Vinland Saga S2 – 06 – Too Much Wealth

Cutting down trees was the easy part. Pulling the stumps with just two human bodies is a grueling labor, and threatens to make setting up an actual farm a virtually Sisyphean task. Einar declares that they need a horse. It’s not a matter of convenience. They friggin’ need one. He swallows his pride and tries to ask the retainers, to no avail.

Then grizzled old man named Sverkel overhears Einar talking to Thorfinn about their predicament, and invites the two to two clear his field of rocks, then chop firewood and draw water for him. Einar wonders if the old man is simply using them because he can, but Sverkel is a man of his word.

Einar gets his horse, and the stumps are cleared in a jiffy. In exchange, every time they pick up or drop off the horse, they do some chores for Sverkel. Nothing is easy when you’re a slave, and it’s a lot of hard work to do more hard work but men like Sverkel who at least give them a chance to put themselves in a position to one day buy their freedom.

When the retainers asks where Einar got the horse (which they don’t recognize), he says Sverkel’s name, but the retainers don’t know it. Then they describe the man, and they say that the man who lent his horse to them is none other than the “old master”, Ketil’s father.

Ketil is at Sverkel’s house arguing with him to stop being a stubborn mule and come live with him again, but Sverkel digs in his heels. Living under Ketil’s roof would only cause more arguments. If he’s going to die soon, he’s going to die where he feels independent and at peace. We also see that Snake hangs out at Sverkel’s, and the four men have a meal, almost as equals, as both Einar, Thorfinn, and Snake all listen to Sverkel’s lectures.

Snake is playfully adversarial towards Sverkel, but there’s a reason he hangs out there: Sverkel is a font of wisdom, and people like Snake got where they were by listening and learning from their elders. Sverkel also feels it’s an affront to decency that Ketil is so wealthy and his lands so vast he must hire and handsomely pay men like Snake to defend his land for him.

Once the stumps are pulled, Einar and Thorfinn use plows to grade and till the land, and by the time fall arrives, they’re ready to seed the fields with wheat. Both are now sporting the goatees they have in the OP, and Thorfinn acknowledges, at least privately, that he and Einar have indeed become friends.

Einar, a lifelong farmer, and Thorfinn, a lifelong warrior. Quite a pair. Thorfinn may be out of his element, but Einar will make him a farmer yet. After all, being someone who can make food is a lot more rare and valuable than someone who can take life.

To Your Eternity – S2 10 – Eko From the Beyond

Fushi has been hard at work training on the beached galleon, but is running into problems replicating something so big and complex. He’s able to summon forth each and every part of the ship, but not the ship in its entirety. The Beholder advises him to develop better “awareness” that the objects he creates “belong to him.”

Prince Bon and Kahaku are also hard at work, defeating Nokkers and warning the crown princess of Renril that a Nokker attack is coming. While the masked, obscured princess refuses to abandon the castle or town, she does agree to an alliance. Taking a break from training, Fushi discovers a town.

There he finds new fruits and vegetables at the market, and pays for them with money. He then finds poor and starving people and gives them the food he bought, but when he tries to give money to a woman and her kid he’s met with resentment and suspicion. The woman won’t let him “control” them with his money.

Fushi then senses intense pain coming from a filthy girl with big eyes who is trapped in a cage in a circus tent. He breaks her and her little brother out in the middle of the night and rides back to his galleon base, but on the way the boy dies and he buries him.

Back aboard the ship, Fushi ensures the girl doesn’t meet the same fate, as he feeds her, shows her his menagerie, sews her a dress, bathes her, and cuts her hair. Since the only word she says is “-eko” in response to the presence of a cat (neko), Fushi decides to address her as “Eko.” She stays aboard while he continues his training.

When she senses her falling after trying to plug a leak, he transforms into her brother, and is able to communicate with her through her clay pot, which is apparently a particular ability of her people. This experience helps him to better understand the Beholder’s advice, and he rejects the idea that he “controls” anyone or anything.

Rather, he has to look at things as having always been a part of him. Everything he sees or has ever seen is not merely a collection of possessions, but his very existence itself. He surrounds the ship with an elaborate tangle of vines from his body, and from his spot below deck is able to achieve a number of tasks remotely.

After a while without any contact, Kahaku and Bon decide to return to the beach to check on Fushi, and find that he’s essentially created his own little mini-world. His face covered and body constrained by vines, Fushi confirms that everything within a 3km radius of him…is him. 

He’s also able to teleport, after a fashion, by creating an ambulatory copy of himself through the network of vines. He prepares tea and pastries for his friends and introduces them to Eko, whose people Kahaku is aware of. Fushi communicates with her again as her brother, and learns she has no home to return to, so she’ll be accompanying him on their mission to protect Renril. She seems fine with that!

Bon heads to Uralis to try to find “Immortal allies” that will help them, while Fushi, Eko, Kahaku and Horse head to the beautiful and imposing palace city of Renril, where they’ll likely meet with the crown princess and some of her trusted officers.

