English Dub Review: Rurouni Kenshin – Kyoto Disturbance “The Great Kyoto Fire (Part Two)”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The battle continues!

OUR TAKE

We’re at the middle part of The Great Kyoto Fire three parter, and like all middle parts in trilogies, this one can’t have a beginning and it can’t have an end. It’s like The Two Towers, but if it were only about twenty minutes and partially took place on a boat. And it’s here that I fully realize that this season is very likely not where this arc ends, because there’s three more episodes in this season and there are still a literal fuck ton of antagonists who it would simply not feel narratively satisfying to kill off right now, especially Shishio. So, that does damper my investment a bit, knowing that this is not meant to be some climactic moment for this part of the story, but I’m still mostly sure three will be some significant progression by the end of next week’s episode, and if not then, the actually finale a couple episodes after that. Plus, we’re already getting a bunch of important stuff by seeing how some of the previously underutilized Ten Swords fight as they get some action fighting policemen, and see Misao’s Oniwaban group save civilians and fight some of those Ten Sword guys, AND Megumi checking up on injured people which helps to show more of the community that is being impacted by this attack.

The big fight, however, is the one happening on the boat between the sides of Kenshin, Sannosuke, and Saito against Shishio, Aoshi, and…some…other guy. I mean okay, he’s got a name, Sadojima Hoji, and one of the Ten Swords with his main trait being that he is FIERCELY loyal to Shishio. Like to an unhealthy degree. But he is absolutely the third wheel here, which is almost impressive when there’s five other dudes here. He’s paired against Sannosuke, which I guess makes the most sense as Sannosuke is the weakest of the three good guys, with Kenshin facing off in a grudge match against Aoshi with his newly learned techniques while Saito faces off against Shishio since they’re the each the ones with the most authority in their groups. And that just leaves us with the last part of The Great Kyoto Fire next week, followed by a couple more episodes of falling action. Unless that episode count I got was wrong and there’s more. Regardless, things are carrying on pretty well, or at least well enough, so let’s see how this specific part wraps up.