Nippon Sangoku remains agreeably weird in an interesting way. Both the first two episodes have met that description, albeit I would argue in somewhat different ways. As to my main worry going into – and out of – the premiere, that’s still an “incomplete”. There was every reason to think the show might go in nationalistic directions – even the use of “Nippon” is a dog whistle for people of that ideological bent in Nihon. But the second ep was largely devoid of political or social commentary, at least at the national level.

What we got was in fact rather a lot of comedy. There was still a bit of graphic (and implied) violence but nothing so over the top as last week. The main driver of that comedy is Asama Yoshitsune, a young noble Aoteru meets at the flophouse he stays at the night before the “Toryumon” exam with Ryuumon Mitsuhide (the Osakan warlord Saki told him to go be a retainer for). Tsune-chan-san is a great excuse for Fukuyama Jun to bust out his native Osaka-ben (as I said in another post, he does the bus announcements in his hometown, where I worked the last two years). Though he does feign an Eastern dialect to impress his dim-witted mob of supporters.

Tsune is the scion of the Asama Clan, powerful in the Kingdom of Yamato (one of three, if you remember). It seems like all the warlords have a mishmash of names from Japanese history, though whether these are intended to reflect on their character it’s too early to say. Japan has basically devolved into the Sengoku Period with modern ruins everywhere. As for Tsune he’s a ludicrous popinjay but he is clever and good with a sword. And he sees that Aoteru is much smarter than the mouth-breathers he’s surrounded with, though he alternates between being intrigued and threatened by that.

It seems that in the end these two are likely to be allies, since they share the same goal – the overthrow of the Taira Clan. I mean, with a name like Yoshitsune how could Tsune not? Ryuumon is clearly a critical figure here – he seems to be universally recognized as the best military man in Japan. But they have to pass the general’s entrance exam, which is clearly something not many people have done. Hell, even the line is brutal – though Aoteru tells Tsune-chan-san that in the old days people used to wait in even longer lines at USJ to see “Minions Mayhem”.

The test, as it turns out, is to “bring my knees to the ground”. With a ten-minute time limit. Aoteru and Tsune spend six of them watching the other candidates fail miserably, then Tsune goes in with a method I can’t imagine will work if Ryuumon is worth a tenth of his reputation. All this works pretty well an entertainment, though I’m still sure it adds up to anything in narrative terms. Nippon Sangoku is again very interesting to look at, it must be said. Not everyone will appreciate its weird visual style and not many would call it pretty, but it definitely doesn’t look like any other anime out there. My curiosity – on multiple levels -remains more than strong enough to bring me back for another week.