Wish I could get reception that good when I’m swallowed by a giant snake What They Say:
Long ago, a ferocious monster terrorized the land, until a samurai, wielding the legendary “Beast Spear”, sealed him away. 500 years later, a middle school student named Ushio Aotsuki accidentally uncovers the monster in a hidden cellar under his family’s temple. The unsealed monster and the spear attract many other supernatural creatures to the temple and Ushio is forced to release the monster in order to defeat them. Ushio names the monster “Tora” and unwillingly work together to battle other spirits and demons.
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
We’re a full six episodes series now, and the larger story at hand, still has yet to reveal itself. Given how much source material this adaptation apparently has to plow through in a limited amount of time, this seems rather odd, but it’s managed to stay relatively entertaining despite that. This week’s episode is seemingly more of the same in that regard but there are a couple of elements thrown in this time around that seem to be paving the way for something larger.
The plot for this week’s episode centers around Ushio and the girls hanging around the beach when they meet a kid named Tatsuya who acts out because he lost his mother. Meanwhile Tora runs into a demon named Umizatou who asks for his help in killing a giant monster called an Ayakashi. However Tora’s no match for it on his own, and asks Umizatou to go get help from Ushio. Nakamura and Tatsuya manage to get swallowed by the ayakashi while out on a boat ride and also call Ushio for help (and somehow get good enough reception to make the call from inside a giant snake but best not to think about that too hard) although Tora is the one who actually comes to their rescue first. Together with Tora, Ushio manages to slay the ayakashi and learns a little family secret from Umizatou.
It’s another mostly formulaic episode and the big monster fight is kind of underwhelming compared to last week’s battle, though I have to admit that this one made me actually start to like Nakamura. She seemed like a pretty cookie cutter shonen heroine up to this point but I appreciate that the show allowed her to be the one to save and initially befriend Tatsuya as opposed to the more cliche route of Ushio doing it. Her bit about knowing when to put on a brave-face after she and Tatsuya got swallowed was also pretty effective made her feel like a bit more of her own character (not too bad by 90′s standards). Ushio’s own part in the story cuts into that somewhat, but at least it helps to flesh him out more too. Since he also lost his mom at a young age, he can sympathize with Tatsuya somewhat but he also learned when to stop taking it out on other people, so it does make a bit more sense he’d be the one to help Tatsuya in that respect and it makes the big revelation at the end work better.
Said revelation is that Ushio’s mom is in fact alive, and it’s…not really too surprising, although it keeps this from being a bit too one-note of an episode. It also throws a particularly interesting wrench in things, if Ushio’s father actually knows she’s been alive this whole time and kept it secret from Ushio. Going by his prominence in the opening theme song, that may very well turn out to be the case and I’m curious to see more on that when the show gets to it.
However the more interesting revelation here is Umizatou knowing that Tora’s “true” name is Nagitobimaru when he asked for his help. It seemed a little out of character for Tora to be so helpful in getting rid of the ayakashi when he’s been pretty passive about other demons generally but one of the last scenes in the episode gives it some new perspective. He tells Ushio that he’s apparently had a bunch of titles given to him by humans over the years and it suggests that Ushio may very well not be the first human he’s ever teamed up with. In fact it may have once been his job to exterminate other demons and if so it’d certainly his surprisingly helpful nature despite his cynicism towards humans, though it also lends the question of what may have caused him to have a falling out with them and I’m interested in seeing what comes of it if this actually turns out to be accurate.
In Summary:
Ushio and Tora throws out another big monster brawl, though it feels like a bit of a step down compared to how good last week’s fight was. Thankfully it makes up for that by making Nakamura into a bit more of an actual character and throwing a couple of big plot revelations our way that should be pretty neat when we get to the heart of the story. With that said, I’m slightly worried about how long it can make these monster-of-the week escapades work effectively, so hopefully we get to said heart sooner rather than later.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll, Hulu
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