Let’s start with the good part first – this was easily the best episode of Heike Monogatari so far.  I might cynically note that it’s partly because Biwa wasn’t in focus for most of it (and I think I’d be right), but it was just generally good.  And that’s allowing for the fact that the visuals took a noticeable downturn from the first two episodes, which is a concern with Science SARU these days.  That just goes to show that it’s not primarily the visuals that are the draw for me here – it’s what’s in the title.  And this ep for the first time sort of felt like it was truth in advertising.

That said, though – if you’re not familiar with the source material, I’m having a hard time imagining anyone keeping up with this.  Heike Monogatari is a big, sprawling story with dozens of important characters, and we’re seeing it distilled down and speeded up to a comical degree.  If you’ve read the book (recently at least) the context for these events might be graspable, but if not – well, there really isn’t any context for most of them.  They just happen with minimal setup, which at the very least robs them of some of their pathos.  And then there’s the names – so many names!  And it’s a cardinal rule of narrative fiction that the less distinctive a character is, the harder it is to remember their name.

The best-looking part of the episode is the opening sequence set on Miyajima, where Kiyomori has completed the Itsukushima Jinja.  There’s a reason why almost a thousand years later this place is still revered as one of the most awe-inspiring and beautiful in Japan.  It seems six years have passed (it’s noted that Tokuno has failed to produce an heir for Emperor Takakura – whose interests lie elsewhere) and Biwa, puzzlingly, hasn’t aged a day.  I was wondering if this was going to be acknowledged until Tokuno made reference to it.  I have no idea of the explanation but as she’s basically the resident narrative crutch, I don’t think it matters a whole lot.  If nothing else, given that the story takes place over many years it would’ve been impossible to keep her a loli without fudging things somehow.

Some other characters drift through the story here – like Munemori, Shigemori’s younger half-brother who Biwa intensely dislikes.  Koremori has married Narichika’s daughter and is generally looked upon by his brothers with affectionate disdain for his gentle spirit.  His brothers have grown into teens with famous seiyuu who sound out of place, and generally maintained the same personalities they had as children.  Sukemori manages to ingratiate himself to Go-Shirakawa by singing Imayo with him, but the emperor’s vocal hangover will likely have turned those feelings sour.

With the speed of a runaway Shinkansen, the big events which shake up the story (and Japan) really start to kick into high gear. The Fujiwara governor of Kaga, Morotsune, and his brother Morotaka stop at a mountain temple and demand to use their bath.  When the monks refuse, things turn ugly and the monks eventually burn the temple.  It’s an Enryakuji-affililiated temple, and this doesn’t go over well the the temple’s powerful chief priest Meiun.  He demands punishment – the brothers’ powerful father Saiko convinces the emperor not to impose any.  Meiun marches on the capital with a bunch of warrior monks, the panicked emperor turns to Shigemori to save his ass, and things predictably get even more ugly.

The feud with Enryaku simmers on the back burner for the moment, but believe me, it’s simmering.  In the meanwhile the upshot of this development is the Shishigatani Incident.  Saiko and a bunch of other disgruntled daimyo – including Narichika – gather in the presence of Go-Shirakawa in a mountain villa and effectively hatch a plot to take down the Taira (where the Minamoto – “Genji” =  clan are finally mentioned).  One of the attendees is loyal to Kiyomori and rats them out – Kiyomori responds by seizing and summarily executing Saiko, arresting the others, and planning to take the emperor into custody.  And Shigemori is as literally “caught in the middle” as it’s possible to be.

All of these events happen in the book – and indeed, in real life – but here, almost all their buildup has been cut.  Yet they still manage to pack a dramatic punch – that’s just how riveting this story is.  This tragedy is playing out all the time, and because she’s peripheral to it, Biwa’s ability to see the future for the first time has a whiff of poignancy to it rather than just maudlin melodrama.  As manic as the pacing is this worked much better for me than the first two eps, because it at least focused on important matters from the actual history.  Will it play that way for those who don’t know that history?  I can’t say, but if the rest of the series follows this template, for me it’s going to be pretty engaging to relieve this events even at Nozomi-speed.