MARRIAGETOXIN ‒ Episode 12

While we've still got another episode to go before wrapping up the season, we've more or less come to the end of the current arc, and with how uneven most of it has felt, I'm about ready to see the show move on from it. MARRIAGETOXIN is at its best when it's making full use of both sides of its rom-com to battle shonen formula, and most of this arc has leaned just a bit too much on the battle shonen end of that spectrum to increasingly mixed levels of execution. Unfortunately, this episode doesn't do too much to buck that trend, as there still isn't a ton going on here beyond a lot of the battle shonen fluff, and while it certainly goes above and beyond in giving us an action-packed climax to this arc, it doesn't quite feel like a great one.

Most of the episode is spent wrapping up Gero's fight with Dogo, and while Dogo might have come the closest to actually being a match for Gero, that doesn't really mean much when Gero's poisons are still capable of just about anything. In fact, pushing Gero harder ends up backfiring on him, as Gero takes in more of his own poisons than usual, which somehow ends up unlocking the true power of his abilities as a Poison Master and makes his poisons so potent that they can infect Dogo just by touching him. I can see what this was going for symbolically, as Gero even bothering to take the risk of an overdose required him to break free of the rule that's been drilled into him since childhood of never taking any actions beyond his perceived capabilities, and doing so marks Gero taking another step in becoming a more fully realized person. At the same time, this is far from the first time he's had this sort of breakthrough. While Dogo might be tougher than some of the other assassins Gero has fought, the emotional stakes of this fight aren't quite high enough for this moment to feel rewarding, so in execution, it just comes off as a convenient power-up (which even the show itself isn't above pointing out). Now given that MARRIAGETOXIN's fights generally aren't taking themselves too seriously, this wouldn't really be worth complaining about by itself, but what does make the moment a little groaning is that it's preceded by a few solid minutes of pure exposition to build up to it, and since the only part of all this that really matters is Gero breaking a little more free of his programming, at least half of it could have been cut without missing much of substance.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only part of the episode that didn't quite feel like it was worth its lead-up, as Kimie's contribution to the climax here also left me a bit underwhelmed. Like the bit with Gero's toxin overdose, Kimie rallying a bunch of the other discarded Beast Clan members together and using their love of for their animal partners to tame Dogo's chimera transformation felt like a thematically fitting way for a guy obsessed with eugenics to get taken down, but it didn't pack the same level of flare as what we got with Shiori's arc a few weeks ago, and considering how little Kimie has had to do for the last few episodes otherwise, I was hoping she'd at least get a scene on par with that one, but alas, the attention here is still mostly on the fights. Speaking of which, if there's one aspect of this episode I have no problem praising, it's the animation quality of the fight scenes, as between Dogo turning himself into a chimeric abomination, and Gero showing off the full extent of how dangerous his poisons can be, there's certainly no shortage of cool looking action here, and for all my grumbling here, I also can't pretend like Gero's final takedown of Dogo doesn't look absolutely sick, so BONES is still killing it when it comes to the presentation.

Still, for as much as I'm down for some quality sakuga, the narrative behind a battle shonen fight is something I tend to value more than just how good it looks. Since Dogo still isn't much else but a heel, it doesn't leave much to get emotionally invested in beyond wanting to watch him get punched in the face. Even his backstory doesn't do much to help with that. Seeing him ostracized by the other Beast Clan members for having a small animal like a bat for a partner is effective in explaining how he became the way he is, but it's immediately followed by him gleefully slaughtering everyone who mocked him. If this was also meant to elicit sympathy for him, I don't think it succeeded there. Being so largely unrepentant also makes it a little strange that neither Gero nor the masters he's kidnapped seems miffed about letting him off without much consequence. Even just going off her brief appearance, Dogo's sister seems like she's probably a lot less merciful, so it at least doesn't look like he'll be riding off into the sunset. Even if it wasn't on a high note, I'm still happy to see this arc mostly wrapped up, and since that should probably be it for the battle shonen theatrics this season, I'm hoping the finale can swing back around to offer a few more rom-com shenanigans before hitting the road.

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MARRIAGETOXIN is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.