him being relaxed but it’s psychologically also a good way to ‘watch your own back’ while you’re admitting a moment of weakness, which combines with the fact he’s keeping his hands in his pockets quite nicely as this can also be used as another visual clue to tell us Miyoshi wasn’t as comfortable with the situation as he tried to look…) and waves the whole thing away by claiming that there are more important matters. Like them going out in the town. Would Sakuma join them?

Note the difference between this scene and the previous time Miyoshi had invited Sakuma.

That time it was purely by accident. When they were leaving, Miyoshi had caught sign of him watching them and had invited him. Now Miyoshi had deliberately seek him out to invite him to go with them. Actually he HAD EVEN WAITED FOR SAKUMA TO FINISH TALKING WITH YŪKI.

Also Miyoshi is smiling to Sakuma, when, previously, he wasn’t.

In short for a narcissist who looks down on everyone… well, all this is a BIG step.

Of course his invitation will work as a hint later on… so it might be all Miyoshi wanted was to give Sakuma a hint… but I think the invitation is honest as well. Fundamentally he’s telling him ‘Don’t go to the General Staff Headquarters, come have fun with us.’ Note also how even though they’re still at the same distance, the visual presents then as close, basically Sakuma overlapping part of Miyoshi’s arm. There’s a point of contact between them now. And the anime is going to try to remark it even more.

Sakuma begins asking ‘back there, why…’. He won’t end the sentence as he’ll figure out the answer by himself. We know which was meant to be the question from ‘D no Maō’. Basically Sakuma wanted to know why Miyoshi had said he only will need 30 minutes to inspect Gordon’s house, if this is supposed to mean he also has figured out that the military police had already inspected the place (and, possibly, if he had figured out that Mutō wanted to screw Sakuma’s life). We see that Miyoshi’s expression is surprised at his unfinished question. LOL, Sakuma is way more surprising than you thought, isn’t he, Miyoshi?

Anyway, remember when I said that Sakuma wasn’t looking at him? That was likely what was in his mind that pushed him not to meet Miyoshi’s gaze. How Miyoshi might have figured out things basically right from that moment. And, likely, if Miyoshi had figured out things, how far he had figured out and why he has involved Sakuma?

But then Sakuma decides to drop the question. In the same way as he hadn’t blamed Yūki for not telling him things he won’t blame Miyoshi as well. In a way he’s sort of accepting the way they do things even if he still turns Miyoshi’s invitation down.

And we go back to compare this scene with the previous in which Miyoshi had invited Sakuma to go with them.

In both scenes Sakuma turns his invitation down… but now he’s smiling and he says ‘maybe next time’. While the previous time the message was, ‘no way I’ll associate with you lot’, this time it’s more ‘this time I can’t but I’m not adverse to the idea’. In a way he too has sort of symbolically made a step toward Miyoshi… even though the visual shows them divided now. And they seem distant even if they still hadn’t moved. Sakuma is turning down Miyoshi out of duty. He likely really planned to go doing his report to the General Staff Headquarters (we’ll see later he’ll change his mind as he’ll start walking in an opposite direction). He’s still a soldier, he’s not like the spies that can go out all the nights to have fun. They’re closer yet still distant.

Sakuma leaves, Miyoshi moves out of his way so as to let him pass and then he is left behind. We can see this as Sakuma taking control of his life now. The scene started with Miyoshi closer to the camera and Sakuma farther, so Miyoshi looked ‘bigger’ and Sakuma smaller, but, when Sakuma leaves, he’s the one who ends up closer to the camera. He’s not following Miyoshi anymore, nor Miyoshi is an obstacle to his path. Sakuma is leading his own path.

By the way, as in the previous scene Sakuma started to leave we finally get a musical background that will continue in this scene. It’s ‘Kaigi’ [懐疑 Skepticism].

This musical background was played the past episode also, when Sakuma was trying to understand the boys and explaining why he felt so distant from them. Now he’s played while he’s trying to understand how things should have gone. We might say that this is the ‘Sakuma trying to understand things’ musical background.

The next scene opens outside of D Agency. The camera moves down from the building to Sakuma, who’s still in front of it and places itself below Sakuma. In the next shot it is above Sakuma but Sakuma… is sort of looking it ‘straight in the eyes’. It’s sort of a challenging scene. Sakuma is ‘small’ compared to the D Agency building, a symbolism to hint at how Sakuma has understood everyone in the building figured things out before him. He still wants some answers thoughts… but he’s planning to figure things out by himself. He’s not going to ask Yūki or Miyoshi. Even though Sakuma feels inferior to them… he’s not just accepting this passively.

We hear Sakuma admitting to himself he has no proof Mutō commanded the Military Police when they searched through Gordon’s house… still he starts reconstructing how he thinks things could have gone if he did.

Sakuma starts walking, taking the street at the left of D Agency.

As he walks he mentally he pictures how the inspection should have gone, with the Military Police that, instead of inspecting the Imperial Portrait, bows to it, and Mutō that’s shaken by how they found nothing. Sakuma’s thoughts explain us that if Mutō’s failure were to go public it would tarnish his record and stop him from being promoted. We can’t know why he’s so afraid his failure were to go public but, in truth, what Sakuma doesn’t tell us and that, in the novel, totally freaked out Mutō, is how Gordon claimed he would present an official complain. THIS would have caused Mutō’s failure to become known and THIS is what caused him to freak out.

