As this episode was unfolding, I was thinking that it was odd to end with a segment focused on Qiang Lei, who’d barely been featured for the entire season.  Then when it became clear nothing was going to be resolved the decision made even less sense.  Yes, I was sure this was the final episode – happily, that’s obviously not the case.  Old-timers will remember when 26 was the most common episode count there was in anime – not just for two-cour series but altogether, since two cour series were the norm then.  Nowadays 26 is a number you very rarely see.

First off is the matter of reflection – a lot more pleasant when your side wins the war.  Patriots or battle-freaks some may be, the ultimate reason most of these men were fighting was what happens here – the true rewards of victory.  All of the great generals are recognized and rewarded but it’s Meng Wu who gets the greatest recognition of all for his takedown of Han Ming (mostly), unsurprisingly.  All of these generals figured to be singled out, so this part went pretty much by the books.

The really interesting part came when Zheng announced the “special” awards.  First, the people of Zui – and if anyone ever deserved recognition and reward from their king, it’s them.  I was hoping he’d take care of them, and he did.  Next was Yang Duan He and the mountain tribes, which didn’t go over entirely well with some of the imperial court.  Finally, there was the young commander who was present at so many big moments – most prominently Zui of course.  Xin took one big head, came close to taking another, and generally punched well above his weight yet again.  For that, this “ragged-looking youth” gets the peerage, the gold, the treasures – but the greatest treasure of all is a promotion to brigade commander, in charge of 3,000 men.

This is what it’s really all about.  War is opportunity. and it’s not unreasonable for Meng Tian and Wang Ben to feel a little salty seeing their great rival get the jump on them.  It’s all a ladder to Xin, and this is but a step – yet, it’s a big one.  A proud Xin has all his troops (all 3000) count off one by one the next day.  There are even a few of Lord Biao’s survivors who choose to join him, like Yue Lei (played by the great Ohtsuka Akio).  Most of Biao’s men disliked Xin, he says, because of how happy the general seemed to be when talking to him.  Yue Lei, clearly, has joined the Fei Xin force to help protect the boy the childless general came to think of as a son.  It’s a poignant, wonderful way to bring Xin’s part in this arc to a close.

That clears the stage, then, for Qiang Lei to finally command it.  She’s come close to the end of her journey to track down You Lian and avenge her older sister (mind you all this happened so long ago that I barely remember any of it).  First she meets up with the exiled Qian Ming, who fled their village rather than face the succession ritual.  She’s become a sort of de facto spy for the Qiang, reporting back to the clan on outside events in exchange for being allowed to live freely (a life which includes a husband and two children in Qin).  But that info turns out to have been planted by You Lian, eager to lure Qiang Lei to her stronghold and finish her once and for all.

Watching the subsequent battle, I couldn’t help but be struck by how far Kingdom has come from those horrific early days of gruesome CGI even in non-combat scenes.  This was genuinely well-animated, some of the best visuals in the entire series – and I can’t think there have been many anime which have improved this much in terms of production values over the course of their run.  Qiang Lei is an important part of this story and I’m glad to have her back, even if it really amounts to just a short teaser for her role in an eventual fourth season (but we’ll talk more about that next week).