The body count in Immortal continues to built at a dizzying pace, and so does the plot.  While it still manages to retain a surprisingly episodic feel even as it transitions to the recurring plot – all these eps feel like little movies in their own right – this week might have been the first time I felt sensory overload.  Frankly it’s a tribute to Hamasaki’s direction (which was stunning again this week) that it’s taken this long considering how much material he’s burning through every week, but it does make me worry a bit for the future.

Manji does make an appearance, though he continues to be very much a bit player (for the moment) despite being the one in the title.  As Rin is laboriously making her way overland to Kaga and trying not to starve, Manji runs into a couple of old friends – the artist Soori and Magatsu-san.  The latter is looking for Shira, having determined what happened to his girl.  I kind of figured Magatsu and Manji would end up on the same side sooner or later, as Magatsu is simply too sympathetic a character to stay an antagonist for long.

The main focus of the story here is Hyakurin and the Mugai-Ryuu (who Manji has officially declined working with based on their association with Shira).  We go a little deeper with the other members of the group, first Shiriji (Kobayashi Chikahiro, who’s not in a lot but is pretty much only in really good shows).  It’s pretty much a fait accompli after he haltingly proposes that he and Hyakurin settle down and “start a household” (silver-tongued he’s not) that Shiriji is toast, and indeed not long after that moment Shira comes stumbling back into their hideout.  Hyakurin had told Manji that he should have killed Shira once he’d maimed him, and she was certainly right about that.

Having sold out his former comrades Shira remains at large and a threat.  The Ittou-Ryuu who show up are led by an odd-looking and possibly blind swordsman (who I don’t think we’ve met before, but it’s getting hard to remember), and they kill Shiriji as he springs to Hyakurin’s defense.  What follows is the usual for Immortal – the ugly side of human nature brought to life in stark and ruthless glory by Hamasaki.  As she’s being tortured Hyakurin flashes back to her own past – which is somehow even worse than the torture scenes to watch.  At that time she seems to have been saved by Giichi (Shirokuma Hiroshi), for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me.  Obviously there was a prior connection between them, but if we’ve been told or shown what it is I’ve missed it.

One thing I do know is that Hyakurin cutting her hair is a little different from the usual circumstances we see with that act and samurai.  While we still don’t know who the real power behind the Mugai-Ryuu is (there’s a shit-ton we don’t know at this point), Hyakurin herself has that much more personal incentive to take down the Ittou-Ryuu after Shriji’s death.  That makes an eventual alliance with Manji seem almost inevitable, though for now Soori’s ability to get him a pass for the checkpoint (which means last week’s drama was pretty much all unnecessary) implies that he’s going to be hot on Rin’s heels for now.