In Sakuma’s reconstruction though, Mutō remained waiting in the car while in ‘D no Maō’ Mutō, at least, went to face Gordon. *sigh* I don’t know which Mutō is worse between the two… though, if we go according to the novel, Mutō didn’t wait on the car… so maybe this is just Sakuma thinking that, after the raid failed, Mutō might have spent some time sulking in the car?

A break to talk about the visual. It’s awesome how the anime delivers Mutō’s feelings not by having him talk but just by showing us how he bit his thumb.

Anyway, at night, Mutō is back in his office drinking a raw egg when it dawns on him he could push the blame on D Agency by having them fail at the same task.

The fact he’s drinking a raw egg is a hint he already got hungover. Remember the focus that the past episode put on how Mutō was drinking a raw egg when he handed out the mission to Sakuma? The raw egg comes back in this scene as well. Sakuma doesn’t know yet the importance of the raw egg (and therefore of the hungover) but I like to think his subconscious has already done the connection since he’s mentally depicting the scene taking into consideration that Mutō would drink a raw egg. There’s a lot of focus in this scene too on the egg. I like to think that’s Sakuma’s subconscious that’s trying to tell Sakuma something.

Of course, it’s also the ‘Joker Game’ authors who’re trying to tell to us, the viewers, something… which makes it double interesting. Like Sakuma, we’re given a chance to guess what Mutō did after the raid and prior to having the idea to put the blame on D Agency.

A mention on the visual.

When Mutō comes up with his plan… we actually don’t see him but his widening eye reflected on the egg. Symbolically it’s him and yet it’s not. It’s ‘someone else’, and on someone else he decides he could shift the blame.

Then there’s a picture of the Gordon’s file, this huge threat on Mutō’s career…

…and then we see that there’s a picture of Mutō. The Gordon’s file is in front of him and seems huge because it’s closer to the camera… but the camera is below both and moves up to focus on Mutō’s face… which is in the dark. A clear hint that his idea is malicious.

Sakuma’s reconstruction ends here. We’re back on seeing him walking through Tokyo’s streets as he wonders on how Yūki could have figured Mutō had already inspected the place. Sakuma logically assumes Mutō would have kept his failure a secret. Sakuma was likely given the order to inspect Gordon’s place the day after the first inspection took place. This meant Yūki only had a short time to discover about it.

And here the egg shows us its importance. Sakuma remembers that, when Mutō gave him the order to inspect Gordon’s house he was drinking a raw egg. This means Mutō was actually hungover as, in that time period, this was supposed to be a ‘cure’ to deal with it.

If we’re not familiar with pre WW2 Tokyo we can’t know, but the visual shows us that Sakuma is really going to the General Staff offices. As he walks we can see behind him we can see Tokyo Station…

…then he walks next to the moat that circles the Imperial Place…

…then as he walks in front what is the Meiji Seimei Kan Building he’s stuck by a realization and freezes.

The Meiji Seimei Kan isn’t that far from where the General Staff Headquarters were, proof that Sakuma turned Miyoshi’s invitation down because he really planned to report what had happened to Mutō.

Also… the irony of Sakuma having his moment of revelation in front of that building is delicious as western viewers might not known but that place was, at the time, the headquarters of the Meiji Yasuda Life insurance Company.

Anyway what’s dawning on Sakuma is the memory of Miyoshi telling him if he’d like to splurge and go to a classy restaurant (旅亭 “Ryotei”). Here Sakuma does the connection. Mutō was hungover because he got drunk in one of the inns he likes to visit.

Now… the anime is less clear on this than the novel but even in the anime we can figure out that Sakuma went in said inns with Mutō and therefore likely knows of his drunken habits… and, among them, there’s probably to tattle about what he should keep for himself with the geisha that work there. Knowing this he can figure out where Yūki might have learnt about what had happened.

But maybe I’m going too ahead of time. Viewers will discover all this in a while. For now we only see that Sakuma abruptly changes his track as he evidently decides that evening he won’t go to report to the General Staff Headquarters.

Oh, as Sakuma changes his track ‘Senzai’ [潜在 Potential] starts and will be our musical background in the following scene as well.

We’ve already heard ‘Senzai’ too in the past episode. It was when Yūki was explaining Sakuma things after the Joker Game. Sakuma wasn’t really understanding much back then but now things come to full circle. Now he’s going to be the one who understood everything and who’s leading the game. Sort of, as he’s just a First Lieutenant but still, he’ll do the best he could.

The new scene starts with… the General Staff Headquarters.

We don’t know which time it is but it’s clear is no more evening and it’s not night. I’ll say it’s morning.

Next we’ve a close-up of Mutō’s utterly surprised face as he says ‘you… found proof?’

