Previously on Beyond the Boundary:

Mirai & friends tried to capture a youmu that lived on the school roof. However despite all of their training they were unsuccessful and got a stinky present as their reward. Spoilers Ahead!

The Literary Club is up to their usual (or unusual) club business until Shizuku tells them some surprising news, Sakura is transferring to their school. Knowing that she’s come for Mirai, Akihito & the others try to offer help but she shrugs them off and tells her there is nothing to worry about. The next day Mirai & Sakura meet in the city marketplace to settle their score once and for all.

Getting back on track with the main plot, this episode of Beyond the Boundary ties up some plot points and gives us more insight into our characters.

Things start to come to ahead early on when it’s revealed Sakura will be joining the school. While Akihito, Hiromi, & Mitsuki are understandably concerned about this but Mirai shrugs them off saying that she will handle it. What’s interesting about this is that Mitsuki & Hiromi even offer to get Izumi involved, just shows how powerful the Nase family is.

Mirai Vs. Sakura

Even though the climax deals with Mirai & Sakura’s broken relationship, the build up deals with Sakura herself and we spend most of the episode with her. We learn that her weapon which is revealed she received from Miroku, the Spirit Warrior investigator from a few episodes back, is able to absorb the cores of youmu she kills in order to grow stronger. We also get to see a flash back at the top of the episode with Yui explaining the Hollow Shadow to her.

 Akihito finds Sakura unconscious after fighting a group of youmu and Akihito is able to use her weapon, desite it burning him because he’s half youmu. He takes her back to his home until she gets awakes and even cooks her a meal, which she says is disgusting and things get even more hectic when Mirai appears to return the phone Akihito dropped. These two moments speak to both Akihito’s character and the show as a whole. He takes care of someone who wants one of his friends dead and he tells Mirai the truth about Sakura being in his house (even though he partly did it because Mirai was flipping out over the extra pair of shoes as his door).

Mirai & Sakura finally settle their score in the city’s marketplace. Despite Sakura’s best efforts she realizes she can’t beat Mirai when the fight goes underground into the sewers. Sakura is still desperate to kill Mirai, but when the latter explains that she desires to live on for both Sakura and Yui, Sakura learns the error of her ways and yields. However due to Sakura’s low spirit power the spear tries to devour her but Mirai saves her. Sakura remembers how she comforted Mirai after Yui’s death and the two reconcile, but things don’t stay happy for long as Miroku recovers the spear in order to find the Hollow Shadow, and Izumi & Mitsuki witness a phenomenon known as the Calm spreading through Nagatsuki City; which Izumi says foreshadows an event called Beyond the Boundary (points for title drop).

“Color of Clouds” is a good episode to bring us right back into the main plot of the story. Mirai & Sakura reconcile nicely and their fight scene is pretty nice to look at with some great animation and some nice shots. There are also a few humorous moments sprinkled in and some pretty nice foreshadowing.

4/5