Considering her prominent presence in the ED, I was looking forward to Eko’s introduction, and was not disappointed. She rivals March and Rynn for cutest character in TyE, and I feel both we and Fushi have only just scratched the surface of her clay pot abilities.

To Your Eternity – S2 09 – A Horse of Course

The Nokkers attack the city, but as usual TYE has presentation issues when it comes to capturing the scale and complexity of the ensuing chaos. Events come down to Fushi in his various forms warning townsfolk to flee “east”, which seems somewhat arbitrary. People crowd and convene in the head church, only for that to be the location where the Nokkers appear. As Fushi battles, he loses his vessels one after the other.

By the time the sun rises and the dust clears, the Nokkers have been defeated, but untold people have been killed, while Fushi has lost Parona, Gugu, Uroy, Shin, and Ligurd. Bon and Kahaku are rightfully concerned: if he can lose five of his precious vessels in just one battle, he can scarcely afford to lose many more in the next. A kindly holy knight gives Fushi his blessing, but it’s not enough.

While Fushi has gotten a lot better at fighitng the Nokkers, we’ve arrived at a point where they’re a step ahead, hiding in quicksand and capitalizing on his lack of muscle (March can’t really fire arrows, for instance). The Beholder ends up bailing Fushi out with a Horse he created from a piece of Fushi’s flesh. The horse has a mind of its own, and keeps Fushi from rushing back into battle too soon.

While Kahaku shows that he can still fight the Nokkers off with his left arm, that arm Nokker relays a message from its fellow Nokkers who regard it as a traitor: they’ll be launching an attack on the largest human city in a year’s time. If Fushi wants his vessels back, he’ll go to that city and “play the game.”

Kahaku, Bon, and the forces of Uralis will aid the city in preparation and evacuation, while Fushi stays aboard a beached galleon from Uralis that Bon has designated his new base. There, he must learn how to create larger objects in order to gain a new advantage against the biggest Nokker threat yet.

To Your Eternity – S2 04 – The Prince of Ghosts

The morning after their little talk, Parona!Fushi is still not sure what to do, so she decides to stick around for the time being—but only for a day. She conjures a bed to lie on out in the wastes, but a concerned Prince Bon brings builders to help her build walls around the bed (she conjures the bricks, they provide the grout and grunt work).

While construction proceeds, Prince Bon asks “Mister Black” (i.e. the Beholder) what he’ll do once Fushi accomplishes his mission. The Beholder appears to say he’ll give Fushi his “freedom.” Bon isn’t sure what to make of such a vague promise. “Freedom” could mean anything, after all … and not all of it good!

The next morning, Parona!Fushi wakes up in her makeshift house and Bon’s sister Pocoa accompanies her to the stables to find a horse to ride for their  ensuing travels. They hear screams of anguish from Bon and come running to find that his handkerchief was caught by the wind and came to rest on a pile of shit in the cesspool. One intrepid attendant fishes the hankie out of the shit, and Fushi learns his name is Todo.

Having been told to find friends and a lover by Bon, and seeing something fly out of Todo’s “essence”, she asks if Todo is in love with Bon; him running away and denying it says it all. Fushi then asks Kahaku if a boy can love another boy; Kahaku says whatever needs to be said to stay in the lover running. Though he previously said he wouldn’t try to seduce Fushi, that was before he met Parona!Fushi.

One thing that’s certain about Prince Bon is that he commands the unswerving love and devotion of the vast majority of his father’s subjects. He’s even able to spin the Church’s tack about Fushi being a menace, using the kingdom’s press to build him up as a holy warrior and savior against the Nokkers. As they ride out in a grand parade, Bon reminisces on how he got to this point.

Bon’s ensuing backstory, while somewhat shoehorned into this episode, is nevertheless fascinating—and also quite sad. Bon has always been able to see people no one else could. Whether these people were ghosts, spooks, specters or shadows was immaterial; they taught him a lot and made him who he is.

As for his precious hanky, we learn it was sewn by a girl who doesn’t appear to be one of the ghosts he sees, judging by the fact she doesn’t glow white like them, and the hanky is a physical object others can see (even if she slipped away before anyone else could see her).

Pocoa assumes the girl was just another instance of Bon’s “usual thing”, which is seeing dead people. His mother, who doesn’t like this one bit, hires some kind of “healer” to cure him of the malady through bloodletting. Bon’s usual ghost companions are joined by Tonari, who tells Bon bedside stories about Fushi, the immortal one, and tells him how he’ll find him.

One day Bon finds his father the king’s will stating his little brother will usurp him for the throne. When he demands an explanation, his father’s is relatively reasonable: Bon spends all his allowance on trifling things like clothes and accessories, while Torta selflessly gives to the people.

Not being the kinslayer sort, Prince Bon instead resolves to change his father’s mind and name him the future king. He eventually decides he’ll be able to do that by finding and capturing the wanted Fushi. Tonari told him to look for someone with an “enormous shadow”, and sure enough Bon finds Fushi walking through a city with the ghost of Oniguma-sama lumbering behind him, as well as ghost March, Gugu, Tonari, and others.

