Utawarerumono: The False Faces

Episodes 21-22

After successfully blowing a storehouse of Tusukuru supplies sky high, Haku's wee reinforcement team have decided to make like a tree and get out of there. Sadly, even though she was the one desperate for the opportunity of a tactical retreat, Munechika is forced to stay behind to ensure everyone else's safety. The last glimpse our heroes catch of her finds her at the mercy of Kurou's spear. Everyone is already dreading the princess's reaction to the tragedy of losing her beloved babysitter to the enemy in a country her father just went to war with before dying, but for better or worse, Princess Anju never gets the news of Munechika's capture/possible execution. By the time Haku and friends arrive back in Yamato, the capitol has fallen into chaos over her attempted assassination...by General Oshutoru, of all people! That was episode 21 in a nutshell.

That's a whole lot to take in over a very short length of time (heck, I still don't think the emperor is really dead), so the show chooses to slow down in episode 22 and dwell a little too closely on everyone's reactions to all this tragedy. I say "too closely," because the plot has swiftly devolved into a game of Idiot Ball where the only intrigue to be had comes from following who's downing the big bowl of Stupid-O's at any given time.

But first, an important side note: it's been obvious since the big crazy backstory reveal episode a while back, but I somehow forgot to mention until now that Oshutoru's eerie identical resemblance to Haku is just a side-effect of being his clone replacement created by a mourning emperor. Atui and Honoka were the replacement for the emperor's wife and daughter, and because he believed him to be dead, Oshutoru is the replacement for his brother. This would also mean that Oshutoru is much older than he appears to be, and as a clone body, technically has no blood relatives, which is why the show went out of its way to make his relationship to Nekone so suspicious early on. Long story short, he may have been lying to Haku about his past and guiding him toward an unspoken destiny, but he's not the insidious force I suspected him to be in early episode writeups, and I never really addressed that. So there you go! The red herring got me. Technically, the "all-knowing insidious force" in this U2warerumono story is the emperor himself, but I think the show expects me to sympathize with him a lot more than I do. Frankly, U2warerumono has a crippling problem with refusing to address moral ambiguity and complexity of character or motivations in general, and that leads back into that game of Idiot Ball we've now found ourselves playing. So let's get right into the play-by-play!

First, there's the poisoning of Princess Anju. Oshutoru makes a pretty big show of giving the mourning princess her favorite herbal tea to calm her down, in front of half a dozen other servants and prominent members of the court. The poison takes hold instantly, reducing Anju to a violent and nigh-deadly fever in front of everyone. Why in the world would Oshutoru, a brilliant strategist and close friend of Anju's, poison her in such a damning fashion when there are so many less cruel, more efficient, and downright less boneheaded ways to snag the throne?

Okay, so maybe Oshutoru was just being set up because everybody in the upper court hates him or wants what he has? Not so. Oshutoru has one public hater in the upper echelon of the court (Dekoponpo) and one opportunistic potential conspirator who seems quick to doubt him for ulterior reasons (Raikou). This is not nearly enough to turn the police force of a nation this size against him so drastically. Who the heck is ordering the current most powerful man in the kingdom to be interrogated and whipped so mercilessly? (Or sexily, if you're into that. Lookin' at you, Rurutie.) Why is he rotting in a filthy prison cell awaiting execution without trial for such an obvious frame-job? No one has ascended to the throne in the Emperor or Princess's place to enforce this so brutally, and the person they try to pin it on (Dekoponpo) definitely shouldn't have that authority above all the other generals who have suddenly become ludicrously passive about all this.

