境界のRINNE ep 23
Kyoukai no RINNE – 23

SPOILER Summary/Synopsis:

A sick Tsubasa is visited at home by Sakura, but he’s not happy to find Kain, Rinne, and Rokumon there as well.  After Sakura makes Tsubasa rice porridge, Tsubasa demands to know why the others are there. Kain produces a scroll which tells the tale of a nine-tailed kitsune (fox) that turned into a youkai and was eventually defeated by Rinne’s grandmother, Tamako. Despite undergoing many decades of spiritual washing in the afterlife’s laundry facility, the youkai kitsune still bore a grudge against Tamako and was determined to take revenge on her descendants, even though its power had weakened. Kain wants to capture it and figures hanging near Rinne is the best option to do that.

After the group leaves, Tsubasa is angry at not getting alone time with Sakura when the kitsune arrives, disguised as Rinne. In the battle that followed, Tsubasa’s illness gets the better of him, allowing the kitsune to possess him. At school the next day, Sakura notices that Tsubasa is acting weird and ending his sentences with “kon,” something a kitsune would do. Kain arrives, seeing Tsubasa is possessed. When Sakura attempts to makes sure that Kain doesn’t harm Tsubasa’s body, Tsubasa gains control of himself long enough to thank her. Rinne arrives, saying that Tsubasa and the kitsune are battling for supremacy in Tsubasa’s mind.

Kain and Rinne attack Tsubasa as the school sees Tsubasa just flailing around alone. Tsubasa repels their attacks and has the upper hand. Kain produces separation incenses, which causes the kitsune to partially come out of Tsubasa.  The two show Tsubasa’s power stone and summon the three, giant drop-spirits, who start slapping the crap out of Kain. Rinne suspects Tsubasa is working with the kitsune as Kain breaks free of the spirits and attacks. Tsbuasa-kitsune uses a cloning technique to endless copies of themselves. While Rinne battles Tsubasa-kitsune, Kain knocks the kitsune out with a washbasin. Rinne knocks Tsubasa-kitsune into it, sending them to the laundry room of the afterlife to be washed and purified.

Thoughts/Review:

I don’t remember this story from the manga, so it may be a story I’d not read, or it may be something original to the anime.

Watching this episode, I couldn’t help but be just a little reminded of the kitsune in Urusei Yatsura, mainly because of the term kitsune and the fact that both titles were originally done by Takahashi-sensei. Though while the kitsune stories in Urusei Yatsura mostly bored me, thankfully, the one in Kyoukai no RINNE did not.

The fact that over the 100 years, the spirit world “laundry room” (which the announcer kept insisting was absolutely NOT a laundry room) kept advancing its laundry technology to match washing machine technology on Earth amused me greatly.

Further, seeing the kitsune continuously getting laundered and cursing after each washing just made me chuckle.

I was also amused by the fact that after Tsubasa was possessed by the kitsune, he continued to use it as an excuse to attack Rinne and show off in front of Sakura, though he won no brownie p0ints with her.

The funniest moment came from Tsubasa’s teardrop shaped spirits slapping Kain silly.

Not sure when I’ll get to the next episode of the anime. Hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.