Tetsunosuke’s skills with a sword have improved thanks to
his training with the Shinsengumi.
However, there is one element he is unprepared for, something the Wolves
of Mibu have yet to teach him: mourning the death of a comrade. When a cherished member falls, it’s all hands
on deck as the Shinsengumi take the fight to the Choshu Clansman and the people
who have been harboring them in Kyoto. Meanwhile,
Testu and Suzu run into each other but things have changed. Suzu has been ordered to kill Tetsu by
Yoshida. Will the young page be able to
carry out his masters wishes and kill his friend? Or will Yoshida step in to finish young
Ichimura himself?
Peacemaker finally became a semblance of the show I
expected it to be from the get go.
However, to get to those moments, the show had to deal with its most
glaring flaws, one after another. It was
a slough and even if the payoff was better than expected, it doesn’t excuse a
few things. First off, I’m not even
going to talk about the conclusion to the supernatural storyline. It was as
pointless as it began and barely deserves a mention beyond this. Once again, this was precious screentime that
could have gone to more important matters.
I cant believe they wasted a small chunk of the series on what could
pretty much have been a separate series itself.
Onto the aforementioned “important matters”, if there’s
one person Tetsunosuke has spent the least amount of time with on this show,
it’s Susumu. They had a couple of
intense encounters early on in the series but haven’t had a lot of time
together since. I can think of at least
five people in the Shinsengumi Tetsu has formed a strong, brotherly bond with,
especially Otkia and the Joker Trio. The
sudden decision to push the brotherly love plotline on Testu and Susumu feels
as forced as it sounds for something brought up so late in the game. Their only real connection is Aiyu, who’s
death this week brought some of the best story material Peacemaker has had so
far. I mean yeah, Aiyu begged Tetsu to
be a good friend to Susumu. But
why? They haven’t had a lot of time to
spend together so why does she think Tetsu would be a good guide for Susumu,
even if she ended up being right? Again,
I glare at the supernatural storyline.
That amount of screentime wasted could have been dedicated to giving
Tetsu and Susumu more meaty material to bring their eventual reconciliation
full circle.
Still, the death of Aiyu did hit all the right
notes. Though her presence on the show
hasn’t been as lengthy as other characters, Aiyu was still beloved by her
brothers in arms. Her beauty and her
cooking offered the Wolves of Mibu a respite from their violent lives and gave
Tetsu a more inspiring older sibling figure to bond with. Her death is tragic but you cant help but
feel like it was still on her own terms, dying on the job for her mission, the
way a spy would. This brought both the
tears and the heart breaking realizations from several characters. Susumu got called out by both Tetsu and
Akesato for Aiyu’s death. Akesato flat
out blamed it on Susumu’s failure (as I also did last week), while Testu nearly
beat the mess out of him for failing to act like a human being when his sister
was in trouble. You know you’ve done wrong
when Tetsu, maybe one of the weakest characters in his own story, has got a
valid point. The rooftop scene between
Tetsu and Susumu was actually well done.
Even without their screentime together, you felt the bond between two
young men who have lost someone important.
They shared their pain and determined to make good on Aiyu’s dying wish:
to be better friends. I just wish we had
more build up than two episodes of forced (if decent) drama between them to
make this feel completely earned.
And, as I had hoped, Aiyu’s death meant it was time for
VENGEANCE MODE!!! After almost a full
series of waiting, we got to see the Shinsengumi in action, in force, with no
remorse and no reason to hold back against Masuya. Susumu’s revenge on the man who ordered his
sisters execution was most fitting, especially when he dialed up the creepy
factor by disguising himself as Aiyu to put the fear of God into Masuya. It was a fun sequence, made better by the
follow up of Hijikata making his nickname “Demon Vice Commander” known to
Masuya through a bloody interrogation.
THIS is the show I have been waiting to see.
We ended this week on a pretty big cliffhanger. Though ordered to kill Tetsu, Suzu found he
couldn’t…so Yoshida stepped in to do it for him. He had his creepy eyes on and everything…and
yet I still don’t understand why Yoshida has it in for Tetsu the way he
does. Just what the heck did his Dad do
that scared the mess out of him so badly, to call him something as low as
“tainted”? Whatever the case, he gave Tetsu
a bad case of dejavu, trapping him in a burning building, holding him at sword
point. Good on Suzu trying to stop
Yoshida, I wonder how that will play into their relationship going forward. Of course, the preview for next time shows
Tetsu’s ok but is he really?
The final set of episodes is next week and the show’s in
good position to give us a good ending despite all the hurdles and pratfalls it
took to get here. Better late than never
though, right? See ya next week for the
series finale of Peacemaker Kurogane.
No comments:
Post a Comment