Izumo, sorry to hear about your story.
For a one-generation short summary in one chapter, this is good.
It is interesting to note that the Kamiki family is only a branch family, obtaining divine powers after interbreeding with a fox god. (That is one load of surprise to behold, “interbreeding.” Moreover, I surely am not the only one who wonders about the coming of the Okumura brothers.) However, generations after, the powers were similar to an average person, little to nothing, so the fox gods lends them the divine power. This opening to the past of Izumo Kamiki transitioned well.
This was the perfect chance to develop two things: the story driven by the past (for which it is explained now) and the coming of the characters, particularly Izumo, her mother, and the newly-introduced mad scientist.
The child Izumo seemed stoic, composed, and seemed to be better than her mother. Her appearance led me to think the stereotyped kid-taking-care-of-mom. Her mother would be the crybaby, which was the surprising opposite of the usual content, but baffling to see the fox gods loving him dearly. It may be perhaps her elegance and dedication to do the Kamioroshi, a dance dedicated to the fox gods. Nevertheless, it surprises me now to see the fox gods’ despise Izumo despite bearing some sort of morale and responsibility too much for a small child.
Her mother had a calm composure, a down-to-earth girl with seemingly no common sense at all. It was somehow hard to digest her casual orders to the fox gods, let alone they are called “gods” for a reason. Soon enough, her burden piled up with her blinded love for Sou, the chief priest. The chief priest disliked the kids and addressed it to her mother in a very subtle way; however, her mother broke down, and left her duties irresponsibly.
Soon enough, the damage took its toll. She was possessed by the spirit, killed the chief priest, and presumably the rest of the servers. The little, level-headed Izumi called the Illuminati in hopes of they would save her mother from the possession.
Despair was all that left me in this episode, a flashback living up to the premise of the series… though, this is awful, too awful to even sympathize Izumo. Looking back, she, who has only two fox gods that poorly obey her, is under captivity of the Illuminati that may soon be a human subject of their dreadful experiment. Recalling the previous chapter’s appearance of her mother, I could only be taken back by Izumo’s horrifying expression of disgust seeing her desperate mother or the experiments on her mother.
Rating: 4.5/5
It hit two birds with one stone, that is, the story and the character development. The story was shaped better than usual; that’s a huge thumbs up for me. The characters from the past and now were consistent that I have to applaud them. Not many could pull this off.
Adrift Culture 