Prince Bon’s “affliction” isn’t mere schizophrenia, but something real; the ability to see all of the departed companions Fushi has absorbed into his being. He may be an insufferable fop, but there’s no discounting the fact that this ability is truly wondrous, and the very reason they were drawn together. If anyone is going to help Prince Bon regain his throne, it’s Fushi, and if anyone is going to help Fushi take the next crucial steps towards humanity, it’s Bon.

Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation – 02 – Facing the Outside

Most isekai anime never return to the protagonist’s original world after the first episode, but as Rudy grows older and more accustomed to his new life as a little kid, his trauma begins manifesting as flashes of that previous life. First, we’re presented with a Rudy who skips his parents’ funeral so he can jerk off in his bedroom.

When three goons break in, he runs away, sees a truck about to hit some high school students, and runs into its path, resulting in the death we saw last week. Back in the new world, Rudy considers walking in on his parents loudly screwing when he sees Roxy masturbating outside their door. Symmetry.

As pervy as Rudy is, even he knows better than to disturb Roxy in such a vulnerable state, like the goons did to him the night he died. The empathy he displays here underscores the promise of this new life: the chance to properly develop mentally, something that wasn’t possible in his old life. It’s also an early hint of the respect he gains for Roxy, who isn’t just his master, but his first friend…in either life.

Six months, then a year pass since Roxy arrived, and Rudy is making fast progress with his magic, and no longer passing out after expending it. Roxy looks upon this progress with pride, but also a sense of sad inevitability: soon he’ll easily surpass her as a mage and she’ll have nothing left to teach him. As for the green-haired demonic “Superd” she warns him about, Rudy already knows about monsters from his past life.

In his previous life, Rudy was brutally bullied at school, regularly stripped down, tied up, and photographed by leering, laughing gawkers. Though we’re seeing things purely from his POV there’s no reason to think he’s embellishing things, and we see that this treatment led him to cease moving forward. He retreated into the safety of his room, where he remained in stasis.

Even though his two worlds couldn’t look any more different (a contrast that’s well-executed by the visuals), he feels the same fear of the outside beyond his family’s land as he did leaving his room, or even looking out his window. When Roxy recommends he attend Ranoa Magic University in the Red Dragon Mountains to further his training, he brushes it off as unnecessary; he’ll be just fine where he is, with Roxy.

Of course, Rudy is deluding himself. Roxy is a great teacher, but as he reaches five years old (the first of three 5-year intervals birthdays are celebrated in this world) they’re quickly approaching the point when Roxy has nothing left to teach him. To remain home would stunt his development, both as a mage and as a person.

For his fifth birthday Rudy receives a tome from his mom, a sword from his dad, and a wand from Roxy, along with the announcement that he’ll use the wand for his imminent graduation exam. The magic they’ll be learning is dangerous, so they must travel away from home. The prospect of going outside causes Rudy to freeze up; as Roxy aptly puts it, he’s finally “acting his age.”

Roxy assures him there’s nothing to fear, and helps him exorcise his past life’s demons simply by being her wonderful self. As they ride past other villagers, Rudy wants them to stop staring at him, but then realizes they’re staring at Roxy, who in just a year was able to win the entire village over despite the prejudice surrounding people with hair her color.

With nothing left to fear of the new land in which he finds himself, Rudy watches Roxy pull of the biggest magical spell yet, summoning a huge storm that accidentally injures the family horse, Caravaggio. Thankfully he’s easily healed up and then placed in a protective shell when it’s Rudy’s turn to cast the spell.

As with the magical trials Fran puts Elaina through in Wondering Witch, the full terrible potential of elite-level magic is fully realized by the surpassing visuals, as the idyllic landscape is entirely greyed out by blinding sheets of rain, only to emerge more beautiful than before, with tinges of pink and violet in the blue skies.

Rudy passed his first two big tests of life in his new world: stepping outside, and passing his final exam with Roxy. With that passage, there truly is nothing else Roxy can teach him. While I half-expected him to press further for her to stay—either by becoming the village’s resident mage or, say, becoming his dad’s third wife—Rudy isn’t the only one who needs to move forward, and Roxy intends to travel the world, re-hone her skills, and see what else she can learn.

So while Rudy is understandably sad to see her go (as are his folks, who fail to hold back tears for her goodbye), he lets her go, thanking her for imbuing him with knowledge, experience, and technique in magic as well as life. He will also never forget that it was Roxy who brought him outside and showed him it was nothing to fear.

While Roxy was little more than a pretty game character made flesh to Rudy when they met, she’s become someone with whom he formed a genuine human connection, learned more than he’d ever imagined, and healed him in a way he’d long thought impossible. For all of that she’ll have his everlasting gratitude and respect.

Of course, Rudy is still Rudy, as we’re reminded when Lilia discovers a pair of Roxy’s underwear he’d stashed away a few months prior to her departure…the little shit! But maybe, just maybe, he’s taken the first steps to becoming a little less of a shit. Baby steps.

