OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Kenshin and friends prepare to head out and face Shishio, while Shishio takes some advice from one of the Ten Swords and changes his plans.
OUR TAKE
And with that, Kenshin Himura puts his sword back in its sheath for the time being as we close the book on this season of Rurouni Kenshin, if you’ll excuse the mixed metaphors. As this is a follow up to last episode, which was pretty much just everyone licking their wounds and making plans for what comes next, this episode…is ALSO about everyone licking their wounds and making plans for what comes next SOME MORE. The main development from last time being that Kenshin, Sannosuke, and Saito fully head on their way to accept Shishio’s duel, while Shishio takes the advice of Sadojima Hoji, one of the Ten Swords, about which ones among them he should take to the duel and which ones should instead go to Aoyama, where the less strong characters will be, and just kill all of them there. After some back and forth, Shishio decides to take him up on this advice, meaning that Kenshin and his group will be facing just Shishio, Aoshi, and the top three of the Ten Swords, among them being Sojiro, the stoic short one who Kenshin tied with earlier, and Anji, the one Sannosuke learned his new technique from, as well as some blind guy who hasn’t really made much of an impression on me if I’m being honest.
And as Hoji will be resting his fingers from biting his nails off (it makes sense in context) and Cho, the one that Kenshin defeated earlier, is still separated from the group, that means the remaining five will be fighting the rest of Kenshin’s friends and probably getting jobbed really hard when they show up and get their asses kicked. Also apparently some of them are as strong as Cho or even weaker, and considering Cho was not that impressive, that doesn’t give me very high hopes for that segment’s fights in the next season when this takes place. But we’ll have to wait and see until that next season comes (which has been confirmed to be coming) because this one is done. It didn’t end with a big fight or very much closure, but more just leading into the rest of this arc that will be concluded then. And then maybe after that, they can adapt the part of the manga that never got animated.
AloJapan.com