Introduction

Four episodes into the series and Occult Academy has firmly established itself as a dark comedy with a interesting take on aspects of the occult. In this latest episode we discover that Fumiaki is not the most reliable narrator and some (non-sexual) tension is added to his relationship with Maya.

Episode Summary and Analysis

At the Academy the Vice Principal informs Fumiaki that the Principal (Maya) and Kozue are missing and affectionately asks him to help search for them with her. Fumiaki agrees to search but suggests they split up and leaves the office.

In the Vice Principal’s office she tells her subordinate that Maya is sticking her head into things again. Her subordinate then asks her what is the point in seducing Fumiaki, to which she responds by asking, if is it wrong for her to fall in love.

So it appears that the Vice Principal having a crush on Fumiaki is going to be an ongoing plot point, and may even have plot significance later down the line if her feelings are genuine. We also learn that as I speculated last week Kozue is genuinely missing and an apparant victim of the “Tengu”.

One thing that I found curious was that it is clear that Maya is being an annoyance to the Vice Principal and her subordinate. This being the case then why would she ask Fumiaki to look for her? why not simply leave things as they are and play out naturally as there would be a good chance the “Tengu” would kill her. This and the end of the episode suggest that things may not be quite as black and white as we are being led to believe in terms of the Vice Principals attitude towards Maya.

In the town Fumiaki discovers a missing persons search group and runs into Mikaze again who then teams up with him to help search for Maya and Kozue. A little later they get a lead and head to Minakamiyama. On the way there Mikaze thinks she spots someone near Amato Shrine so they go out to investigate.

While there is no one in the shrine, they discover the entrance to some tunnels under the mountain when Mikaze falls onto Fumiaki knocking him into the wall. They then both set out to investigate the tunnel. During the investigation Mikaze tells Fumiaki that a spiritual power may be at work in the mountain causing him to panic and run away when a drop of water falls down his neck.

So after a little plot contrivance we have Mikaze and Fumiaki team up for the second episode in row. This then serves to remind us of the terror of Mikaze’s driving and start to establish Fumiaki’s cowardice and duplicity best illustrated by his dismay when he realises Mikaze has torches on her after they discover the tunnel and he had stated he would go if they had some light.

Fumiaki’s terror run is also notable for the comedy value as it is “narrated” by the Vice Principal as she writes love poetry about him with the dialog being apropos for the scene.

When Fumiaki calms down he discovers he is lost as the tunnel had split in two. He think he has found Mikaze when he spots a light ahead only to discover that it’s Maya who found the tunnels linked to the Zouzan Bunker after escaping from the monster. Meanwhile JK and Smile are also investigating the mountain area and are closing in on them.

Inside the tunnels, Fumiaki and Maya enter a large cave and uncover an item that Maya thinks is the world tree and the source of the power at Minakamiyama. They initially think it is the Nostradamus Key but the camera shows otherwise. The edge of the ledge Fumiaki was standing on then collapses and he falls into a pool of excrement and uncovers his predecessors’ mobile phone.

So rather than actually see how Maya escapes from the “Tengu” we just get informed that this is the case instead. I was disappointed by this and would have liked to see a short scene of her escaping instead. It is also clear that she is still annoyed about Fumiaki’s “dereliction of duty” from the previous episode when he went on a date with Mikaze instead of hunt for the Tengu. There is also a reminder that despite her expressed hatred of the occult there is at least a part of her who likes it given the enthusiasm with which she talks about background details.

One thing I did find strange was how Mikaze was for essentially forgotten about for the rest of the episode until she turns up at the end and I am not sure if it was simply due to the writers not having the time to include any comments about her or if it is meant to point to Fumiaki despite having a crush on her being too self centered to remember she exists.

I found the world tree in this episode a bit of a disappointment as it was more of a world tree stump. I hope that it was not simply put in to tick a mythology box but will have some plot relevance later on as otherwise there seemed little point to include it, perhaps it will be a Chekov’s Tree for the series?

As Maya complains to Fumiaki about his smell the Tengu which is revealed to be a giant moth attacks causing them to run away. After they escape Maya complains that Fumiaki isn’t using any of his power and doesn’t have any futuristic weapons and insists he does something about the Giant Moth. Fumiaki then admits he was lying about being a top class time agent.

In a new flashback we see Fumiaki begging on the streets when he is forcibly conscripted into being a time agent and forced to go back in time against his will. Maya then walks away in disgust calling him a useless time agent and that he stinks.

Back in the second episode, I noted that Fumiaki did not come across as cocky as his future or past self, in this episode we discover the reason for this is that he was lying through his teeth when describing his recruitment. This also explains why Fumiaki was apparently sunning himself on a beach living a life of leisure in a time of crisis for humanity. This is again explained when we learn he was actually destitute and begging for a living.

There is however still the question of why was Fumiaki chosen for the mission, and assuming that the opening scene of the first episode was accurate been tracked by the time agency. The most likely explanation that I currently have is that as previously suggested only people who had or have psychic powers can be sent back in time.

