天下制覇

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Impressions:

Well, it's an end to the arc, and I was right about Blondie's death being unconvincing as hell, which doesn't help sell Asahi vanishing off-screen be particularly convincing either. Makoto did take a crow from the top rope into a gaping hole in the chest, so that's a little more like it, but you can only kill and revive main characters so many times, and right now, the number of named characters who have stayed dead after totally for real being killed is still well under the number who have popped right back up no worse for wear. Still, at least someone did end up with a gaping hole in the chest, so we can count that as a vaguely positive thing.

Anyway, after the welcome brief return to action at the start, the rest of the episode was unfortunately re-consumed by Sawa continuing to exististentially despair. So much for this arc being about her getting her assassin groove back. It's fine for the hero to lose their way after a setback, but at some point, they're going to need to come back from the brink, rediscover their purpose and reason for existing, and take control of their destiny again. Sawa spent this entire four episode arc wallowing in misery, and come out the other side… continuing to wallow. She didn't grow as a character from these struggles or find new purpose from the hardships. So what was the point? To kill off a kid? Maybe? If Asahi is even really dead?