The city of Sakai holds some of Nobuna’s hope as she needs to raise a lot of money fast.
What They Say:
No Episode Summary Provided.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The series takes a bit of an odd turn this time around as it shifts to the city of Sakai where Nobuna and Sagara meet up with Soukyuu. As Sagara says to Nobuna at one point, he’s a regular character in the Ambition game that he played who shows up when the seasons change to sell things. With the pair needing to get 120,000 kan, they have a lot of work to do in order to acquire it all. And it’s not something that Soukyuu can just do himself and even then while he has influence there’s also the fact that he’s a merchant and has many competitors. While Nobuna’s overall goal is noble to try and unify the country, there’s still many that don’t grasp her reasons why or even believe them. And Sakai is a difficult place for it as well with it being a rich trading area.
Nobuna’s approach of trying to bring everyone together under her train of thought is one that is difficult to do since everyone has a good deal of distrust. Nobuna has gained a few enemies along the way and many in Sakai are wary of aligning with her in order to gain them as enemies as well. There is a grasping of her larger goals and why shes’ doing it, but not as much belief in the reality of it. While she intends to be the unifier and change the nation, there are few that truly believe it. Only those like Juubei and Sagara really do believe it and put their all into it. When she meets with the others alongside Soukyuu, you can see that their intention is to buy their way into the future since it’s a risk worth taking.
The episode does provide some of the fighting going on in the background plot with the Miyoshi Three, and it has its moments, but it’s a small factor overall even if it is fun to watch. Most of it daels with Sakai and what’s going on there, which includes Sagara introducing something really amusing into the mix with a nod from the future as he works with Goemon to create a food that will get the merchants on their side. It’s a welcome bit of comic relief that’s used to just be silly, but it shows another side of Sagara that helps to show him as a little more well rounded. The match plays out as you’d expect with some amusing twists in it, but also a change to the dynamic for Juubei that wasn’t planned or expected that I liked. Giving it a chance to change things up a bit is definitely welcome since it impacts how others perceive Juubei as well.
In Summary:
While the episode does provide for some changes to the dynamic as it goes along at the end, most of the show is pretty light and fluffy. And that works considering the way it’s moved in the last few episodes. They didn’t go for outright laughs and silliness for the whole thing, like a beach episode or something, but worked to pair up Nobuna and Sagara more and to let his future knowledge play well while seeing how other sides were manipulating things for their own advantage. I like the way the episode played out and to see a fun side of Nobuna here as well as Sagara. I also liked the way that things fell when it comes to Juubei and how that can be played as it goes forward.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.