Nippon Sangoku The Three Nations of the Crimson Sun

Episode 7

First of all, Nippon Sangoku: How dare you? I have spent the last week hyping up my utter contempt for that snot-nosed brat, Tonotsugu Taira. I've been sending cards to all of my family and friends extolling his many sins and failures. I had begun production on a podcast, brilliantly titled “The Blood of Tai-rants,” where I was going to invite special guests to react to nothing but the Taira Jr. scenes of Nippon Sangoku so we could dunk on the kid and complain about modern politics. I swear, Hasan Piker was this close to responding to my emails. I even got a run of “Tonotsugu Taira Sniffs Farts and Sucks Eggs” t-shirts going at the print shop! Now, what the hell am I supposed to do except eat up all those wasted expenses? You used all of that “empathetic character writing” and “masterful storytelling” to make the kid an interesting three-dimensional character. Thanks a lot, Nippon Sangoku, you son of a bitch.

Aside from the thousands of dollars of useless debt I have now accrued on account of this show's reckless insistence on being ridiculously good every single week without fail, I suppose I am obligated as a professional critic to give Nippon Sangoku its kudos. Once again, we are sucked into the drama of the ongoing war between Seii and Yamato, and once again, it is riveting as hell and immaculately produced. Last week, the show emphasized the folly of war in a system run by scheming sociopaths and sniveling nepo-babies, and here we see the consequences of that folly begin to scorch the earth of this post-apocalyptic battlefield. The only hope for any of the men and women fighting on the ground, regardless of the side they fall on, is their ability to adapt to these insane circumstances and fight as hard as they possibly can. For us, it's a very grim sort of boon. When the writing and direction are this consistently excellent, Nippon Sangoku very much becomes a “Whoever loses, we win” scenario.

My favorite part of the episode is probably how Tonotsugu Taira's inevitable shit-eating is accompanied by Lieutenant General Sugoh getting to whoop a supreme amount of ass. Nippon Sangoku excels at bursts of intimate, close-quarters violence, and Sugoh's captive battle against his band of assailants is one of the highlights of the season so far. This thrilling and cathartic action leads Tonotsugu to realize a life-altering truth: Lieutenant General Sugoh is Daddy. Given how much of a stone-cold badass he is, I'm sure plenty of viewers came to that same conclusion as well, if you know what I mean.

Sugoh is a much better father-figure than Denki Taira could ever be, that's for sure, and this new alliance between the Lieutenant General and the little Grand Archivist could be just the thing that turns the tide of this early phase of the war. That, and the fact that Nagao gets brutally executed by Sugoh and Tonotsugu's savior in the episode's finale. I was honestly shocked to see Nagao get offed so early into his run as one of the show's key supporting antagonists. The poor bastard lived for those little scraps of praise that his Precious Dictator had to spare, and what did they get him in the end? Nothing but a sad, sudden death and a shallow grave. I guess that's just the way it goes in a war like this.

Episode Rating:

Nippon Sangoku The Three Nations of the Crimson Sun is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

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.