Stray Observations:

• Rudy died the same night as his parents’ funeral. Looks like they were last line of defense that kept the tormentors out of his house. We later catch them outside his door telling him not to give up.
• While the extent of the public torture Rudy endured stretches credulity, I’m not putting anything past human beings after 2020.
• Roxy is indeed the age where, ahem, “that kind of thing” is pretty normal, and this being a world that lacks the modern means of taking care of that, listening to two people having sex would have to suffice.
• That said, the session she and Rudy overheard did not result in a baby sibling for Rudy. I presume he’ll get one at some point.
• Rudy is not yet much of a swordsman despite Paul’s efforts, but in Rudy’s defense, he’s five. you gotta give the kid a sword his size!
• Roxy brings up the Superd, who have green hair and red stones in their foreheads. They started the horrific Laplace War between humans and demons. Rudy visualizes them as similar to Sadako from The Ring.
• Seeing the village kids leering with flip phones was hella creepy.
• Social status, pride, and even race apparently don’t matter at Ranoa University. I imagine Rudy will be heading there as soon as he’s old enough…say seven.
• The little aside of Zenith affectionately feeding Roxy and Lilia grapes was extremely cute.
• Really glad Caravaggio pulled through! Poor horse looked like he was toast—literally.
• Read Crow’s write-up here!

Cardcaptor Sakura – 67 – Scarfknitter Sakura

When Sakura wakes up in the morning, it’s the first time she does so knowing Yukito’s answer definitively. When Syaoran lent her his ear, he enabled her to get all of the sadness out and accept that answer.

Sakura wants to show her gratitude to him for helping to cheer her up, so first thing in the morning during class chores, she asks Syaoran if he’ll join her at the Tsukimine Shrine festival, even getting him to pinky promise!

As the school days pass, Sakura gets sleepier and sleepier in class, concerning Syaoran, who thought she’d gotten over the fatigue of card-converting. Sakura promises she’s fine.

While walking home with Tomoyo hand-in-hand, Sakura makes sure to thank her for all of the many ways she’s helped, including being living proof that you can be happy with the one you love being happy, even if you’re not the one they chose.

We learn that Sakura had been staying up late not going to underground raves, but knitting Syaoran a scarf. She knows the Hong Konger isn’t a fan of the cold—it’s why she initially hesitated to invite him out to the festival—but the choice of gift shows just how kind and thoughtful she is, and why Syaoran fell for her so easily!

That said, Syaoran confides in a disappointed Tomoyo that he’s decided not to confess to her after all. Now that Sakura knows the pain of rejection, she’ll naturally empathize with him in that same scenario, and he doesn’t want to trouble her with that. Ah, but kid, you’ll only “trouble” her if she doesn’t return your feelings!

Yukito is similarly needlessly guilty about having taken all of Touya’s magical power, especially when Sakura unwittingly sneaks up on her brother (Before, he’d have been able to sense someone coming with his eyes closed), and now that Touya is as sleepy as Yukito once was. Touya sets Yuki’s mind at ease: he did what he wanted to do, because keeping Yuki around was more important than his power.

This brings us to the Eriol-fuckery of the Week, which takes a form somewhat similar to the hell-horse that greets visitors to Denver International Airport. It emerges from a moon pool where Sakura learned from Mizuki Kaho (remember her?) how to tell one’s fortune.

Sakura and Syaoran work together to bring the horse to heel, the former converting the Thunder card in the process, but the damage is already done: the horse clipped an electrical wire, shrouding the festival in darkness. Rather than let it be shut down, Sakura converts one more card—Glow—in order to re-illuminate the festivities and enchant the festival-goers and her friends alike.

As Syaoran lets one of the glowing orbs settle into his palm, Tomoyo tells Syaoran to reconsider his refusal to confess to Sakura. No one has watched Sakura closer than Tomoyo, and she knows Sakura isn’t someone who “keeps sad things in her heart as sad things forever”. Basically, he owes it to himself and Sakura to tell her about his feelings, thus giving her the chance to accept them. Syaoran seems convinced!

Fruits Basket – 39 (S2 14) – Please Don’t Say Such Things

Haruhatsu used to visit Yuki, but he didn’t come alone. Rin always came with him and sat by the door. When she grew tired of sitting there she left and Haru followed, leading Yuki to wonder: Why’d she come in the first place?

It’s clear that this second cour of the Second Season of Fruits Basket (2019) is going to finally address the horse in the room, i.e. Rin, who’s been glaring enigmatically from the margins throughout the first cour. What we do know of her is that she’s stubborn but also just, which means she always came with Haru because she was protecting him, just as Haru was trying to help Yuki.

Haru reports that no progress has been made with Rin, and that he’s starting to believe her harsh words about being done with him were the truth, although he admits to struggling with uncertainty.

