天下制覇

Thanks for that, Masamune.

Impressions:

I really dislike how they’re handling Hanbei. As I intimated last week, they may have really shot themselves in the foot here by having to dial everything back from the insanity of Nobunaga and his gang of stooges last season. Hanbei is just so calm and normal that it feels completely wrong for him to simply swing his sword and then suddenly win… or worse, reduce Kojuro to the point where a few grunts can beat him up. These people can make entire armies explode by flexing their muscles. In fact, that’s the only way that Masamune even got a hit off on Hanbei.

The rest of the episode was dull to the extreme. I find it hard to care about Keiichi’s little family and friend issues, or almost anything that Kenshin says at all. His whole point is to just make Kasuga moan. That meant that this episode was mostly just tedium and Hanbei dragging Kojuro and Masamune down to the level where grunts are a match for them. Ugh. I know he’s painted up like a French clown, but that doesn’t mean that he should suck the energy out of everybody else.

Preview:

Maeda and Kenshin’s adventures.