Kowloon Generic Romance continues to be a very intriguing show. There is a lot of content to go through every episode, everything which appears to serve the story in some way. I’ll start off with my series ending speculation first. It is not unusual for me to speculate on the secrets of a story with a strong mystery aspect. I made a series ending prediction for Re:Zero after Episode 24 of Season 1 and expanded my prediction after Season 2 and successfully predicted a far in the future secret (I was told by someone who read the light novel) in Kumo Desu ga, Nanika? after Episode 17 of the only season the anime got.
It’s clear based on how the current Reiko is still 32 whereas Kudo has aged and is her senior even though they’re in what is supposedly “The Second Kowloon”, which came straight through the Branch Manager of the realty firm’s mouth, that the world in Kowloon Generic Romance is unnatural. With that out of the way, I can talk about what I really want to delve into.
I am a very detailed-oriented person, and from what I’ve seen from the first four episodes of Kowloon Generic Romance, Kudo has an extreme fixation on Kujirai B to the point of the spectre of her has an all-powerful hold on him even though she most likely no longer exists based on these first few episodes. He might even regret falling for her on some level ’cause her death was so painful for him or for another reason that has yet to be determined (given how he claims to hate the current Reiko after Episode 3 hammered to viewers and to Kudo especially that the current Reiko isn’t Kujirai B), which is why he is so fixated on things never changing. Thus, I get a sense that Kudo’s question to Kujirai B in Episode 2, “Wouldn’t it be painful to be in love, knowing it’d be gone someday?” could end up being really important or even THE central question to the story since it’s clear he’s still reeling from what was probably Kujirai B’s death and given him placing a huge emphasis on nostalgia.
I believe the most important lesson Kudo must learn is that the joy and connection of love, even if temporary, outweigh the absence of such experiences and heartbreak. I believe that the last few episodes will likely have Kudo realizing the truth of this unnatural world and choosing to fall for Reiko despite her differences from Kujirai B, fully knowing that it won’t last due to the world in Kowloon Generic Romance not being real. My hunch is that this work is meant to be a serious lesson about how it’s okay to fall in love even if that love isn’t permanent ’cause love is very much worth it.
I expect an ending where Kudo can magically be with the current Reiko pure fantasy and not likely to happen unless the mangaka is actually a poor writer, but from what I’ve seen of the first three episodes, she is very talented.
Episode 3 starts with a flashback of Kudo helping out an elderly man fix up animal pens, which was a favour Kujirai B requested of Kudo. That man notably said that it must be rough for Kudo to have a senior coworker who works you so hard, and there is somewhat of a callback to that later in the episode, which I will get into. After they left the area, Kujirai B notes that Kudo is getting along with the older members of community through mahjong and that he’s the one who’s well-loved by his elders, and given the elderly man highlighted Kujirai B being a senior coworker and what we know of her age, she was most likely referring to herself as well, which would her continuing the flirting she did with him in Episode 2 when she was playing mahjong wherein she associated her great luck to Kudo being around. He then gets dizzy ’cause of heatstroke, which is similar to what the current Reiko experienced in Episode 1 when she worked on repainting the walls of a vacant apartment unit, no doubt to show a parallel between them.
Kujirai B then takes Kudo to her apartment, which is close by, and he gets bashful about going inside, probably ’cause he has a huge crush on her, and she probably not only knows how he feels but also wants him inside personally since a lot of women are better on picking up social cues than men and given her flirting with him these last two episodes. Inside, he stares at her taking in the feeling of a breeze, and after washing up his face, he takes in her personal likes regarding where she places items and loves that she keeps a glass of water in the fridge, no doubt things he will never forget. He also remarks that there no plushies or anything, and this would probably be something never again brought up in most series, but I believe Kudo probably knew someone who had a lot of plushies when he was younger since it seems he’s used to thinking of an apartment of a woman having plushies.
As he stares at her from behind once again, Kujirai B asks Kudo how he’s finding Kowloon after having been here for a week, and he says that it’s an interesting place and that sense of nostalgia for things he’s never experienced or seen before is something he’s been getting a lot, most likely ’cause he feels like she is the one for him. When he wonders what nostalgia is, highlighting that she compared it to being the same as in love, she responds that she has also never lived in a place like this and that nostalgia isn’t just about memories and experiences but a feeling of elation as if you’ve known something all along. In her opinion, nostalgia’s a feeling of wanting to lock something up in your heart, and that’s why she considers it the same as being in love. That’s actually the feeling I got when I first met a certain girl in elementary school during our open house in the fourth grade. I felt so excited meeting her that I decided to attend the open house events at that school when I was in fifth and sixth grade, but it was not that open houses are inherently fun but that that girl was why I found the moment fun.