Yuki can certainly relate, as he’s still so uncertain about the “various burdens” in his life he’s not sure the StuCo is the thing he should prioritize, though Haru is glad he’s doing it and wants him to stick with it.

Meanwhile in Shigure’s household, Tooru learns her gramps has thrown his back out and can’t attend the upcoming parent-teacher meetings. Shigure steps in as substitute, almost exclusively so he can see his ex Mayu’s face for the first time since bringing her and Hatori together.

Yuki visits his parents’ house but his mother is out, as usual, so he simply drops the paperwork off to the servants and leaves. He runs into Kagura on the way out, and he notes (somewhat insensitively) that Kyou has been noticeably down and distant since meeting with her.

Kagura puts on a brave face and tells Yuki she’s fine, but that once even the thought of loving someone enters your head, “it’s too late”. Yuki is jealous of her certainty in her love and the need to move past it; all while he wallows in uncertainty—about Tooru, about Akito, etc.

Then Yuki happens to spot Rin, chases her down, and tries to get her to explain what’s going on with her and Haru. He remembers her visits with Haru in the past and now realizes she was protecting him then, so the breakup must mean she’s protecting him again.

Rin is not amused by Yuki’s questions, and repeats her insistance he stay out of her business. She also delivers some barbs, like the fact Haru was the one who begged Shigure to take Yuki in and away from the compound; Haru still calls Shigure sensei in exchange.

Leave it to Rin and her lack of a filter to highlight precisely Yuki’s fear: that he’s being an idiot for trying to live “carefree school life” while ignoring the burdens of people like Haru. Sure enough, Haru appears and is soon locked in a passionate kiss with Rin after seeing her reaction to him considering going away and “dying” if she doesn’t care about him anymore.

Sure, she later slaps him and runs off for asking if she’s still “unable to rise up” on her own like “back then”, but it’s clear Rin does care about Haru and what happens to him—and likely still loves him—but she’s apparently convinced Haru will suffer if they remain together?

Things are still cloudy when it comes to exactly what’s going on with Rin, but the fact she’s so prominent in this episode (and her seiyu Toyosaki Aki has the most lines yet) means we’re sure to learn more about that in due time.

Well, it wouldn’t be Fruits Basket if every other episode or so had a scene that makes the tears well up in your eyes, and this week is no exception as Tooru visits her grandfather. He’s really fine, but due to his back he’s lying supine, unable to move, and struggles to talk, so it looks and sounds to us—and Tooru—like he’s on his deathbed.

Things take a turn when he mentions Tooru’s parents Katsuya and Kyouko, and how he and Katsuya didn’t get along in the past but were brought together by Kyouko. Gramps curses the fact both were taken so soon, and wants to see them again, even as ghosts. When he trails off, Tooru’s heart is no doubt in her feet, until the fearful moment passes and her grandpa takes a breath, having simply fallen asleep.

Regardless, his words about wanting to go see them echo the ones Tooru remembers her mother saying. We see a little bit more of that memory that Tooru has kept a firm lid on all these years—the lid that all but kept her father out of her memory and kept all of the memories of her mom bright happy. Now it looks more and more like Kyouko, wracked with grief over losing Katsuya, took her own life, leaving poor Tooru an orphan.

As Tooru dips her toe into the Souma Curse-breaking pool, perhaps she is already in the deep end of a different curse pool: the curse of believing that somehow she was responsible for her mother’s death. Worse, because no one knows how things went down (except maybe Arisa and Saki), there’s no one to convince her otherwise.

If and when these dark memories continue to surface, they will test Tooru’s resolve to prioritize the freeing of the Zodiac spirits, as well as provide more ammo for Akito to use against her. Even this brief instance of remembering her despairing mother closing the door on her brings her to her knees, but thankfully Kyou is there to help her get up.

I’ve no doubt she’ll continue to rely on him, on Yuki, and on others to reckon with her past misplaced blame and continue the struggle to break that dang curse.

Check out Crow’s writeup here!

Fruits Basket – 33 (S2 08) – Quiet Voices

In summoning the Zodiac members to the annex, Akito intends to gradually isolate Tooru, the “Ugly Girl” with whom Akito locked is in a one-sided competition. Tooru isn’t trying to take anyone from him, just get along and help out with their problems if she can.

Of course, simply by existing and being kind-hearted and caring, Tooru is an affront to Akito’s authority as “god” of the Zodiac. The members and their souls are Akito’s property. To put it crudely, Tooru is fuckin’ with Akito’s shit, and he will only tolerate it so far.

All we know is, none of the Zodiac members dare oppose Akito…except for Yuki, who thanks to Tooru has developed a more rigid spine and thicker skin. Tooru is worried about what Yuki said to her on the beach, especially the part spoken in such a “quiet voice” she couldn’t hear it even when she strained to do so.

The next day Yuki apologizes for making her worry, but won’t apologize for the kiss. In exchange, he’s fine with her forgetting everything he said, but she won’t. What was said (what she heard anyway) was important, after all.

