Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Hero Chapter – Episode 4 - Ai Animes 🤖

Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we are once more leveling our swords towards the uncaring heavens, as we charge through a fresh episode of Yuki Yuna is a Hero’s appropriately titled Hero Chapter. With our club members having successfully extracted Togo from the Black Hole of Perpetual Suffering, it would appear things have returned to normal for the moment. Of course, nothing good comes without a price, and this time that cost falls upon Yuna herself, who is now cursed to suffer the flames of creation in Togo’s place.

And frankly, that’s not even the worst part of this new curse. Having apparently learned from the acts of selfless solidarity that liberated prior heroes, the Divine Tree has appended this fresh hell with a non-disclosure clause, preventing Yuna from even confessing her suffering to her closest friends. As always, the powers that be have taken something inherently precious and honorable – Yuna’s willingness to shoulder her friends’ burdens – and warped it into a new tool of entrapment and abuse. I can only hope that Yuna’s increasingly obvious suffering draws her friends into action as we return to the hero club!

Episode 4

Fuu is out of the hospital and ready for new year’s shrine visits as we drop in, indicating it’s been two weeks since our last episode. Nice detail that Togo and Nogi are the only ones traditional or formal enough to be wearing a yukata, while basically everyone’s outfits riff on their primary character colors

Fuu laments how she’ll be graduating in March. Japan’s system of individually applying for high schools facilitates a lot of dramatic personal reflection at a fairly young age, since kids reach that point of separating from their “childhood selves” twice during adolescence, rather than only at the end of high school

Nogi seems to be following through on her revelation at the end of the last episode, swiftly noting Yuna’s unease at the thought of what her future might bring, and helping to cover for her by changing the subject

Extremely like Fuu to immediately strike a pin-up pose when she sees a camera on her. It feels like her years of playing parent to Itsuki must have played a part in her adopting all these goofy old-fashioned mannerisms

Togo claims she’s using the camera to record Fuu’s final days at the club, a cruel bit of dramatic irony considering Yuna’s presumed upcoming separation

Love that Nogi’s stuffed animal basically has Jouji Nakata’s voice

Yuki brightly declines the suggestion of visiting an onsen, still determined to hide her scar. Unfortunately, she’s normally such an enthusiastic person that her mask is already slipping

And more memorial photos as they complete another hero club mission. In spite of Yuna’s efforts, Fuu’s coming graduation means this episode is nonetheless saturated with a sense of tearful endings

More cruel dramatic irony, as Yuna is forced to watch Nogi and Togo karaoke about how in spite of all the hardships, they ended up meeting again someday

Sensing Yuna has something she’s unable to get off her chest, Karin takes her all the way to the port just to declare her apparent crush on Fuu, as an icebreaker for Yuna to reveal her own feelings. Honestly, I see it – Fuu’s leadership style has clearly been the most inspirational aspect of joining this group for Karin

“I’d do anything for you. I’m so happy that I have a friend I can feel that way for.” Heartbreaking expression of solidarity from Karin. While the Divine Tree seeks to exploit their kindness through all manner of misleading tricks, Karin is simply overjoyed to feel so strongly for another that she’d willingly take on their burdens. Basically the positive inverse of the Divine Tree’s philosophy; we want to sacrifice for one another, but we are forced to burn out our passion feeding the machine

The scene ends in the cruelest way it can, with Karin seeing Yuna’s refusal to share her burdens as an indication that Karin herself is not a trusted friend to her. We have fun here at Yuki Yuna, don’t we folks

“There must be something wrong that she can’t tell us about.” Fortunately, the ever-analytical Togo swiftly deduces the conditions on Yuna’s curse. While Karin’s faith in their bond is still fresh and fragile, Togo knows Yuna would never conceal something if she didn’t have a reason

Togo has of course developed a series of hand signals for giving silent command to her familiar. Always fun seeing them using their powers in these mundane settings

After Togo brings the evidence of Yuna’s activities to the rest of the group, Nogi reveals she’s been speaking with the representatives of the Divine Tree, who told her the nature of Yuna’s curse

The journal carries us back to the preceding year, just after the conclusion of the first season. Apparently the exchange happened right then, with Yuna’s spirit now caged within the void

“I tried to break out, but the world kept expanding and expanding, going on forever.” A novel and very Yuki Yuna-appropriate style of imprisonment: simply being left in negative space, where there are no walls or doors, but the scale of your isolation is so vast you couldn’t possibly imagine ever finding an exit. Definitely feels in kind with the generally staggering scale of this universe’s larger conflicts, which draw directly on that Lovecraftian fear of not being actively hunted by extraplanar beings, but being so insignificant in comparison to them that they can’t even notice your presence, or feel it when their own actions obliterate your world

Suspended in this void, it was Togo’s voice that called her back. As always, it is less their own strength than their capacity to embody strength for the sake of their friends that saves them

“A hero would never leave a crying friend behind.” Like the rules of their club, Yuna’s belief in the nature of a hero is more binding and true than the nature of the universe itself

She is met by a blue crow in the void, which seems to beckon her to follow it. Some interesting mythology they’re building here

In the wake of their first season “victory,” their bodies became like those in Madoka – replacement parts constructed by the Divine Tree

“As long as the world of flames existed, there was no chance that my body could heal.”

“And that I probably won’t make it until spring.” Thus the particular sharpness of all this “oh no Fuu’s going to high school” lamentation

“I feel more energetic when I’m with everyone, but I have to be careful not to spread it. So I talk less.” These scenes were painful enough the first time through!

“The hot sake was delicious, but I threw it all up at home.” Really one of Yuki Yuna’s signature tricks here, putting such a brave face on tragedy that it feels even more tragic

“Lately, I really like hearing the words ‘see you tomorrow.’” Her notes feel like the journal of someone suffering from a progressive cancer, but without even the comfort of support from her loved ones

“I have to sleep a lot and heal my body. But I’m scared of sleeping with the lights off. The darkness scares me.” God, what a horrible explanation for the lights being on – feeling like if you fall asleep in darkness, the darkness will take you at last

“Today I hurt Karin.”

I love Togo’s look of total, determined fury as they reach the end of the notebook. Sometimes she can call upon that “if God made this unjust world, then I will unmake it” energy from the end of season one, and I am always here for it

Of course Karin feels particularly wretched, having put that accidental extra strain on Yuna

Thus Togo makes her decision. TIME TO KILL GOD AGAIN, FOLKS!

And Done

Eaaaggghhhh, that was agonizing! This franchise always loves to draw out its periods of excruciating dramatic irony, and I think this might have been the nastiest one so far, banking heavily and successfully on Yuna’s utter determination to not involve her friends in her ruin. That journal reading in particular was an unexpectedly torturous addendum, effectively making use of Yuna’s gallant, straightforward affectation to make her documentation of the abuse all the more devastating. But we’re through, folks – we have passed the threshold of ignorance, and are now equipped to once more take this fight back to its true architects. Weapons free, Togo. Take ‘em all down.

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