This episode supports that the world of Kowloon Generic Romance is a dream world that involves Kudo. There was also some pretty interesting content that I don’t know what to think of, which I’ll get into later.
Firstly, it seems Kudo was faking Reiko out when he said he killed Kujirai B given he asked her what she’d do if he told her that, and she asked him what is he talking about, sounding incredulous about that. Kudo then laughed it off saying it’s true that she no longer exists in the world. It’s at this point I believe Kudo’s irreverence towards Reiko might be ’cause he’s trying to stop her from getting closer to him, and that’s why he tried to scare her like that. Reiko, understanding him well, says that she’s sure he doesn’t want to forget her, noting that she didn’t mean to speak for him, and I feel Kudo’s face at that moment showed his sadness and why he didn’t know how to react to Reiko understanding him so well, which is why he suggested that they go home.
Of course Yaomay is convinced that Kudo killed Kujirai B, saying that the face one normally shows isn’t necessarily who they really are with Kowloon being filled with people who have secrets. She feels that him mentioning it feels like a culprit returning to the scene of a crime, but I believe he just meant to scare Reiko a bit with a joke but was at a loss when Reiko appeared to understand him so well, and that seems to be how Reiko perceived that event as well.
After Reiko left Yaomay’s apartment, she thinks that the face Kudo made at that moment is something she has seen before when she showed up to work with clip-on earrings. She says she knows it’s not something to be happy about, but she wants to know things about Kudo that not even Kujirai B knew, even if they’re unpleasant.
At home, Reiko seemed to have trouble sleeping and got up to check out Kujirai B’s books and found one that interested her. She then read it until Yaomay sent her a text, and when she was in the midst of putting it back, she saw something that caught her eye, a ring that she believes was Kujirai B’s wedding ring, but given this world is likely fake, it’s probably not her actual ring. Then there was a brief earthquake. After possibly multiple days with it being impossible to determine how many days have passed, Reiko and Kudo both show up to work with dark circles under their eyes. Kudo has been struggling to go to sleep recently, and Reiko stayed up late last night to read a mystery book. She then asked Kudo if he knows any bookstores in Japan that carry Japanese books as the book she read has two volumes, but she only finished the first volume.
They met up at a bookstore Xiaohei also works at, and Reiko found that there’s a huge error in this copy she picked up since after a certain point, it’s just all question marks, making it unreadable. I don’t know what to make of this, and I don’t believe viewers are meant to know yet. Kudo said that he had read it before and nearly spoiled her before she said that she’d decide whether it’s interesting or not. Yaomay is of course not happy that Kudo is trying to control what Reiko wants, and he backs off. Reiko then says that she wants to buy something while she’s here and buys a book about travelling, and Kudo, thinking back to how Kujirai B had no interests outside of Kowloon, of course tries to talk Reiko out of it saying it’s an old edition of the book, and Yaomay forces him to back off once again.
At a bar, Yaomay kicks up a fuss about her reading one of Kujirai B’s books, and Reiko says she can’t unread what she previously read and wants to know what happens next, leading to Yaomay saying Reiko’s kind to Kujirai B, her love rival, and Reiko just says that she wanted to know what kind of person she was, which makes sense given how she looks identical to her. Who wouldn’t want to know more about the person you look identical to if you had the chance? Reiko says she want to learn more about herself, Kujirai B, and Kudo, and when Yaomay remarks that that’s greedy, Reiko asks if Yaomay’s any different since life is about wanting more, and that gives clarity to why she became interest in a book on travelling.
As Original Gwen and the maids see Dr. Hebinuma off as he’s headed to his variety show, the maids say Dr. Hebinuma has soft facial expressions these days and has become friendly ever since Gwen arrived. On the variety show, a woman is wondering whether cosmetic surgery will improve her look, and Dr. Hebinuma explains what they can do for her, and when that woman also wants her mouth to be pointed upwards, he explains that one’s heart can fix a smile more than plastic surgery will. Sean, the other personality next to Dr. Hebinuma, says that what he just said was all platitudes given he was blessed to be given everything he now has, which leads to Dr. Hebinuma giving Sean a kick, saying that being given things isn’t the same as being blessed as some things you’re given can lead to other things being taken away. They then go to a commercial break, and we see the reactions of Original Gwen and the maids, and then Kudo, Reiko, and Yaomay with Yaomay understanding what Dr. Hebinuma meant as when you’re given something you can lose yourself as living the life someone prepared for you means you’re giving up the life you could have otherwise had. Reiko believes Yaomay is talking about her and Kujirai B, but it seems more personal. One of the staff members at this establishment give them tickets to a screening of “The Butterfly Dream”, an old film with a huge national star, and Yaomay clearly recognizes the lead actress, and she rejects going to it with Reiko.
