The Mushibugyo faces her painful past as Princess Naa to regain her powers.
What They Say:
“The Insect Magistrate’s Cursed Past”
Content: (please note that the content portion of a review may contain spoilers)
Once again, a few fights happen concurrently in this episode. Hibachi, Koikawa and Tenma also contine their fight with the other two insects, who have just shed their skin, and while we see everyone gearing up, there’s no actual battling from this crew. Then there is the Saizo versus Mugai battle. While it looks like Mugai may be in trouble as he gets trapped in one of Saizo’s illusions, in the few short moments dedicated to this fight Mugai beats him handily, pulling a pretty creepy move of sucking Saizo into his sword after stabbing him.
But the main focus is, of course, on Jinbei and the Mushibugyo, who have just been confronted by Yukimura. After mentioning something about a king, Jinbei jumps in to fight him, allowing the Mushibugyo to enter the well. While Jinbei thinks he managed to beat him, Yukimura suddenly reemerges from a pile of rubble, leading to another fight where Jinbei just gets trounced. After saying that he’s filling Jinbei with poison, Yukimura shoots him into the well, just as the Mushibugyo is confronting her memories. Because of this, he confronts her dark past with her: she was once a girl named Princess Naa who saved a small gross-looking Insect. When her family is attacked, she dies, but the Insect does something strange. When Princess Naa wakes up, she has grown purple wings, and is now poisoning everyone just by being near them. The bug reappears with a suspiciously evil-looking face just before the memory ends.
The Mushibugyo is ashamed when she realizes Jinbei was there to see the memory, but he goes into a speech about how protecting the weak is always right, so she did the right thing by saving the Insect. Thrilled and relieved, the Mushibugyo goes on her own tangent about how Jinbei’s kind words have melted her icy heart, which Jinbei returns with his own statement that her smile (along with Hibachi, Koikawa, Oharu, etc., to keep it from getting too romantic) gives him power. It’s all pretty cheesy, and delays the actual plot, though it’s still a sweet scene (even if it may be unfairly baiting Jinbei/Mushibugyo pairing fans). Jinbei then leaves the well so she can finish regaining her powers, but it’s just in time to hear Yukimura reveal the twist: when Princess Naa regains her powers, all of her memories will be lost, and she, along with who ever the king is, will wipe out every human.
In Summary
Though a lot goes on in this episode, the focus remains so fully on Jinbei and the Mushibugyo that it doesn’t feel too cluttered, though it does mean that it’s easy to forget that there are other storylines going on. The fast clip of some of the more recent episodes is missing this time around, as the characters spend more time in the past and going on about feelings to cheer each other up, causing the story to slow. The revelation of the Mushibugyo’s past was interesting, and pretty satisfying considering how quick the whole flashback is. Plus, it’s great that Jinbei finally understands that the “servant” is actually the Mushibugyo (I think he does, anyway) and we didn’t have to go through an awkward scene for that to come out. It’s not really clear what will happen in the last pair of episodes: Will Jinbei morph into his overpowered mode again? Will the Mushibugyo really forget everything when she gets her power back? But there’s a bit more at stake now for some of the characters, not just physically but emotionally, and while I don’t think this show will do anything astounding, the characters have become engaging enough to at least make it entertaining.
Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
13″ Apple Macbook set to 720p