Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin

Episode 9

With the Kokorowa stuff getting wrapped up faster than expected, I wasn't sure where the show would be headed with its last few episodes given that the stakes have otherwise stayed relatively low. Of course with this being based on a video game, things were probably bound to start escalating again once we started heading into the show's final act—and things have indeed gotten pretty serious as Sakuna and the others delve into the mystery of who's behind all the demons on the island. While the answer to that isn't super exciting, it makes for a good setup as the show starts heading into the finale.

Even with her friendship with Sakuna being repaired last week, I hoped to see this episode starting with Kokorowa learning how to adjust to life on the island. While she is a bit shocked to see how much work Sakuna put in, she seems to have gotten to things pretty quickly. While that is a little disappointing, it doesn't take too long for things to start picking up elsewhere as, when the others come across an injured demon, everyone's opinions get split between killing it on the spot or trying to learn what happened to it in the first place. Eventually, Sakuna decides to start investigating things alongside Kokorowa and the Ashigumo and discover a hidden base where all the demons have been coming from. When they finally learn the identity of the demons' leader, it turns out to be none other than…Ishimaru.

If like me, you have completely forgotten who this character is, he's the bandit who Sakuna unceremoniously kicked off a bridge in episode 1 when saving Tauemon and the others. This guy was featured pretty prominently in the anime's opening song so I knew that someone looking like him would show up at some point but he had come and gone so quickly in that first episode that I had forgotten we'd already met him before. Seemingly incidental characters coming back as major antagonists is the kind of twist that can be a lot of fun when done well, but in this instance, it feels like it's something that probably worked better in video game form since you'd least get something interactive like a boss fight on top of the shock value. As is, my feelings towards this twist are mostly indifference.

Thankfully there's a little more to all this—as there's still the matter of the how and the why behind his apparent resurrection. Apparently, the flow of time functions differently between the Lofty and Lowly Realms, so when Ishimaru got kicked off that bridge in episode 1, he somehow ended up in the past, arriving on the island many years before Sakuna and the others had ever set foot there. We also learn that he's been sending out demons on behalf of Omizuchi, the evil god who Sakuna's parents and the Ashigumo had defeated many years ago. While this twist didn't do too much for me on its own either, the history of Sakuna's parents is at least something that the show has at least mentioned a couple of times. So even if I'm not too invested in where the story is going with that, it does at least feel like it was telegraphed enough to work as its endgame.

The last bombshell in the episode happens when Sakuna goes to check back on the others, as their fields have been destroyed and they've all seemingly been slaughtered. Given the overall tone of this show, I don't doubt for a second that the others are all perfectly alive but seeing the rice fields reduced to ash after how many episodes were spent cultivating them does feel like a tragedy. Most of this episode felt like something that would have been more exciting to play than watch, which makes me worry about how the rest of this plot will go. Still, it feels like a decent way to set up for the finale, so hopefully, things will manage to balance themselves out.

Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.