天下制覇

Who wants to see fighting when you can not?

Impressions:

Atrocious end made worse by fabricating a new character out of thin air for Kenshin to fight. Because Kenshin has been a central part of this show so much that he deserves to have the spotlight. Mouri hit Yukimura once, then Yukimura’s fighting spirit let him one shot him. Kojuro hit Hanbei once, and then Hanbei tossed himself off a cliff. Masamune hit Hideyoshi once, and then Hideyoshi simply fell over and died. Meanwhile, the ever-useful Maeda spent the entire episode on his back until the epilogue. So… remind me again… what was the point of him being in the show? Kenshin had more screentime in the big finale than him. Hell, Hondam had about the same screentime.

Even with the crappy focus, they could have salvaged it if they had at least made the fights interesting. Admittedly, it was better animated than most of this season, but still garbage compared to the first season. The best constructed fight of this episode was Kojuro beating up some grunts. Seriously. Masamune suffered the most. After cutting away at the start of his fight, they cut back to him already basically defeated. One more cut back to him being smacked again after staggering to his feet, and then just some yelling before the fight was over. And that’s the end of that. Hondam and newbie got even less. They leap into battle with major characters, and then are just gone until the epilogue. Finish your fight scenes? Nah. Nobody wants to see action when they can see Maeda run around with his monkey.

They did announce a movie at the end of the episode. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to it despite the promise of more Nobunaga in the franchise’s future, but eh… I think it’ll be a better format for the show instead of wasting literally two hours on nothing happening at all.

Final thoughts at the bottom.

Final Thoughts:

A tremendously disappointing show compared to the first season and not even a particularly good action show in its own right. The main two issues were that it took forever to do anything and the antagonists were little more than cardboard placeholders who we were supposed to think were strong and evil because characters said that they were strong and evil. The first season had its characterization and pacing issues as well, but easily had at least two or three times the number of fight scenes which helped it feel much more exciting and intense. It was more cartoonish and fun, instead of being mired in Yukimura, Kojuro, and Maeda feeling sorry for themselves.

The first season solved this problems by having constant action every two or three episodes with real consequences. Here, though, the action in this action show is mostly poor, infrequent, and had no dramatic impact whatsoever. Freaking Motochika had the most impressive fights of the show, and he only appeared for about 2 seconds in the big climax. Furthermore, after a brutal beating, possibly death, characters were back on their feet and roaming around literally the next episode. I don’t even want to talk about having metal blades simply bounce off of skin. The show spends so much time posturing about fighting and trying to build up drama over it, but then nothing of import ever comes of it. I’d make a sexual reference here, but I’m tapped out at the moment.

So the final verdict is yuck. This was a tremendously poor sequel that pales in comparison to the first season. It lost its sense of fun in a morass of poor pacing, a lack of focus, melodrama, and poor production. Unless you are a rabid fan of the BASARA series in general or have a fetish for samurai feeling sorry for themselves, steer clear. Maybe watch a couple of the fight scenes on YouTube, but since the build-up to them is nonsensical and the resolution is nonexistent, that’s about all that there is to this show.