Ushio & Tora

Episode 20

Things got dark this week on Ushio & Tora. While many previous episodes have not been what you would call light, this was by far the heaviest half-hour we've experienced in the show. Between a tragedy in the past and a bittersweet ending in the future lies—at long last—the story of what really happened to Ushio's mom. All that mystery has paid off in an emotionally (and literally) explosive way. If you get to the end of it without crying, you're tougher than me.

Without the Beast Spear, Ushio becomes frozen in place before the Hakumen no Mono, a monster so intimidating that even Tora's flames don't scare it. In the aftermath of the demon's destruction, Ushio and Jie Mei's pain is palpable, both in her eyes shining a little too brightly, and Ushio's crumpled frame, sobbing out of her sight, crouched against the back of the door. But the worst is yet to come when Jie Mei's brother reveals the ultimate method to forge a perfect spear—a human sacrifice. The mourning Jie Mei is more than happy to comply. It's all so sudden, and yet this plot point has been signposted since Ushio's transformation into a demon. Inside the Beast Spear, Ushio saw both Jie Mei and her brother. If the Spear has a mind of its own, it all makes sense now: the Spear is people.

But the revelations keep coming! Jie Mei, in the form they know from the future, takes Ushio and Tora on a journey through time, introducing them to her various reincarnations. I'm impressed by how well these elements have been previously woven through the story. With an enormous, lengthy shounen epic like Ushio & Tora, I'd expect the author to be making it up as he goes. Every other long-running shounen show I've seen, like Bleach or One Piece, seems to invent new elements of the world to explore overtime, occasionally retconning supposedly established fact about characters, places, or things. It's incredible how well all the pieces of Ushio & Tora fit together. Every detail since the beginning of episode one seems imbued with meaning, with the potential to foreshadow something in later episodes. (Even the torn red cloth on the spear! Talk about attention to detail!) We saw this in the way that various girls from monster-of-the-week episodes came back to save Ushio's life. We see it again in Jie Mei's reincarnations and the revealing story of Ushio's not-so-evil mom.

Still, marveling at Ushio & Tora's story structure was an afterthought for me. While I was actually watching the episode, I was kind of a wreck. All this time we've been led to believe that Ushio's mom might be sort of terrible for protecting such an awful monster. All this time, I thought the Beast Spear was simply an object, as supernatural as it may be. In both cases, the truth is far more bittersweet. It's a powerful episode that had me tearing up along with Ushio. This episode delivered on the show's promises, and it's a fulfilling and emotional conclusion to the arc.

Rating: A

Ushio & Tora is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Lauren writes about anime and journalism at Otaku Journalist.