Spirit Chronicles - Episode 7 Review - Rio Almost Kills Gon

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

And so begins a new arc where girls instantly fall in love with our chad, Rio, and guys instantly hate him.

Rio makes it to Yagumo, where the people of the village notice him right away as an outsider. Rio meets two girls about his age - Ruri and Sayo - who take him to the village leader, Ruri’s grandma Yuba.

Yuba seems pretty distrustful of Rio at first. Then she learns that Rio is the sone of Zen and Ayame. Yuba knew them quite well, because she’s Zen’s mother! That makes her Rio’s grandma! What luck.

Rio wanted to make them a grave in Yagumo, but the two already have graves as they were never expected to come back to their homeland. Why did they leave? For some reason, Yuba can’t share that with Rio quite yet. Instead, she offers that he stay and live in the village a while. Right in her home with her and Ruri. Ruri is the daughter of Zen’s older brother. Making Rio her cousin.

Rio starts impressing them right away. His first morning there, he makes an amazing miso soup. He shows them he can use spirit arts to make hot water. Sayo comes for breakfast with her older brother in tow - a rude guy named Shin. 

Yuba has Shin take Rio to go hunting with him and the hunting master, Dola. Shin doubts a “weak-looking” guy like Rio will be any good at it. But Rio ends up killing most of the prey, while Shin doesn’t hit anything. And so the jealousy begins.

Back home, Rio is able to make a whole building in an instant with spirit arts! That’s so OP, I don’t recall him doing that before. He comes out smelling fresh, and both Ruri and Sayo love it. Shin shows up and is rude again to Rio. Rio of course doesn’t mind, but the two girls defend him. Then we get a montage of every girl in the village swooning for Rio while Shin looks each time with a stereotypical “tch” face.

But someone who acts even worse than Shin shows up. An asshole from the neighboring village, Gon. He harrasses the two girls. Shin stands up to him, but almost gets choked out by the bully. Yuba stops him. But she still has to show some hospitality as Gon’s wagon is broken and it needs to be repaired (Gon broke the wagon himself as an excuse to stay overnight and try and rape Ruri and Sayo). Gon instantly hates Rio. He tries to trip Rio by kicking his leg but falls instead, ‘cause Rio’s too OP.

At night, Gon gets his hands on Ruri while she sleeps. Rio catches him and beats the shit out him. Very satisfying. Rio almost killed him, but the visiting tax examiner stopped him. And also charged Gon with the crime.

Rio’s afraid that Haruto’s desire to kill will take over in the future.

Image source: Amazon