Back to the present, Reiko puts on new lipstick and thought about getting her goldfish a new vase since its current space is cramped. At work, she greets Kudo when he arrives only to find that Dr. Hebinuma and an associate of his had also snuck up on Kudo. Kudo was very pissed as Dr. Hebinuma’s entire attention was on Reiko even though he was apparently there due to him having found another location he wants to open a clinic at, and he even forcibly kissed Reiko, asking her why she doesn’t choose him instead of a man who didn’t even notice her new lipstick, which led to Kudo flying into a rage with the Branch Manager holding him back from following Dr. Hebinuma as he was on his way out. Reiko also noted that his Dr. Hebinuma lips tasted like apple, and I wonder whether this is to tie the snake man to worms and consequently apples, continuing the association of Dr. Hebinuma with snakes and snakelike things or whether the apple taste is meant to be future foreshadowing.
Then later Kudo offers to help carry a larger vase that caught Reiko’s eye at an elderly man’s shop to her apartment, leading to Reiko saying she’ll get a broom as well, which led to the elderly man saying that it must be rough to have a junior coworker who works you so hard, which is the inverse of what happened before when Kujirai B had Kudo working hard when she was his senior, and Kudo noticeably remembered that interaction from the past with Kujirai B based on his reaction. It’s at this point that I’m beginning to doubt that this is a simulation as no normal simulation would set up so many parallel and contrasting situations for Kudo to remember. Kudo obviously notes what’s similar about Reiko with how she told him to leave the inner door open, that there are slippers he can use along with how she loves the breeze from outside just like Kujirai B, as well as how she keeps her toothpaste and toothbrush at the sink, which got a smile out of him since it’s Kujirai B he loves, but when he saw that the current Reiko didn’t keep a glass of water in her fridge, that her kettle had a more feminine design, and that she had a plushie, that killed the mood for him since he was reminded that the current Reiko isn’t Kujirai B. After leaving, Kudo then touched the number 8 outside, which was the unit number for Reiko’s apartment, and it’s clear he is mourning Kujirai B since he didn’t use to do that and touching this number is his attempt at burning his memories of her into his mind. Reiko wishes that he’ll come to her apartment again since she fancies him, but I wish she wasn’t in love with such a jerk since he was upset with her naming her goldfish “Success” judging by his reaction.
At work, Kudo says her gifting him a sunflower is harassment, and she replies that it’s a thank you for carrying Success’s fish tank, and she tells him he’ll need to water it every two days after he says he can’t let it die on him. Xiaohei then waltzes in and asks Reiko whether she has found nice apartments for her since she needs more space for her clothing, none of which she’ll throw out since she bought them all with her hard-earned money. When Kudo offers the sunflower Reiko gave him to Xiaohei, Xiaohei asks him whether he’s in love with her since a sunflower in the language of flowers means “I only have eyes for you”. Of note is that in the flashback at the start of the episode, Kujirai B had a vase of roses on the same surface as her make-up while in the present with Reiko, she has a sunflower in a smaller vase. This is meant to show the difference in what Kudo feels for Kujirai B compared to the current Reiko since red roses in the language of flowers stand for passion, desire, and romance while we learned what a sunflower means with this episode. While I believe Kudo will fall for the current Reiko near the end of the story after he makes an attempt to get over his issues, I believe these two scenes are meant to highlight the very different relationship Kudo has with the current Reiko compared to Kujirai B if it wasn’t obvious by how hard the end of this episode got this point across.
After it is implied that Xiaohei shot down all of the apartments Reiko suggested for her, Reiko asks Xiaohei whether she’d be okay with living in downtown Hong Kong, and then Reiko has a flashback in her mind about Xiaohei saying that she doesn’t want to leave Kowloon and that that’s how she felt back then as well, and when Reiko came back to the reality of that world and tried to continue the conversation from back then, Xiaohei showed no realization of having said whatever it is Reiko thought she said. This shows that Xiaohei likely thought about how she didn’t want to leave Kowloon after the plans to destroy it were confirmed in the real world and that someone, probably Kudo since he was the junior coworker back then, had attempted to help her find an apartment in the past, asking that very same question.