Kyou is a little different in that he’s no so much in open rebellion against Akito as simply not worth his time or trouble, being the Cat and all. It’s because of this Akito doesn’t summon him, allowing him to continue hanging out with Tooru. What Akito doesn’t realize (at least until witnessing the two having fun on the beach) is that as long as Tooru has Kyou, she won’t be lonely and miserable, which is what Akito wants.

Previously, Akito assumed Kyou was a monster who even Tooru couldn’t have fun with, but he is ignorant to just how much growth Kyou has gone through. Rather than be tight-lipped about his rosary, for instance, Kyou tells Tooru how it’s made of bone and blood of “some great monk”, making it a constant reminder that someone was sacrificed so that his true form could be controlled. Just telling Tooru this, and letting her comfort him, is immense growth.

Meanwhile, someone who is clearly not only an emotional prisoner of Akito but of her own emotional complexes is Isuzu AKA Rin, whom Tooru finally meets by chance while chasing down a sheet.

She meets Rin in her Horse form, as Rin is exhausted from walking to the beach. In the cold open we see she’s crashing at Kagura’s house, but like virtually everyone else she has no intention of letting anyone know about her desires or problems.

Despite being exhausted, Rin transforms back into human form through sheer willpower after nearly kicking Tooru’s head in as a horse. She takes Tooru’s change of clothes, but otherwise doesn’t give her the time of day, and not-so-kindly asks Yuki to butt the hell out of her business. Seeing her as she is now reminds me of much earlier versions of Yuki and Kyou, but without the slightest interest in knowing Tooru.

When Rin calls Yuki Akito’s toy and Yuki doesn’t so much as flinch, it angers her even more, and she storms off in a rage, later stomping the sand castle Tooru and Kyou built. Yuki assures Tooru he’ll take care of Rin, but for now has to return to the annex from which he snuck out. He’s continuing to play Akito’s game, even as his hold on him is diminishing by the day.

But now that Akito has seen how well Kyou and Tooru have gotten on, which means a new avenue for antagonism. Thus he finally orders Hatori and Shigure to summon Kyou, in an effort to complete her isolation. Shigure is excited at this development as it no doubt fits within whatever twisted scheme he has, while Hatori is not amused.

As for Kyou, he has no idea what’s coming down the pike. Yuki warned him not to risk hurting Tooru by being too impertinent if and when Akito summoned him. Hopefully he got the message even though he hates the messenger…

Vinland Saga – 17 – Not Everyone’s Afraid to Die

The normally cautious Askeladd lashes out at his mutineers, throwing them off balance and allowing Bjorn to escape on the sled with Thorfinn, Prince Canute, and the Priest. But as he contemplates what could be the last moments of his life, he remembers a moment from his childhood when his dying mother told him about King Arthur, who is not only still alive and recovering in the mythical land of Avalon, but will return someday. When he does, she told Askeladd to serve him.

Mutineers manage to catch up to the sled, and realize that there’s no bargaining with Bjorn; if they want the Prince, they’ll have to kill him. Thus, they take the less sporting route by killing his horses, sending the sled and its occupants flying. Finn kills one of the pursuers and mounts his horse, abandoning the prince because killing Askeladd is more important. If Askeladd should die by someone else’s hands, I doubt Finn would ever forgive himself.

Askeladd fights of many of his men, who fall back and shoot him with several arrows, none of which immediately threaten his life (though infection could set in if his wounds aren’t tended soon). Then his life is saved…by Thorkell of all people, who has arrived, and orders his men to kill everyone but Askeladd. The mutineers reluctantly pick up their weapons and die as something resembling warriors, but Thorkell pushes Torgrim too far, and Torgrim simply…goes bye-bye.

That’s when Thorfinn rides in, plowing through mutineers and English alike with his horse and charging towards Thorkell, who without hesitation charges up and uppercuts the goddamn horse like it was nothing. I’ve harped in the past about some of the more supernatural feats of Thorkell and others, but in this case the silliness is a good complement to the seriousness of the situation. Finn tells Thorkell that he’ll kill him if he doesn’t give him Askeladd, and Thorkell is all to eager to let Finn try. Here’s hoping for Finn’s sake this isn’t like London.

Dororo – 23 – Chicks Fed by the Hen

Dororo, Nui, and Biwamaru can only watch as Hyakkimaru and Midoro battle the newly demon-possessed Tahoumaru, Hyougou and Mutsu. The latter two meet ignominious ends as Midoro lops Hyougou’s head off and kicks Mutsu to death, but Mutsu at least dies a human.

As the young foal finds and calms her mother, Nui laments her inability to calm either of her sons, as they run off fighting together. Hyakkimaru notably regains his arms, which bleed profusely as he grasps the blades that had up until only recently been his arms.

The three men who were chasing the foal agree it’s wrong to rely on Hyakkimaru’s parts being eaten by a demon – but neither they nor Nui are wrong in valuing an entire domain over one man.

