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Summary:
With their house still destroyed, Keita and Youko have taken up residence in a tent under a bridge. With no money in the bank, Youko decides to help out by going and finding work, but has very little success. Sitting alone, she thinks about how Keita had told her earlier that she hadn’t changed. Youko feels that she has changed: she had thought it would be easy to tell Keita about her true form, but it hasn’t been like that. She notices Hake standing nearby, and Hake takes her to the aquarium. Getting down to business, he tells her that the Dai Youko (Great Kitsune) has started to move. He explains that it’s a very powerful creature, one that’s been kept sealed by the Kawahira family. But now the force field has started to come apart. Youko knows this all too well because she was the one who had helped seal the Dai Youko – her father. Hake now needs Youko’s help in re-sealing her father.
Thinking about what she has to do, Youko watches from a rooftop as the sun sets. Keita walks up behind her, knowing that this is the same rooftop where they contracted. Youko confesses to him that she’s not an Inukami: she’s actually an enemy of the Kawahira family and the Inukami, the daughter of the Dai Youko. To her surprise, Keita is more impressed by this fact than anything other emotion since he had learned about the Dai Youko from his grandmother. He says that it doesn’t matter if she’s an Inukami or a Kitsune because the one he contracted with is Youko. He reiterates that she hasn’t changed, and neither has he. That’s why, even with this, their relationship hasn’t changed. Keita then presents her with some cake as a token of them renewing their contract, cake that he had bought with the last of his money. Youko happily accepts it, but then hears the growl of the Dai Youko. She flies alone off towards the mountains.
At the seal location, various small animals are attempting to reinforce the force field around the seal. However, their efforts are not enough to keep the Dai Youko at bay. Youko arrives just in time and the Dai Youko calms down to address his daughter. It’s been 300 years since they’ve seen each other, and the Dai Youko tries to get Youko to free him. But Youko apologizes and begins to re-seal her father. As she’s doing so, she tells him about how happy she is with Keita. With Keita, she can laugh from the bottom of her heart, and every day is enjoyable. Even if she had nothing else, as long as she had Keita, she’d be happy. As she’s re-sealing her father, the Dai Youko sees some of Youko’s memories with Keita. His last words declare that he’ll never permit her to be with a human. Afterwards, all the animals and even the Inukami applaud Youko for what she did. Returning home, Youko jumps onto Keita and declares that she loves him.
I had noted last week that Youko’s true form looked more like a fox than a dog, and just as I had suspected, Youko is indeed a Kitsune, not a dog type. And now that all the Dai Youko and Kitsune stuff comes out, everything starts making sense about Youko’s fire-based powers, her true form, why the other Inukami don’t like her, why her tail is so big, etc. And we now know what that rock from the beginning of the OP is too.
This episode does a good job of showing how important Keita is to Youko, and it also hints at the first time she and Keita met. I assume that that meeting is why Youko expected Keita to remember her name back in episode five.
And so this is like the third straight episode of Inukami that I’ve really enjoyed watching. It would be five straight great episodes because I enjoyed episode 10, but episode 11 wasn’t that good. Anyway, my point is that Inukami has become quite an enjoyable show. I hope it can continue going strong.
