WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Mars Red Episode 5, "Persona Non-Grata," now streaming on Funimation.

Episode 5 of Mars Red starts with the aftermath of Episode 4's zombie vampire attack on the Red Light District, with Captain Maeda recovering in the sunny wing of a hospital after collapsing in front of the Code Zero vampires. When he wakes up dazed and confused, he notices a young woman with a pink and purple kimono looking over him.

At first, he believes it's Masaki, the actress-turned-demented vampire who appeared in Episode 1. However, Maeda's tone is warm, not frightened or aggressive, and his disappointment when the woman turns out to be Aoi the journalist is palpable.

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Aoi had used her personal connection with one of the nurses to enter the hospital and talk to Maeda. The mystery of the spontaneous combustions is still gnawing at her mind and despite her editor's instructions, she's determined to get to the bottom of it. She knows that Maeda knows something -- somehow, despite his high rank, he's always investigating the same crime scene that Aoi so desperately wants to decipher. She must have thought the only way to get him talking would be while he's vulnerable and isolated from his subordinates -- and, for some reason, surrounded by his files and personal correspondence.

While Aoi doesn't succeed in her forceful interrogation of Maeda, her questions do bother him -- particularly when she pulls a packet of old letters, asking him to disclose its contents. He refuses and changes the topic to her childhood friend Shutaro Kurusu, who also wrote her a letter before he was infected by an A-Class vampire in Siberia. Aoi shrugs off Maeda's lie about Kurusu's death -- she's convinced he'll keep his promise to stay alive, no matter what.

Aoi eventually departs, leaving Maeda shaken. He should be working on his cases or reporting to his superiors about the murdered vampires they found, poisoned or drained of blood. Instead, he starts re-reading the old letters, all of which are from Masaki. It turns out that Masaki and Maeda had a connection before she turned into a vampire. Maeda and Masaki's father served together at some point in the past, but when they received their new assignment her father became more and more unstable, to the point that the actress wrote to Maeda asking for help. Her very last letter was written with her own blood after her transformation.

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Maeda, having finally figured out that the child actor is a vampire, returns to confront Defrott at the Imperial Theater. Defrott admits he gave Masaki his blood. She had been acting strangely for some time, spending their last rehearsal worried to death about something and repeating over and over that she was very sorry. Defrott also mentions that the accident that "killed" Masaki didn't look like an accident -- he suspects foul play.

Mars Red might have even shown Masaki's father. In a separate scene, there's a picture of Maeda, Yamagami and a third man before Maeda lost his arm and Yamagami became a vampire. The three look remarkably young and are wearing the normal uniform of the Japanese army. The way the camera lingers on the mystery soldier, who hasn't yet appeared, hints that he's deeply connected to the Maeda and Masaki plot.

Mars Red, based on the stage play by Fujisawa Bun-o, is written by Fujisaku Junichi (Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex), directed by Fujisawa Bun-o and Hatano Kouhei, designed by Karakara Kemuri (Laughing Under the Clouds) and Takeuchi Yukari (Demon Slayer) and scored by Muranaka Toshiyuki.

KEEP READING: Mars Red Tells a Red-Light District Tale - With a Vampiric Twist