Princess Usagi
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「貞宗登場!」 (Sadamune Tōjō!)
“Sadamune Appears!”
Wow, another edge of your seat episode. The larger-than-life legend who steps into the spotlight this week is Ogasawara Sadamune (Aoyama Yutaka). A traitor to the Hojo from the get go and with mad archery skills thanks to microscopic vision (the dude even sees the sex of ticks), he receives the giant reward from the emperor of the governorship of Shinano. Good news for him, bad news for our Suwa gang when he makes no bones about paying a surprise visit to declare his intentions of routing out the remaining Hojo. Ogasawara’s freak levels just about matches Yorishige’s. I like Ogasawara’s character design, the way it calls out his archery reputation with the traditional arrow pattern on his clothing, and of course, the bold target right on the middle of his forehead and back.
If it wasn’t obvious already, Ogasawara is one brutal dude, shooting the ear of a shrine maiden as a “gift”. While things are looking pretty grim for Tokiyuki, what with his inability to attack head on, supposedly due to his superior “running away muscles”, he does have excellent skill with the bow and arrow thanks to his puppet father’s fondness of the sport. The thing is, he needs training- so what providential timing, the pesky archer genius starts to plague Suwa meets promising lad in need of some training. This takes Tokiyuki’s beloved game of hide and seek to the next level of dangerous. It’s going to be difficult to keep his cover from an all-seeing madman, but should the plan succeed, Tokiyuki can use Ogasawara’s own skills against him- and what glorious “back at you” that would be. Speaking of “back at you”- there were some delightful quips. One of my favorites being Tokiyuki’s response to Ogasawara’s “You’ll pay for this” with “Send the bill to Yorishige-dono”.
Yorishige already has a plan up that wide sleeve of his, in the form of a dog shooting competition- practically a bat signal for superstar meddlers like Ogasawara. Yes, a dog shooting competition is incredibly cruel. I couldn’t help but feel bad for the poor things. I love that this gets addressed in a hilariously tongue in cheek way with Yorishige panicking over future accusations of animal abuse. What happens next is truly ballsy- Yorishige removes the hide from hide and seek in one fell swoop, offering Tokiyuki as Ogasawara’s partner, then upping the stakes further by okaying human body shots. I love the shade the priest throws in Ogasawara’s not so general direction- “Unlike the shrine maiden you shot the other day, this boy has a weapon”.
So much is riding on this, I think I stopped breathing halfway through the match- and it’s not even over yet. This entire face off just went to show that your opponent’s psychology is half the battle. Yorishige reads Ogasawara’s ego like a book, and it works, at least at first. For someone as battle-proven as Ogasawara is, it was surprising how easily he lost his cool against Tokiyuki. Even- or rather, especially- warriors such as he has their pride, and as they say, pride comes before a fall. That head shot, unfortunately, puts Ogasawara in the lead. Will Tokiyuki be able to make a comeback? In his favor, Tokiyuki still has arrows while his opponent has none- it all depends on whether he can make use of them. For any normal kid, a shot to the head would be enough to crush the spirit, but as we know, Tokiyuki is no normal kid- it fires him up even more. I remember in the manga, these were edge of your seat chapters and the anime is delivering in fine form. Seven days has never felt so long (I feel like I say that every week, though).
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