Together at last!
What They Say:
Gadolka begins with the culmination of the effort spent on black powder and ends with a paradigm shift in the warfare of the new world. The full extent of the Dwarves suffering reveals itself, and a new cog is added to the war machine.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
After watching the splintered efforts of our anti-heroes in the past seven episodes, Drifters finally commences the meeting of the minds this week’s episode 8, Mystery Call Me! During the episodes leading up to this inevitable gathering, some of the fiercest warriors in history (and their babysitters) have been duking it out with Orte and the Ends with varying amounts of success. Clearly, Toyohisa’s brigade has seen much, if not all, of the success so far given that our last experience with Abe’s team saw the complete annihilation of a very important Orte stronghold. Normally considered a victory, this defeat was not met with such praise as the castle fell not to the Drifters…but to the Black Lord and his Ends. With the two forces finally combined, the fireworks are bound to really start popping off!
As the episode opens, the theme has been left on the cutting room floor, normally an indicator of some serious business ahead. Face to face at long last are the masterminds behind the two factions of Drifters, Abe no Seimei and Oda Nobunaga, and it immediately becomes clear to us who’s mind is most dangerous here. Reeling in a mixture of both shock and anxious fear, Abe makes a very interesting observation about the Drifters he has tasked himself with leading, and how they may be even more dangerous than the Ends themselves. See, the Ends all serve the Black Lord and crave the same ambition, the destruction of the realm and all who inhabit it. This is dastardly of course, BUT, who’s to say that is also not a Drifter’s goal? Completely independentin their efforts, who’s to say Nobunaga or Toyohisa or even The Sundance Kid won’t up and assassinate Abe once the scourge of the Ends has been handled? Aren’t they all just warriors at the end of the day, hell the pilot is from WWII Japan, an ally of the Nazis (though Abe wouldn’t know that)! This I feel is the most interesting aspect of Drifters so far, the fact that our “good guys” aren’t any fundamentally different than our “bad guys”; they’ve just been drafted by a different team.
We also finally learn what Abe’s party of Drifters have been up to since their escape from that decimated castle, and it looks like it was a rough road. Seeming to be constantly under fire from the Black Lord’s men, The Sundance Kid and company were forced to constantly be on the move, losing Scipio in the process. Being tossed from the carriage whilst trying to remove a flaming arrow from the wagon, Scipio is left to wander through the woods for several hours (maybe days) until bumping into the other straggler from the last battle, the pilot. As with any new meetings between these alpha personalities, it begins with a brawl, so they must be friends, right?
After watching this episode, it’s safe to say that neither Abe nor we the viewers can yet clearly establish exactly where the Drifters lie in the spectrum of good and evil. They are fighting the Ends, sure, but is that really from a place of righteous justice and the freedom of the indigenous people? Or is it just to squash a strong opponent on their own way to domination and military rule? I know I am still all in on this series, especially with the new knowledge of Yoichi’s potential relationship with one of the wildcards on the End side of the conflict.
In Summary:
Seeing the union of the two factions of Drifters has kept my interest piqued through the 8th week of the season. The murky lines of the goodies and the baddies makes the characters, although painted into these corners, very much so wildcards all around. Art and animation remains strong, with the psychotic facial expressions abound, only compounding the previously mentioned curiosities.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
