天下制覇

And now, for something completely different.

Impressions:

This is another pretty compelling argument for this show having multiple writers all doing completely different things and never communicating with each other. The angsty one had the week off, so the one who wanted to make the show Inuyasha got to do whatever they felt like, which was to make a goofy episode about a random imp that curses them to say/do opposite things. A wacky series of events ensues that has Hyakkimaru getting married to the local blacksmith girl, and Dororo throwing a tantrum about it. And, uh, that's it. That's the whole thing. There are also a bunch of masks hanging around, which you think would be used for some symbolism, but nah. They're just a fun prop we're going to be playing with.

A better show would use this to bury something important, only realized at the end. A better show would've had them figure out that something was up about 5 minutes into the episode and then do goofy things despite that while trying to investigate the source. This show, on the other hand, had the characters baffled by what was going on for the whole thing. "Why are you suddenly acting so out of character!? Why am I suddenly acting out of character!? Aaaaaagh!" They don't even really figure it out either. Circumstances happen to drag Hyakki back to the start, where Dororo is throwing rocks at an imp, and then a dude walks in from off screen to literally bop the imp on the head, explain everything, and then the stupid thing just up and vanishes. All this is wending its way towards a "I should've trusted that we're friends forever" declaration, because apparently the salient part of the whole thing was that there was a moment when Dororo had less than total faith in Hyakkimaru. Seems a bit at odds with the last two months of episodes, but okay, sure. Resolves just as well as the random dude in the crowd who yelled "I'll marry you instead!" sending her into paroxysms of bashfulness because it was her true heart's desire all along.