It’s a smart idea as it cuts the unnecessary scenes of having Sakuma summarizing everything we already knew to him again and jumps right on the juicy bit, that jackass Mutō’s surprised face. And he’s really a jackass because the next he says is ‘impossible… there’s no way…’

In short Mutō was sure Sakuma and the D Agency would end up failing and yet he sent them on chasing a proof he didn’t even believe existed anyway. It was bad enough to think that he might have done it thinking that the boys might still have a small chance, and that if, only if they were to fail, they would blame… but, in this way, we know he set them up for what he believed was a secure failure. And even if we knew he despised them (well, the anime didn’t make it as crystalline clear as the novel but one could get it anyway), the worst part is that he evidently was willing to let Sakuma too take the fall, Sakuma whom he knew and was loyal to him. The jerk.

Through, truth to be told, the anime didn’t remark well how badly he intended to let Sakuma take the fall. Basically the novel explains that Mutō’s plan was also to deny he ordered the inspection. This would mean that Sakuma would have to take the blame for ordering it, while D Agency will take the blame for failing it. Remember when we talked of how the incident might have ruined Mutō’s career? Well, to protect his own career he planned to ruin Sakuma’s. The bastard. For Sakuma things could actually be even harder as he’s just a First Lieutenant so they’ll probably be even harsher with him. Someone please splat Mutō on the ground with a giant hammer.

Anyway Sakuma catches his chance to point out, while Mutō is basically admitting there was no way they could do it, that he hadn’t been told it was the second time. We don’t see Sakuma as he says so, we see Mutō gasps and this tells us he realizes he betrayed himself. And here we see Sakuma saying to him what he didn’t say to Yūki (or Miyoshi). Sakuma didn’t blame Yūki (or Miyoshi) for not warning him it was the second time the place got inspected. He’s blaming Mutō.

Mutō keeps on being a jerk. He demands Sakuma to repeat what he says, acting as if he hadn’t understood… or daring Sakuma to repeat his accusation. Do your pick. The camera is high over him. It’s high over Sakuma too… but it seems to lower as it moves behind Sakuma and Sakuma looks like he’s towering over Mutō. Sakuma might be a mere First Lieutenant but surely he’s way better than this jerk. Then Sakuma clarifies himself and the camera is below him.

Mutō defends his actions. Sakuma is just a Liaison, he had no duty to inform him. The camera though… is below them both. They’re on an even level. Mutō can brag he’s over Sakuma as he’s higher in ranking… but the camera doesn’t humble Sakuma here. Actually, when Mutō tells him to keep his ego in check, the camera is below Sakuma, whose expression remain stoic and calm. He’s not even sweating while Mutō is.

The camera is HIGH above Mutō as he tries to wash the whole thing away claiming ‘it doesn’t matter’ and demands to know where the evidence was.

Let’s face it, the camera is subtly telling us who’s the jerk and who’s the good boy. Anyway Sakuma comes closer and whispers in his ear it was behind the Imperial Portrait.

A sidenote here. In the novel and in the ‘D no Maō’ manga Sakuma didn’t whisper this in Mutō’s ear. I guess here they have him do it to remark how this was such a sacred place they couldn’t even openly talk about it or what it ended up hiding.

Anyway we don’t really see Sakuma’s expression here, as he talks, just his mouth. The focus is all on Mutō’s shocked face. Sakuma, after all, is just delivering an information. His expression is not relevant as he has to keep it neutral.

The interaction between Sakuma and Mutō pays quite a bit of attention at keeping Sakuma expressionless and focusing more on Mutō and all the expressions he does. Skipping the fact that it sort of feel good to see Mutō being constantly shocked (and it’s also proof that Sakuma is kept expressionless on purpose and not due to the anime’s inability to give expression to its characters) and that it’s fitting for Sakuma’s role to keep a neutral expression, this will work well to underline the one single moment in which Sakuma’s expression will shift. But I’m going ahead of time again.

Anyway, as I’ve said in another post, once Mutō learns where the evidence was, his main worry is that Sakuma might have touched the Imperial Portrait and his relief when Sakuma confirms he didn’t touch it is evident. To us westerns it feels weird but, back then, in Japan it was really a HUGE taboo. Let’s remember again how the novel and the ‘D no Maō’ manga inform us that who touched the Imperial Portrait ended up being forced to commit suicide (from here the irony of Sakuma who was about to commit suicide because it didn’t dawn on him to touch the Imperial Portrait…).

Anyway Mutō recovers and wants the microfilm… to be shocked again when Sakuma tells him they didn’t retrieve it. The camera is again high over Mutō as Sakuma announces they only confirmed its existence, subtly preparing us for how Mutō is going to completely lose control over the situation.

Mutō complains then thinks that maybe Sakuma didn’t bring back the microfilm because it didn’t contain the photo of the cipher… and well, I don’t like Mutō but I’ve to praise ‘Joker Game’ for the care they put in his expression. It’s not just his dubber that makes a good work. The expression on his face keeps on changing. They don’t recycle surprised footage after surprised footage. They redraw him with a different expression each time. They count on Mutō’s expressions to give us the atmosphere of each scene. While Sakuma remains stony and expressionless, the whole dynamic of the situation is handled by Mutō. He’s really the star of this scene in which he ends up on being destroyed.

And the scene in which Sakuma tells him that no, the microfilm contained photos of the cipher and we see Mutō first surprised and then losing it… well, that one is awesome. Kudos to Sakuma for remaining calm and with a neutral expression because I think it was really hard. Mutō’s furious as he yells at him, he pants and we see the blood vessels in his eyes.

