Katsugeki Touken Ranbu – 3 [Master’s Orders]

The farther into the season we go, the clearer it becomes that Ranbu is a video-game adaptation, as this week Ranbu takes two steps forward and one step back.

We start this week off immediately where we left off, with the Dutch steamship mid explosion, and wow was it a beautiful explosion. If nothing else happened this episode, we would still get a number of good wallpapers out of this opening segment. The digital effects team of Ufotable are clearly working hard as the smoke curls around the screen and water floods in through a hole in the wall. Truly, this is 5-minutes of animation eye-candy, ending with Mutsunokami looking over a gorgeous sunset sea.

Its a good image, as it shows early on who this episode is all about, Mutsunokami. He is the main focus of this episode, as we see his ideals clash with that of our lead Kane. Kane explains that though some died here, it didn’t have a large enough effect to change the course of history and so all is well that ends well. Of course Mutsunokami disagrees, saying that while the whole future is the same, what about the individuals future? He even goes for the low blow when he brings the Shinsingumi into the argument, striking at Kane’s own original owner. Needless to say this heats up the argument and Mutsunokami goes storming off into the night, with Kunihiro following to cool him down.

This leads us to a nice transition to our next plot point, the Roushi who attacked the ship. At first I was confused as to why there was no Revisionists zombies at the ship, but it would seem our villains actually know what they are doing. In history a group of Roushi, masterless samurai, attempted to kill foreigners and no doubt blow up the ship but got caught. Rather than blowing it up themselves, the Revisionists simply helped the Roushi avoid getting caught. Its a very indirect way of effecting history, allowing them to avoid the superior combat force of our main group. This is the sign of an intelligent opponent, who I hope will stay intelligent, who I hope will continue to attack where our main group is week. If the Revisionists stay smart, there is a good shot at a genuine feeling of threat from our villains when our main cast reaches them.

Getting back to Mutsunokami and Kunihiro, the two have a quick heart to heart that really says nothing at all. What this segment is really meant to do is give the Roushi some character. To show us that the Roushi aren’t the bad guys, that would be the Revisionists, the Roushi are simply people trying to survive in their era. Had we more time with them this may have worked, but for the quick 5 minutes we were given it comes across more than a little hamfisted. It does end up turning into a good example of the moral quandaries of preserving history though, as the Roushi are caught and killed by the Police later on. Had Kane not saved a little girl in episode one, completely negating any real consequence for changing history and saving people, this would have been a much stronger scene.

It is with this scene however, plus the little girl and the final ending dialogue, that the real issue of Ranbu comes out. Nothing is lasting. There were no consequences for saving the little girl in episode one, the conflict of ideals between Mutsunokami and Kane are introduced and resolved in the same episode and finally Mutsunokami comes to terms with having to let the Roushi die far to easily. There’s no cost to their ideals. In Rurouni Kenshin, a samurai piece set in a similar era, the main protagonist Kenshin had ideals and there were real consequences to him sticking to them. He swore not to kill again, and so over and over again specters from his past arrived whom he could not definitively get rid of. It got to the point where he left his friends so that they would not get dragged into the conflict he created. Ranbu handles its characters ideals in such a way that if Kenshin were here, he would kill and get over breaking his vow in the same episode. Its disappointing, as they could do so much more with this premise had their writing been better.

While their writing is lacking however, the animation is not. We end the episode on a flashy fight scene with a 3D camera rotation through the battlefield, and each of our cast cutting down some zombie samurai. Its all very pretty, even if the choreography is a bit bland. With the Revisionists dealt with, it seems our cast is due some down time, as the little talking fox comes in and informs them of their next job. In three days we get a hop skip and a jump to another time period, with more Revisionists and hopefully more plot. Depending on when they go and how the Revisionists use the small changes in time that have occurred, things could get interesting. Lets just hope next episode isn’t a beach episode eh?

That concludes the episode review, but this does lead me into a personal theory. Based on Mutsunokami’s attitude for most of this episode, I have hope that there is actually a member of their organization that left and joined the Revisionists. It would explain why the mindless zombie samurai we see so often are acting so intelligently with their plans. It would also mean that our main casts opponent knows how they work, and would give us some much needed conflict. I have hopes that this is the case as Ranbu is in desperate need of some sort of clear antagonist. A former comrade would supply the show with some required character drama. We shall have to wait and see however, as next episode might end up being a relaxation episode.

See you next time!