Sengoku Youko: Senma Konton-hen – Episode 15 Review

「万象王, 降臨」 (Banshou-ou, Kourin)
“Banshou-oh Descends”

Great events we are powerless to impose our will upon happen, but life does go on. This is an anime and manga website, and writing about them is what I do. With respect to what’s happening in the world there’s not much I can do about it, so I may as well keep writing. One of the powers of narrative fiction is to allow us an escape from all that, and I’m grateful to have anime to help that process for me. It’s not important in the larger scheme of things I suppose, but that doesn’t make me love it any less.

Love is certainly how I feel about the works of Mizukami Satoshi. And part of the reason for that is that (as I noted last week) Mizukami always comes down on the side of decency, without exception. It can be hard to believe that decency will win out in the real world, and in Mizukami’s it sure as hell ain’t easy either. But the effort is never wasted. Those who pursue it reap rewards simply by doing so – they know the difference between right and wrong, and could no sooner ignore their inner voice than the sun could rise in the West.

Shinsuke has a lot of skin in the game here as this mega-battle plays out. Senya is effectively like a son to him (Senya didn’t get especially lucky in the birth father department, but he’s had some wonderful surrogates). He and Tama and Jinka go way, way back, as do his ties to the Dangaisyuu. And then there’s Shakugan. He’s in love with her, of course – that’s a given. But she also represents everything he ever hated about himself. The Shinsuke that was always a day late and a dollar shot saving people, the failed hero. Tama suggests they find a way to get her to Senya to free her from the Tribe of the Void’s control, but Shinsuke has been carrying this for too long to let anyone else be the one to save her.

Besides which, as Shinsuke says – “Who do you think was the one that taught Senya Spirit World Observation?” This is another example of Mizukami writing a gorgeously poetic scene that works equally well as prose, hot on the heels of Senya’s thousand-armed Kannon transformation last week. We’ve seen Shakugan’s origin story before, we know what she suffered through in her village. But here, Senya is everything he dreamed of being as a young man and never was. A heroic samurai, riding in on a white horse to save the day. Why? Not because that’s how he longs to see himself, but because that’s how Shakugan sees him.

If that ain’t beautiful character writing, I don’t know what is. Senya has one of the greatest arcs in manga, but Shinsuke isn’t far behind him. He’s the patron saint of simple decency, this guy. A grinder who does the hard jobs without a lot of flash or recognition. But saving Shakugan isn’t the central fight here, and that’s still ongoing. Nadare and Douren continue their mano a mano, as Shinsuke keeps trying to save everyone single-handedly (well, thousand-handedly). Tsukiko’s arrival has certainly caught him by surprise, almost as much as the left hook that lays him out like a Thanksgiving feast.

At this point Hanatora steps in and makes an executive decision that Senya needs some downtime. Frankly, it makes a nice change from his constantly getting everything dumped on his shoulders. Hanatora immerses herself in the battle with suspicious abandon, in fact. And Tsukiko’s Gourd (via Kokugetsusai) makes a powerful tool in trying to subdue the controlled katawara without killing them. Hanatora orders Nau to get Senya safely to the woods (with the Shinsuke group and the shoujou), and then return to help her. And having gotten the monkeys to safety with Tago’s help. Mudou returns to the fray itching to release some of his pent-up shounen energy.

And he’s gonna be needed. That’s because the Tribe, having played all their other cards, have no choice but to call Banshuou in under “full squash” orders. But not to be left out, the Dangaisyuu and their mecha-monk unleash a “Wind God” attack and blow Banshuou to the four corners of the valley. But that’s not the end of things, because all it serves to do is reveal the cloud katawara’s true form – and he looks like a real badass. Mudou is happy to have the chance to fight him, but it’s clearly going to take a lot more than this baby dragon to match up with Banshuou 2.0.