Kudo then has Reiko and Xiaohei meet him at an apartment unit he thinks will be much more to Xiaohei’s liking, and Xiaohei loves it despite it being cramped ’cause it has a lot of storage, and the access to the roof made her love it even more. Kudo then tells Reiko that the rooms she proposed are all good options for a renter who isn’t Xiaohei, which I feel could be something Kujirai B directly told him back when he was a newer employee. Xiaohei then has Reiko and Kudo come over to where she was as she spotted a cluster of sunflowers. And as Reiko wonders whose gaze did Kudo find when he looked through the sunflowers, we see that it’s clearly Kujirai B. This world is clearly forcing Kudo to come to terms with him having loved Kujirai B and how the current Reiko is not her, and this very pointed direction the world is pushing Kudo towards makes it increasingly unlikely to be a simulation in my opinion.
After a masked man met Reiko when she was buying watermelon juice, it turns out that that man is actually Dr. Hebinuma’s lover, and he met Reiko to confirm that she existed even though something was off about her in his eyes. He also went to Gwen’s workplace and found out that the Gwen we saw in Episode 1 worked there up until two weeks ago. Apparently, Dr. Hebinuma is adopted, and the real son of the previous owner died in an accident with the father’s wife. Over the phone, Dr. Hebinuma has someone investigating Reiko. On the phone earlier in the episode, there was a Yulong he connected with, and I don’t know if this is that same person. We also learn that Dr. Hebinuma has full-body snake tattoos, fitting of his name.
Meanwhile, Kudo is looking for Gwen, and asked a man working for a company that did business with the Goldfish Teahouse whether he knows anything about what happened to Gwen, which led to the man suggesting that he ask his neighbour, and Kudo wasn’t happy with that answer as he couldn’t reach Gwen’s apartment, prompting him to ask if there has been a land adjustment, which the man scoffed at after hearing Kudo utter that. When Kudo goes out looking again, there’s a dead end in the path to where Gwen’s apartment should be, which is very interesting, and I have a theory for this too later after I get through the rest of the content of this episode.
The man in the mask then visited Reiko as she was still on the rooftop of the apartment building Xiaohei had moved into, saying her existence is an insult to a dear friend’s memory since she’s living her life while not being her since Kujirai B no longer exists in this world. She sulked as night approached, and it seems in a couple of days she found that the sunflower she gifted to Kudo had died due to him not watering it, telling her quite rudely that he dislikes her.
This led to days of her not sleeping to the point she was having trouble seeing and wondering about her place in the world. On the rooftop when they’re trying to incinerate the trash for confidentiality purposes, Reiko obviously can’t see well, leading to Kudo suggesting that she wear her glasses, which she refused to do. She then straight up asks him whether she isn’t the Reiko he knows, and the wind starts blowing harshly, as if the world didn’t want her to bring that up. She says a lot of her life might belong to that of someone else, but there are things that are proof of her own existence such as that fish tank she picked out, her love for lemon chicken, and her being in love with Kudo. Kudo, sometimes being a huge dick as like now, says that her love for him is an illusion, and Reiko pointedly shares how she yearns for his acknowledgement and crave his touch before passing out.
At the start of Episode 4, there’s a flashback with Kujirai B and a younger Kudo celebrating his addition to the team even though it’s two months late, and the Branch Manager conveniently can’t attend, or it’s actually like more likely that she wants to be alone with him. She treats him to shelled shrimp, and she has a lot to drink. Kudo mentions during their date that there’s apparently a plan to demolish Kowloon with her dismissing it as that had already happened before in 1994, making this the Second Kowloon Walled City, a re-creation of the original Kowloon. When Kudo wonders why it was remade since it wouldn’t hurt if it were gone, she says that somewhere deep down everyone wants to go back to those times and feel the nostalgia, so that’s why it can’t be erased even if you want it to be, although she qualifies that last part after a pause with “Maybe”. After they head into an alley, Kujirai B suggests that he take her to his go-to spot since she clearly wants more from this date, and like a gentleman, far from what we see in how he treats the current Reiko, he says that she has had too much to drink. The bra strap on her left side then falls over to her arm, and he points it out, leading her to grab his tie and pull him for a kiss, which is obvious what she has been craving for the whole time, especially since she noted that Kudo is the type to be well-liked by his elders with her being an older woman. This leads to the start of an implied passionate make-out scene.
