Tegami Bachi 24 - Heart's Recollections, Three

Zazie's arrival saves a lot of trouble for Lag and others. However they didn't have the chance to finish the Gaichuu as it went underground again. Zazie come up a plan to eliminate the Gaichuu - Zazie with his dingo Wasiolka will be sensing the Gaichuu's movement underground, giving signal for Connor to set up the mine while Lag use this opportunity to finish the Gaichuu by aiming at its weak point, the butt. Their plan worked as they manage to lure the Gaichuu out, but Lag was unable to shoot his shindan as the Gaichuu retaliates, knocking off the sack of letters into a hole leading to the underground. While Lag trying to rescue the fallen letters, the Gaichuu went rampant and captured Ann by using tentacles coming out of its mouth and tried to eat her. Hunt rushed to tear open the tentacles wrapping Ann, trying to freed her her but failed, ending up with the same fate as Ann. Things gotten even worse when Zazie who tried to release both Ann and Hunt needlessly shoot his shindan, and eventually also get captured, leaving little hope of killing the Gaichuu. It was at this time that Ann and Hunt's memories were shown, apparently triggered when the Gaichuu tried to eat their hearts/memories.

Ann's previous memories saw her happy time with her father before he become the victim of the Gaichuu, while Hunt's was the time when he and Sarah were tied to traveling circus show due to their debt, with Sarah planned to be sold to a no-good owner soon. One day, one of the shows' mainliner beast was dead and they decide to cut one of the people's arm and replace it with the beast's arm. Hearing the high payment that they'll get, Hunt decides to offer himself as the one to receive the arm, with a promise that they won't sell Sarah... Back to the crisis against the Gaichuu, there were only Connor and Lag who can save the 4 who were caught (Ann, Hunt, Zazie and Wasiolka). Luckily when Lag tried to return to the surface from the underground, he arrived right below the Gaichuu's weak spot, making it much esier to aim its weak point. The Gaichuu was finally terminated, Lag's shindan however revealed memories contained in the Gaichuu's fragment, and some of them projected Gauche's memories..

notes: Niche was absent at the worst possible time. Her help is badly needed, good thing Lag's going down to save the letters were a blessing in disguise because that positioned him right below the Gaichuu's butt. Hunt really did suffers a lot more than I though, having his arm replaced just so that Sarah didn't get sold by the road circus people. I wonder if Sarah knows about Hunt's sacrifice for her, but then she already showed how much she cared for him. Although her past is something to be sympathised for, it's a bit pity that she resort to using lies to fool the people in Honey Water and gain influence.
We got to see a bit on how Gaichuu actually cause people's "death" by consuming their important memories. At first I thought Zazie's shindan had something to do with triggering the memories shown to us, but then it's more likely that their memories were simply sucked out when they were about to get eaten. In the end, Gauche's disappearance really did have something to do with either the Gaichuu there or Honey Water, and there's even "that" Gauche next as seen in the preview. I guess this season 1 would have its ending hanging, since the story about Gauche will be mostly carried out to the 2nd season.

p/s: tentacle in my animu