As we drift into the second half of the season, we find that with all the new characters and all the startling revelations we’ve recently discovered, the world of the Human Vapor is a far more complex place to be than it was even one episode ago. With the addition of the Yakuza, various conspiracies and a sudden and total shift in focus to a pair of sibling vlogers, the Vapor himself is now only a small piece of a far larger puzzle that still doesn’t have all of its components on the table yet.
However, surely the biggest news from the last episode is that the Human Vapor is only a pawn in someone else’s revenge and at the close of episode 4, it seemed like the puppet master behind the frightful fog-man was reporter Kyoko Kono herself! But why would a reporter look so deeply into her own crimes? Well, a quick deep dive into her surprisingly tragic past reveals that she certainly has the motivation.
Yes, it seems that Kyoko is indeed the mastermind behind the Human Vapor murders, but as she explains her motives to a stunned Kaho and Fujita, we find that she’s hardly a cackling madman hiding behind her misty muscle. Yet more revelations are abound when we discover that as a young girl in 1999, Kyoko was an orphan at the White Centre and we finally get to see just how badly the various homeless and orphaned people there were treated by the cruel people in charge. Essentially living in a state of paid slavery, Kyoko’s older friend, Satsuki, volunteers for the meteor cleanup detail which ultimately costs her her life. Discovering her body before its disposed of by the Yakuza, Kyoko manages to escape and ultimately ends up at the Bunko Ramen restaurant where she’s helped and fed by the kindly Ren Tsutsumida, the man who will eventually become the Human Vapor.
Back in the present, Kyoko explains that she’s been using her reporting skills to uncover more of the White Centre conspiracy and has at least one more name she intendes to target: Superintendent General Mamoru Sakamoto of the Tokyo Metropolitan
Police. However, it’s here her trail runs cold and if she’s going to discover the remaining conspirators, she’s going to need the siblings to sit on what they’ve discovered. But while she continues to manipulate detective Kenji Okamoto and gets him to confront a man he sees almost as a father figure, both Fujita and Kaho have differing opinions about what to do next.
While Kaho finds Kyoko’s plan for vengence abhorrent, Fujita comes up with a sneaky plan and gets the mindless Vapor to make another video, this time threatening Sakamoto, to put up on his page and finally get the followers he craves. But this starts a chain reaction that sees the Yakuza and the corrupt inspector Yoshida band together to plug some awkward leaks.
To say that Human Vapor has suddenly gotten insanely complicated would be something of an understatement. While the last episode actually slowed things down and simplified things a little by focusing fully on Fujita and Kaho, we now find all the multiple threads suddenly smashing together in a way that raises more questions just as fast as it can answer the old ones. The main headline is that it’s Kyoko controlling the Human Vapor; but even though this seems like a devestating discovery, the show holds back a bit on the whys and wherefores which leads to an interesting issue. Without an explanation to exactly how Kyoko can control her whispy assassin, I’m not entirely sure if the twist is actually a good one or not, although we certainly get a good look at her motive. The flashbacks that show the infamous White Centre treating their charges like something out of a POW camp or corrupt prison certainly drive home the human cost of this long running conspiracy and more connections are made when young Kyoko meets Ren, who feeds and cares for the terrified little urchin. Again, we have no clue how this caring, kind man becomes the Human Vapor, so the questions keep mounting, but as Kyoko seems to have been playing both sides as she’s been reporting on the very crimes she’s been instigating, at least we’re creeping our way closer to the truth.
However, yet more complications arrive thanks to the Fujikawa siblings who react to the news of Kyoko’s counter-conspiracy in very different ways. While the reporter is hardly a rambling, vengence-fueled mad woman, her cold-blooded quest for payback has Kaho a little nervous. However, Fujita is more than happy to take her money to hold off for a while to let her get to the bottom of things. However, while she gets back into reporter mode as she and Kenji go to confront Sakamoto about his involvement with the White Centre and try and get more facts out of him, Fujita simply can’t wait and selfishly uses the easily controlled Vapor to aid his YouTube channel.
With the sheer amount of moving parts happening here, “Bunko Ramen” is something of an overwhelming experience. In fact, despite watching the show closely for the past 4 episodes, I was completely taken by surprise by how layered and intricate the plot has suddenly become. The thing is, while the episode rockets along, dropping revelations on you and merging plotlines together, it’s certainly gripping, but I couldn’t tell you for the life of me right now if it’s actually all coming together well or if we’re spiralling into ludicrous, jump-the-shark territory.
Still, this doesn’t stop director Shinzo Katayama having fun with it all, as everyone is now apparently deadset on betraying one another. Fujita opens up a massive can of worms when his Vapor video sets the Yakuza onto his sister; Kyoko’s questioning of Sakamoto causes him to break to Kenji in a different way she was expecting as he confesses that he was responsible for the death of the detective’s father; and finally, Fujita’s greedy meddling results in Yashida assassinating the Superintendent while he’s on his way to confess all to an emergency press conference leaving everyone none the fucking wiser. Like I say, I’m giving the show the benefit of the doubt because, for all of its conspiratorial chaos (and a genuinly amusing bowling sequence), I actually enjoyed the merry hell out of it – but the remaining three episodes have a hell of a lot of work to do as there’s so much more ground still to cover. After all, we still don’t know how Ren became the Human Vapor, how Kyoko got him under control, why Sakamoto is responsible for the death of Kenji’s father, or even who the identities of the mysterious last two members of the White Centre conspiracy are. Never mind the genetic makeup of the Vapor, my brain is starting to go all foggy…
Finally unleashing the true scale of its scope in an episode that bewilders and entertains in equal measure, the show still has a lot to reveal in its remaining episodes that could make all the difference either way. However, if its makers want to stop it all collapsing in on itself over the next couple of installments, they’d do well to ensure that the next few offerings are far clearer than the misty form of Human Vapor himself. With all that being said – it still contains the best bowling celebration you’re likely to see all year and that’s got to count for something.
🌟🌟🌟🌟