After watching the film, when Reiko is out with Yaomay again, she says that Yangli, the lead actress, was absolutely fabulous. After Yaomay picked out fabric with a particular pattern, Reiko mentions that there was a pattern like that in the movie with many costumes she would’ve liked, and Yaomay responds while clearly being upset that what she’s holding now is what she likes. Yaomay then indignantly throws out there whether Reiko even has time to be watching movies given she’s trying to learn about Kujirai B. Just the other day, she was worried that Kujirai B’s presence would be erased from the world and asks her whether she’s worried that she might be the one who gets erased and that she has been scared all this time. Yaomay says that Reiko can be so carefree ’cause she has never had a past and says that Reiko can never understand her before leaving the shop.
Yaomay then rushes back to her apartment, thinking she thought she left her past behind, but they’re coming for her. She then thinks back to her youth when her mother wanted to live vicariously through her daughter by controlling what she wore and having her look as much like herself when she was young as possible. Yaomay thought to herself that she loved the other earrings more than what her mom chose for her when the photoshoot was ongoing, but she stuck with it since her mom must know best. She thought to herself that her sense of self is being taken away.
Reiko then thinks that everyone has a present ’cause they have a past, and when she passes by a store, she thinks back to Yaomay saying that she’ll be the one who decides who is and isn’t her, that there are those who see genuine sparkle in a fake, and that when you’re given something that other things are taken away. Reiko only knows the present, so she doesn’t know how it feels to suffer from or long for the past and thinks about what she can give to her best friend.
When Reiko is having lunch with Kudo, she asks him whether he remembers what Yaomay said about having your sense of self taken, and he responded that he did. Reiko wondered if someone was scared of having something taken would giving that person something be a bother, and Kudo says it depends on what the gift is. Kudo then tells her to talk to Yaomay after Reiko feels wishy-washy due to not having experienced some of the things Yaomay has, which is nice of him considering how Yaomay treats him a lot of the time.
With some egg tarts in hand, Reiko visits Yaomay, who doesn’t want to see her ’cause the confident self she projects is not her real self, and she’s constantly worrying about what her parents think, not even being able to share what she actually likes with them. Reiko says that she understands and that Yaomay was probably trying to have her fake persona become the person she wanted to be with her not considering something like that fake. Since she doesn’t have a past, she doesn’t understand what it means to have an old self but that she understands very well the desire for an ideal self and that she saw genuine sparkle in fakes. She pressed Yaomao on whether that was also a lie, leading to Yaomay rushing out saying she’ll be her absolute self too. At an earring store, Reiko has Yaomay pick out what she likes, which closely resembles what she picked out for herself in the past, and after Yaomay leaves to try them on, Reiko points to Kudo as being what she herself likes.
Dr. Hebinuma then gets a call from his father asking him what happened during that commercial.
Back to the flashback with Kujirai B at the Golfish Teahouse, she rates the place highly, which Kudo is ecstatic about, and then he brings out watermelon for her, which is apparently something he does for everyone, not just Reiko, and that’s when Kudo learned of her quirk of smoking and eating watermelons at the same time. She asks whether he himself has a quirk, and he responds isn’t that sort of thing someone close to you points out, leading to her saying she’ll find one and point it out to her, which gets a reaction from him since he longs to be close to her. When he first heard he was being transferred to Kowloon, he cursed his fate, but he’s finding he’s liking everything here, leading to Gwen saying he’s fallen in love with Kowloon. He then wakes up, and him being in turmoil coincides perfectly with the onset of an earthquake, which Xiaohei says there have been a lot of lately.
We then see Gwen arrive at Kowloon, and we don’t know from which point in time this is happening, whether we’re seeing Original Gwen arrive at Kowloon, or whether this is a completely different Gwen, and the kicker is that Kowloon has already been destroyed. With this recent episode depicting Kowloon having been destroyed and an earthquake’s onset coinciding with Kudo’s turmoil, it’s clear Kudo’s turmoil causes the world itself to shake, demonstrating the connection between his mind and the world’s existence and that this is indeed a dream world that involves Kudo in some way.
It’s not Kudo’s lingering feelings for Kujirai B that ’cause the world to shake but his refusal to let go conflicting with the knowledge that she’s dead that he’s trying to suppress. That’s why the earthquakes started after Reiko said Gwen told her that Kujirai B no longer exists in the world, ’cause he was trying hard to deny it, which was why he was feeding Kujirai B’s words back to Reiko and shit ’cause he hoped he could bring her back through that and why he put his hand over his face in distress in Episode 4. The world also pointedly made the case to viewers and Kudo in Episode 3 that Reiko is not Kujirai B with the sunflower shit, possibly ’cause it is trying to get him to address his issues properly instead of being in denial.
People that come to Kowloon erase the previous version there, and when those people leave, a new version emerges, as shown by how Kudo got a message on his computer in Episode 4 about there already being an existing item at “Sai On Tower” right after a Mr. Chan entered and then left, showing that Kowloon must always have a baseline number of people as the Branch Manager indicated in Episode 1 and that the computer was likely asking Kudo whether to replace the previous Mr. Chan from before the one that came from outside Kowloon entered Kowloon in Episode 4, showing Kudo has some level of control over the world.
The mystery continues to deep with this episode, but some things, such as Kudo’s direct connection to the world, is becoming increasingly apparent, which is a good thing since the show at this point shouldn’t only be raising questions.