Daemons of the Shadow Realm has been a bit of a letdown. It had a banger first episode, but ever since then, the pacing has slowed to a crawl, and the twins haven’t really developed super interesting personalities. So y’know, now that summer season is a upon us, I’ve been glancing around, checking out other options. Am I going to NTR Daemons of the Shadow Realm? Maybe, maybe not.

So we have Black Torch, a new show about Jiro, a kid who can talk to animals. Also, he’s training to be a ninja apparently? Anyway, I like animals, and I think yapping with the local cats and crows might be a lot of fun. But that’s not enough action, so in enters Rago, a grievously injured black cat with a peculiar fur pattern. Well, that’s because Rago isn’t really a black cat. He’s actually a mononoke (a vengeful spirit) who was injured by other mononoke. Sigh, when will the mononoke on mononoke crime ever end? Jiro, being a animal lover that he is, takes the injured Rago in, nurses him back to good health, feeds him, even bathes him. Sounds pretty chill so far, but again, this is a mononoke. So eventually, the other mononoke come a’knockin’ and a fight breaks out.

You can easily predict what happens next: Jiro gets mortally injured, Rago lends the kid his powers, so Jiro can now become a shounen protagonist with shounen protagonist moves. Yeah, that’s the problem with Black Torch: it’s super basic. The brash, kinda dumb hero, the female character who seemingly exists just to serve up fanservice (and cunt) — I mean, look at this framing — and the super generic, demonic-looking foes. Oh yeah, don’t forget the secret organization that will now recruit Jiro because he’s very, very speschul. Can we just go back to the talking animals? I liked that part. Also, smart shounen protagonists aren’t exactly rare, but when they’re dumb, they’re so dumb.

So fine, Black Torch didn’t exactly sell me on itself. So what’s Daemons of the Shadow Realm up to this week? Well, when we last left off, Ivan the assassin had crawled out of the shaman’s chest cavity, then proceeded to slay even more Higashi villagers. Sheesh, who knew there were still this many villagers left to kill? The real tragedy is of course the kiddos. Just how many more family members must they lose before their nightmare ends? Ivan even kidnaps that little girl, and yet, we can’t kill the evil, scheming granny. As soon as Ivan draws close to granny, Fake Asa steps in to “save the day.” Boo. But I guess she’s the true target. Along with the other little girl, Ivan intends to lure Yuru out. He even sends the kid a rather grisly message. I don’t know the shaman, so I can’t say I feel super bad about his fate. I do feel bad about his daemons, though. Did they really need to die too?

Let’s run through some quick, stray observations. In the moment, Fake Asa thought of Yuru before agreeing to go quietly with Ivan. I guess that makes sense. Fake siblings or not, you don’t spend that much time with someone without developing some sort of attachment. Elsewhere, Danji’s mother tells him to leave the mountain and enter the outside world in order to help Yuru. But the outside world is big, so what’s a hick villager supposed to do? How is he meant to find Yuru? Luckily for him, the horse lady lends a hand. What’s odd, however, is that the two of them can go galloping down the freeway without drawing any attention. Obviously, she’s a daemon, so normal humans can’t see her. But what about Danji? Is he… is he a daemon too? Last and very least, Dera gets a new TV, so Yuru and his daemons can now develop brainrot. Neat!

I dunno, it wasn’t exactly a scintillating episode either. Yeah, yeah, Ivan kills a bunch of people, but he didn’t kill the right person (read: granny). And even though he left a message for Yuru, Hana is reluctant to deliver it. Granted, I don’t think it’s going to stay a secret. I think we’re headed for a direct clash between Yuru and Ivan. After all, you gotta save the little girl. I don’t care about Fake Asa, but that little girl has suffered enough. Even so, how long is it going to take before Yuru finds out about them being kidnapped? As always, this show’s problem is its pacing.