MAO ‒ Episode 12

Following all that happened last week, it's not surprising that this week's episode was more focused on exposition than anything else. Or more specifically, introducing this shadowy water sorcerer who's been after Mao: Not Masago, as everyone in-universe seemed to suspect. Rather, someone else named Shiranui. Someone about whom we still don't know many details, just that he worked closely with Masago and was nowhere near as talented. And it sounds like it still isn't.

But speaking of talents, what a cute scene that moment with Hyakka was—where he gave them udon, saying this was going to be his next gig, and so on. I like his sort of reluctant comrade vibe. He's quickly growing to be one of my favorite members of the cast, and he's obviously the funniest one around, too. That guy gets it.

In any case, it's starting to strike me pretty hard how, despite how fast-paced things were at the start (which, again, is typical and very purposeful in Takahashi's series), things have finally reached a slower stretch. I was hoping these were one-off blips, but I think I've finally come to terms with the idea that we've just reached a slower segment of the series overall. Still moving faster than some of Takahashi's previous series, to be fair (cough InuYasha cough), but it's getting harder and harder to deny that ever since the encounter between Mao, Nanoka, and the Byoki, there's just less and less happening each episode.

Still, that brings me to the end of the episode—where another encounter between Nanoka and the Byoki started up. I won't comment on her leaving behind her protection beads, silly as a decision as that may be—I'm not beyond believing that she might have just forgotten them, even if I doubt most people in her situation would ever dare to take them off. Though, by the looks of it, even if she kept them on, it doesn't seem like they'd do much (if anything at all) to help her. They broke, and unless those get fixed, that's likely to become a problem down the road. But for now, there's a bigger problem in that the Byoki has found Nanoka and she can't meaningfully defend herself against him without Mao there.

Basically, there's a promise that the next episode will have some more meat to it, but this one? Not so much. I'm still very much engaged in the mystery of the whole thing, though—of what went down that night a full millennium ago, and why things are only now seeming to come of it—but it's hard to deny that Takahashi's old pacing habits die hard, even if this episode demonstrates some noticeable improvement. Despite slowing down, this show still has my full attention. If nothing else, I'm looking forward to next week, which will hopefully either give us some answers or at least deepen the mystery (or give us some worthy clues).

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MAO is currently streaming on Hulu.