Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto – 02 – This series seriously needs more love

I don’t get it. I simply don’t get it. This is a samurai show with awesome production values. The music is stunning, the animation is gorgeous, the story is full of potential. People were anticipating this.

Why the heck am I the only one who even mentioned something about the first episode? Okay, this show is not the best of the season, but it doesn’t deserve this amount of negligence. Especially when you see hundreds of people just lining up to blog a show like Kanon. Well then, time to give this show some more love. I’m going to need a bit of help from the Japanese-understanding people, though. Lots of hard dialogue. ^^;

We start with a very smart use of the recap of the previous episode, as it seems to be Okuzuki’s (the main character) dream. After the end of the previous episode, fire broke out and the main character fainted. The theatre-people then brought them back to their base. I have no idea what they call themselves, unfortunately.

One thing I didn’t recognize during the previous episode was the fact that the main female character wears a wig when she performs. Because of this, I thought that they two were different women. ^^; Anyway, Okizuki wakes up, and plans to leave, like he did in the previous episode. The theatre-people try to stop him, but to no avail. The masked guy seems to be the one who saved him from the fire.

The theatre people wonder what to do now, though “sensei” reckons that he’ll be back. We then see a conversation between what’s likely to be the two bad guys for now, after which we switch to the scary guy from last episode. It seems that he’s hiding along with the police force. Not sure what he told them. He heads out for a small stroll, probably because he can’t forget what happened the night before. He walks around a bit, and soon he sees Okizuki. He follows him to a small temple, at which there are no people and a fight begins. The guy has some strange powers. He uses his sword to slash through ground and air to create some kind of shockwave. The battle is short, but Okizuki does discover that the weakness of this attack is water.

Back to the theatre people. They’ve got a small conversation, though I don’t know what exactly it was about. The masked guy seems to have found some information about the scary guy, though. Then, Okizuki returns. It seems that he knew that these people have some kind of grudge against the scary guy as well, and therefore he seeks their help. Or it may be another reason I didn’t pick up. ^^;

We then switch to that evening. The scary guy is heading out again, but this time the people from the police he was hiding with come along with him. I’m not exactly sure what hteir mission is, but the scary guy probably joined them because of the rather well-sized cannons they were carrying with them. The theatre people plan to ambush them, and are hiding in a forest where they predicted the scary guy would pass.

Then, this series is really starting to get awesome hen the old guy tells a bit about the background story he shares with the masked guy and the main female character. The latter two were the children of a rather important sea merchant. I think they’re siblings, though the masked guy could also have been this merchant’s novice. The old guy was probably one of his most important and trusted accountants. It seems that the merchant, his wife and the three were rather close together.

Until the same scary guy arrived, and killed both the merchant and his wife and set their building aflame. The scary guy then went after the main female character, and the masked guy tried to protect her. As he was just a kid, this obviously wouldn’t have a chance of success. But then a wall collapsed on top of the scary guy and the masked guy. The masked guy’s face was totally scarred, forcing him to conceal his face continuously, while the scary guy just got an injury to the left part of his head.

The old guy then decided to take care of the main female character and the masked guy. They joined the theatre group, led by “sensei”. It’s now pretty obvious why they’re trying to assassinate the scary guy: for revenge. The scary guy approaches the group, and when he’s almost there, another band decides to attack them. They’re skilled enough to keep this police busy for a time, which gives the scary guy enough time to carry out his plan: just blast everyone, friends and enemy, away with one of the cannons.

It seems that the scary guy has had some kind of history with Okizuki, as he knew that he’d appear in order to keep the number of casualties as low as possible. The cannon gets destroyed and Okizuki leads the scary guy to a field of rice. As this is covered in water, his power doesn’t work. A great battle follows, as the theatre people show up as well in the rice field. They’ve painted their faces and actually show off some of their acting. I think that this is their way to show their opponents that they’re serious.

The fight really was awesome. It was full of strategies used, combined with an awesome soundtrack, animation and art. If this continues, this show has the potential to become amazing. In the end, the guy gets beaten because he’s distracted by a gunshot, fired from an unknown person. Later, this gunshot seems to have come from a subordinate of one of the bad guys.

I’m having a bit of trouble to find out what exactly the relationship of Okizuki is to the main storyline. It seems that he and the bad guys have some kind of history, and the previous episode showed that he’s out to kill certain demons who appear, but apart from that, I didn’t manage to pick up anything. It’s also a bit of a pain that I don’t know the names of the different characters. I hate referring to “the masked guy”, “the old guy”, “the main female character” and “sensei” in this way.

Overall, this series needs more love. Seriously, someone has to sub this. The second episode also was even better than the first episode, so if you’ve seen the first episode and liked it, you haven’t seen anything yet. ^^