Back in Kowloon Generic Romance’s world, Reiko wakes up after lying in a bed that’s not her own, and Kudo reveals she’s been out cold since yesterday. He then offers to reveal the truth about Kujirai B to her, and her inner self tells her not to do it, leading to her refusing the offer. He then says he’ll go in for work and tells her to get more rest with him promising to explain the situation to the Branch Manager. When she panics about her apartment key, Kudo shows her a spare key to her apartment, asking her if she really doesn’t want to know why he has that, which she confirms. He also notes that he left the spare key to this unit on the table and instructs her to use it to lock up when she leaves, leaving the key in the mailbox when she’s done with it.
Out in town as Dr. Hebinuma and the Masked Gwen are investigating things, Masked Gwen doesn’t want Dr. Hebinuma bumping into the server Gwen since if the fake Reiko loves Kudo then the server Gwen will also love Dr. Hebinuma. Dr. Hebinuma just brushes it off saying he’d get more samples for data if he runs into server Gwen. When they’ve arrived at the Goldfish Teahouse, Masked Gwen notes that the exterior is the same as back then and checks the alleyway where a shelter for stray cats he had made is not present, not even a trace of it. He says something is definitely up with Kowloon and pointed to some Hebinuma Pharmaceutical products that were being sold as new at a shop, but Dr. Hebinuma dismissed that as being due to the logistical quirks due to the peculiarities of Kowloon. Masked Gwen also notes that Kowloon feels shabbier now compared to when he lived here. He also brought up that Reiko has the same beauty mark where Kujirai B did, which Dr. Hebinuma found tantalizing as a clone don’t gestate like the original, leading to beauty marks either not being in the same spot or not existing at all in a clone since things like beauty marks and fingerprints are formed due to external processes. He astutely notes that Kudo must be despairing due to the current Reiko’s resemblance to Kujirai B despite not being her.
At Reiko’s place, Reiko and Yaomay are celebrating Yaomay’s new job as a seamstress that Xiaohei got for her. Reiko then shares that she and Kujirai B are different people and that Kujirai B has already passed away. She shares that Kudo seemed to know that, and when Yaomay asks why she didn’t ask him for confirmation, Reiko says she feels she’d disappear if she did, and I’m inclined to agree since either her inner self or the world itself told her not to find out more. She then tells Yaomay she wants to be her absolute self in that if she’s sure it’s a decision she fully wanted to make herself then even if she regretted that decision it wouldn’t be a mistake since absolute refers to trusting herself and seeing things though. Even if just for a second, she wants to be able to say she is herself and no one else.
Then Yaomay brought up the mystery regarding her looking identical to someone from the past and having no memories. Reiko says she doesn’t remember when she started living here, but she remembers where everything is. It’s as if she had been created to match the life of Kujirai B, prompting Yaomay to wonder if Reiko is a clone. Yaomay saw a post online about Generic Terra project involving clone research, only they didn’t call them clones but Zirconians, which prompted Reiko to wonder if the name comes from zirconia, a synthetic gemstone. Yaomay notes that her earrings today are also made of zirconia. This leads to Reiko thinking she was created to be a fake from the beginning and wonders if it’s too much to ask to be the real thing. Then Yaomay had Reiko join her on top of her bed showing her the beauty of zirconia. Even though it’s not a real diamond, Yaomay loves it. Perhaps she feels an affinity for it due to her being a result of plastic surgery, but it encourages her that even a fake can sparkle so brilliantly. She says there are a lot of people in the world who say a fake is nothing but a fake, but there are people like her who see genuine sparkle in a fake and wanted Reiko not to forget that since she was feeling down.
At work, Kudo punches in late, and Reiko tells him she’ll be going for lunch with Yaomay again. Kudo then hides after finishing lunch when he hears Reiko’s voice. Yaomay then indicated they were planning a party on the rooftop of Xiaohei’s apartment and also suggested to Reiko that she move out of her apartment unit. She suggests she throw away all her old stuff and buy new stuff, much like she did for herself. Reiko wants to keep the unit as is for Kujirai B’s sake, and when Yaomay asks why since Kujirai B no longer exists, Reiko insists that’s exactly why she wants to keep it as she feels that unit is a fragment of her, and if it goes away she feels like her presence itself will be completely erased from the world. Reiko understands how scary that is given the feeling she gets about what would happen if she were to learn the truth about Kujirai B.
