天下制覇

Yet another episode where I just don't really get what they were going for.

Impressions:

Obviously, it's supposed to be a fleshing out of Tahomaru, but to what end? They present him as just kind of a naive dupe. A large problem is that they're still clinging to the grand lie that his and Hyakki's father somehow made things better in any way. We started things with monsters roaming the countryside unchecked, the peasants oppressed, and the world kind of in a can, and the present is also monsters roamin the countryside unchecked, the peasants oppressed, and the world kind of in a can. The difference is that they told us about that in the past, and have shown us that in the present, so one's a bit more convincing than the other, despite the occasional declaration from the ivory tower that everything's actually super great. Again, a naive dupe. But not even a particularly spoiled, arrogant, or incompetent one either. So what was the character that was supposed to develop here? If anything, I feel like we went backward by making him a clueless rather than as corrupt as the other so far 100% of people with any iota of authority in this show.

My favorite moment of idiocy came in the last few minutes though, when the direction and animation once again went totally off the rails. We're going to do a passable job whacking the giant crab, but animating a dam breaking? Boy, that's our real calling and we're gonna animate the hell out of that. Also, random sidekick? Nah, man. That dude was grabbing grown men out of a raging torrent with one hand and then throwing them about forty feet out and twenty feet up into the air to safety. Hyakki then shows up to save the day and our two sons finally meet face to face… whereupon Tahomaru exclaims "Who is this mysterious sword-man?" and rows off. I guess he wasn't actually that interested in finding out. If these yahoos were directing a Batman show, they'd have Jim Gordon asking questions to Batman and then just up and walking away himself.