Sakuma explains his reasons calmly… and then the camera goes again below him. Guess who’s in control here? Guess who? Guess who?

Mutō would like to counter but Sakuma’s argument is solid and countering would make him look like an idiot. So he tries taking back control by demanding to know what they did with Gordon. We can see he’s still angry, a vein popping out on his temple and as he speaks he tends to clench his teeth. He’s even sort of raised, not quite up but not sitting anymore. It’s like he’s searching for reasons to attack Sakuma. And the camera… now shows how tiny he is compared to Sakuma. It’s below both, but is’ so close to Sakuma that basically the upper half of him is out of our view and Sakuma seems a giant… while Mutō is all included in the scene and seems so small compared to Sakuma…

And now Sakuma explains Mutō what YŪKI, Mutō’s archenemy, plans to do with Gordon. Basically Sakuma tells him is going to let Yūki do as he prefer with the man and also take all the glory from the operation, the glory Mutō wanted for himself.

Predictably Mutō loses it and starts having a temper tantrum but… we don’t see it. The camera is on Sakuma, who remains calm and expressionless while we hear Mutō yelling and raging and likely tossing or smacking objects around. We even see Mutō’s tea cup flying through the room and past Sakuma to hear it smashing either against a wall or on the floor.

It’s smart because picturing it in our mind allows the viewers to see it the way they prefer… as well as to see how Sakuma can remain calm through all this. While Mutō has completely lost it… it’s Sakuma the one who’s in control. And, from how Mutō implied that Sakuma actually could have decided how to handle the whole matter with Gordon, we get that Sakuma likely had some form of power over Yūki’s actions. Even if he was below Yūki he could have imposed how to handle the cipher or Gordon and allow Mutō to get all the glory from that mission. And he didn’t.

It’s particularly hypocritical of Mutō to claim Yūki shouldn’t act the way he does because people aren’t toys… when he just toyed with Sakuma’s life as he pleased. Mutō is an horrible person.

The next shoots show the cup now broken on the ground and Mutō’s desk, now a mess as the objects on it were overturned. We can hear Mutō is panting hard but his head is out of the shoot. We can keep on depicting his angry face in our mind as we prefer… although evidently he has calmed down.

Then we hear Sakuma telling him he has something of his. At this Mutō raises his head and his surprised face is again in the frame. Sakuma hands him a cigarette case that Mutō recognizes as his own and asks Sakuma where did he find it. Sakuma replies it was found in Hanabishi. Mutō raises his gaze on him, shocked and, likely, understands what Sakuma also knows and what us viewers will be told in a minute.

The camera moves close to Sakuma… and then a flashback starts.

It’s night and we’re out of a inn, an inn named Hanabishi.

An old man working for the place and a Geisha (according to the credits she is also the owner of Hanabishi) greet the person that has just entered. That person turns out to be Sakuma, who’s slightly embarrassed to show he now doesn’t have a military haircut anymore. LOL, Sakuma is sort of cute here.

Anyway it’s clear that Sakuma and the Geisha know each other as she recognized him.

What the anime doesn’t tell us but only left to our intuition is that Hanabishi is a luxury places that serves higher ups in the Army so no, Sakuma didn’t habitually visited it on his own, he came here to accompany Mutō, who’s a habitual client.

As soon as he’s recognized Sakuma claims he’s there for an investigation and pulls out a Military Police notebook… which works the same as a badge in Japan.

As I’ve said in other posts I’ve no idea if that notebook is Sakuma’s or if he just took it from his disguise as Military Policeman. The novel labels Sakuma as an Army First Lieutenant and not as a Military Police First Lieutenant (yes, although the Military Police is part of the Army they actually differentiated if one was a First Lieutenant in the Army or in the Military Police) and the anime labels him as Colonel Mutō’s attendant and Mutō is in the Infantry not in the Military Police (the M insignia on his uniform is red, the colour of the infantry and not black, the colour of the Military Police) which should hint at how Sakuma too should have been in the infantry. Oh well, let’s go on.

No, wait, let’s stop a moment here or better, let’s go back to when Sakuma realized that Yūki might have discovered that Mutō already went to Gordon’s house when he reminded Miyoshi speaking of Ryotei.

Back then the sun hadn’t set yet. When Sakuma had his realization there was still plenty of light. However, when Sakuma reaches Hanabishi is pitch black. What the anime also doesn’t tell us but wants us to realize is that Sakuma, poor guy, didn’t went straight to Hanabishi but had to visit more than one inn to find the one in which Mutō went that night. The guy really did a throughout search… and even broke his self set curfew to find out where Mutō went and if he could discover something there. Sakuma is a diligent boy who once sets on something does his best to see it through.

Next scene has the Geisha admitting Mutō had been their guest as Sakuma suspected. Sakuma is clearly handled as an honourable guest, given a pillow to sit over, tea and sweets (not that Sakuma is looking at all that had been offered to him… from how things look he won’t even touch them).

