Yuki Yuna is a Hero Season 2 Episode 12

I came away from the series' penultimate episode with very mixed feelings. On the one hand, this is the most dramatically dense and intense episode of the franchise to date – which is saying something. On the other hand, I was left wondering if Yuki Yuna wasn't finally pushing things too far.

It's not like the story is straying into territory beyond its normal boundaries, nor is it suddenly pulling out a crisis from nowhere. We've had overt hints for a couple of episodes now that Shinjyu-sama is waning, and subtler hints have been dropped that the girls' power is now limited from the start; before, they had to make sacrifices of bodily functions in exchange for power boosts. The reason Shinjyu-sama is bothering with those restrictions at all is because it's clearly not a limitless source of power. So it's not a surprise that a bigger sacrifice is required to renew it, leading to the whole business of Yuna “getting married” to Shinjyu-sama. In ancient times, making sacrifices of young women to appease the gods was often couched in terms of marrying the young woman off to the god, and since she has to ascend from the mortal realm to be with the god, that means she has to die in the process. What Yuna has to do ritually is merely a modern extension of that practice. It has to be Yuki because she's a Misugata, though I suspect that her greatest Hero aptitude probably plays into this too.

Yuna's struggle to convince herself to accept the situation forms the first part of this episode's drama, which can be a little difficult to watch. But it should be difficult, as she's being asked to take on a burden that goes beyond mere heroism for a cost that she doesn't deserve, even if it's considered the only way to save everyone. Naturally, her friends are fiercely unwilling to roll over and accept this, which results in the second part of this episode's intense drama. Watching the girls passionately try to talk Yuna out of this decision as she resorts to using the Hero Club tenets as verbal weapons is painful to watch, because we've been given ample evidence of how deep and strong the bond is between these girls, and we know that they all deserve better, especially Yuna.

But the series isn't done throwing weighty stuff around even after Yuna runs off. The girls meet the Taisha representative at the graveyard where Gin is interred, and there we learn another bitter truth; that whole graveyard is heroes and shrine maidens – girls like them - who have given their lives over the past three centuries. It's hard to imagine a stronger visual cue for the magnitude of what the girls have done.

Something else doesn't sit comfortably with me in all this. The whole scenario with Yuna performing the Shinkon is couched in frustratingly vague metaphysical terms, but there's a strong suggestion that the entire population will become something other than human as a result, since that's the only method that will get the attacks to stop. “Living with the Shinjyu-sama eternally”, becoming “people of god”, and Shinjyu-sama “managing” everyone are all vaguely ominous concepts, even though the Taisha doesn't seem to have insidious intent. Who exactly was angered enough by the girls' proximity to Shinjyu-sama to curse Yuna also remains vague. Even at this late point, we still aren't seeing the whole picture because we're still constrained by what the girls themselves know.

One thing is quite evident, though. The flaming wall is fast approaching and the girls have to fend it off just so that Yuna can sacrifice herself. This at least assures that the finale next week won't be dull.

Rating: A-

Yuki Yuna is A Hero Season 2 is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.