As Lord Daigo abandons his castle and leads his troops to fight the advancing Asakura, Tahoumaru and Hyakkimaru turn the place into the venue of their final battle, setting the place ablaze in the process. Jukai also seems to have one last task to perform, perhaps depending on the outcome of the duel. As for the fighting itself and the dialogue between the brothers…it unfortunately grows repetitive and dull as it drags on.

As for Dororo and the three men who chased the foal, they all agree right then and there not to rely on the samurai (i.e. the strong) to take what they want out of live, but to rather acquire it with their own hands. If three men can get on board with that concept, rather than continuing to mooch on a demon pact (sorry Daigo, you did make the wrong choice) that only ever created only a very fragile prosperity, perhaps the rest of the domain can as well. One way or another, the lands of Daigo are going to change.

Dororo – 22 – Stay The Bro You Are

Things get more and more dire in Dororoland with this week’s events, with Hyakkimaru pushed over the edge in more ways than one by the capture of Dororo. The damage he did to Hyougou and Mutsu seems to render them no longer able to protect Tahoumaru, which means he’s more pissed off than ever.

Mutsu is the worse-off off the two, however, as she’s caught the disease that’s gripped parts of Daigo’s lands, and will soon claim her life. I feel for these siblings, now that I know what they’ve already been through when they were the same age as Dororo. But hey, at least Hyakkimaru doesn’t have to kill the demon horse Midoro right out of the gate.

Nui decides she won’t let another innocent child die for her sake, so she releases him, and hides him in her robes when guards pass by. Dororo lingers under those robes just a bit and called “Nui” mama. Nui can probably tell right there that Dororo has suffered too much already. Nui ends up following Dororo out of Daigo’s castle just as Midoro arrives to wreak havoc, and they take a boat downriver.

Dororo tells her more about Hyakkimaru and how unfair it is that he has to go through with all this, and she tells him how even without skin or limbs, Hyakkimaru was the most precious thing in her life. He hopes Dororo will tell him that. Dororo hopes she can help keep Hyakkimaru from becoming a demon. But due to the rains, they lose control of the boat and crash…

Fortunately, they’re both okay, as Dororo wakes up in the same stable as Midoro’s child; the two of them having to live on without their mothers. Biwamaru is watching over him, and later shows him that Niu is aiding in the care and feeding of the sick and invalid who had nowhere else to go.

Meanwhile, Hyakkimaru is revealed to have taken Midoro as his horse, and the two form a tornado of wrath that cuts through Daigo’s soldiers like softened butter. If Dororo wants to save him, he’d better hurry…if he’s not already too late.

Mutsu, deciding she can’t simply die in a room, heads to the Hall of Hell to offer her body to the one demon who didn’t eat a part of Hyakkimaru. Tahoumaru and Hyougou arrive in the nick of time to stop her, but something far worse happens instead, the three of them desperate beyond words for the power to protect their lands people, and each other.

After Hyakkimaru disposes of the fixer who kidnapped Dororo, he ends up crossing paths with Tahoumaru, Mutsu and Hyougou. Only they’re not the same people anymore. Thanks to a new deal with the demons, Mutsu and Hyougou have their arms back, and Tahoumaru has his eye back, along with a third one.

Those arms and eyes are Hyakkimaru’s. They were no doubt given to the three for one purpose: to get the remaining body parts back. Only then will the demons honor the pact and restore Daigo’s lands to prosperity…or so they probably told Tahoumaru. But it was a mistake for his father to deal with the demons in the first place, and it’s an even bigger mistake to deal with them now.

Dororo – 21 – Dororo Has a Bad Feeling About This

The title of this post says it all: Dororo has stayed alive as long as he has for two reasons: She’s pretended to be a he, and he’s had very good instincts for danger. Sure, he’s gotten himself into innumerable tough spots, but has had the luck to slip out of them, thanks to Hyakkimaru, Biwamaru, and other allies along the way.

So when Dororo says he has a bad feeling about heading to Daigo, Hyakkimaru should use those new ears of his and listen. He doesn’t, and grave misfortune follows, just as Daigo is dealing with the worst misfortune since before he made his demon pact. As epidemics and blights plague his lands, Asakura has fielded a 2,000-strong invasion army, far larger than anything he can muster.

As such, what few troops he has left are forced to recruit any able-bodied men and boys from the healthy villages (leaving too much work for the women and children, which will have serious consequences) and burning the infected villages and shooting anyone who tries to escape. It’s time for desperate measures all around, and not a place Hyakkimaru and Dororo should go anywhere near.

Short-handed as he is, Lord Daigo cannot refuse his son’s demand to hunt down Hyakkimaru with no one but Mutsu and Hyougou—there’s no talking Tahoumaru down—but still assigns his “fixer” to follow them. Speaking from experience when their village was raided, their parents slain in front of them, and taken captive by samurai, Mutsu and Hyougou voice their extreme dislike of war in all its forms. More distressingly, Mutsu’s malady is worsening, and can no longer be hidden.

