You know, I had already written the drafts for eps 9 and 10 reviews and the reason I didn’t post them is partially due to my tardiness, but after watching this ep two weeks ago, I frankly see no point to do it. You see, both of the past eps were heavily centered around Naikaido (or Eisuke, or whatever you want to call him) because yes, he’s been in the teaser, trailer, key visual, and apparently our main source of dram for this season, right? I’ll say right off the bat that the 10th ep was much weaker than the previous, relying on a gruge that makes no sense (Nikaido being forever pissed off because Sayionji-sensei rejected to teach his uncle but instead accepted Shu and Minato except well, Shu and Minato have nothing to do with that) and relayed on too many dumb coincidences. Mind you, the best part of it was seeing how Masa is still one of the elements that makes Tsurune work.
Anyways. Naturally, I thought that was some kind of build-up for the big climax of the season because yeah, as dumb as the conflict sounds (and frankly, it is) this has got to be it, right? I mean, Nikaido has not spent a single snippet of his screentime the whole season without hammering it into our heads how he wants to destroy Shu and Minato, beat Kirasaki and Kazemai, and yadda-yadda, you know the drill at this point. Except, not… the day of the Nationals has finally arrived, and it all happens so fast we don’t really have any time to react. But the worst part? The supposed final battle doesn’t even get to be final. Tsujimine lost against Kazemai, losing their spot to their (Nikaido’s, actually) sworn rivals. And it isn’t even climatic!
And see, it wouldn’t be this bad. It shouldn’t, really, but I can’t ignore how the show went left and right to hype up this confrontation only to blow it into the water. I won’t deny that as the season progressed, more and more of Tsujimine’s status as a titan was made questionable, but quite frankly, they being the strongest was never the central point. And mind you, if I were forced to judge based only on what we were shown of them in this season (with my bare knowledgeof kyudo based only on Tusrune), I would dare to say that they are a little under Kazemai’s actual level. And yeah, I wouldn’t be this pissed off if it were just a match, but this was supposed to be THE match, and quite frankly, story-wise, it didn’t deliver. I’m certain there is more territory to be explored with these three schools because at the end of the day, the pivotal point of this story is still Kyudo and the teaching-learning process, but looking through the context of the season, this should have been the moment. It will forever be a shame that it wasn’t. It’s not a terrible ep, but what should have been the climax of the season was served in very cold way so nah, I’m not digging that up today.
OTAKU SPACE 