The biggest revelation in this week’s episode? It’s that the status quo is deeply flawed. I’m still not sure what to think of Hans Lee, our silver-haired individual, but he can supposedly control his bloodlust. Yes, he’s obviously a devil, but also a halfie like Yuki. Hans doesn’t avoid human blood completely. Instead, he drinks a little of it at a time so that he can build up a healthy tolerance. Tolerance? Yep, like poison. The sniper from last week’s episode manages to hit Yuki right in the chest. In order to save him, Hans pours a bunch of blood into the guy’s mouth. Even though it manages to heal Yuki, it also gives him some sort of weird blood fever. His body temperature starts to rise dramatically, and his colleagues are afraid that his brain might become irrecoverably damaged as a result. We spend two-thirds of the episode just trying to subdue an out-of-control Yuki. But the point is clear: making these vampires avoid blood completely is just forcing them to walk a razor’s edge. As soon as temptation hits them, they’ll lose all control because they’ve never had the opportunity to control their inhibitions. It’s like that age-old debate about porn: does it lead to more or less incidents of sexual assault? Studies seem to suggest one conclusion, but that’s a deep rabbit hole that I don’t want to get into here.

There’s apparently an anti-Devils faction out there, and they’ve progressed to Plan B. What’s Plan B? Brutally murdering humans in public just to trigger Devils. Up until now, the government has managed to keep the existence of vampires under wraps. Imagine the widespread panic that will ensue, however, if people suddenly see a Devil consuming blood in the middle of a public square. To make matters worse, the victim is a woman. This is clearly an attempt to drive the public into a frenzy. I imagine the next move is to disseminate information that recent rapes and murders have been committed by Devils. Without any understanding of vampires and how they work, they will call for a widespread elimination of all Devils. More importantly, we’re right back to square one. The ensuing panic is due to the authorities’ attempt to completely suppress public knowledge of Devils. As a result, society can’t build up a “tolerance” to their blood-drinking brothers and sisters. Society will instead go into a “fever” and cry for blood… Devils’ blood, that is. So yeah, I don’t know if I can really trust Hans Lee, but he’s obviously onto something. But don’t you think the imagery is a little heavy-handed? He’s got the silver-white hair, and he even bears a cross. Don’t tell me he’s the lord and savior for all Devils out there.

But if you’re only here for Yuki and Tsukasa, well… don’t expect much. After all, this is just the fourth episode in a long and emotionally straining relationship. I almost want to say that it’s abusive, but maybe that’s too harsh. But y’know what I mean. Those two will look like they’ve made progress, but then a setback will drive Yuki away — a setback that often involves him nearly hurting Tsukasa. Deeply ashamed of himself, the half-vampire will go into hiding and brood for weeks and weeks on end. The girl, on the other hand, will also fall into a depressive state since she can do nothing but wait for his return. And he will. He definitely will. Once they are united once more, they will feel that orgasmic rush of emotions again, and everything will feel perfect… until another incident triggers Yuki’s deep-rooted shame. This hot-and-cold emotional roller coaster is too often idealized in these romances targeted at young individuals, i.e. girls like Tsukasa. Individuals who are too boring on their own, so they crave danger. As a result, they spurn normal, healthy relationships, which are too “boring” by comparison. Love must always be so passionate that it hurts. At the very least, it must leave you exhausted. Your lover has to tread the fine line between worshiping you and abusing you. Tsukasa drives Yuki so crazy that he wants to beat her, but every time he looks deep into her eyes, he barely manages to control himself. Then he disappears and returns, rinse and repeat. Just replace domestic violence with the current hot fetish of the moment, i.e. vampires.

Misc. notes & thoughts:

— How has the sniper been tracking vampires? Pretty easily, actually.

— Her backstory is that her mother was raped and killed by a Devil. As a result, she thinks all Devils are bad. Of course, this is fallacious, but I doubt she’s in the right state of mind to care about sound and valid arguments. Still, I’m amused by Hans’ attempt to lecture the girl on the nature of criminals. Let’s just drop everything we’re doing to talk about the psychology of deviants.

— Meanwhile, Yuki seems some weird dream after consuming so much blood. I guess he was stuck in an asylum as a kid, and… uh… I’m not sure what happened next. Why is there a half-naked Tsukasa in his memories? Or was there a girl in his past who just happened to look a whole lot like Tsukasa?

— Speaking of Tsukasa, she tells Yuki’s colleagues that she wants to join them, so they just let her? Hm.

— Did you guys really bring a rocket launcher to a fight against Devils? Talk about overkill.

— Jill cares enough about Yuki to show up and try and save the guy from certain death. Maybe we’ll get a love triangle involving her later.

— Even though Hans is a halfie like Yuki, only one of his eyes will turn red. We won’t find out why this is for now, though.

— Tsukasa sees that the sniper is about to take Yuki out, so she rushes headfirst into danger. Of course, the sniper still should’ve been able to take Yuki out before Tsukasa could get to him, but shhh… let’s just pretend otherwise.

— The girl probably thought that she could calm his bloodlust — hell, probably that, too — but yeah, she couldn’t. Hans ends up having to step in and preventing Yuki from likely killing the girl he likes. This is why Yuki ends up hating himself once more.

— It’s ridiculous that she still doesn’t think that she and Yuki are in a relationship. Well, not anymore, I guess. After all, he hasn’t visited her in a while.

— Oh no, don’t tell me Hans is gonna fall in love with Tsukasa as well. As if the potentially abusive relationship between Yuki and the girl wasn’t bad enough, we might have a love polygon on our hands.