Akame ga KILL!

Episode 22

Were you one of those who was hoping, like me, that the end of episode 21 was not actually Mine's death scene? Sadly, her death is confirmed before the opener rolls here. Now nothing remains in the way of a weaker Tatsumi/Akame romantic pairing (unless one counts Esdeath!), since the older female Night Raid members have never showed real romantic interest in him.

But that is not what episode 22 is about. It does show the Night Raid members mourning their losses, Esdeath delighting in Tatsumi still being alive by slaughtering some rebels, and the Prime Minister convincing the Emperor that this is a dire enough situation to warrant using the capital's ultimate Imperial Arms (a mecha, naturally!) to punish the citizenry, the latter of which will apparently be the focus next episode. It also reveals that the blond-haired Jaeger had joined in an attempt to change things from the inside. However, the focus here is squarely on Akame and Kurome and setting up the showdown between the two that we knew had to be coming eventually from the first time that Kurome was revealed as Akame's sister. Kurome triggers is by sending a bloody message to Akame to meet in an abandoned church that has history for both of them. Both are serious about this being one-on-one only, too; when their battle awakens a giant Danger Beast, they temporarily combine their efforts to kill it, and when Wave arrives to try to stop the battle, Tatsumi removes him out of respect for Akame's wishes and Wave eventually goes along only after being convinced by Kurome. That allows them to finish their meeting the only way it could be finished: with blades. When Kurome ultimately falls, as we all knew she was going to, Akame hands her body respectfully over to Wave, who is left to wonder what the point of all of this is and ponder his biggest weakness: what reason he has to fight.

For as ugly as some of her actions were, Kurome's death is surprisingly clean; in fact, it's one of the least violent and bloody of any character to fall in the series, with the stab that kills her only ever being implied rather than shown – a somewhat surprisingly respectful approach for a series which has practically prided itself on being bloody. (For instance, Esdeath opened the episode by slicing an opponent in half vertically with an ice sheet.) But it works. In fact, pretty nearly everything about this episode works, whether it is the way Najenda and Tatsumi reminisce about their respective losses, the way the Jaegers reflect on what they are doing, or the way brief flashbacks are used to fill in the last remaining gaps on Akame and Kurome's story. We get to see how good Akame and Kurome were as a team and are brought to understand why there really wasn't any other way things could be settled between them – and the only one who did not accept it was Wave, but he's in love so that is also fitting. Even the way Tatsumi respects Akame's need to finish this her way is fitting. The episode's one flaw is some rough spots in the artistry early on, but that is made up for by well-staged fight scenes and a skillfully-used musical score.

Episode 22 doesn't do anything all that special or unexpected, but it does what it needs to do exactly right. And that makes it the series' best episode to date.

Rating: A-

Akame ga KILL! is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.