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Ushio & Tora
Episode 5

by Lauren Orsini,

How would you rate episode 5 of
Ushio & Tora ?
Community score: 4.0

The concepts of good and evil aren't black and white. A good person can have evil capabilities, and the reverse is true too. This week's episode of Ushio & Tora was focused on this life lesson, with enough action and suspense to keep it from getting heavy handed.

The episode begins by introducing a new character: Hyou the exorcist. Hailing from Hong Kong, Hyou is mysterious and dangerous, but with seemingly good intentions. When it comes to children-eating yokai, he is a cold-blooded and capable killer. Even when he's annihilating monsters for a very good cause, his tactics are excessively brutal, especially when compared to the show's moral center, Ushio. Hyou is certain to reappear, as much of his powers (like his hypnotic eye) have yet to be explained (though I've already heard enough of his eye-rollingly cliché backstory).

Meanwhile, Ushio's got problems of his own. Tora is still trying to murder him in his sleep every morning, and things get real when Tora leaves him with a nasty facial scar. It's great that Tora is exploiting the moment before Ushio transforms—I'm sure I'm not the only person to wonder, “why don't the villains just attack during the transformation sequence?” But there's another moment that goes unaddressed and bothers me: if people can't see Tora (except children sometimes), why does he appear on TV?

Either way, technology is once again Tora's bane when Hyou decides that Tora is the villain he wants to take revenge upon. Ushio knows better, but how likely are you to stick up for a monster that keeps trying to kill you on the daily? It seems very unlike the straightforward Ushio to use a hitman, and the plot of this show revolves around whether or not Ushio can keep a clear conscience while selling Tora out. There's a fantastic moment where Ushio is in school, about to receive his certainly horrific report card, but is too deep in thought to listen to the teacher. The most a middle-schooler like Ushio should have to deal with is bad grades, which only makes his moral dilemma seem more powerful in context.

So what makes this episode so much more successful than the lackluster episode four? It's not the action or the cinegraphics, which have been pleasantly consistent from the beginning. The show has improved because we now face a world of more complex evils. Ushio, Tora, and Hyou are all capable of committing both good and evil deeds—and they realize it, too. “I might be just another monster that was drawn to that spear,” Hyou says of Ushio's Beast Spear when he begins to regret his actions against Ushio and Tora. All three are capable of moral ambiguity, which makes them complicated and interesting.

Ushio & Tora is shaping up to be a stellar example of the shounen genre's capabilities. By centering on the two main characters' uneasy alliance, it opens up a world where it's not always certain who is and isn't your friend.

Rating: B+

Ushio & Tora is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.


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