Another week, another brilliant display of storytelling by Mugen no Juunin: Immortal.  Even when it’s immersed in an ongoing plot, as it finally is now, this series has a way of making every episode feel like a self-supporting story in itself.  That’s a common trait to good historical drama, I find – it was certainly true with Dororo, for example – and it may be the key to this series’ chances of ultimately succeeding despite having nowhere near enough episodes to properly adapt the manga.

It’s been clear almost from the start that thematically at least, Rin and not Manji was the central character in Immortal.  At the very least it’s her arc that defines the story, not his.  For now at least this is true in practical terms as well, as circumstances have forced the pair to part ways for now.  As a woman she could at least theoretically finagle a way to pass through the checkpoint – as a heavily-scarred outlaw samurai, Manji has no chance whatsoever.  While Rin sneaks away in the middle of the night (leaving her bodyguard payment behind) it’s hard to say whether Manji wanted or expected that to happen.  I suspect he knew it was the only way and wasn’t going to try and stop her.

The things teenagers will do for revenge – that’s quite the theme in historical anime this year.  As it turns out both Manji and Rin’s faces are plastered on wanted posters all over Edo, so Rin has to do her best to lay low and change her appearance; she turns to the kindly cook from last week’s episode for help.  She directs Rin to an inn in the small village of Kaminagafusa (fictional as far as I can tell), where the master Nakaya Souhachi (Kirimoto Takuya) and his wife Sato (Atarashi Chieko) apparently have some history as facilitators for smuggling people across the barrier.

We’ve seen a limitless amount of cruelty and depravity in this series already, but the milk of human kindness definitely makes its presence felt this week.  It certainly existed even in brutal times like the early Edo Period; the cruelty of the age just makes it stand out all the more.  Nakaya and his wife are kind people, and even for the princely sum of 21 Ryo he’s not willing to take her on.  It’s not about money, but the consequences of failure which they’ve experienced all too directly.  In the end it’s Sato that agrees to smuggle Rin across, extracting the condition that once she makes it she’ll think about pursuing happiness rather than revenge.  It sounds so easy, but in practice it’s anything but.

The centerpiece of this episode, to be sure, is the interview with the local commissioner that Nakaya and Rin must endure in order for her to get a pass.  It is, in a nutshell, unbelievably tense – because as much as in any swordfight, the consequences here are life and death.  Rin’s performance under pressure is pretty astonishing, though all the more so when I thought she was improvising all this on the spot.  I’m not sure I believe that a fresh wound would look enough like a two-year old caesarian scar to fool even a man but the story itself was a cracker, and delivered with a spine of steel.  As for Sato’s decision to send half the money with Rin on her way, while I suspected it might be coming it was still a rare moment of pure goodness in this bleak setting, and felt totally right.

That was a masterpiece of simplicity, really – doing so much with so little, as this show has already proved itself the master of.  It’s going to be interesting to see where things go from here, because while it’s hard to see Manji being sidelined for an extended period, there’s no obvious way for he and Rin to be physically reunited in their current situation.  That said, now that she no longer has Manji to depend on but is also free of her guilt about potentially causing him harm , Rin will have the chance to grow as a character in very meaningful ways.