We may finally have landed on our big bad in Mugen no Juunin: Immortal, and it’s not Kagehisa. In fact it’s not the Ittou-ryuu at all – sorry Rin – but the man who’s been pulling the strings behind the scenes for a while, Kagimura. It’s at this point where the omitted material from the manga starts to be missed a little, because there’s a lot happening with characters who’ve been given relatively little background (like Makoto, the young swordsman/spy killed this week who I think had been on-screen for less than ten seconds). This has always been a bit of a Cliffs Notes version of Immortal, but it’s only rarely felt that way to a non-manga reader like me.
I do feel pretty confident, based on what we’ve seen so far, that Kegehisa is a flat-out evil dude. He seems to have Giichi pretty much under his thumb – though if that business about Giichi’s son is something that was referenced earlier I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it. Itou-ryuu, Mugai-ryuu – to Kagimura, it doesn’t seem to matter much. The Mugai-ryuu are useful in taking the Itou-ryuu down a few pegs, for reasons that still haven’t been made absolutely clear but seem pretty straightforward. But as Kagimura having any loyalty to any school – or even his boss – I’m not convinced.
As for the Ittou-ryuu, they’ve certainly been dealt a deadly serious blow. 9 of their dojo masters (plus an unidentified 10th member) were poisoned at Kagimura’s black banquet. Kagehisa blames himself (not entirely without cause, it seems to me) for being overconfident and perhaps greedy, but he clearly inspires a great deal of loyalty in his followers. Those followers are going to go underground and regroup, with the intention of a counterattack in the winter. That’s going to have some potentially very interesting plot implications soon enough.
The fight between Giichi and Manji was certainly interesting – I think there’s mutual respect there – but it was a curious decision for Manji to agree to go to Kagehisa’s mansion, given both what he knows and what he suspects. He’s not willing to tell Giichi his weak points, much less Kagehisa, but the latter doesn’t strike me as a man who’d be bothered by that. His intentions regarding Manji are unsettling to say the least, and with Manji now a prisoner in chains somewhere in Kagehisa’s domain, things could get ugly for him pretty quickly.
Is there a true alliance coming between Rin and the Ittou-ryuu? It’s been teased for a while but the circumstances have never been more favorable. Rin will be desperate to get Manji back, and that would seem to be in the best interests of the Ittou-ryuu as well, in the “enemy of my enemy” vein. Having just crossed paths with two of them (though I’m not sure she knows that yet) at one of their old hideouts, opportunity seems to be present along with motive. Rin’s resolve to follow the path of vengeance has already weakened, and I’m confident her devotion to Manji is a stronger pull on her by now.
Panino Manino
December 27, 2019 at 4:15 am“but it was a curious decision for Manji to agree to go to Kagehisa’s mansion”
It was not “curious”, it was just pure stupidity!
People makes mistakes, but this can’t be called one. How dumb can you be to voluntarily enter that castle? Manji is a very disappointing protagonist, with this and getting killed all the time…
Things are explained so fast that it’s hard to follow.
Remembers Hyakurin’s flashback? The Mugai-ryu are all criminals on death sentence that Habaki offered a way out in exchange for dirty work for him. Giichi committed crimes trying to save his boy, Habaki offered treatment, and he kept his word. But the boy died anyway… Now Giichi redirects his “savior complext” to Hyakurin, offers to pay the rest of her dept before she dies on the job.
Looks like the Shogunate never had intention to pardon the Itto-ryu, Habaki was only dealing with deal with patience and care. Let them get rid of the weak dojos that didn’t deserve the Shogunate attention, and when the work was done he went for the finish job. That’s why he interfered with the Kaga’s dojo that wanted to fuse with the Itto-ryu. Anotsu should had died in that banquet, but he stayed longer than planned in Kaga and escaped.
Habaki is the main antagonist because Anotsu is fighting the Shogunate, what it became, and someone needs to represent and give a face to the authorities. Interesting thing is Habaki is a very uprightly and strong Samurai, he isn’t lazy and weak like others in the Shogunate and could sympathize with Anotsu had the circumstances being different. I think.
Kurik
December 27, 2019 at 10:20 pmYeah….I have been following the story-kinda since the beginning but definitely struggle at times to put the pieces together. Not sure why Mugen wanted to meet the guy to test his strength…that never seemed apart of his character before. Then we had Rin sneaking a kiss which happened so quickly and we don’t know the reaction. Apart from the rapid story telling, so far my only gripes are that Mugen depends way too much on his healing abilities and I guess that happens when you have been living so long and can surprise ppl but as we can see here Kagimura easily incapacitated him with unbelievably precise and quick strike to the chest. I don’t think Mugen would be a match for him as his head or hands would be chopped off in an instant. Looking forward to see where this all goes but liking Kagimura as the main bad guy.
Amarantine
December 27, 2019 at 11:15 pmThe show may be called Mugen no Juunin, but the male protagonist’s name is Manji, not Mugen. :p Maybe you’ve got him mixed up with the lead from a different samurai show (Samurai Champloo), haha.
Anyway, Manji has been shown to sort of enjoy the thrill of battle before, but more than anything I think he was just that damn curious about seeing who could order Giichi around after seeing the latter’s strength first-hand (and Giichi is indeed one of the strongest fighters in the series). It was pretty reckless of him to willingly walk into potential enemy territory like that, but I guess he is (almost) immortal, and probably never even imagined someone would do to him what it looks like Kagimura is interested in doing.
Speaking of his immortality and his dependence on his healing abilities, curiously enough this episode actually cut a fight (admittedly not a very important one) where Manji actually tells his opponent he didn’t use to be like this and that after becoming immortal he got sloppy at everything and started leaning on his flesh too much. I wish they had given him that line in maybe his fight with Giichi though, because it does help mitigate how frustrating some of his poor performances in battle can be.
But to be fair to him, he and Kagimura were just having a conversation and Manji wasn’t really expecting a sneak attack like that. If he were prepared for a fight, he probably wouldn’t be incapacitated so easily.
Panino Manino
December 28, 2019 at 12:12 amAbout the kiss, don’t know if it’s another problem of the script of just the bad subtitles, but I believe what happened wasn’t “cheap romantic feelings” from Rin. She said that she went all alone and managed to meet Anotsu by herself, because of this she wanted “her reward”.
I understand that this was meant more to show Rin’s increased boldness than serious romantic feelings for Manji. But the anime is left out too much info.
landofthekwt
December 28, 2019 at 4:23 amIs not the real big bad the Shogunate? Compared to it the sword schools and gangs are insignificant. They are just carrying out the will of the Shogunate. If they lose the favor of the Shogunate they are crushed.
Guardian Enzo
December 28, 2019 at 10:40 amFor all intents and purposes though, Kagimura is the Shogunate.
Panino Manino
December 29, 2019 at 12:22 am“If they lose the favor of the Shogunate they are crushed.”
This story takes place during the Tokugawa Era, the dojos are just for show. The Tokugawa System was put in place to curb the other domains power, weaken the samurai, make the sword schools child play. Some like Anotsu are disgusted by this, that’s why they attack the dojos to show how weak they are.
In the end is not that the Shogunate is the “big bad”, is just the boss, the strongest “dojo” out there and earned the right to put the others under their feet. The strong swordsman still have a place to exercise their power inside the Shogunate, Habaki is one of them.