While Fumiaki’s lying does call into question everything we have learnt from him, from his actions to date and the camera phone photographs I think it is safe to assume that the main mission goal to find the Nostradamus Key to prevent a disaster is accurate, but that other things we have learnt may not be the whole truth.

Maya’s response of disgust to this revelation is completely in character, since she has not had that positive a view of him to start with and all Fumiaki seems to do is dig himself deeper into trouble.

Maya then tells Fumiaki that the Tengu is probably a Mothman and starts to look in the diary for a spell to use. At that point they find themselves inside a nest and discover Kozue inside a cocoon. As Maya struggles to get Kozue out of the cocoon, a Mothman attacks which she manages to kill and she eventually gets an unconscious Kozue free. It is at this point they both discover that there is not 1 or 2 Mothmen in the cave but dozens.

This causes Fumiaki to run away in a panic and he manages to escape the cave system. Meanwhile Maya is struggling to fight off the swarm of Mothmen and is about to be eaten when she is rescued by JK and Smile. Maya then spots Fumiaki’s phone which he dropped and uses it to check if the Mothmen are the Nostradamus key, which they are not. JK and Smile are starting to struggle with the numbers of Mothmen, so JK brings out his Keytar to use.

JK brought this along as real moths are sensitive to certain frequencies of sound and it is just as effective against the Mothmen. They then use the opportunity to escape from the cave along the same route that Fumiaki used eventually meeting up with him.

As I suspected in the last episode JK plays a role in rescuing Maya thanks to tracking down the “Tengu”. What I did not expect was that he would also play a “serious” role in knowing how to defeat them, though I did find the mechanism “slightly” contrived and this was not limited to having his bag apparently being linked to hammerspace.

Kozue being captured (and surviving) also confirms her status as the designated victim for the series. What I did wonder about was where there any other surviving victims in the other cocoons and if so what happened to them, and how long Kozue had been there for.

I also wonder which phone Maya picked up, was it Fumiaki’s or Abe #5, and regardless of which will she now keep hold of it since Fumiaki is deservedly in her bad books following his cowardice in this episode.

A moment later some bombs explode sealing off the cave. Maya then decides to head back to the academy leaving Fumiaki by himself after calling him a coward in disgust. Fumiaki is not despondent for long as Mikaze appears and he tells her that he has dealt with the Tengu problem.

Back at the academy the Vice Principal congratulates her subordinate on a job well done on hearing the caves are sealed before commenting that Maya is a lot of trouble.

Given that the Vice Principal is responsible for the sealing of the caves and thinks Maya is troublesome I wonder why she wasnt sealed in the caves as from a villains perspective it would solve a lot of problems, though given how soon after she exited the caves the bombs went off it is possible she just got lucky. Sealing the caves also implies that either the Mothmen where causing more trouble than they where worth or there was something in the caves that the Vice Principal did not want Maya discovering.

The relationship between Fumiaki and Maya also appears to have hit a new low, and it will be interesting to see how things progress in the next couple of episodes given that Fumiaki has been exposed as a liar and a coward.

The final thing I found suspicious was Mikaze’s sudden appearance at the end, while it could just have been a plot contrivance to assure us she was fine, the timing and way she found Fumiaki rather than the other way round increase my suspicions of her though they could very well be groundless.

Closing Thoughts

I found the Collapse of BUNMEI a very appropriate title for this episode as it is the episode in which my opinion of the character as a decent human being collapsed. While his lying about his origins is understandable and forgivable, his cowardice in this episode is not and it is easy to understand why Maya was disgusted with him.

If he had grabbed hold of Maya and Kozue when the Mothmen appeared then his actions could be excusable but he just left them there to die and it is clear if JK and Smile hadn’t turned up they both would have been killed. It is also telling that despite having affection towards Mikaze he does not really think or mention her at all, and then to make matters worse when he bumps into her claims he dealt with the Tengu single handed.

Moving on, the episode has also led me to question how much of people’s motives and past can actually be trusted. While Fumiaki is now an unreliable narrator and I would not be surprised if some of the rest of his information is if not untrue only half true, it’s possible the same could be said for Maya’s father as well.

One scenario that is possible is that his diary is full of lies and he wanted to bring the prophecies about and the diary is meant to trick Maya into doing so, though this theory has the flaw that if this was the case then Fumiaki should have seen a restored future when he imagined destroying the diary. A lot depends on if Maya’s father wrote the diary before or after he started to go mad with the occult. If it was before, then it should be accurate within the limits of his knowledge, but if it was after then all bets are off.

In terms of the direction of the series for the next few episodes, I think some work needs to be done to rebuild the relationship between Fumiaki and Maya which is at a new low. Fumiaki also needs to start redeeming himself but the next episode preview does not sound hopeful on that front. Hopefully there will also be some development of the side characters like JK, Smile, Kozue and Ami (who was absent from this episode).

Episode Rating

7/10 – Another solid installment of Occult Academy which left me wondering how much we can trust the information we have been given to date