Drifters

Episode 7

Now that's what I'm talking about, Drifters! Pound for pound, this is the most action packed, visceral, and entertaining episode the show has given us since its premiere. It isn't quite perfect, but it's exactly the kind of balls-to-the-wall throwdown Drifters needed after the last couple weeks of slowdown. What great stuff.

Ironically, the episode's greatest strength is also the one point of contention I have with it. From the opening to the ending, this entire episode is one sustained battle, a three-pronged assault on the Drifters by the Ends, focused solely on delivering the gory goods. While it was unabashedly entertaining and exceptionally executed, it also felt just a little stretched out. We're over halfway through the series' projected 12-episode run, and we still know almost nothing about the grand scheme of the overall plot. The conflicts with Orte and the Ends over the last few weeks have played well enough week-to-week to keep viewers engaged, but we're at the point where the plot needs more shape in the Big Picture. The Octobrists and the other Drifters finally meet up with our main trio at the end, and while I appreciate the intriguing note the show ended on, I wouldn't have minded just a little more plot progression.

That's more of a nitpick than anything though; regardless of whatever else the episode might have been, what we got was absolute aces. Yoichi, Shimazu, and Oda all got time to shine this week, as they faced off against the Ends Joan of Arc and Gilles des Railles. While I don't know how they got from alleged child-murderer to “stoic, beefy barbarian”, Gilles nonetheless makes for a great counterpoint to Joan's manic pyromania, not to mention a worthy foe for our Drifters. From splitting an elf in half with a single flick of his spear to taking an ungodly amount of arrows to the eyes, face, and chest, Gilles steals the most memorable moments of the episode. His fight against Yoichi is also a highlight, excellently choreographed and directed. A couple of noticeable animation shortcuts popped up here and there, but nothing to detract from the overall experience.

Meanwhile, Shimazu and Olminu team up against Joan of Arc, with plenty of notable character moments on both sides. Shimazu and Olminu have good chemistry on the battlefield, and I enjoyed seeing Olminu get a little more to do than stand around and be baffled by the Drifters. Her commentary on Shimazu's bloodthirstiness was a bit on-the-nose, but an apt observation all the same. It especially works in contrast to the emotional flashbacks we get for Joan, where we get to see the weight of the betrayal that got her burnt at the stake. It's interesting that after seven weeks, the most emotional development we've seen is from a villain we've only gotten to meet a couple of times. I don't know exactly where things are going in the last five weeks of this anime, but I feel like we're heading toward something a bit more complicated than “Drifters=Good, Ends=Bad”.

Or maybe not! The overall direction of the plot is muddy enough to go just about anywhere at this point, but I can deal with that a little while longer if the show can keep providing entertainment this solid. The episode concludes with the leader of the Octobrists revealing himself to be Abe no Seimei, the most famous mystic in Japan's history. Now that he and the other Drifters are together (now packing the machine-gun heat that Butch and Sundance have brought along), things seem like they can only get better from here.

Rating: A

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.