Sengoku Youko

Episode 8

Revenge is one of those story elements that is so appealing from a writer's perspective, so loaded with hooks to draw the audience in, that it's frankly overdone. It doesn't help that revenge stories almost always end one of two ways – either with cathartic, triumphant violence by our hero or with them realizing that their quest for payback isn't worth it. You can still make the journey to that point engaging, but without a lot of work to the contrary, it's easy to wind up going through the motions. With last week's sudden loss, it would only be natural for some or all of our party to want to repay their enemies in kind, and while that's partly how this episode plays out, there's a lot more nuance than simple bloodlust.

Given everything we know about him, you'd think that Jinka would be the one howling for revenge after Shakugan's death. While he's not explicitly on a quest for vengeance, he's never been unhappy to take out a human in his way – especially not the Dangaisyuu and their hybrid assassins. Yet be it from shock, the looming threat of Mr. Dragon, or the fact that Shakugan's sacrifice was to protect innocent humans, our angsty edgelord is uncharacteristically subdued. It feels like the right way to go for his character. Jinka has been gradually evolving his relationship with humans in general over this arc, and it's nice to see that demonstrated rather than backsliding into old habits. The last time he lost a loved one to human violence, he sublimated all that pain into righteous fury and misanthropy. Now, he might let the hurt settle rather than feed it into the fire in his guts. The most upset he gets is with his own comrades, when Shinsuke starts angrily laying out all of Jinka's internal contradictions that he's been trying not to think about. That could be a purposeful choice not to make the same choices he did before, but even if it's not, it's a sign that our protagonist has grown.

Tama is equally subdued, but it's evident that she's pushing down her grief to keep what's left of her comrades together. Instead, her biggest moment in this episode comes from a choice of inaction after the team catches wind of the village's sacrificial bargain with their "guardian," katawara. A few episodes ago, Tama was adamant about preventing this same thing, albeit with a much higher death toll than one sacrifice every four years. The choice to not intervene suggests that while Tama wants a world that's not ruled by transactions of power, she also recognizes that in the here and now, sometimes it's more favorable to stick with "fairer" transactions, so long as the one in charge is holding up their end. That's a cruel kind of calculus, and the show itself doesn't endorse any single solution, but it's an enlightening look into Tama's contradictions in a world she can't simply force her ideals onto.

Shinsuke, meanwhile, is all about that vengeance, scowling through the episode, dead-eyed and itching for an excuse to let his anger out on something. Yet there's a welcome level of self-awareness on display as he festers in his grief. Getting angry doesn't suddenly make him a better fighter, just a more reckless one who only survives thanks to some lucky flukes and the help of a more powerful fighter. When pressed by his conscience on the cusp of killing Resshin, he admits that this isn't for Shakugan but for himself. It's a way to assert his power after a mortifying failure because a lifetime of exploitation has taught him that a capacity for violence is the only way he can be free from the violence of others. It's why, when Arabuki wants to take control and grant him the power he so deeply wants, Shinsuke immediately refuses. Even in his darkest moment, he's not mindlessly chasing revenge – he's chasing the strength he's always wanted and still failing.

It's welcome nuance to what could have been a stock lesson about either the cathartic thrill or vain self-defeat of revenge, and takes this whole story in much more thoughtful direction. There's no easy way to get over our heroes' loss, just as there's no simple and clean solution to the village's predicament. Everyone is involved in a cycle of violence that they cannot escape on their own. Things aren't resolved – if anything, Shinsuke is even more confused after this whole fight – but it assures us that his story isn't just going to hinge on whether or not he can kill the bad guys. It ties him into the larger themes of systemic violence in a much more active fashion while giving him and the audience a chance to wrestle with the fallout of Shakugan's death.

It's great stuff, and honestly I wish the show had ended it there this week, but this is Sengoku Youko, and there is never so much as a minute to spare. So, instead, we leave this episode by meeting a new character and setting up another fight. I get we have to be economical with runtime, but this is a moment where I wish the show would sacrifice a bit of narrative efficiency for the sake of the emotions it's pulling for. Tama's line about it being so much quieter now that one of them is gone was the perfect way to close out this episode, putting a somber cap on everything and leaving us to stew in the unresolved tension. Instead, we get the start of a new story that can't help but kneecap the character drama that came before it. I'm sure this new Mountain Goddess lady will be interesting, but she could have stood to wait a week.

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Sengoku Youko is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.