In a commentary from Miwa Shiro he said that Sakuma speaks and acts very politely to the Geisha, which not only contrast to how Sakuma usually speaks, but also to his role here (he’s a soldier in an investigation mission so he doesn’t have to be that respectful). So, it’s sort of as if he’s humble with her, as if she could make fun of him due to the bad habit of the Colonel of getting drunk. The visual too always places them on an even level and the geisha seems to talk to Sakuma with confidence and even laughs at his suspicions. She’s clearly not afraid even if he’s there for an investigation.

Anyway Sakuma learns that yes, Mutō went there, that he was in a terrible mood and drank until late in the night. This confirms Sakuma’s suspicion that, after the failed investigation, Mutō got himself drunk. What Sakuma wants to know now is if it was possible Yūki was there as well, so he asks if there were other customers and, once he gets an affirmative reply, he asks for a description of the man that was there. He’s told he was the president of a small company who visit the place often, sociable and that causes the geisha to laugh, capable to drink too much and fall asleep in the room next to Mutō isn’t something that calls to Sakuma’s mind Yūki but, just to be sure he asks if he has a white glover and walks with a cane. Meanwhile we see a flashback of the scene from Ep 1 in which we were introduced to Yūki… or better to his fake distinctive traits. Remember what I said about how the first thing Yūki did was to trick us with them? Well, here it comes to use why he did so.

The audience, like Sakuma, knows about them and remembers them well and identifies Yūki through them. Like Sakuma we’re all disappointed when the Geisha tells us that, no, that customer had nothing of the sort. Sakuma is about to leave, clearly thinking he won’t find out anything else. The only place in which Mutō could have tattled out about the inspection was the inn at which he got drunk, but if Yūki wasn’t here… well, he couldn’t really guess how the man could find out about the second inspection.

It’s as Sakuma moves to leave that the Geisha talks to Sakuma about Mutō’s cigarette case and how it was returned by the mysterious guest that, supposedly, isn’t Yūki and asks him to return it to Mutō.

As we see the cigarette case, it’s worth to note that ‘Kanshi’ [監視 Monitoring] starts being played… a hint that actually someone was monitoring Mutō’s actions and that guest’s presence wasn’t that casual. The musical background will continue in the following scene, as if the one monitoring Mutō was Sakuma. Well, in a way he was.

And now back we go to Mutō’s office. Sakuma is again whispering in Mutō’s ear, telling him that ‘it’s against military law to tell anyone about the details of a military police raid on a suspected enemy spy’s home, even a geisha whom you (Mutō) visit regularly’.

We again aren’t shown Sakuma’s expression, just Mutō’s shocked one. In itself, having Sakuma whisper this in Mutō’s ear feels a bit silly as he did it in the novel and in the ‘D no Maō’ manga as well but in both of them there were people in Mutō’s office while here they’re alone. But well, I guess they wanted to give to this scene the same sense of secrecy they tried to give to the scene in which Sakuma talked about how the cipher was hidden behind the Imperial Portrait.

Basically Mutō broke the military law, leaking confidential intelligence information. This is possibly a blunder even worse than investigating Gordon’s house and finding nothing as that one was a mistake but this one is a crime.

And now Sakuma goes and states that ‘the Lieutenant Colonel Yūki’ said ‘this’ matter will not be made public… only there’s a problem here. Sakuma hasn’t talked about what he has discovered at Hanabishi with Yūki yet. And Yūki didn’t tell him what he discovered at Hanabishi. In short, Sakuma has not betrayed Mutō by telling what he discovered to Yūki, nor Yūki shared with him what he knew.

Now… I don’t want to say Sakuma outright lied. It can totally be that when he was with Yūki, Yūki told him he won’t make public how he knew, without giving him any other detail. Or it can be that with ‘this’ Sakuma isn’t quite meaning ‘how you slipped state secrets to a geisha’ but ‘how this is the second investigation and you made a blunder with the first’. After all Sakuma said so in the novel and in the ‘D no Maō’ manga but, differently from how he whispered in Mutō’s ear the little matter about state secrets, this part was said out loud.

Though, well, even if it’s not a lie, I think Sakuma is saying so knowing Mutō will misunderstand and think that Sakuma has actually been the one who sold him to Yūki… and that he could even blackmail him. Sakuma wanted Mutō to feel betrayed the way he felt betrayed. Mutō wanted to use Sakuma as if he were a toy, a pawn. He never expected much from Sakuma, not that he could find evidence or that he could turn against him. Sakuma was below his attention he didn’t own him loyalty or explanations or even apologies for setting him up. I think… Sakuma has waited so long before telling him about the cigarette case because he hoped the Colonel would do something… decent.

Giving him a decent explanation on why he hadn’t warned him for example. Instead the man not only silenced him claiming he had no right to know and that he was being arrogant for demanding to know but had complained that Yūki used people as if they were toys… when he did exactly the same. I think at that point Sakuma was fed up.

As Sakuma likely expected Mutō accused him of having switched on Yūki’s side, feeling utterly betrayed by the one who once was his attendant. And here we can see this is exactly what Sakuma wanted as Sakuma for the first time stop looking emotionless and smiles.

