At this point the deal with this show is pretty hard-wired for me. When it sticks to military strategy and personal intrigue it works. When it indulges its nationalistic fantasies it loses me quickly. This episode, happily, was mostly the former. It also had a bit of encouraging character movement – maybe the first in the series, if we’re honest. It was still simplistic as hell but that’s not going to change, so no point in stressing over it. I’ll take what I can get.

As we rejoin events, Kuzuryu Castle has fallen and all of its defenders killed, fulfilling their glorious suicide in true Bushido fashion. The castle was doomed anyway and all their deaths were pointless, but let’s not quibble. It does rather fly in the face of Ryuumon’s platitudes about the irreplaceability of life though, doesn’t it? Okuetsu has generally fallen with barely a whimper, in fact. But as the Dragon says, territory can be recaptured. Strategically this is a loss Yamato can live with, assuming they don’t screw up what comes after it.

Ryuumon’s decision not to walk into the trap Governor Nagao has laid for him forces the latter’s hands. A holding action makes no sense, he says – no point in just delaying Tonotsugu and his troops if the entire Yamato army isn’t going to follow them. Therefore the right move is to act immediately and wipe them out , that very night in fact. Sugoh obviously knew this was going to happen sooner or later, but Tonotsugu was genuinely surprised by it. If this is all some larger stratagem devised by his father the boy archivist is unaware of it.

Tonotsugu survives the attack on his inn (offscreen) thanks to his guards. Sugoh does too, thanks to Tonotsugu. Tamaki isn’t so lucky. And it appears that I may have written Tonotsugu off too soon last week – there is more to him than there is to his father. He admits he fucked up and puts himself in Sugoh’s hands, which not everyone would have been man enough to do. Things are still bleak for the pair of them. But with the boy wounded in the leg, this is the only chance they have of escaping and regrouping their forces. That chance would have gone a-begging if not for the (too) timely arrival of the rumored Gen. Nagamine, whose whereabouts remained a mystery until the moment he blew two holes in Nagao’s chest.

The most interesting element of this is what it implies about Tonotsugu and Denki. Denki seems smart enough not to have believed Nagao’s tale. But if that’s the case it means he was willingly sacrificing his son in order to further his own ends back in Osaka. Which seem to be taking advantage of the Sei invasion to stage a coup at home, judging by the “spontaneous” street protests with Aoteru attributes to his influence. I would imagine Tonotsugu’s loyalty to him is pretty shaken at this point, to the extent that matters. The war at home is in Aoteru and Tsune-chan-san’s hands for now, it seems.