It’s ef – a tale of melodies episode 6, and Yuu finally discovers the dark secret Yuuko has been hiding from him.

It’s all Himura and Yuuko’s arc this time, as Nagi calls Yuu up to the art room only to complain to him that she can’t draw anymore and tells him to leave. Later, Yuu checks back in on Nagi, who finally realizes that she’s been clinging on to her friendship with Kuze and Yuu, hoping that nothing would ever change, denying that it would eventually have to.

Meanwhile, Kuze plays on the violin for Yuu and Yuuko as a goodbye gift, but the song moves Yuuko so much that she freaks out and leaves. Yuu chases after her, and eventually confesses that he loves her and wants to know everything about Yuuko, saying that he knows she’s hiding something.

She then takes off her clothes, showing him her beaten and scarred body (which we don’t see), shocking him. She explains that, at first, her adopted brother treated her nicely, seeing her as a replacement for the sister he lost in the earthquake. However, soon he snapped out of that and realized that Yuuko wasn’t his sister, and started taking out his hatred about the even out on Yuuko, escalating from beating and generally being violent up to a point a couple years ago where he started raping and torturing her.

These events have left Yuuko feeling like she’s worthless, something which Yuu tries to dispute. However, Yuuko reveals herself to be bitter and angry over the fact that Yuu didn’t embrace her at the orphanage, possibly sparing her from her fate. She asks why he didn’t, and Yuu tries to explain that he didn’t want her to become a replacement for his sister, but Yuuko tells him that she can tell he’s lying.

Wow, that was a pretty brutal episode, though it wouldn’t be the first time in either anime or real life that someone put on the appearance of being happy and cheerful when inside they felt terrible and worthless. This now makes the Yuu/Yuuko arc quite somewhat analogous to the Hiro/Miyako arc from the first series, with Hiro, or in this case Yuu, having to “save” the girl from her own past demons – though Yuu also has some past demons of his own that he probably has to get past.

As I said starting a couple episodes ago, something just didn’t seem right about Yuuko and her brother’s relationship. It seemed too cool, and her brother’s lack of caring about her being bullied, while possibly suggesting that the “bullying” wasn’t what it seemed, ended up being more along the lines of him being his callous self.

You would think at this point that Yuu would do everything in his power to keep Yuuko away from her brother, though I have a feeling that doing that will be easier said than done.

We also drew a connection between the story arcs with Yuuko now talking about how she wears many different masks, just as Kuze said earlier in the series.