Outside on his smoke break, Kudo asks Reiko if the new place she ate at was any good when she also comes out, and she told him about Xiaohei’s housewarming party, inviting him to go to it. When he asks who’s going with them, he lost interest when he heard Yaomay would be there, but he gave them a lot of money to spend for the party. Reiko then remembers she has a showing she needs to go to, and closes the door behind her, but she stops and feels the door as she longs for Kudo’s touch. It feels like Kudo also senses Reiko, but due to his feelings for Kujirai B, he finds himself unable to touch the door. At work, Yaomay thinks back to Reiko saying that she’s not moving and not throwing anything away, and she says quietly, but then it’s like your life is being bound by Kujirai B, and this may even be the truth in more than one way. On the rooftop at work, Kudo is singing a song about a girl being alive and breathing, which is probably his hope for Kujirai B being alive through Reiko.
At the housewarming party, Kudo turns up after all, apparently ’cause Xiaohei forced him to show up. Yaomay then shows how much she hates Kudo by serving a dish with mostly lemon and very little chicken. She then brings up that she found a nice place for Reiko to live in, and Reiko reaffirms that she’s not moving, which upsets Yaomay, who then angrily asks Kudo what he thinks after explaining her reasoning for Reiko moving, and he replies that if Reiko hates that apartment unit and wants to move out then she should go for it with Reiko replying immediately that she doesn’t hate it.
After having finished the party, they split into two teams with Kudo and Reiko throwing out the trash before going for a smoke. Unfortunately, Reiko doesn’t have any cigarettes, but Kudo is smoking his last one and can’t lend her one. Reiko then brings up that Dr. Hebinuma mentioned wanting to open another clinic, and she wonders what happened with that. When she mentioned his visit last time, Kudo brought up that Dr. Hebinuma kissed her that day, and then did a fake wall slam on the ledge of the rooftop and pretended he was about to kiss her before blowing smoke into her face, saying that she leaves herself too open. He then brings up that the moon shines ’cause it reflects sunlight, so he asks Reiko what light does Generic Terra reflect to shine, and she answers that Generic Terra looks like it’s shining ’cause they have high hopes for it, and that’s why it looks so appealing and shines so brightly. Afterwards, Kudo is wandering around making up songs like earlier and scoffs at the idea of him having high hopes. He then notes there’s something definitely wrong about Kowloon this summer.
The next day, Kudo dominates at mahjong, and Reiko talks about going to lunch with Kudo for once since Yaomay is off, and she notes that there’s no Mr. Chan today with one of the men saying that he’s absent without notice. At Dr. Hebinuma’s main clinic, we find out that Dr. Hebinuma had invited Mr. Chan for a non-descript health check-up. Dr. Hebinuma then gets a call from an associate that has found another Mr. Chan from outside of Kowloon and plans to bring him into Kowloon, and after he has done that, the Mr. Chan that was him Dr. Hebinuma disappears, showing only one version of someone can exist in Kowloon at any given time. Back at the realty firm, Kudo got a notification on his computer that there’s an existing item named “Sai On Tower” at this location which asked him whether he wanted to replace it, and I’m guessing this could be where Mr. Chan works given he just disappeared. Dr. Hebinuma then notes that they’re contacting the Japan branch of Wong Loi Realty about Kudo and asks Masked Gwen what was the cause of death for Kujirai B, and he said that he prefers not to talk about it with both him and Kudo saying it must’ve been a mistake. He gave an answer to Dr. Hebinuma off screen, which led to the snake responding he understands why he would believe it to be incomprehensible and why he’s angry at the second Reiko. Flashing back to Kudo and Reiko, Reiko is concerned about Mr. Chan given he lives alone, and Kudo randomly throws it out there that Reiko may have thought he just dropped dead. He then says in a disturbing fashion that people die so easily and asks her how much she knows, and Reiko says that Gwen told her that Kujirai B no longer exists in the world, which prompted Kudo to put his hand on his face as if the reality of that is so painful for him, and then his expression changes, leading to him saying that he killed her.
