Black Torch Ep.08 - Touko arrives! Wait, are Jirou and Ragou split or...

Episode 8 of Black Torch introduces a few new characters working for the top-ranked squad in the organization, but it also delivers a surprise that I wasn't exactly expecting. I initially imagined that the link between Ragou and Jirou would be stable for the rest of the series, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Amagi, the main antagonist, appears, and after beating everyone up, he severs the connection between Ragou and Jirou to take the former away. Ragou managed to separate his power from his body before being extracted, but does that mean Jirou is now back to being human?

Touko loves to aura farm, but we haven't seen her doing much at the moment. Is she powerful? Or not? No idea...

Hime looks cute, but stern at the same time. I wonder if she'll have some interaction with Jirou directly or stay purely as a background character..

Technically, he still has all the power that Ragou stored, but I'm not sure how that works. Ragou is supposed to emit infinite energy without the need to feed off humans; does Jirou inherit that power too? Is he really still human, or has he become some sort of mononoke himself?

I don't think Ragou is dead yet because it's way too early in the series, but his becoming "just a cat" would fit perfectly for the ending of the series. He would be granted the freedom to just live with Jirou, free from all the meddling of humans and mononoke alike. It would be the peaceful life he always dreamed of.

On Reiji's side, they confirm that his brother has joined hands with Amagi, but is still technically human. I guess the best place to hide was to ally with the enemies of humanity, but his motivations are pretty feeble. You betray and murder your entire family because Reiji was better than you at using swords? Like, really?

The episode, as I said before, also adds a few new characters working under Kusumi Touko. Both are agents in her squad: one is a smallish girl with pink hair, and the other is a big, muscular male who calls her Hime. The two seem to be a combo and are way stronger than the Black Torch team is at the moment.

Reiji come on and recover, I know you're already well and are just trying to get Ichika to nurse you!

Ichika, you're only giving him a gift by binding it that way. He looks like the guy who would like that!

The next episode will show us the aftermath of the event and what the plan is from both sides to handle this crisis. Amagi needs Jirou to get Ragou's power, while I'm sure Jirou wants his cat back. Ichika and Reiji have their own motivations, and everything is going to clash in this finale.