It lasts a second (and Anime Sakuma is the only one of the three Sakuma who allows himself a smile as all the others had to keep a neutral expression)…

…and then… Sakuma tosses Mutō’s words back at him. Mutō told him he was just a simple liaison so Sakuma remarks that’s exactly how he acted… as per orders he was given. Which is likely absolutely true. He didn’t betray Mutō but it should have felt so good to let him think so. Foolish also but good.

Novel and anime agree that at this point Mutō dismissed Sakuma in a low tone and, as Sakuma didn’t understood it immediately, he basically yelled at him to get out.

In the ‘D no Maō’ manga Mutō instead declares he’ll sent Sakuma to the frontlines.

Now… while I prefer for Sakuma not to be sent on the frontlines… well, Sakuma disappears from the story so it would have made more sense if this had to be the reason instead than him simply vanishing and not being present in stories like EP 12, which is chronologically placed short after the ‘Joker Game’ episode or the one in the OAV, which has all the spies present, meaning it’s placed BEFORE EP 12.

Okay, to be honest I would have preferred if they had kept Sakuma around for the OAV and Ep 12, especially considering that since his dubber worked in the OAV it wasn’t a problem of Seki Tomokazu not wanting to voice Sakuma anymore… and I think it’ll do good for D Agency to have a Liaison... because while it’s true that Sakuma doesn’t show up in the novels anymore, it’s also true the same could be said for the others. In the novel it’s said nowhere that the guys that show up in ‘XX Double Cross’ are the same spies that showed up in ‘Joker Game’… so allowing the same Liaison to be still around in ‘XX Double Cross’ would have made no harm…

All right, all right, I quit.

Sakuma excuses himself and leaves but it’s clear that, although he still is below Mutō in rank, here he was the one who was in control.

After Sakuma leaves the next scene is seen from outside Mutō’s window. Fundamentally we see him losing it again… though it’s interesting how we see him losing it again from a place outside his study. As if to imply we’re taking distance from it.

A tram (the number 5018 if you want to know) passes abruptly in front of the screen. Actually the scene was switched but it was done so suddenly we could have the impression it passed in front of Mutō’s window. It’s actually a hint that everything is coming to full circle. You might remember how something like that also happened early on, at the beginning of Ep 1. Only, back then, when the tram left the screen we were showed the Great East Asia Cultural Society, inside which there was Sakuma talking with Yūki. Now instead we see Sakuma leaving the General Staff Headquarters (and Yūki will join him in a moment).

Sakuma pauses in his track to observe the tram leaving (can I mention the scenery is beautiful?)

…then looks down to what he believes is his shadow and see it moving while he’s still standing still. He’s surprised then he realized what he thought was his shadow only was actually made by his shadow and Yūki’s shadow behind him as the man walks past him.

LOL, Yūki was actually literally shadowing him and he hadn’t realized. Well, it should have felt a little creepy.

Anyway, as Yūki walks past Sakuma ‘Sakura haru’ [桜春 Spring of cherry blossoms] begins playing.

Sakuma follows Yūki. The two walk along the moat were beautiful cherry trees are in bloom… which fits with the musical background. Their pink is almost shining and it’s a colour that stands out as we hadn’t seen it for two episodes. It catches our attention.

It’s Yūki that starts the conversation by telling Sakuma that ‘Miyoshi was impressed with you. You were really going to cut open your stomach there, weren’t you?’ I’ll say this implies Miyoshi wasn’t just impressed by how Sakuma figured out things but also by how he was really willing to die (which is sort of confirmed by an extra scene in ‘D no Maō’ in which Miyoshi discusses with Yūki how he didn’t expect Sakuma to really go and try to commit suicide). As said in the past rewatching I’ve discussed this topic at length here so here I’ll spare you a repeat of that discussion.

I wonder if Yūki also was impressed with Sakuma or if everything went according to Yūki’s plan and Sakuma acted as he expected.

Sakuma though still feel like he doesn’t deserve praises.

While he thinks that ‘it’s probably true’ that Miyoshi was impressed (it’s true, Sakuma, trust me) he still thinks he has noticed the second half of the situation way sooner than he did as he wouldn’t have considered Mutō would have set this up to cover his mistake. Sakuma, poor child, was betrayed by his superior officer, a coward and unfair action that he didn’t expect and that still burns. Someone give him a hug… he looks so down. He feels he never managed to join in the ‘joker game’ the other were playing at… though actually, even if only at the very end, he did. He managed to figure out all the ‘signs’ and guess which cards his opponent had. But well, I guess Sakuma is the sort who’s hard with others and harder on himself. Completely opposite of a certain Colonel…

Still… he can’t help but ask Yūki if his cane is a disguise. Well, actually his own is a statement more than a question. Yūki comments Sakuma has been asking questions and his eyes turn back… not that he can really see Sakuma since his head is still looking ahead himself, it’s just a visual clue to hint how Sakuma now has his full attention.

Sakuma making questions is… well, sort of important as Sakuma before seemed to accept everything as it was presented to him, without questioning it unless it clashed with what he was taught. Now instead he’s starting to look around himself without passively accepting things.

The camera moves closer to Sakuma and as ‘Yogiri’ [夜霧 Night fog] starts playing (smart idea by the way as the fog association fit well with the idea of disguise), we see a flashback of Sakuma remembering how he asked to the geisha if the guest had a lame leg or wore a glove and was answered ‘no’.

