English Dub Review: Rurouni Kenshin – Kyoto Disturbance “Between Life and Death”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kenshin’s master finally decides to teach him his ultimate technique.

OUR TAKE

We finally get back to Kenshin and his training, as well as finishing it, as his teacher Hiko gives him the final push necessary to learn their style’s greatest and most powerful moves…which I am going to copy paste here so that I don’t have to type it out every single time: the Kuzu Ryu Sen and Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki. The first is strong, but can only be beaten by the second. And so comes Kenshin’s final test, to be willing to reawaken both his will to live and his fear of death, not only for his own life but of those he cherishes. To add to this, we get flashbacks to Hiko’s first time meeting Kenshin, as a child whose family had been killed. Training this traumatized and scared child likely did much to help him learn how to defend himself, but as we know, it also turned him into an infamous killer and has been grappling with that side of himself ever since then. Now he finally has a new means of killing, but will he know when to use it, or even more importantly, when to NOT use it? That will be the big question looming over him for the remainder of the arc.

Learning this technique also comes with a sacrifice of its own, as while Hiko is able to force Kenshin to use the technique to defend himself from Hiko, he also lands a mortal blow against him. This very likely explains why users of this technique only pass it on to one person…because to fully complete the training, you must kill your master. Not out of malice or ambition, but simply to confirm that you have learned the technique. This will also fly in the face of what Kenshin has tried to practice in his non-violence, so unless there’s a way to save Hiko (or Kenshin still used the blunt end of his blade) that will definitely be a major loss for his principles. However, the fact that he had to learn this technique at all is a sign that perhaps those principles need to be bent a bit in order for him to survive. And something tells me his next battle will be coming soon enough, and it’s not just because I briefly read the beginning of the synopsis of the next episode’s plot, though that certainly helped. See ya next week!