English Dub Review: Katana Maidens: Toji no Miko “The Goddesses’ Madness”

Go mad.

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

The episode begins with a Bitch-Slap as Kanami, Hiyori, Maki meet up with Suzuka who is less than thrilled that Maki was taking it upon herself to battle such a towering threat as Princess Tagitsu, But are informed by Akane and the Mokusa leader that progress is being made to remove the Noro from their bodies as Suzuka is revealed to be using herself as a Mokusa guinea pig for reseach on how to remove it, and are told to partake in a meeting with somebody of great importance and also assigns Suzuka to accompany Akane to meet Yukari, who has fully recovered from her possession and is in charge of protecting Princess Ichikishima inside an active Submarine.

In a small reveal, The lady at the end of the previous episode turns out to be the presumed coma-patient Yukari Origami who explains that when she and Tagitsu were defeated after the events of episode 12, Tagitsu abandoned Yukari and split herself into three entities due to their conflicting goals/desires towards humanity. The current version of Tagitsu wants to go genocidal and wipe them out, Princess Takiri wants to subjugate & guide them, and Princess Ichikishima wants to fuse together humans and the Aradama species to advance both species into the next stage in evolution. Yukari further explains that after the split, it’s now become a power-struggle between the three which helps lay out the stakes of this new story. Because if one of them wins, the prize would be inheriting their true body which still resides in the netherworld. Akane further presses the matter that it’s their priority now to protect Princess Takiri. Afterward, Yukari in a touching scene formally apologizes to Kanami and Hiyori about what happened to their mothers.

Intercut between these touching scenes that help give both protagonists some modicum of closure in regards to their mothers, there’s an ongoing subplot of Yukina offering Noro to a Toji School of “Ayanokouji” run by President Souraku whom out of safety concerns, continues to delay the creation process of Tagitsu’s imperial guard and who could blame her? She’s uneasy at the idea of recruiting her own students to be personal killers much to Yukina’s frustration. Well, that is until Yomi out of nowhere in the middle of school grounds in plain fucking sight, plays slasher villain and mortally wounds several of Souraku’s students, including Ayumu. I know she’s a semi-emotionless killer, but nobody tried to fucking stop her or defend themselves in a school that trains young girls in sword fighting? Consequently, this forces Souraku into saying yes in regards to transforming whats left of her still-breathing students into Noro guinea pigs just to save their lives. Later, Souraku reluctantly forms the imperial guard, though Yukina appears unaware of Yomi’s despicable actions. And the episode ends on an intense cliffhanger as the new imperial guard, with Ayumu among them, swear loyalty to Princess Tagitsu.

Our Take

I want to say this was filler, but a good chunk of it made an effort to move the plot-along with a series of verbal info-dumps during the proceedings. It also helped establish a number of reveals that we the audience didn’t realize such as how the “Okatana” swords that the Toji use despite being living entities that choose their owners like Green Lantern Rings are made from specific materials extracted from Noro which is one of the major reasons why the Aradama attack humanity. It kinda reminds me of how both halves of the Iconic “Scissor Blade” from Kill La Kill turned out to be made from materials of the very thing it’s designed to battle against.

Aside from providing consistent growth and progression to a number of key-characters, I have no idea why Yukina, Yomi and the Ayanokouji school are even helping Tagitsu against the other schools when they know full well that Tagitsu wants to wipe out humanity. Do they really think she’ll spare their lives if they help achieve her murderous goals?

Hopefully, this will all be explained as the show progresses.