Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin

Episode 11

Following last week's cliffhanger, Sakuna and the others get ambushed by Ishimaru. He threatened to take Kaimaru hostage and instill in him the same sense of hate he felt. However, Kaimaru's body starts glowing out of nowhere and forces him to back off. Kaimaru and the rest of Sakuna's human companions have somehow started to transform into gods.  Presumably, this has something to do with their time on the island, but the mechanics behind this are unexplained. This is also how we learn that Sakuna's mother was once human before obtaining the raiment Sakuna carries and ascending to the Lofty Realm, which feels like something we probably should have learned a lot earlier. Maybe this is all something explained in the game, but it comes pretty much out of nowhere here, and it took me away from things a bit.

It's a shame because the rest of this episode is pretty strong. In between this bit of literal divine intervention, we learn more about the compelling shared history between Ishimaru and Tauemon. Ishimaru used to live a quiet life as a carpenter or some other kind of worker before having everything stolen from him by the samurai and being forced into banditry to survive. That instilled in him a deep hatred of everyone and everything around him until he started taking from others the same way the samurai did. He especially resents Tauemon becoming a bandit because he couldn't hack it as a samurai. Tauemon, on the other hand, regrets a lot of the choices he made in his life and once thought about ending it, but has since decided to live in the hopes that someday he might find happiness. As last minute as some of this feels, it's more than strong enough to make up for it. It's especially done a lot to make Tauemon into one of the show's most interesting characters. While this isn't the first time the show has brought up his former life as a bandit, he has been largely defined by his klutziness. Learning how much of his gentle nature comes from not trying to stew in hate the same way Ishimaru did was a lot more than I was expecting to get with him at this point. It's the most amount of nuance we've seen from the show thus far.

It was also interesting to see how much that past still haunts him, as when Ishimaru starts wreaking havoc on the island using the fallen Ashigumo spirits, Tauemon starts to feel responsible. This leads him to reveal the truth that for everything he said, he still regrets being alive after everything he did. Sakuna, fortunately, manages to talk him out of it by reminding him how many little pleasures in life he still has to live for and decides to confront Ishimaru herself with some help from the Ashigumo. But before their battle can begin, Ishimaru merges with the fallen Ashigumo spirits into a powerful monster and proves to be more than a match for the two of them. This results in Tauemon somehow being the one to save the day as he manages to defeat him, claiming that Ishimaru died long ago when he let himself be consumed by his hatred. Under different circumstances, this would feel like a pretty lame writing choice on its own, but the fight hardly matters, as the important thing here is Tauemon telling Ishimaru that it's still not too late for him to let go of his hate and seek forgiveness. Despite his talk to the contrary, this seems to have reached Ishimaru on some level, and he manages to reach some semblance of inner peace in his final moments. While this episode would undoubtedly work better if Ishimaru had more build-up as an antagonist, it still managed to land pretty well and hit harder than it had any right to.

As good as the stuff with Tauemon and Ishimaru was, they weren't the only ones affected by this week's events. Sakuna is forced to contend with how bad the current state of the island has gotten. With things the way they are, Lady Kamuhitsuki might intervene and Tama warns Sakuna that if that happens, she might end up decimating the entire island in her attempt to defeat Omizuchi. Not wanting to lose everything she and the others built together a second time, Sakuna resolves to defeat Omizuchi herself and sets the stage for the showdown. I'm not expecting too much out of what is almost certainly playing out like the video game's final boss scenario that is. Still, despite a couple of weird hiccups, the show handled the Ishimaru stuff well enough that I'm willing to be optimistic about this. Hopefully, the show can pull out at least one more surprise for the finale and end things on a high note. 

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Sakuna: Of Rice And Ruin is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.