Secrets come to light and lives are in danger as both teams reach their goals.
What They Say:
Jinbei’s flower team advances steadily. Meanwhile the snow team, the Magistrate’s party, reaches the eternal well. Kirigakure Saizou then reveals his true self and begins a one on one fight with Mugai.
Content: (please note that the content portion of a review may contain spoilers)
This is a busy episode, as the Mushibugyo’s Snow team nears the well, and Jinbei’s Flower team gets closer to Sanada Yukimura. First, Jinbei’s team comes across the final two Insect-men before Yukimura, and while they have a clear advantage at five versus two, they still struggle. Meanwhile, Saizo, who has been secretly following the Mushibugyo, decides to reveal himself, but since Mugai is generally the only one who knows what he’s doing, he sees through the disguise before Saizo can kill them all. Their fight takes off, errupting outside and even interrupting the fight with the other two Insect-men, leaving the Mushibugyo without her protector. Seeing this, Oooka and Jinbei leave the fight to Hibachi and the others.
On their way to the Mushibugyo, they discover that Yukimura is only one staircase away, and while Jinbei is willing to sacrifice himself to fight Yukimura so Oooka can help the Magistrate, Oooka sends Jinbei to her, and takes on Yukimura himself. This battle doesn’t take as long, but it makes all the others look tame by comparison as limbs are lost, blood flows, and it becomes very apparent how scary powerful Yukimura is. During all this, the Magistrate opens the way to the well, and it’s explained that there is another danger: a painful past will reemerge when she enters the well, and if she can’t deal with it, she won’t survive. Despite her strong resolve she hesitates at the well for an agonizingly long time — until, of course, Jinbei shows up.
It’s not just the fighting that fills this episode to the brim. While much is still left open and unexplained, a good number of secrets and revelations come to light as different characters flashback to their pasts. Mugai remembers the day he went to kill the Magistrate when he was a member of the Insect Hunters, and felt he saw someone just as emotionless and lonely as himself, finally explaining his break with his own group. Even more shocking, Oooka recalls when he first saw the Magistrate as a boy — and despite how long ago that was, she still looks exactly the same. Combined with other memories that flash momentarily for the Magistrate — a painful origin, something turning into something else — two questions that had hardly, if ever, occured to me arose. How exactly did she become what she is, and how old is the Magistrate, really? Other things mentioned by Yukimura and the others hint at a bigger power behind it all, and while this does make the story more excting, it does make me wonder how much the show can really cram in before the conclusion.
In Summary
With everything going on — several fights, secret pasts, heartfelt confessions — this episode is stuffed to the brim, almost confusingly so as most of the events happen simultaneously and even intersect each other. Still, the pace keeps everything moving at a good enouh clip so you can just sail along with it, and the new character revelations do a decent job of fleshing out some of the characters so that these events, and in one case the conclusion, have more meaning and power. The characters are so close to their goals, and we’re so close to finally seeing the secrets and reasons behind so much of the story, that I’m awaiting the next few episodes with a bit more anticipation than usual.
Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment: 13″ Apple Macbook set to 720p
