English Dub Review: HAKYU HOSHIN ENGI “Shadow/Light”

Step into the shadows.

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

The Pre-Intro scene begins when Youzen starts to get deep & philosophical about coming to terms with what he is. At least this isn’t a flash forward to any future spoilers, Otherwise, it would shoot itself in the foot like all the previous episodes have. Taiko is then informed by his Konron master that Youzen left. And in response to this, Taiko is conflicted on whether or not to find & rescue him, given his present condition or keep going to their original goal. But Fugen encourages him to prioritize on what’s most important, but this ends up giving Taiko an ambitious idea that he believes just might work. While this is going on, the episode shifts focus on Nataku, Youzen, and Igo’s current predicament with the three taking on two of Ohtenkun’s henchmen, but much of the episode devotes itself to this battle alone.

As the title implies, two of Ohtenkun’s henchmen are capable of bending shadow & light to their will which in a number of ways puts all three of them in a disadvantage with one of them making shadow-copies. But Youzen in tandem with Nataku does manage to take one of them out with a shape-shift power that ends up becoming detrimental while stopping one of them. Of course, despite still being poisoned by a magical purple Tick. They do manage to slay the enemy that was making the shadow clones, turning the fight in their favor. It was then that Nataku and Igo were able to completely overpower the remaining enemy to secure their victory.

Nataku and Youzen didn’t get out of it unscathed though with Nataku taking the most physical damage, while Youzen is of course still on the verge of death thanks to the parasite and his now extremely low in terms of stamina. He may be infected with a magical tick, but it’s kinda ballsy on his end to keep going. Nataku based on observation got the most damage, but the episode ends on a cliffhanger as Youzen has once again been kidnapped by that sadistic Gothic Douche Ohtenkun and the post-credits scene further emphasizes how much of a dick Ohtenkun is.

Our Take

After the randomness of that 2nd recap, It’s good to get back to where we left off. It’s starting to get tedious just to add two Recap episodes when one devoted would’ve been just fine. The visual effects were the most colorful despite all the characters being stuck in what’s basically enemy territory, and the only minor complaint I have is that Dakki is nowhere to be found anywhere in this episode.

In terms of moving the plot forward, this was a decent episode that managed to give the right amount of tension, suspense and stakes without making Taiko the full-on focus. And the best part is, none of it felt like filler, as Taiko now has a new strategy that doesn’t involve blindly attacking head-on without a plan and for once, I got no objections.