キルラキル episode 12
KILL la KILL ep. 12 SPOILER Review

Synopsis:

With Uzu out of the way and Nui revealing she killed Ryuuko’s father, Ryuuko becomes furious, ignoring Senketsu’s warnings. Nui snags a Banshi thread from Senketsu, but since he has other such threads, he does not fall apart. Nui is impressed as she recounts her encounter with Dr. Matoi, who’d been sent there to investigate his work. After learning his lab coat contained seimeiseni threads, Nui unleashes on him. Dr. Matoi reveals his secret weapon – Tachikiri-hasami, the giant seimeiseni cutting scissors. After taking one hit from it, Nui easily avoids it, then takes it from Matoi and stabs him. Nui gets distracted when Ryuuko comes home, allowing Matoi to take half the scissor and remove Nui’s left eye. She butchers him for it before fleeing the scene.

This news causes Ryuuko to lose control, overwhelming Senketsu, both of whom transform and go berserk. Realizing what Nui is after, Satsuki heads down to intervene. When Mako learns that Ryuuko will die from blood loss, she races out to stop her friend, hitching a ride with her family, who’d just arrived to witness the battles. Satsuki orders the elite four to evacuate the students while Tsumugu goes down to try to stop Ryuuko. Satsuki activated Junketsu, while Nui continues to battle the berserker Ryuuko. When Tsumugu shows up, Nui is easily able to avoid his rain of special needles before he turns his attention to Ryuuko. Nui decides to remove this interference, so Tsumugu flees, leading Nui into a massive, explosive trap, which does not harm Nui.

Satsuki arrives at where Ryuuko is, where she scolds Nui for her revenge motivation in attacking Ryuuko. Further, Satsuki scolds Nui for not noticing Senketsu back then because she was caught up with Tachikiri-hasami. Satsuki yells at Ryuuko to get control, which Nui says in impossible. Satsuki has Nui back off with her sword, then battles Ryuuko. Since Ryuuko is being consumed, Satsuki has the advantage. Going for a final clash, Satsuki is forced to hold back due to Mako’s determined effort to reach Ryuuko. Nui comes to stop it but Satsuki stops her, allowing Mako to reach Ryuuko and return her to normal. Ryuuko bans Nui from school, though Nui has no intention of obeying. Sometime later, Ryuuko approaches Satsuki, who reveals her role in Isshin’s death, and how Ryuuko helped her perfect her Goku robes in order to take out opposition schools.

Thoughts/Review:

Ah, the fun of KILL la KILL, eh? I guess we now know why Nudist Beach were so worried about Senketsu.

Unknown made this comment regarding my theory that Satsuki is raising an army against her mother.

Ryuuko is, in a way, a one-person live-fire testing. She is easily the most powerful opponent Satsuki has at this point, someone perfect to test your weapons and tactics against. She pretty much set it all up in the third episode after her fight with Ryuuko. She told Ryuuko to fight her way through her army and thanks to that she could manipulate Ryuuko to cleanse her army of weaklings and to test various weapons and uniforms she produced.

Satsuki confirmed she’s been using Ryuuko to test and improve her Goku robes. No wonder Satsuki was not troubled by Houka conceding the match so that he wouldn’t lose that precious data.

As usual, Satsuki was awesome here. She may have been disgusted with Ryuuko losing control as she did, but she wasn’t going to allow Nui to kill her. It wasn’t until Satsuki realized she wasn’t going to reach Ryuuko with words that she decided to put an end to her, which despite being a loss of an asset (I strongly believe Ryuuko and Satsuki will be allies down the road), would still be a win of sorts for Satsuki as it would have her dispatching a problem for her family.

Satsuki continued to show her samurai honor in this episode, not only in the way she’d be the one to kill Ryuuko, but in how she had the Elite Four get the students to safety. Then, when Mako comes “swimming” in, Satsuki holds back on the killing blow, instead turning her blade on Nui to make sure Nui didn’t interfere. She wanted Mako to succeed in restoring Ryuuko’s sanity.

I do find Satsuki’s chat with Ryuuko at the end of the episode to be interesting. Despite everything, Ryuuko is still bent on getting revenge and wants Nui, even though no one even touched her in the earlier battle. Satsuki knows that Ryuuko can’t take Nui, so she has Ryuuko focus that anger and rage back to herself, since she was the one Ryuuko was after in the first place. Ryuuko has to learn control over her emotions, and I think Satsuki is about to teach her that.

Nui, on the other hand, is something else completely. Not only is she sadistic, as seen in how she butchered Dr. Matoi after he took her eye, but she’s pretty much untouchable, more impressive when you consider the eye loss. To be honest, I think that the only reason Nui backed off when Satsuki demanded it wasn’t fear of Satsuki, but the fact that “Satsuki-sama” is part of the Kiryuuin family, whom Nui serves. If I’m right and Satsuki goes against her mother, I don’t think Satsuki could defeat Nui on her own.

As for Mako, well, Mako is Mako, and in her own way, awesome as well. Seriously, after being burned by Ryuuko’s berserker form, she gets happy because she got a free tan. ^_^

This series really continues to surprise me with how it shifts things up constantly, while still providing certain elements fans want, including Ryuuko’s second clash with Satsuki. I look forward to the next episode with great anticipation.