Remember how that seemed the end of it, as for Sakuma and for us viewer those were Yūki’s distinctive traits and if one didn’t have them… well, he couldn’t be Yūki?

Well, even if at first Sakuma too had thought that could be the end… he actually didn’t give up on it.

So he tosses to Yūki his theory. He claims Yūki doesn’t need his cane to walk and that he wears a glove on his right hand only to hide the fact that the damaged one is his left hand. In fact the glove, the cane and the limping attract attention and stop observers from focusing on the hand that’s truly damaged or, to be exact, prosthetic.

In short, those fake distinctive traits, work like some sort of disguise.

And how Sakuma found out all this? He got a forensic at the Imperial university to do an examination for him of the cigarette case. In short, yes, Sakuma didn’t give up. As soon as he got the cigarette case apparently his first thought wasn’t to get back at Mutō, no, he wanted to know how Yūki figured things out and if it could be there were chances he truly was the guest at the inn. Shiro Miwa said he draw Sakuma putting focus on his thick eyebrows, so one could tell he is a Japanese dog. Well, surely when Sakuma starts on hunting something, he doesn’t let it go. If Sakuma were German, Wolf would be proud of him.

Anyway Sakuma discovered that on the cigarette case there were only the fingerprints of Mutō, the Geisha owner of Hanabishi and himself. Meaning the fingerprints of the one returning the cigarette case and who wasn’t wearing gloves, were mysteriously missing… and this would be possible only if the hand he used to pick up the case were to be prosthetic.

Flashback to Mutō, completely drunk and dancing for the geisha. Oh, he’s a pitiful thing and a sight I’m trying to forget.

During the flashback Yūki comments not even him expected Mutō to be so idiotic to get drunk and then reveal state secrets to a geisha. Mutō definitely impressed Yūki… only he didn’t do it in a positive manner. -_-

The smart visual has the camera move from Mutō in the room of the inn he was in to the right of the viewer and past the wall, as if it was moving through it, so that it gets in the room Yūki was in and that’s next to Mutō. LOL, Yūki was there, apparently talking with geisha but actually listening to Mutō’s every word. What is he, Furudo Erika from Umineko?

Now… I don’t know if the sub made a blunder here but that ‘immediately after Mutō left I went out into the hall’ makes really me think Yūki was stalking Mutō more than just tailing him… but well, anyway, as he leaves he finds Mutō’s cigarette case and this is bad because he can’t pick it up with his good hand as he has a geisha wrapped around the arm at which his good hand is attacked so he has to use his prosthetic hand.

Now… I wonder if using his good hand would have changed things. Does the Army has his fingerprints? Probably, since Sakuma checked for fingerprints. Are the fingerprints that the Army have his real ones? Maybe not, that’s why it’s bad he couldn’t use his good hand.

And here it turns out Sakuma surprised Yūki too, because Yūki didn’t expect Sakuma to search for fingerprints on the cigarette case. Yūki smiles as he admits this and looks pleased.

Evidently he likes when Sakuma does good. I guess in his own way he likes Sakuma. Though the novel seems to imply he’s smiling because he’s thinking now Mutō is indebted to him, so maybe that’s it?

Anyway Yūki says that now that he has done a favour to Mutō, Mutō can’t help but cooperate with D Agency. I hope the ‘favour’ in Yūki’s plan was just ‘dealing with the cipher and Gordon in secrecy so that it won’t come up that Mutō inspected Gordon’s house and came up with nothing’ and not keeping hidden the fact that Mutō tattled out things. If it were to be the latter it would mean he set Sakuma to said such things knowing they would mislead Mutō into thinking Sakuma was part of the plot while he expected Sakuma to be actually in the dark… or maybe he didn’t expect Sakuma to deliberately make himself suspicious.

I mean… he might have thought Sakuma wouldn’t complain about not being warned that was the second inspection or, more importantly, not handing Mutō the cigarette case then telling him he knew Mutō tattled out military secrets and then claiming Yūki would keep silent about the matter. All this made Mutō think Sakuma betrayed him. If Sakuma had instead just finished his report and then handed the cigarette case and hadn’t mentioned knowing that Mutō revealed state secrets… well, Mutō would have probably gotten the message anyway but he might have not suspected Sakuma to be in.

Anyway, back to Yūki, he did all this because he wanted to squeeze money out of Mutō (anime viewers might not know but actually D Agency should have had a bigger budget only it got reduced along the way. Yūki wants the money he believed his agency deserved back.)

Sakuma is surprised as he figured out Yūki shadowed the Colonel only with the purpose to get more funds. LOL, I wonder if Sakuma was worried Yūki might have had some dark purpose to do it because, really, I can’t think he would consider Yūki doing this for fun or because he really enjoyed stalking Mutō. Come on, people can consider the Yūki/Wolf an interesting pairing but no one would take into consideration the Yūki/Mutō pairing, would they?

Anyway Yūki is smiling again as he asks Sakuma if he’d like to train as a spy under him. All right, I still think Yūki likes Sakuma in his own way.

