One understands, of course, that these are not the true events of this era of Japanese history.  But watching Hyouge Mono, you kind of wish they were, because damn – that would be cool.  History itself is fascinating enough, but reimagined through the dazzling imagination of Yamada Yoshihiro it seems more real than real, more alive than alive.  I’m eternally fascinated by the question of how much, if any, these men and their lives resembled Hyouge Mono’s version of them (I mean, who really knows?).

Take, for example. Lady Ogin.  Here she’s presented as the daughter of the daimyou Matsunaga Hisahide, who died opposing Oda Nobunaga (committing seppuku along with his two sons, destroying his tea bowl rather than letting Nobunaga have it, and telling one of his sons to dispose of his head to prevent it being used as a trophy – which the son did by leaping from the castle parapets with a dagger in his throat), secretly adopted by Rikyu and his wife.  I can find no intimation from any source that this is true, so I assume it’s a conceit by Yamada to spice up the story even more.  And what a spice it is.

Blood daughter or not, Ogin is an apple who didn’t fall far from the tree.  She has a spine of steel, and to Rikyu’s dismay insists that she go to Hideyoshi’s side rather than let him throw his life away by defying the chief advisor.  But Ogin assures her parents that she’ll lead Hideyoshi to his death (which he seems to feel is coming soon enough anyway).  At this stage the hostilities between Hideyoshi and Rikyu, the two most powerful men in Kyoto, are pretty much out in the open.  It’s a battle to the death, which Ogin willingly enlists as a soldier to wage.

Sasuke is smarter and harder than he sometimes acts, but compared to those two he seems quite childlike.  In truth he has no real desire for political power – he covets only suzerainty over the world of the aesthetes, and politics is a means to help achieve it.  Rikyu coldly pushing him away (“I no longer consider you my disciple”) is an obvious attempt to shield Sasuke from the doom Rikyu knows is beating at his door.  But Rikyu does offer Sasuke some harsh but affectionate advice to think about what his true goals are, rather than merely chasing influence for its own sake.

Meanwhile, in Ou, Date’s barely hidden disobedience to Hideyoshi is more or less open by now, as he’s arming the citizenry.  Hideyoshi sends Gamou Ujisato, son of a vanquished enemy turned retainer of Nobunaga and sent to him as a hostage, to get to the truth.  Gamou was sent to Oda at 12 and impressed him so much through courage in battle at 13 that Oda married his daughter off to his “little son-in-law”.  Date hilarious throws the worst-ever tea ceremony for Gamou, leading to fisticuffs and a broken tearoom, and presumably a broken alliance in the process.

Not to be outdone for disastrous ceremony, things go rather badly at Hideyoshi’s court as he hosts a retinue from the Korean emperor.  Unimpressed by imperfection, they show off their white porcelain tea wares.  Hideyoshi’s son wees all over him, and the notion of Korea submitting to Hideyoshi and being a good example to China and India goes over like Date’s 5X-strength tea.  Meanwhile Hidenaga has just found out what happened at his half-brother’s hand to his beloved Souji, and that doesn’t go over well either.  Things are breaking down all over, it seems – almost as if an era were coming to an end…