OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)Shishio and the Ten Swords set their plan into motion, but Kenshin and his allies rush to stop him.OUR TAKEWe have reached the climax of the season! The three, possibly four, episode long climax, where the plan to set Kyoto and Tokyo ablaze begins to light its sparks. Everyone in the cast is in the field, with Misao’s newly reformed Oniwaban working to put out the fires, as well as briefly facing off against a few of the Ten Swords and barely making it out with their lives. Yahiko, Kaoru, and Megumi stay behind for support, especially with so many likely casualties about to happen because of this, even if they do everything right. And then there’s Kenshin, Sannosuke, and Saito, who manage to figure out Shishio’s plans to attack from a boat of the coast, which leads to some of the most unique battles in the season so far as they navigate making it over waters and through cannon fire. It’s also nice to see Sannosuke get some time to shine after being out of the show’s focus for so long. I understand this is called Rurouni KENSHIN but Sannosuke’s still one of the main characters after all. He’s got strengths he brings to the table AND he still has to show off his new ability to punch rocks really hard!With that in mind, I honestly am starting to get curious if we really are reaching the end of this arc. They just properly introduced us to most of the other Ten Swords and usually bringing in that many characters means most if not all of them are going to get special fights with specific hero characters. Speaking of Sannosuke, we know he has to have a fight with that one lapsed monk character (the OP even hints at as such by making him the focus character for Sannosuke, implying he has no one else he cares about besides the guy he trained with for a couple days at most but whatever) AND frankly Shishio seems almost too interesting to waste here, even if this is starting out as a pretty spectacular final battle. And even though this story arc is probably just as old as I am, I’m not gonna look up spoilers to confirm this one way or another, so I guess we’ll see how it shakes out in the last few episodes of this season. Just four more to go until we can put the sword back in its sheath and lay it down for the time being.