“After the snow melts, a morning sun will rise as the journey continues…”
What they say: K
uzuhara recalls his past, Sawa meets up with someone she thought she lost, and the Shogun reckons with the end of his reign.
The Review:
Content (Please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Here we are at the end. Joran has taken us on a journey through revenge in classic 70s jidaigeki fashion. But nothing is permanent, and so the journey must end at some point. Where did Joran end up? Well…
Before we get into that, let’s walk through the last few steps in that journey. In episode 10 we’re provided with Kuzuhara’s backstory in its entirety taking up the whole episode’s runtime. He was one of the children in Janome’s experiments for the Shogun and decided he would escape and live on. He takes a shattered piece of glass and kills the guards and runs away. Initially, it looks like he’s about to be captured by the police but is saved by a Nue executioner who decides to take him into the organization. He’s brought into Nue after showing his loyalty to the Shogun by licking wine off the floor. He’s accepted into Nue and his master teaches him something he’ll remember for the rest of his days; “people will always betray you, friend or foe.” This is echoed throughout the series for more reasons we’ll get to later.
Years later he’s assigned to protect the Karasumori clan and the woman in question he loved he mentioned before was Sawa’s mother. However, his assignment changes to killing them when Janome learns of their blue blood. In a twist, it’s actually Kuzuhara who kills all the Karasumori clan members instead of Janome. The show makes it a point to illustrate how Kuzuhara couldn’t bring himself to kill Sawa even though his orders were to kill all of them. Of course, he never did kill all the others entirely because Janome did show up and took Sawa’s brother. As shown in episode 4, he was still alive while Janome drained all his blue blood. So even though Kuzuhara claimed to have killed all the Karasumori (sans Sawa) to prevent Janome from getting their blood, he still did. Whoopsie! Though the fact that there’s never an indication from anyone that Kuzuhara failed his mission is weird. Given Janome’s activity, the logical conclusion would be that Kuzuhara failed to kill them all (again besides Sawa). The whole mess relates back to that quote. The Shogun betrayed the Karasumori and Kuzuhara after Janome betrayed the Shogun and so, in turn, did Kuzuhara. What’s ironic too, is that despite hearing the quote, it was Kuzuhara who was the last point on the chain of betrayal, killing his master and protecting Sawa.
The whole ordeal obviously left Kuzuhara riddled with guilt and that’s why he couldn’t bring himself to slay Sawa. He even went as far as to slay the member who recruited him to Nue to protect her. It does explain a lot of his contradictory actions as well.
Kuzuhara never actually liked the Shogun and only feigned loyalty throughout the years. From the beginning, the Shogun humiliated him by forcing him to lick wine off the floor and then he had to kill the woman he loved and the clan he protected just so the Shogun could stay in power. But rather than overthrowing the Shogun immediately, he played the long game, protecting Sawa and training her so she could get her revenge and so he could gain power and influence and wait until the time was right.
It’s a solid episode that overall explains a lot about Kuzuhara’s character and helps us understand and sympathize with him. Although the apparent hole in the story involving Sawa’s brother and Janome successfully completing his experiments can’t be entirely overlooked.
The final two episodes serve as the series climax. In the present, Kuzuhara urges Sawa to escape via an underground tunnel and that she can get her revenge on the Shogun (as it was him who ordered everything) at midnight. She’s assisted by a pregnant Elena and they run into Rinko, who challenges them to a fight. Sawa, however, is unwilling to kill. Rinko is intent on killing Sawa, but Sawa refuses to kill Rinko. Sawa easily defeats Rinko, though, by slicing the metal she uses within her body. Yet Sawa still refuses to kill. Instead, Sawa leaves hoping Rinko will make the right choice to change for the better. Although given the overarching theme of betrayal, we can all guess how that will turn out. Sawa and Elena arrive and are greeted by Asashi, who Kuzuhara saved after all.
I was glad Asahi remained alive, and that the series continued to pull the rug from under my feet when it came to character deaths. We were all rooting for Sawa and Asahi to live out a normal quiet life and to see her return was nice. Imagine my groaning when Sawa said she had to go to the palace to face Kuzuhara and the Shogun. I mean this was something that had to be done so I don’t hold it against the series. We need some resolution, but there were heavy hints that The Peaceful Life couldn’t happen. Elena notes that the Ryumyaku that kept the Shogun in power has all but dried up, and the people are finally revolting. After Asahi heads to sleep, Sawa heads to the palace after a lecture from Elena (who just gave birth in the Sawa house). Oddly, this is where all mention of the special resource ends. I was disappointed by the fact that the Ryumyaku never amounts to more than an alternative for electricity. Nothing about its origin or how it’s perceived on the global stage is presented. It would have been nice to get some insight on that.