The show's attempt to create reasonable conflict around this unjust execution only makes the whole crazy situation dumber. Oshutoru's loyal squadron of the most powerful soldiers in Yamato are apparently causing strife not by marching on the palace and starting a coup, (which you'd think would happen the second they heard their commander was going to be executed), but just by "protesting," I guess. The throngs of people who adore Oshutoru are likewise causing strife by protesting and rioting in some ill-defined fashion. This is the trap Utawarerumono has written itself into by forcibly expunging any shades of gray from its war conflict. We can't show Oshutoru's men or the riled-up populace doing anything bad in service of demanding his release, because that would make them evil, like Dekoponpo or Vurai. Good guys (and their followers) only do good things and bad guys (and their followers) only do bad things, in a story where these lines need to be blurrier to create believable conflict. So we don't see them attacking the palace or looting in the streets or anything, everyone's just "unhappy," and I guess that's bad, but not anything they can be blamed for in a way that would compromise their righteousness at heart.

In fact, this ill-defined "discord" amongst the people is so bad (without being morally dubious though!) that when Oshutoru hears about it from Vurai, he takes hold of the Idiot Ball and gears up to score one hell of a goal. At Vurai's not-so-persuasive insistence, Oshutoru agrees to take the blame for poisoning the princess and face his own execution to quell the (seemingly meager) fighting in the capitol and put Vurai on the throne as the next ruler.

What? So first of all, Oshutoru somehow believes that accepting public blame for the poisoning, accepting execution, and then ceding the throne to his polar political opposite in every regard apart from "loyalty to the emperor" will actually calm the people down. Princess Anju is not dead, mind you, just very sick. But she probably will become dead if Vurai ascends to the throne and decides he wants to keep it while he still has that convenient window of opportunity! That's the other thing, Oshutoru is choosing to martyr himself in service of a lie (an obvious lie at that, which people will definitely notice) to help elect a guy with a platform of iron-fisted, violently enforced suppression during a period of severe social unrest, again, not aided by the public broadcast of an obvious lie by the now-dead most-beloved-military-leader-in-the-empire. That's not how any of this works, the capitol would immediately fall into further chaos, and then Vurai would purge all perceived shreds of rebellion in a hellish inferno, what is wrong with you Oshutoru?

Fortunately, Haku and friends realize that this is all incredibly stupid and decide to spring him from the pokey. Unfortunately, as soon as they arrive at this excellent solution, Kiuru stands up to intercept the Idiot Ball! They should abduct Oshutoru and Anju, and then take them far away to Kiuru's homeland of Ennakamui. No no no, you fools! Get Oshutoru out of jail, take him to his loyal followers, and have them initiate an undercover investigation to expose Anju's actual saboteur. After you have all the evidence you need, reveal Oshutoru through some dramatically public platform to incite a now tragically necessary coup and drive out the real conspirators amongst the Pillar Generals, putting Princess Anju back on the throne in the process with Oshutoru as her trusted advisor, so the General of the Right can begin engendering goodwill again. And sure, kidnap the princess too if you want so she doesn't get poisoned further by the real uncaught culprits, but don't leave the goldurned country, you idiots. Leaving the country just makes it look like you have something to hide, giving actual credibility to the ridiculous lie that Oshutoru poisoned Anju, dooming the already jeopardized princess in the eyes of the populace when she disappears, and opening the emotionally weakened but insanely physically powerful empire up to an intense takeover by a violent warmonger like Vurai. Oh, and it is absolutely eye-rolling to see Haku tell his more buff doppelganger that he's the only man good enough to rule Yamato. But as narcissistic as it is for Haku to say that, I do agree with him! So for Witsalnamitea's sake, don't take them out of the country.

I'm getting the awful impression that we've now sealed ourselves into a finale where Vurai charges back into Tusukuru, blaming them for everything in service of more rampant bloodlust, while Haku and friends act like they couldn't have done anything to prevent it, and the likely-still-alive emperor solemnly muses to himself in hiding that it had to be done. It feels like we're entering halftime in the Idiot Ball Finals. Let's just hope the halftime show has some damn good fireworks.

Rating: C

Utawarerumono: The False Faces is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Jake has been an anime fan since childhood, and likes to chat about cartoons, pop culture, and visual novel dev on Twitter.