After thinking about it, Episodes 3 and 4 somewhat reduced the likelihood of the world being a simulation, which is what I thought the world in Kowloon Romance was after Episode 2. I believe the random recalling/flashback in Reiko’s mind of Xiaohei saying that she doesn’t want to leave Kowloon and that that’s what she thought back then as well is actually not one of Reiko’s memories since the story has established that Reiko doesn’t have any of Kujirai B’s memories by Reiko herself and Dr. Hebinuma.
Thus, it’s possible that what flashed into Reiko’s mind is either one of Kudo’s memories or a construct of a plausible thing Xiaohei would say as an implied continuation of one of Kudo’s memories from when he was Kujirai B’s junior coworker and failed to find a suitable apartment for Xiaohei back in the real world. This show often draws parallels/contrasts between the past and present, so it wouldn’t surprise me if later down the road there is a flashback to Kujirai B teaching Kudo the very lesson he taught Reiko in Episode 3.
I believe whether the world is a dream world induced from experimentation or something else that involves Kudo the world in Kowloon Generic Romance is formed in part from Kudo’s mind, which is the why the world hammered so hard into viewers’ and Kudo’s minds in Episode 3 that the current Reiko is not Kujirai B ’cause the world was forcibly trying to make that point to him with the sunflowers and shit, which led to him saying he dislikes her. No normal simulation would be this pointed in its direction. This would also explain why his feelings on Generic Terra can be positive depending on his mood as shown in Episode 2 when he seemed happy about Generic Terra shining brightly.
This would also explain how there can be more than one version of the same person with one version disappearing as soon as the second version enters Kowloon and why Reiko believes she will disappear if she learns the truth as the world probably partially exists ’cause Kudo doesn’t want to let of his nostalgia from before Kujirai B died and partially to teach Kudo a lesson with Reiko being part of the lesson, that it’s okay to fall in love knowing that it won’t last since love is worth it and change is a part of life.
This is backed by how in Episode 4 pointedly had Kujirai B say in a flashback/dream that people will always want to go back to the nostalgia, which is why you can’t erase Kowloon, and this could tie into the Branch Manager of the realty firm mentioning in Episode 1 that the Second Kowloon is an uncomfortable place to live, yet the population always stays the same, and whatever the true nature of Kowloon Generic Romance’s unnatural world is it could have to do with nostalgia itself, which I speculate to possibly be Kudo’s nostalgia for the past given we can have multiple version of the same person with a Gwen that remembered that Kujirai B died and one that didn’t know of Kujirai B dying and why the world is so Reiko-centric given we know Kujirai B was Kudo’s former lover. The reason the Second Kowloon Walled City always has the same number of people is possibly ’cause it contains all the people Kudo knew during a specific period of time there, and the world is molded by that preference.
I suspect that from these events that the Second Kowloon Walled City has actually been destroyed in the real world, and Kudo just doesn’t want to let go of his memories and nostalgia, and that the Generic Terra project is his way of rationalizing how Reiko can continue to exist despite having died. This could explain how there is a Gwen and Mr. Chan who came from outside of Kowloon ’cause they actually left Kowloon at some point in the real world. This would mean Generic Terra is just a red herring and isn’t real with it mainly being used as an avenue of telling the mangaka’s story and by forcing Kudo to acknowledge that change is inevitable, and it’s how you adjust to it that matters.
That notification Kudo got on “Sai On Tower” on his computer might have been due to the world changing due to Mr. Chan suddenly being replaced by yet another Mr. Chan if Kowloon must always have the same population as the Branch Manager of the realty firm, and that was the way the world could determine whether Kudo approves of a change or not. Masked Gwen, who I will call Original Gwen from now on, noted that Kowloon feels shabbier than when he lived there, which shows that this Kowloon is fabricated given how he apparently existed in a more up-to-date Kowloon when he lived there. It would also explain why the shelter for cats he built is gone since that was from a more up-to-date Kowloon. These different versions of people, or Zirconians as they call it, could be an attempt from the world to force Kudo to embrace change, much like I believe this current Reiko exists to teach Kudo a lesson. Yaomay being upset about the current Reiko being bound by Kujirai B is noteworthy, but Reiko’s instincts are probably on the mark, and she would most likely disappear if she lost all her connections to Kujirai B if her purpose is to help Kudo move on from Kujirai B. And the dead end which obstructed Gwen’s apartment might be ’cause Kudo didn’t want to come to grips with the reality of Kujirai B being dead as shown by his hand on his face reaction at the end of Episode 4, and the dead end was meant to delay him grappling with the issue.