Modern anime could learn a thing or two about “peeping” from this one 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):
Another week, another pit stop as Ushio & Tora’s road trip arc continues. This entry brings us yet another girl-of-the-week episode, and one that follows some pretty familiar beats. As always though, the show is pretty good at making the most of it’s cliches and this one manages to follow suit.
After last week’s insanity, Ushio and Tora decide to have a bit of downtime at a nearby hot spring. It leads to a cute little bonding moment between the two of them while they horse around the pool, and it’s still really fun to see how well those two play off each other. Though the fun and games don’t last long when Ushio accidentally peeks at a mysterious girl named Saya while she’s bathing and soon ends up getting caught up in her family business.
Saya comes from a bloodline of white haired maidens with the power to see spirits but in exchange have bad health and short lifespans. Unfortunately for her, the other members of the family decided to take advantage of her by using her to communicate with a powerful spirit they imprisoned called Omamori who’s helped to bring them prosperity over the years. Omamori wants out, of course, and asks for Ushio’s aid in breaking the barrier that’s trapping her. The downside though is breaking the barrier would in turn end up killing her, but she feels it’s worth it in order to have some sense of freedom and also interestingly enough to protect Saya. Last week’s episode played around quite a bit with the moral grays of yokai treatment and while it wasn’t subtle enough about that for my taste it’s nice to see more benevolent yokai introduced.
Sadly, Saya isn’t quite willing to risk freedom both because of what Omamori has meant to her family and also because she doesn’t have the strength to break free from them. Although, with a little coaxing from Ushio, she decides to take charge of her life helps break the barrier. Omamori survives thanks to Tora and decides to watch over Saya until she’s become fully strong enough to stand on her own two feet.
Again, there’re no real surprises to this story, but it’s a solid one, and I certainly like it more than the last girl-of-the-week story with the plane. Saya’s need to become stronger-willed certainly isn’t anything new, but the show does a good enough job of conveying it to get by and Ushio’s part in it works pretty nicely. Particularly being that I have to give the show some props for actually making clever use of the tired “peeping tom” trope that pops up in anime a lot, both by having Ushio and Saya have a semi-natural reaction to it instead of an…anime one, as well as using it to actually build on the dynamic between them rather than for a dumb one-off joke. It’s frankly something modern anime could stand to learn from and I guess it goes to show that old stuff can actually end up being refreshing on occasion.
Aside from the basic plot, though, the episode also manages to throw in a few juicy bits tying into the larger story at play. It seems that the Kouhamei sect that Ushio’s dad works for is still keeping track of the duo and have decided to keep their other Beast Spear candidates in reserve until they can see how worthy he is which means we’ll probably end up meeting them soon enough. There’s also a couple of conversations between Tora and Omamori that suggest he was also imprisoned by humans at some point in the past and it lends credence to my working theory that he used to serve humanity until some kind of fallout made him bitter towards them instead. Of course it’s hard to say how long it’ll be before any of this actually plays out, but I’m looking forward to the answers
In Summary:
Ushio & Tora brings us another girl-of-the-week episode and it’s thankfully a bit more worthwhile than the last one. Saya’s story isn’t anything, but it gets the job done while also sprinkling in a few more hints about Tora’s past. The show still doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry to get to the meat of things, but it’s at least doing a good job of keeping things interesting in the meantime.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll, Hulu
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