English Dub Review: Drifters Episode 12: “Staring at Shinsegumi ~The Song of the Fervid Kyushu Man~” (Season Finale)

The last episode of Drifters Season 1. How will it end?

 

Spoilers Below

The episode begins immediately after the ending of episode 11 as the titular Drifters reduce the End’s monster-army into purple bloody corpses.

Hijikata leading another wave of his forces, gives orders for his soldiers to break into smaller units and “disperse” into the streets to head towards Orte’s capital building while setting the city ablaze as a distraction.

Toyo quickly notices the monster-troops re-directing their vanguard and splitting up thinking they’re “falling back” but we also cut to Oda who think’s something is very off about their movements thinking their retreat is too easy until they received news from Yoichi about them setting fires to the houses within Orte and quickly figures out that whoever is in charge of this army they’re up against knows about the existence of guns.

We then cut to Hijikata who’s ready to Battle Toyo for the first time and Toyo tells the Dwarves to fall back and let him handle the leader who see’s him as a worthy challenge.

At first, Toyo is fascinated that his opponent Hijikata is also from his country and even knows about who the Shimazu Clan is. When Hijikata introduces himself saying he’s from the “Shinsengumi” clan from the 1900’s and is disgusted when he sees Toyo’s crest on his uniform.

Toyo, while puzzled about this individual, understands that he holds an intense grudge towards the Shimazu clan and Isn’t surprised if it’s something his clan has done given their bloody history, (including an invasion in Korea which historically happened.) Then Toyo gets strangely excited when he realizes that it’s something that the descendants did which gets under his skin, so he begins to summon the ghosts of his dead samurai followers to attack Toyo.

We cut to Oda who isn’t sure what to do with the monster troops scattering about since separating the gun-squad could make the castle they’re in defenseless and would theoretically take too long.

That’s until Hannibal in his dementia-induced state offers a solution in the form of an “object lesson” he puts a bunch of raspberries on the ground and smashes them all at once which is handled comedically but also inspires Oda to come up with a strategy to gather their enemies into a single location and kill them with Yoichi’s squad and Olminu’s assistance.

Yoichi thanx to the elves form a “human tower” to get a good look at the Monster-forces from above enough to not see smoke from the buildings and notices them taking a “detour” and Oda figures out what they’re doing and tells everyone to evacuate the castle asking Ominu to bring them a Map of the building they’re in.

Oda deduces that while the person in charge of this wave of enemies may be an expert in “tactical maneuvering”, he’s an amateur in strategy, while Saint Germain wonders why their aim is “conquest” instead of destruction towards the Orte village wanting to know who the hell the Black King is and whether or not he knows him.

We then cut back to Toyo who gets into an intense battle with the ghosts Hijikata summoned that all attempt to take a sword-swipe at him and it’s an extremely badass scene with the way he dodges with a few swipes on his body here & there.

Then Hijikata readies his sword and they both get into an intense battle with Toyo proceeding to make goofy faces at him and even throws a bowl of soup at his face.

Hijikata wonders why he isn’t being honorable in their fight but Toyo responds saying “this is a fight to the death, I’m going to strike your head clean off of your neck, and when I do, won’t your spirit be pleased to know I had to use every trick in the book?”

We finally cut-back with Oda putting his plan into motion knowing that Toyo is mainly distracting Hijikata from leading his monster-troops. He then orders the men to ready their guns once the monster-troops enter the building.

The monster-troops of the Black King gleefully run in the building without thinking twice about whether or not their entrance is too easy while the first battle of Toyo Vs Hijikata intensifies to the point that Toyo’s Blade is now broken. (Damn!)

Toyo then takes a large number of sword swipes from the ghosts Summoned by Hijikata and is called a fool by Hijikata but then Toyo says “No you’re the fool! I know you’re a damn threat, what do you think I’m doing?”

We cut back to the Orte Building that’s now invaded by the Monster-Troops and they finally realize it’s a trap when the place is completely empty and full of explosives with Olminu using her “Stone-Wall” paper powers, she seals their exit and the monster troops are blown to hell and to prevent them from jumping the windows, They get killed outside with the Yoichi’s Elven Archers using fiery arrows in combination with Oda’s Gun-Squad, with Oda laughing and imagining this is how his Foe Mitsuhide felt when he “tried to kill him in Honnoji Temple”.

Toyo goes into a long speech with Hijikata revealing that this was all a distraction and despite the many casualties his clan has experienced, their results always put them “one step closer to victory” and because of this “we never truly die so we never know defeat”!

Just when Hijikata is about to deliver the killing blow to Toyo, The Dwarves show up with modified rifles they invented and unleash bullet-hell on the ghosts and towards Hijikata and after the smoke clears Toyo jumps towards his direction and Knee’s him in the fucking face and then Hijikata socks him one and they proceed to trade physical blows without weapons while the Black King psychically orders Him to withdraw from the Orte Empire. There’s even a fun comedic moment when even the ghosts that HijiKata summoned are watching but not attacking and they give a small greetings to the Dwarf leader. 😛

Hijikata withdrawals from his fight against Toyo, who is now left heavily injured yet satisfied that he fought someone he perceives as an “honest to goodness samurai” and Hijikata smirks to himself while escaping on a Dragon away from the village and Toyo falls unconscious from his injuries.

The episode ends with a small montage during the credits showing every key character so far doing their own thing and back in Carneades, Rasputin apologizes to the Black King for their supposed failed attempt of seizing Orte, yet the Black King is pleased revealing that they were able to cripple Orte’s capital and test the Drifters’strength to know whom they will further be up against.

It completely ends with the big reveal on who the Green-Clad Samurai was from Episode 10 that Easy brought to their world, it’s none other than Akechi Mitsuhide whom according to Japanese history, not only served Oda at one point during his rule but supposedly betrayed & killed Oda and later killed his son.

Akechi agrees to “pledge himself” to the Ends in hopes of killing Oda in the next battle and we get a message telling us to expect season 2 in “20XX”.

Overview

For the season finale, one of the best aspects of this episode is the dynamics between soldier & commander warfare, Oda is serving in the grand strategist side while Toyo & Yoichi are on the field side. As Toyo and Hijikata (who has some extremely bad history with Toyo’s clan) trade intense physical blows that give weight & impact to every punch, throw and knee to the face while the burning streets surround them and this is Juxtaposed to Oda & Rasputin mentally 1-upping each other, It’s fun to see a battle unfold from multiple fronts especially when shit gets real.

The dub voice work was well-cast with Ian Sinclair (Space Dandy) as the voice of Hijikata. I almost didn’t recognize his voice at first since Ian often plays laid-back lothario-types but this was different than his previous roles when you hear him voice characters like Dandy, Worwick from “Gangsta” or Beerus’ eccentric assistant Whis from DB Super.

I’m patient enough to wait for Season 2 since Hirano’s work isn’t something that can be rushed, but expect my full analysis of this season as a whole next week.