What’s last shall be first. That was of course another banger episode – the rest of this arc is pretty much all bangers – but I want to touch on that final frame (and the preview). “Sakabatou Shougeki” (next week’s Episode 10) was a side story Watsuki Nobuhiro wrote for the 25th Anniversary Exhibition in 2023, chronicling Kenshin’s first experience with a reverse blade sword. It’s cool that it’s being adapted and all (Lidenfilms snuck another side story into the Tokyo Arc). But the larger point is that it makes the idea that they’re planning to adapt the entire Kyoto Arc in 23 episodes even more hard to fathom. It would have been crazy as is – now you’re adding in extra material?

No, I don’t buy it and I never really did. It was always a terrible idea and it’s increasingly looking like an unrealistic one. There’s so much depth to this story and breadth to match. If you’re going to bother adapting it, it makes no sense not to do it justice – we’re talking about one of shounen’s greatest stories ever told here. Anime doesn’t make sense a lot of the time, I get that. But with a property as historically substantial – and commercially proven – as Rurouni Kenshin, trying to do the Kyoto Arc in 23 episodes just makes absolutely no sense.

As Raikou noted in the comments last week, Chou makes a great formal introduction to the Ten Swords. He has a quirk to him (that’s not an outlier) above and beyond his combat skills. Chou the Swordhunter seems to be just that, a sword hunter first and foremost. A katana otaku. As such, Arai Shakku’s work is obviously going to be of tremendous interest to him. Kenshin is of little interest to him for his politics, and Chou isn’t the sort to preen and puff himself up over the thrill of battle. For him the thrill is in the chase – and Kenshin is an obstacle in that chase.

That said he’s not avoiding a fight either, clearly. And for Kenshin he breaks out Hakujin, one of Shakku’s last creations and Chou’s pride and joy. A sword so thin he can use it like Indiana Jones uses a whip, it’s probably not the most realistic weapon in Rurouni Kenshin. But it’s quite a spectacle, and without so much as a sakabatou Ken hardly seems a match for it. All he has is his wooden sheath, and it’s all he can do to avoid Hakujin’s attacks. In fact Kenshin takes what looks like a serious slash on the leg, which Chou says is exactly what he was aiming for.

Then there’s the Iori problem. Through no fault of his own the little satsumaimo is Kenshin’s biggest hinderance in this fight. Seiku ponders using Kenshin as a decoy and making a run for the boy himself, though Misao and Nenji shame him thoroughly over this. What none of them reckon with is that’s exactly what Kenshin has in mind – to keep goading Chou on and giving Seiku a chance to rescue his son. But rather than take it, Seiku recognizes that this is exactly the sort of man who should wield his father’s final sword. So rather than the baby, he makes a run for the shrine hall (and manages to make it with an assist from Kenshin).

Chou and Kenshin’s battle – if you can call it that when Kenshin is unarmed – continues through all this. And Kenshin manages to lure Chou close enough to trap Hakujin with his scabbard, and unleash an elbow on Chou’s forehead. It’s a good hit, but not a disabling one, and a trick Chou won’t fall for a second time. Things look grim, but then Seiku emerges with the blade and throw it to Kenshin. This is fine, Chou says – a fight to the death over thee final blade is perfectly logical. But Nenji understands the truth of it. For Kenshin, even to draw a katana in anger unlocks all the bloodlust his oath to avoid killing has locked away deep inside him.

To me, only one question really stands out here. When Kenshin drew that sword – and used it for his “Tsumuji” attack – did he know it was a sakabatou? I can fully believe Kenshin would have been willing to do what he had to if he believed Chou was about to kill Iori. His oath is intact – the blade was reversed in fact, though even Seiku was surprised to see it. Shakku (Nakai Kazuya, a big dog I’d selfishly have liked to see saved for a bigger role) forged two sakabatou at once, in keeping with tradition for a holy blade, and gave the lesser of the two (Kageuchi) away (to a young Kenshin). Now Kenshin wields the superior blade – Shinuchi – and his first act with it is to take down Chou.

Surely, if indeed Kenshin acted in the belief that he was landing a killing blow, that will strongly play on his mind. But Iori is indeed safe, and Chou is indeed subdued. And he now has a sakabatou once more, and a superior to his original one at that. Chou tells Kenshin that there are two in the Juppongatana far stronger than him, Soujiro and Usui. But at the very least Kenshin needed a blade to wield before he could ever consider any final showdown with Shishio. In many ways one could say this incident marks the real start of the Kyoto Arc – which makes the suggestion that it might be almost half-over that much more ludicrous.