Ninth Step Station s01e09 by Fran Wilde and Curtis C. Chen
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Years of disaster and conflict have left Tokyo split between great powers. In the city of drone-enforced borders, bodymod black markets, and desperate resistance movements, US peacekeeper Emma Higashi is assigned to partner with Tokyo Metropolitan Police Detective Miyako Koreda. Together, they must race to solve a series of murders that test their relationship and threaten to overturn the balance of global power. And amid the chaos, they each need to decide what they are willing to do for peace.
Ninth Step Station is written by a collaboration of authors including: Malka Older, Fran Wilde, Jacqueline Koyanagi and Curtis C. Chen. Similar to all the serials from Serialbox, this story is also released in episodes. Every episode is written by a different author.
Setting up the grande finale is definitely the name of the game for episode 9. I dont know if this episode was the shortest one in pages but it felt like it. As I said in some other episode reviews, i was looking forward to seeing connections and it finally happens. Epidose 9 starts off with a banquet dinner featuring the most important figures of Japan, China and the US. Bringing together these factions does scream for something to happen, and Emma's intuition was right. Shots are fired with a disastrous end effect. Now all three faction are in some way pointing fingers but they also need to work together to catch the assassin. And as faith would have had it, Emma and Miyako get their favorite Chinese investigators Liu and Wong.
There are several scenes that really got me thinking. Charles and Miyako, Charles request for Emma during the dinner, Kensuke's interference and one thing that Liu and Wong mention about a hornets nest. And what is the significance of Kaori? This story is just perfectly executed putting pieces of the puzzle together but also with every new episode expanding the puzzle.
Coming back to the overall flow of the story you can notice the tension between all of the character. After the events at the dinner, Emma is clearly shocked but she has no time to express any of this and by her action you see her going in some sort of survival mode. Emma is taking the lead above Miyako in the events and though there was some criticism in the beginning from her. Solid character development so far and in Episode 9 Emma is definitely a star. Very well shown how event are influencing her personality and also decision making.
The ending of episode 9 is too much off a cliffhanger and clearly paves the way for an explosive ending. Can't wait for the final episode.
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Tune in next week for the last episode!
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