As soon as it was announced, Nippon Sangoku struck me as an interesting prospect. Based on a seinen manga by Ikka Matsuki, it was clear that this wasn’t going to be a mass-produced model. It had a fascinating staff, headlined by animation director Abiru Takahiro and composer Kevin Penkin. Art director Tamura Seiko has been involved with many of the best and most visually interesting anime (television and theatrical) over the past three decades, and while less heralded, director Terasawa Kazuaki has a number of good shows on his resume.

Nonetheless, I was hesitant. What gave me pause was a creeping suspicion that Nippon Sangoku might be of a xenophobic bent – “go back to bushido and the old ways” and all that blather that’s all the rage in nationalist Japanese politics at the moment. The premise finds Japan split into three warring kingdoms in a dystopian future. The world has been torn asunder by nuclear war, and while Japan escaped direct involvement it was tanked because “refugees poured in and infectious diseases spread”. Bemoaned as well are a decline in education and population. It all has a slightly alarming aroma to it.

I can’t say based on this premiere whether those suspicions were founded. There are red flags here but nothing definitive. What I can say is that the episode itself was very good indeed. It was just as unconventional visually as the previews led you to believe, and it displayed a deft hand in terms of pacing and exposition. There was one character – Saki – who espoused what one might call progressive thinking. People should be judged on merit, not their social rank or skin color, etc. Of course, she got dismembered and beheaded for it…

This premiere is indeed very dismember-y. It’s violent and brutal, but then the setting it’s depicting is  a violent and brutal one. If anything Nippon Sangoku leans into libertarianism here (“taxes” are decried both in word in deed). It’s no good putting the money into the hands of the powerful because they’re all corrupt fatsos leeching off the blood of the downtrodden common folk. Saki is the resident idealist. She bemoans the lack of courage her new husband Aoteru has, though she does praise his knowledge and intelligence. She also openly advocates that Aoteru throw over his civilian job as an agriculture minister and prepare to go to war to unify the three kingdoms.

Aoteru is going to do just that, clearly – heading to Osaka to offer his services to the powerful warlord Saki idealized. This is in response to her murder at the hands of the ultimate fat cat, Taira (heh) Denki. Saki interfered when Taira’s tax collector goons were roughing up the locals, and referred to him in absentia as “Fatso”. Even when presented with her head Aoteru responds with his usual dispassionate logic, and survives to fight another day. But something obviously changes in him at this moment.

Again, it’s hard to know where Nippon Sengoku is headed intellectually and ideologically after one episode. But even pondering the question makes this more interesting than the average series. The fact that Aoteru idolizes Sun Tzu  may offer a clue. While Sun Tzu is comically over-glorified by intellectual lightweights who think it makes them sound smart, the core of his approach was that direct conflict should be avoided wherever possible, and victory over the enemy achieved via diplomacy and deception. Given Aoteru’s seeming rhetoric-based approach to problems, that would seem to fit him like a glove.