×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Ushio & Tora
Episode 39

by Lauren Orsini,

How would you rate episode 39 of
Ushio & Tora (TV 2) ?
Community score: 4.4

More than any other show airing this season, I am going to miss Ushio & Tora. This show adapted a manga from 20 years ago, but it didn't try to modernize it or anything like that. Instead, it showcased the manga's emotional, interconnected relationships and proved they have the power to resonate with the next generation of fans. The finale was a microcosm of this, paralleling the Hakumen no Mono's isolation with Tora's newly minted strength from friendship, wrapping up 39 episodes in the very center of the Venn Diagram of action and sentimentality. It's a conclusion that seizes your attention and emotions alike.

The Hakumen no Mono doesn't really have a tragic backstory. It is, and always has been, the definition of pure evil. And yet, at the very end, we're made to feel sorry for it. Any earlier, and I would not have gone along with this. The Hakumen's appeal as this show's ideal villain is that it has no emotional vulnerability that Ushio can tap into with his goodness. Because there is no goodness in it, the Hakumen's vulnerability is expressed in negative emotions, like envy and defensiveness. Tora posits that the Hakumen is jealous of Ushio and his myriad friends through his excellent trash talk. “And what of it?” the Hakumen rages, even more terrifying in its weakness than it was in total control. In its own words, the Hakumen may not like being evil, but it only knows how to express this through more negative energy. This isn't a redemptive end for the Hakumen that has plagued this entire series, and I'd be irritated if it was. “Say my name,” the Hakumen pleads in its last moments, but it's fitting that its mumbling isn't clarified. Whatever the Hakumen wanted, it never lifted a finger to try to redeem itself.

Instead, this is Tora's story. Tora may have always presented himself as a mean guy, but his deeds say otherwise. Unlike the Hakumen that asks for pity despite its awfulness, Tora gets viewers on his side without even having to ask. The series comes full circle when he chooses to conceal the Beast Spear inside his body to keep the Hakumen blind to their location—and reveals that this is why he stayed pinned in the cellar for 500 years: to keep the Beast Spear safe for its final wielder, Ushio. This isn't the only soft spot Tora reveals. During their final battle with the Hakumen, Tora lets slip the real story of Nagare's death, when previously Ushio thought Tora had killed him out of spite. (And why would he believe otherwise when that's what Tora told him?) In the end, Tora's death is paralleled with the Hakumen's. Nobody grieves the Hakumen, and it dies with its wishes unfulfilled. Meanwhile, Tora dies completely satisfied, comparing the pleasure of being Ushio's friend to physical fullness, and knowing that there are many people who will mourn his absence. Am I upset Tora died? Sure, but you can't ask for a better sendoff than that.

The production pulls out all the stops for the finale. There's a truly epic soundtrack that made me feel the events of the episode more strongly than I would have otherwise. Line drawings are cleaner and more detailed. While some scenes are in the Ushio & Tora trademark monochrome, so many different characters' stories together make it one of the series' most colorful entries. The animation is, as usual, only good at key moments, but it works for conveying what needs to be shown.

The power of this episode comes from its finality, showing bittersweet endings for everyone involved. From the yokai, who willingly turn to stone to save Japan, to MAYUKO, who can't hear the word “hamburger” without tearing up, to Ushio, who refuses to let any of Mom's miso soup go to waste—this conclusion is told in the small details that tug our heartstrings, and the tiny implication of hope at the end. This fairytale conclusion is fitting for a show with a supernatural emphasis and a good vs. evil tale that resonates 20 years later. This was a pitch-perfect shounen adaptation that will be sure to draw fans for years to come.

Rating: A

Ushio & Tora is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lauren writes about geek careers at Otaku Journalist


discuss this in the forum (178 posts) |
bookmark/share with: short url

back to Ushio & Tora
Episode Review homepage / archives