You know, I’m beginning to suspect we may not get a happy ending.

When you do historical drama, there is a certain element of suspense lost.  I mean, unless you knew nothing of the events depicted in Angolmois you had to know this was coming sooner or later.  True, we’re dealing with largely fictional characters here, so their specific fates are not necessarily written in stone.  But Tsushima is Tsushima – it was not a place you wanted to be in the late 13th Century unless you liked being on the business end of a massacre.

The really tragic part of all this, from a dramatic standpoint, is how pointless it all is.  In truth, Tsushima could offer no resistance to the Mongols’ long-term invasion plans.  Its infrastructure (such as it was) had already been devastated.  It was hardly a rich island, and could offer little plunder of real value to the invading Mongols.  Indeed, they’re on the clock as is – one commander gives his men only until sundown to rape and pillage, because they have to get back to the harbor and board their ships for the real battles to come.  In effect, the Mongols are wiping out the population for sport and to make a better impression than their rival factions.

That sums up this episode in a nutshell.  It’s a massacre, or rather a series of massacres, as the Mongols storm Kanatanoki in overwhelming numbers.  It’s as Jinzaburou told Nagamine from the beginning, the castle is simply too big for the numbers it has to defend it.  When the attackers come from two directions and Nagamine is forced to send Kuchii off to defend the East Wall (and Teruhi) his own section of the wall falls, and he’s among the first of a parade of named characters to fall.  In addition to numbers the Mongols have an advantage in technology too (however crude, their explosives and cannons are mighty useful for breaching walls).

They’re dropping like flies here. Tatsu, right next to the Nagamine she all but admits she was in love with.  Douen, trying to save the wounded, but not before telling Hitari he “killed many people a long time ago” (either with his rattle, or he’s a lot older than he looks).  Hitari himself, who keeps saying he’s going to run away and keeps staying behind to shoot one more Mongol with one more arrow until it’s too late.  Of the fate of Amushi – and Sana – it’s too early to say.  After one last scouting mission for Kuchii Amushi finally flees with Sana and a group of the local children.

Hitari isn’t the only one who didn’t follow through on his threat to flee, as Onitakemaru turns up too – though that might have been different had he not run into the Mongol fleet on his way off the island with Chouminpuku (whereabouts unknown, which means he has a role to play next week).  After coming to Kuchii and Teruhi’s aid, he ends up staying behind in a rematch with the Mongol Liu Fuheng, and I suspect he’s going to breathe his last before that’s over as well.

That really only leaves us Teruhi and Jinzaburou, and the latter has been blown into the sea by a Mongol explosive.  Given these are the two protagonists of Angolmois and both fictional, it’s with their fates that the most genuine uncertainty lies.  But it would certainly be untraditional for Kuchii to survive, given everything we’ve seen in terms of this series honoring the tropes of the medium.  All of this may be unsurprising but it’s still quite sad, as this series has done a good job of drawing us into the experience of the hopeless defense of this lonely island, whose value really only lies with this whose lives were spent (literally, for most of them) on it.