Drifters

Episode 12

As Drifters' first season comes to an end, the main question I find myself asking to judge its success is this: “What was Drifters trying to do?” I'm not going to lie, this series has a lot of problems, many of them made apparent in this season finale, which I think can be fairly described as somewhat underwhelming. In a dozen half-hour episodes, we've managed to cover a heck of a lot of ground while also barely scratching the surface of who these characters are and what they aim to accomplish in this war. This final episode felt less like a culminating effort and more like just another battle in a long series of conflicts that feel less and less distinguishable as the series does on. The characters are largely static with no apparent development or arcs, at least not for our core trio. Drifters has come up short on many of the basic tenets of action/adventure storytelling, and for many other series, these shortcomings would be fatal to the series' success.

Still, if I'm looking instead at what Drifters set out to do on its own terms, I'd be hard pressed to label this show a failure. It's deeply flawed, to be sure, but it has from the very beginning marched to the beat of its own peculiar drum. If I were to go to this series' Oda Nobunaga and offer him my list of complaints, I'm sure he would laugh maniacally in my face (and then probably decapitate me).

I find the term “style over substance” as overused as anyone, but I also think it truly applies to this series, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If this finale proves anything, it's that Drifters unabashedly cares about one thing and one thing only: making cool characters from history try to kill each other and looking cool while doing it. Yes, you could argue that Hijikata Yoshitoyo should have been introduced and developed much earlier for his battle against Toyohisa to warrant taking up almost the entirety of the season finale, but Drifters doesn't care about your petty logic. It will put these two historical figures together whenever it damn well pleases, and it will give Hijikata spooky ghost powers just to up the ante.

After all, who am I to complain about the fact that half of the plot threads that Drifters introduced this season barely got any screen time, much less actual development? None of that matters when there's a city on fire and enemies that need cutting down. It sounds like I'm being overly critical, but while I am genuinely irritated that the show seems to care so little about actually developing its characters and plot, I'm also honestly impressed by how in the moment this show manages to be. It's the anime equivalent of raging unchecked id, a child emptying out his toybox of historical action figures and smashing sets of them together until he gets bored and moves on to new ones. That may result in somewhat incoherent plotting, but I'd be lying if I said Drifters lacked in spectacle and entertainment.

So did Drifters succeed in what it set out to do? I would say yes, albeit with mixed to moderate success. The finale offered excellently choreographed warfare that oozed style, as all of this show's best episodes have. There are a dozen questions I have that need answering, but I was entertained by how well Toyohisa, Ichio, and Nobunaga were able to take command of their mismatched troops in the moment. It was visceral, heart thumping, turn-off-your-brain-and-enjoy-it action, and I can't fault a show too much for wanting to deliver that kind of entertainment.

The show ends with a promise to continue the story in “20XX”, and I really do hope we get to see more of this show, if only because I feel like the story has barely gotten started. We still don't know who EASY or Murasaki are, nor where their intentions lie with the Drifters/ENDs in this world they've been whisked off to. With even more characters being teased in the last few seconds of the episode, it seems like the fight is only going to get more complicated for both our heroes and the ENDS they're squaring off against. Unless you want to read ahead in the manga, it will likely take a few years to get any kind of development on these issues. When the show does return though, I'll certainly be curious to know what happens next for our bloodthirsty heroes. Drifters' first season was, at the very least, a strong teaser for a story that had a lot of unfulfilled potential. So hopefully I'll see you again in 20XX, and we can find out whether or not any of that potential is met.

Rating: B

Drifters is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is an English teacher who has loved anime his entire life, and he spends way too much time on Twitter and his blog.