The Elusive Samurai Season 2 ‒ Episode 10
The reunion between Tokiyuki and Takauiji has been years in the making, and I will admit that this is not exactly how I imagined the clash going down. To be honest, Takauiji has made for an odd protagonist these last couple of seasons. He shows up frequently enough to act like a bizarre and crazy avatar of whimsical evil, but his presence throughout the story has still felt somewhat intangible. There are so, so many different antagonistic characters to keep track of in The Elusive Samurai at this point, to the degree that Takauji has faded into the background as just one of the dozen different freaks that Team Hojo Clan has to contend with. At the end of the day, though, Takauji is not supposed to be just another villain of the week. He's the Big Bad. He's the font from which all of Tokiyuki's suffering has flowed. If the second season of The Elusive Samurai was going to ace anything, it really had to be this moment where our hero and our ultimate villain come face to face.
I think the show did a pretty good job. Of course, there was never any chance that the gang was going to successfully assassinate Takauji this week, just like we all knew that the Emperor was not going to punch his ticket at the hands of Tokiyuki's most ridiculous relative; both of these attempts at revolutionary bloodshed were doomed from the start. The point of this ambush, narratively speaking, is to push Tokiyuku farther than we've ever seen him get pushed by confronting the placid, grinning face of his life's ruination. We've seen Tokiyuki feel hopeless, before, and we've seen him get frustrated, but I feel like this week marks the first time we've watched this kid truly get consumed by white hot fury. Takauji isn't just a merciless psychopath who is willing to slaughter everyone in his way, though. He doesn't even pay much thought to why he does this, and he doesn't bother remembering a single face he crosses paths with once his moves on to his next conquest.
At this point, it's almost a cliche to bring up the line that Raúl Juliá's M. Bison delivers to Chun Li in that hilariously bad 1994 Street Fighter movie, but it perfectly captures Takauji's whole perspective in this episode. For Tokiyuki, the day Takauji graced his home was the most important day of his life. For Takauji, it was just another Tuesday. I think the episode handles this very well. I love how the show uses its signature dips into abstract phantasmagoria to demonstrate just how terrifying and dangerous Takauji truly is. As always, the direction from CloverWorks is impeccable.
The only shame is that this impactful and scarring defeat comes on the heels of a number of notable losses for the team. Don't get me wrong, I understand the narrative function of Tokiyuki being forced to learn from his mistakes and grow into the ultimate Elusive Samurai that will take on Takauji once and for all, but I do feel like this season as a whole has suffered from the lack narrative momentum and buildup that made Season One so watchable and entertaining. This year, it seems like Tokiyuki and the crew just cannot catch a break, and we've spent most of our time either ruminating on strategies that will ultimately prove to be fruitless or killing time in between missions trying to figure out what the next step is supposed to be. We only have a couple of episodes left in the season, at this point. I can only hope that our crew can squeak by with at least one triumphant victory before the story has to wrap things up yet again.
Episode Rating:
The Elusive Samurai Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.
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