And now ‘Kansō’ [歓送 Farewell] starts and it’s a fitting BGM to imply that Sakuma is going to part ways with the others… ;_;

Anyway at Yūki’s request Sakuma lowers his head and sighs. He seems sad.

The novel says he considered accepting but he didn’t feel up for it. The anime is a lot more vague. It’s unclear if what we hear is what he said or what he thinks as, when we hear his voice, we don’t see his face anymore, just Yūki’s back.

Well… Sakuma says ‘I’m a soldier through and through. I’m prepared to sacrifice myself at a moment’s notice.’ which is also a reference to how Sakuma ultimately was okay with committing Harakiri. He didn’t try to escape to it. And, of course, the implication that, since he’s a soldier, he can’t be a spy should be clear enough.

Sakuma stops in his track at this.

He’s not following Yūki anymore. So this is the visual too implying that Sakuma won’t accept Yūki’s offering, that Sakuma won’t follow him. Still, as he’s just standing there, Sakuma continues ‘speaking’ or ‘ making an inner monologue’ do your pick. He adds an ‘However…’ to his previous sentence then pauses. The visual shows him still under a cherry trees, petals falling on him. Cherry trees were one of the samurai symbols, and the falling petals were a symbol of a warrior’s death so the visual ties nicely with Sakuma, declaring to be a warrior and of being ready to die a warrior’s death. We see that Yūki is getting farther from him and this also reinforces the idea that Sakuma is not going to follow him, is not going to become a spy.

And here there’s another amazingly smart visual choice. A new element joins them. While Yūki is walking away from Sakuma, soldiers come and walk TOWARD Sakuma.

They seem to reinforce the implication that Sakuma has chosen them… that he has chosen to be a soldier… but Sakuma doesn’t follow them either and they walk past him. Yūki is far from him now, but Sakuma’s gaze is still on him as the soldiers also continue to walk past Sakuma.

And now Sakuma decides to end his sentence. ‘However,’ he begins and looks up at the sky, ‘I refuse to be a pawn who is used, then cast aside.’ The camera moves from Sakuma to the sky, till the sun comes into the picture. Sakuma’s sentence seems almost a challenge to the Gods. Sakuma is a man who’s not following anyone but himself. He’s not a spy but now he’s different from the soldiers who would humbly and mindlessly follow their commander.

The episode ends here. It’s a scene that’s slightly different from the one in the novel and in ‘D no Maō’ as in them Sakuma realized that wasn’t a thought a soldier should have and, in the novel, he was confused by it (as yes, in it too it was a thought a soldier shouldn’t have) but it’s acknowledged Sakuma can’t make that ‘new belief in him’ disappear, and his looking up at the sky is linked to doing so as if he’d hear someone snickering up there, while in the ‘D no Maō’ manga he dismissed such thought. The anime has a Sakuma that much more firm and confident in accepting he’s having thoughts soldiers shouldn’t have.

There’s to say ‘D no Maō’ made Sakuma’s refusal rather meaningful as, once he did it, he confesses to Yūki he’s going to be sent to the battlefield. In short, accepting Yūki’s offering would have spared him from going there and yet he refused, accepting his fate as a soldier and how it can lead him toward death. Ah, all the versions of Sakuma are cool in their own ways.

Oh, another side note. In the ‘Joker Game The Animation’ manga Sakuma delivers his final thoughts when he’s alone (the soldiers, those appearance was actually what made him realize he’s a soldier as well, have walked past him and Yūki has disappeared) and then he seems to disappear as well, as if to imply Sakuma has taken a third path, not the one Yūki took, nor the one of the soldiers but his own.

Still, that’s the end of ‘Joker Game’ Ep 2.

Ending theme.

We finish with the ‘preview for the next episode’ which, this time, is just a little bit of dialogue between the D Agency boys, one that we can’t say when it’s placed.

We’ve Hatano asking to Odagiri if he remembers that incident and Odagiri claiming he doesn’t. Hatano then drinks and tells him not to worry and that memories aren’t important. We see then glasses lying on the table and then Hatano wearing them claiming that ‘that was the right decision’.

It’s hard to say what they’re truly talking about, if what Odagiri doesn’t remember is the ‘incident’ that leaded him to become a D Agency student or something else. It might even be a fake story that he doesn’t remember an incident since the D Agency boys have all fake background stories as well as fake names. So we can’t really know.

Them talking so peacefully also contrasts a bit with how Hatano seems to have fun teasing Odagiri in Ep 12.

But well, the dialogue is mostly here to give us subtle hints about the next episode that will figure Hatano, disguising himself with glasses and suffering of amnesia but still managing to pull through and make the right decisions even without his memories.

Oh, by the way, during the preview we hear a bit of ‘Sakura haru’ [桜春 Spring of cherry blossoms], only here it’s cut short.

And this was Joker Game Ep 2. Thank you to everyone who was brave and patient enough to sit through my long, long ramblings for the whole episode. I hope other people will feel like sharing what they had observed while watching it!

#Joker Game #Sakuma #Miyoshi #Joker Game Anime #Yuuki #Kaminaga #Odagiri #John Gordon #Hatano #Jitsui #Fukumoto #Amari #Muto #JG Joker Game #Joker Game Random Thoughts #Joker Game ReWatching #Tazaki

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