What They Say:
Hiding within his heart the secret of his lord’s illegitimate child while risking his life to protect him, Uesugi Kenshin’s chief retainer, Naoe Kanetsugu, teamed up with the legendary warrior known as history’s most infamous wild man, Maeda Keiji. Never once yielding to any number of powerful men, Kanetsugu and Keiji continue to blaze through the turbulent latter days of the Warring States era, faithfully fighting for justice and their own way of life…
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As the show uses the flashback narrative as its structure, it’s been amusing at times seeing the two leads in slightly different forms than they are in their stories sitting atop a perch and talking about the good old days. It does have a nice air about it that fits the characters and the time they’re from in that they would connect in this way and the storytelling nature of it all is appropriate. Of course, it also goes a bit out of bounds in a way with the arrival of Nobunaga as they talk about another one of their stories as his ghost shows up with some unresolved issues about what happened in the past. While the show has been over the top in some ways as one might expect of manly men, this just takes me out of it all the more as they converse with Nobunaga plain as day.
With the tale of the past, the impending threat of Nobunaga himself has allowed things to go in a comical direction at first as Yoroku has opted to make his challenge to the man plain and simple as he gets all properly dressed up and places the Nobunaga house symbol on his posterior, making it clear that Nobunaga can kiss his ass when it comes to anything. Of course, he doesn’t do that with him present, but it’s not hard to imagine that he’d do it if Nobunaga was there. This sets an amusing start to the episode since it brings in the lightness that’s needed. But then it shifts to some back story material that has a feeling of needing a bit more of a history lesson to really put it all together as it covers a broken family and how it happened before coming back together in the present.
As it progresses, it becomes clear that the real storyline that will build here in the past is the thrust to figure out the true lineage of Kanetsugu. With the understanding that he may be the son of Lord Kenshin, that has a lot of people seeing a change in the balance of power should it be true, and that sets a lot of different people wanting to find out the truth – or to make sure the truth isn’t know. When you add in what Nobunaga brings to the table in this particular age, and getting his commentary in the present, it makes for some amusing moments as the three main characters talk about the situation, but it doesn’t stop it from the main problem. Namely, that it all just feels so convoluted and confusing to the point where it’s easy to be driven away from the show. Try as I might, the first couple of episodes intrigued me but it’s opted to go down a path that is just frustrating after that with the battle for Sado.
In Summary:
Gifu Dodo isn’t a complex show but it makes things complicated and the kind of world it felt like we were getting at first has dissolved into one with more outlandish pieces – that do work at times – and areas that just take me out of it, such as the ghost of Nobunaga. The background stories that we get here are interesting at first but then it feels like we just need to know more than we do from casual viewing in order to get it, which isn’t a surprise with some historical themed shows that want to delve into the realities of the past and work off of that – but each episode seems to make it harder and harder to enjoy since it’s not clear what it’s trying to do or what it’s direction is. At this stage, I was hoping to finish the first season, but this episode has me ever closer to just being done with it in general.
Grade: C-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Apple TV via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
