English Dub Review: Katana Maidens: Toji no Miko “Sword of the Thunder God”

Not Raiden.

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

Having absorbed Princess Ichikishima and becoming part Aradama during the previous episode to be a match against Taigitsu, Hiyori fears losing control of her powers and flees to avoid hurting Kanami after seeing disturbing visions of the future. then later Yukari follows Hiyori and begins to train her on how to suppress and control the Aradama side. What never makes sense to me is how is an Aradama of her skill so powerless unless they possess a person? Could this be why Taigitsu even created her imperial guard instead of an Aradama Army? None of this is properly explained. Later on, Kanami is ordered to return to the base camp where she reunites with the rest of her friends, who are later tasked to search for Hiyori the next morning using some highly advanced Aradama detectors.

Everything seems to move at a brisk pace when later-on, Tagitsu attacks Hiyori, but she’s able to gain the upper hand against Tagitsu thanks to the joint efforts of Yukari who mentored her to control this power and begins to absorb her just as Kanami and the others arrive. Yukari then declares that if Hiyori cannot control the Aradama, then she will banish her to the netherworld for the sake of keeping everyone safe.

Kanami knowing that she’ll most likely never see Hiyori again goads her into a sword duel, which is an interesting sequence that gives you a clear idea of how Ichikishima’s prediction powers work, but Kanami ends up being the victor and tearfully tells Hiyori that they can work together to save her. However, the episode ends on an intense cliffhanger when Kanami’s attempts to get through to Hiyori while possessed by The three Aradama entities goes about as well as you’d expect…

Our Take

This episode was one hell of a 180-degree turn from what we’ve seen in the previous episodes, and the plot is really heading down a dark path. While part of me wasn’t expecting the ending to happen the way it did, Tagitsu’s defeat felt too-easy and I started to see the twist coming a mile away knowing that this couldn’t possibly be the show’s true ending.

As much as it tried to make itself matter, The subplot of the main villain being split into 3 beings with clashing ideologies turned out to be pretty damn pointless in terms of padding the story. Plot-wise you can quickly figure out what’s going to happen. And arguably, it accomplished nothing but allowed the writers to drag the show out an extra 9 episodes.

Let’s hope the last 3 episodes rectify this…