Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii

Episode 10

Every great mystery must have a parlor room scene; every heist story ends with an explanation of how they did it. In the same way, “I Would Rather You Hate Me than Not Care, Part 3” consists largely of Yoshino and Kirishima sitting Ozu down and describing all the ways they foiled him. He scowls and pouts as the two of them recline on a comfortable-looking couch in a fancy bar lounge.

Here's why the two of them are an unstoppable pair: they worked in tandem without knowing the details of one another's plans, each doing enough to bring about the spoiled fuckboy's downfall. Yoshino describes how, thanks to a three-hour stakeout, she spotted a car with a Tokyo plate and followed it to a Kobe hotel, leading her to Ozu's base of operations. As fun as the explanation is, this was one element that stretched my suspension of disbelief. Maybe it's my American car-based culture speaking, but the 500-km drive from Tokyo to Kobe doesn't seem so outrageous that there wouldn't be anyone else in Kobe driving around with Tokyo license plates. Like, yeah the shinkansen is faster and easier, but it's also expensive. Plausible or not, it worked, and Yoshino took it upon herself to keep Ozu occupied.

Ozu tries to play innocent, claiming he was worried about Nao consorting with Kirishima. After all, she's trying to move up the ladder as a media personality! Hanging out with a yakuza's grandson could damage her reputation! He was just expressing his concern, no blackmail involved. And he's not totally lying. When he confronted Nao, he just made… implications. No actual threats. No true blackmail. So she agreed to go along with him. Because of the implications.

But you know who's not above blackmail? Kirishima. And you know who else is trying to advance their media career? Ozu's mom. So naturally, Kirishima arranged for a guy he knows to initiate and record a tryst with her. It's ethically dubious at best, and she almost certainly didn't agree to have it recorded, but at the very least, the sex was fully consensual, and it seemed like she was having a good time. Unlike her son.

Ozu does his best to recover, threatening to ruin their lives in a hilariously pathetic attempted show of power. But that doesn't work on people like Yoshino and Kirishima. For one thing, they have just as much dirt on him, considering he pressed alcohol on a high school student. Another thing is that they really don't care about getting along in society, and there's nothing Ozu can do to hurt them. Hitomi Ueda is brilliant here as Yoshino, gradually slipping into the hallmarks of masculine, tough-guy Japanese with rolled rs and a deeper register. And thus, Ozu slinks off, defeated.

But don't go thinking she's totally cool. Yoshino is still a bit of a dork. First, there were her protestations at Ozu's shock that she was underage, but even better was when she and Shoma discussed her stakeout. She did it in a deeply uncool kei truck with tinted windows, sticking out far more than she would have in a luxury vehicle. She even whispered, “Sneak sneak sneak sneak” to herself as she snuck around. This ploy got her noticed by both Shoma and Kirishima.

The second half of the episode is, in some ways, a mirror of the first, as Kirishima and Yoshino describe their own machinations against one another. That cute little keychain Yoshino gave Kirishima? A tracking device intended to check whether he cared about her enough to keep it. She caught Kirishima coming out with Nao, and her choice to approach the other woman at the college was just as calculated as the rest of her moves.

Kirishima has spent a lot of time doting on her, but this episode offers a reminder: he is, in many ways, like a wild animal. Not a loyal pet, but a person who, when he needed help as a child, was instead cast off and subjected to emotional neglect along with physical and sexual abuse. We don't yet know what caused the incident in sixth grade that caused his violent outburst, but everything that came after only further damaged him. So when he puts his hand around her throat and comments on how sometimes he's not sure if he wants to cherish her or ruin her, it's a reminder that Yoshino is still very much in a dangerous situation. Even if she responds in her typical blase manner.

And thus ends the much-lauded Osaka arc of Yakuza Fiancé. With only a couple of episodes left and several volumes of manga left unadapted, I'm not sure what they're going to do to conclude the anime series. Is there a convenient stopping point coming up? Will they just leave things dangling? This certainly isn't the kind of production that will come up with its own ending. Whatever it is, I'm here for it.

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Yakuza Fiancé: Raise wa Tanin ga Ii is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.