Sawa is taken by the crow Changeling revealed to be Kuzuhara after all so they can settle things. Kuzuhara wants to prevent Sawa from reaching the palace to protect her. But Sawa has to go. It’s basically her destiny to get revenge. So they fight, and this is by far the high point of this set. It switches to the ink style animation and there’s a glorious battle between them. Even though Kuzuhara doesn’t actively fight back, there’s still some exciting clashing. After the battle ends, Kuzuhara tells Sawa to move on with her life and himself heads to the palace.
This is where the ending starts to derail my enjoyment. Kuzuhara gets to the palace and finds Yoshinobu as a frail older man. This part was fine because I think it illustrates very plainly that often the people in power are just cowardly old men putting on airs. The whole series set up Tokugawa to be a ruthless badass but at the end of the day he’s just a scared old man putting on a show. Classic Man Behind the Curtain. It’s what comes immediately after that concerns me. It’s Kuzuhara who kills the Shogun and he himself then burns down with the palace when the protesters get to it. It provides some conclusion to Kuzuhara, but none for Sawa nor the people of Japan. It’s almost as if this was his show. And he did get a whole flashback episode to himself just before all of this.
Both Sawa and the protesters are robbed of any resolution to their story and ultimately both of them were more important overall. Sawa was the series protagonist. The oppressed masses were the backbone of what made Tokugawa so evil. Of course, the series could have softened the blow by giving her The Peaceful Life but that doesn’t happen either. Rinko comes from behind as Sawa is returning home and literally stabs her in the back. In the end, she didn’t turn toward the good after all and we’re left reminded of the original quote. “People will always betray you, friend or foe.” So there’s no meaning to Sawa’s death for Sawa herself nor anyone close to her. Kuzuhara didn’t accomplish his goal because Sawa is killed and Sawa didn’t get her goal either so the show could reinforce its point. What’s odd to me is that it wasn’t the intention before but became the message somewhere along the way. Before, the show was always about new beginnings and being able to change. Then with Book 3 it became a story about betrayal. If all that wasn’t enough, the story rubs it in by having a fatally wounded Sawa arrive back home and talk to Asahi about the future as she passes away. It’s all too cynical for the series. I much preferred the theme of everyone being able to change their ways after revenge and that reform of the self is possible. The whole “everyone will betray you at some point” is too much of a whiplash, and not a welcome one either.
In an epilogue, Asahi, now 17, talks to Elena’s daughter while she holds a sword and the diary she promised to write in with Sawa. I will say it’s an impactful moment since the page open to the audience is filled with a large, capital “I HATE YOU, ONEE-CHAN, YOU LIAR” and then on the next page is a “I’m sorry I said that, Onee-chan.” Just imagining Asahi going through that grief immediately after the original fade to black is painful and well crafted, even if I don’t like its narrative significance. The white crow that accompanied Sawa lands on Asahi’s shoulder as it recognizes her as the continuation of the Karasumori bloodline and the series ends with the quote “after the snow melts, the morning sun will rise as the journey continues.”
Indeed, Asahi’s story will now continue. Let’s hope its ending is better written than Sawa’s.
In summary:
Overall Joran was a series with a promising start. It has a unique art style, flashy action, and love letters to 70s Japanese revenge films. Unfortunately, it failed to make full use of that potential. In the end, it came together like a hodgepodge of interesting ideas that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. However, this last act didn’t save the series from those problems. While there is good in it, and some kind of ending to the story, it’s too harsh, and a departure from the preferable previous two books. Joran The Princess of Snow and Blood concludes on a disappointing note. While there is plenty of the series’ strengths at play, it turns to a more cynical message than the rest of the story had let on, and rips any fulfilling meaning from sacrifices made by the characters so that cynicism could be conveyed. It is still worth watching if you’re a fan of classic Japanese cinema for the beautiful art, music, and homage to the genre, but not more than once.
Grade: B-
Streamed by: Crunchyroll