Hyakkimaru and Tahoumaru’s mother also laments that despite being the wife of a great lord, she is helpless to stop the path of destruction upon which both of her sons have set themselves. Nothing Dororo says can convince Hyakkimaru to reconsider his quest to get all of his body back, not matter how much death and destruction it might cost; not matter how much it might change him into someone Dororo can no longer walk beside.

Hyakkimaru counters by saying he wants to see Dororo with his own eyes and touch him with his own hands, but in the grand scheme of human suffering, it doesn’t seem enough to justify his actions, no matter how unjustly he was treated.

Those looking for two-dimensional heroes or villains will find none in this episode. People may be fighting for or against Hyakkimaru’s interests, but everyone has good motives for doing so. In Mutsu and Hyougou’s case, their loyalty to Lord Daigo and Tahoumaru in particular is the consequence of Lord Daigo having saved them from both from a fate worse than death: to starve as captives among corpses.

I couldn’t help but cheer when Daigo entered that pit of hell and dragged the feral, mangy kids out of there. Yes, he put them to work as Tahoumaru’s official friends and protectors, which might not have been their choice, but theirs are still infinitely better (and longer) lives than they’d have lived had Daigo not saved them. Both have long since made peace with the fact that they won’t always like the orders their lord gives them, or the choices their young master makes, but their loyalty is absolute all the same.

So Mutsu and Hyougou join Tahoumaru in their latest confrontation of Hyakkimaru, as their master’s right and left hands. In a bout of sickening irony, those are the same hands Hyakkimaru chops off of the two of them, now more powerful and enraged than ever. It is Tahoumaru who has to save his own bodyguards from his wrath, and receives a nasty gash on his brow for his trouble.

What I couldn’t stop thinking about thorughout Tahoumaru’s efforts to rid the world of his older brother is that how does he know killing him will solve anything? The demon pact was broken, full stop. Those parts of Hyakkimaru they took were taken from a living baby; killing him won’t necessarily automatically return those parts to them. All of Tahoumaru’s rage and single-mindedness on his destruciton, and it may not end up making any difference. His father’s lands may simply be doomed regardless.

Things look bad for Tahoumaru, but we were never meant to forget about Lord Daigo’s fixer, who arrives on the back of a prized white horse named Midoro stolen from one of the villages and pressed into military service. What does the fixer do with this splendid horse? He blows it up in a cynically efficienty attempt to kill Hyakkimaru.

Yet even this fixer is not an evil man. He’s obeying his lord’s orders, protecting his lord’s son, and defending his lord’s domain and its people the only way he knows how.

Even if it means using Dororo as a hostage, something the maimed Mutsu and Hyougou strongly protest (no doubt because the child reminds them of themselves—and of history repeating itself—neither of them have an alternative for dealing with Hyakkimaru, who is still alive at the bottom of a gorge.

About that gorge: it is filled with the corpses of samurai and their armor, as well as the parts of poor Midoro the horse, all of which undergoes some kind of demonic transformation down there. Like Dororo said: he had a bad feeling about this. Maybe next time someone will listen…if there is a next time.

One parting nitpick: the quality of the horses this week is iffy at best, suggesting limited skill and experience rendering them on the part of the animators. Considering the importance of one particular horse, that was a rather distracting shortcoming, though not a deal-breaker.

Juuni Taisen – 08

Juuni Taisen finds itself at the bottom of the Fall 2017 barrel, and while that’s due in part to an overall above-average season, it’s also due to the show’s own up-and-down, variable quality.

When there’s an interesting warrior’s story being told parallel to the present events of the battle, it’s a good watch. But when present events are halted in order to deliver even more backstory on the Tatsumi Brothers, who are boring…it’s a bit harder to get through.

In this interminable outing, there’s another “flashback-within-the-flashback” as the brothers are put on trial (in what looks like the Supreme Court) for acting far beyond their purview as warriors.

The defense (which Dragon provides himself, but seems to include two of the judges?) note that they’ve done a fair bit of Robin Hood-style stealing from the rich to give to the poor, and even sponsored a little kid by funding the procedure to restore his sight, only to kill his big brother on an evidence and witness-liquidation mission.

Neither the trial nor the events it covers really tell us anything new about the Tatsumi Brothers. Even when they’re doing good deeds, it’s basically for the same reason they pull off heists: to kill time. These guys don’t really seem to have any real motivation in life, except to stay occupied.

We only get about five minutes of time in the present, during which Ox’s saber sparks ignite Tiger’s alcoholic mouth-foam (no one has ever combined those eight words before), and Ox learns Zombie Snake can be killed with fire. The brief Ox-Tiger alliance proves successful, though Ox promises a proper duel with her at a later date.

Meanwhile, high above the fray, Dragon seems to be preparing to team up with his brother Snake one last time (despite dead Snake being loyal Usagi now), hoping he’ll destract the others while he prepares a “memorial” for him, which I assume will involve Dragon’s signature ice.

Unfortunately, most of this episode felt like filler.  I await the backstories of Ox and Tiger, which will hopefully be both more interesting and less long-winded.