I liked this episode. It doesn't do things that differently from the last couple but it does them well enough to make the watching experience enjoyable. This episode is a Kai focused one and we once again take a look into the pasts of him and Aichi but with some more things expanded on while also seeing the fallout of the last couple of episodes in addition to setting up the final fight of the season: the rematch between Aichi and Kai.
You think you're a jerk here? You should see how much of an asshole you are in OG and Asia Circuit!
Aichi defeats Ren who acknowledges him as a worthy opponent as the two nearly pass out from the strain of their fight. Kai is also back on his feet as Aichi says he'll gladly fight Ren at any time now that he's not a yandere psychopath as we cut to the opening. After it we see that Aichi's out with a fever and Kai likely was as well but rather than stay in bed and sleep it off he instead opts to revise his deck much to Miwa's surprise wheras Kai admitting that he was a jerk in trying to make Aichi quit doesn't shock him. Honestly I was surprised to see him say this but that's character development for you. V's character arcs are...a thing but Kai's is one of the better ones that we see.
It's called developing a personality generic anime girl that will never speak again.
Speaking of character development we see Aichi back in school the next day chatting it up with Morikawa about his fight with Ren which some nearby students comment on as until this point nobody has seen him act so happy. In addition to this we see him stand face to face with Kai after accepting his challenge for a fight and not only maintain his composure but also embrace the situation they're in. Miwa's description of their paths as "they met as friends, met again as mentor and student and now meet as rivals" is quite accurate (as well as a literal description of the evolution of their relationship throughout the 4 seasons of the OG series). The fight itself also has a significant animation bump reminiscent of the beginning of the series with some fast paced action scenes that do a decent job of visually describing the pace of the fighting.
It's also during this fight that Aichi's PSY-Qualia manifests again and he tries to suppress it because he's against Kai but in another moment that surprised me the latter tells him to not hold back and use it instead while demanding an all out fight. Emi is scared by this and asks why Kai wants to fight like this which makes him wonder the same thing. Que another series of flashbacks about Kai moving away and meeting Ren and...wait, what? They're showing us what caused him to move away? Well that's a first.
I mean winning IS fun.
It turns out Kai's parents stole from the family company and high tailed it out leaving him behind. He's taken in by someone who promises they'll get along but he shits on him behind his back and wants Kai taken off his hands. Kai ends up in the care of another family but they also pass him off to someone else and the cycle repeats for years leaving him bitter. Its during this time that Kai comes across a card shop and beats the local playerbase and is happy that he won while also discovering that at that shop there are none of the problems he has at home. However it's because of this that he grew to become obsessed with winning which made him become the Kai that Ren encountered.
Futaba? Is that you?
This is all being done while progressing the fight so as Kai is having his epiphany about why he grew to be such a tryhard Aichi proceeds to double crit him with is PSY-Qualia on full display but he isn't bothered by this. The episode ends with Kai staring the viewer in the face as he figures out that his journey up to this point is why he was called the "Solitary Fighter." Given what we now know about his history the name is sadly too fitting. The nickname sounds cool to the people who don't know about Kai's past but to us it's now not so flattering. I'll give the writers props for giving us an actual explanation as to why changed so much from the kid that Aichi met to the grouch that he is now as that kind of stuff would cause someone to become naturally jaded. It also would make sense in the original continuity too given how little we know about Kai in that timeline. Stay tuned for next week when we get our Season Finale as well as the continuation of this fight.
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