Sword of the Demon Hunter

Episode 19

Well, this is more like it, far more. After last week's bust of an episode, this is one of the most satisfying of the series so far, neatly linking the changes about to overwhelm Japan to what looks like the end of Jinya's life in Edo. It's an eventful episode, but with no rush. There's some fighting, but the most impactful images are smaller.

For example, we see two warrior fathers, Jinya and Miura, framed by the spinning top that their children are playing with in the foreground. Later, there's a shot of the last ever ramen dish by the redoubtable restaurant owner, who's given back his old name of Sadanaga Hyoma Miura. (The samurai Miura never knew the genial codger was his magically-aged big brother, and he probably never will.) There's an image of a dragonfly on a grass blade, untroubled as Jinya and Miura spar, and then the same dragonfly at the end of the episode, taking off as rain comes.

Partly the episode is a reminder that Jinya, and also Ofu, are in the same positions as the anime heroines of Maquia, or Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, or to take a non-anime case, Arwen in The Lord of the Rings. That is, their lifespans seemingly doom them to outlive everyone they love. Miura comments innocently on how Jinya hasn't changed at all in the decade he's known him; cut from Jinya to the children's spinning top fallen to the ground, before Jinya snatches up his foster daughter and leaves. He's just walked over his daughter's grave.

At least Junya and Ofu can get a final pep talk from Hyoma, the only human who knows what they both are and who still accepts them unreservedly. It's a good speech, but what seals it is the playfully anachronistic moment when Hyoma gets them to pose, for all the world as if he's got a camera. But of course it's just so he can have the moment - you can take it as an implicit rebuke to our generation, recording life so much we forget to live it. (The fleeting close-ups of Hyoma's face during the conversation reinforce the preciousness of the present.)

When Hyoma says he'll see them tomorrow, I chuckled at the obvious death flag. But Hyoma knows he's dying, and the death itself passes in a moment's voiceover, leaving Jinya and Ofuu reflecting on the long road ahead, how there'll be so many more losses to come.

After my complaining last week that we never got to see Miura's bride, she promptly shows up this time, and very sweet it is to see her, especially when she switches out of genteel speech. She can carry off being a lady, but it'll never be natural to her. There's also some intelligent discussion of Jinya's contradictory nature, aware that he's become more “human” in his time at Edo, yet still locked to his demon rage – his two sides explored in, respectively, Episodes 16 (the fox spirit) and 17 (the Kiichi duel).

Miura decided he would go to Kyoto and fight the shogun, which is enough for an offscreen Hatakayama to sic Tsuchiura, his demon henchman, on Miura as he walks through town. Tsuchiura transforms into a better Red Hulk than the one we saw in cinemas recently. Jinya leaps to his friend's defense – the fight's drawings are okay, but it's mainly carried by the sound effects and Kenichirō Matsuda's bass voice as Tsuchiura.

It ends, inevitably, with Jinya forced to transform, revealing his demon nature to an appalled Miura, as well as Jinya's wide-eyed daughter Nomari and a crowd of Edo civilians. There seems to be no doubt Nomari will still love him, but perhaps Jinya has lost another close friend in Miura, like Natsu last season. As Jinya vanishes from the city that's been his home for most of the series, I'm keen to see where his story will go next. Just don't squander it like last week, okay?

Rating:

Sword of the Demon Hunter is currently streaming on HIDIVE.