Sarai-ya Goyou – 10

「汚い野良猫」 (Kitanai Noraneko)
“A Dirty Stray Cat”

The revelation came an episode sooner than I was expecting, but it looks like my hunch about Yaichi being Seinoshin ever since episode three proved to be true. I just love it when it paying attention to the subtleties in a series makes it so much more enjoyable to watch. While the surprise was diminished a bit in my case (and for anyone who’s been reading my weekly impressions), it was still nice to get confirmation on the suspicion and see the story come together. There are still some questions as to why Seinoshin ended up betraying Jin and the rest of the Bakuro gang after he spared his life, but it’s already been hinted that it has to do with Jin’s orders to kill everyone who “gets in the way”. Naturally, that has me wondering if Seinoshin decided to spare someone’s life just like his one was spared and ended up getting Jin and the others caught by the police. It’s sort of looking that way right now with all the dwelling on the past “Yaichi’s” been seen doing as of late. He may have thought Masa was interesting when he picked him up and invited him to the Five Leaves, but he’s probably thinking he got way more than he bargained for now that he’s helping unravel a past he’s tried to forget.

Jin and Bakuro gang are naturally one element of that, but so is Yagi now that he’s figured out Yaichi is actually Seinoshin. Masa’s decision to lie about how there’s no maple leaf-shaped burn mark on Yaichi’s left shoulder was evidently a bad idea in retrospect, as his bad lying turned out to be what gave it away. It’s kind of ironic in a way, mainly because Masa doesn’t even know if Yaichi has that burn mark yet he ended up leading Yagi to believe (correctly) that he does. However, aside from the legal trouble that Seinoshin may get into with Yagi, I don’t really see his secret getting out being that much of a problem. Yagi was close friends with the real Yaichi in the past as well as Seinoshin himself, so I don’t see him out to arrest the person thought to be dead all this time. If anything, Seinoshin’s decision to avoid drawing Yagi’s suspicion was probably to keep his true identity a secret so that it never reaches the Bakuro gang. As such, it’ll be interesting to see if Yagi actually comes to help “Yaichi” in some way in the final two episodes.

On a somewhat unrelated note, it was nice to learn a bit about Otake’s past and how Yaichi saved her from a life working in a brothel, even though it was heavily overshadowed by everything else happening this episode. In contrast, Sachi still managed to catch my attention amidst all this with her comment to Masa about being a sinful woman because she’s taken a liking to Matsu after receiving the metal hair ornament he made. It’s unlikely anything will come from that, but if anyone’s wanted something in the relationship department outside of Yaichi and Otake, Matsu and Sachi appear to be the next best bet. Story-wise, there are still ex-gang leader “Saint” Souji and Tokujirou’s roles in all this, now that the former has asked that Yaichi’s true identity be kept a secret for now. It’ll be interesting to see what Ume decides to do once he hears of it next time given his and Okinu’s noticeable absence this week. In addition, it looks like Jin will cross paths with Seinoshin as well.

Preview