English Dub Review: Kochoki “Love and Death”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Nobunaga reconnects with Ikoma Kitsuno, his first love from long ago. Apparently her family’s estate has become a bit of a cultural hub, which allows Nobunaga to mingle with many foreign emissaries and find a gift to Nobukatsu, though he isn’t able to send it in person. Instead, Tsuneoki delivers it himself, meeting Hidetaka along the way, and the two bond over their mutual love of collecting and observing insects. However, when he formally drops off Nobunaga’s gift, Tsuzuki openly criticizes Nobunaga’s behavior. This causes a ripple in the meeting, which Tsuneoki determines to be a calculated move.

Indeed, Tsuzuki has plans of his own, which he continues by lying to Gozen about Nobukatsu dismounting his horse in the previous battle in order to fuel her paranoia about Nobunaga. He then lays seeds of doubt in Nobukatsu and his retainers, characterizing Nobunaga as an unfit ruler and pushing Nobukatsu to take over. When Nobukatsu starts to feel the increasing pressure, Tsuzuki blames Nobunaga as the cause.

Meanwhile, the Saitou clan deals with their own power struggle as Yoshitatsu inherits control from Dousan, later murdering his younger brothers, which potentially puts Kichou’s life in danger. Nobunaga plans to supply Dousan with troops to protect him from Yoshitatsu, though Nobukatsu’s retainers see this as a chance to take power from him as well. While this is happening, Nobukatsu decides to tell Hidetaka to take a letter to Nobunaga as a secret means of communication, with Tsuzuki seemingly approving of it. But in secret, he scorns their brotherly ties and sends an assassin to kill Hidetaka, blaming it on an accidental firing by Nobutsugu, their uncle, then telling Nobukatsu that Nobunaga rejected his letter, leading to Hidetaka wandering into the hunting grounds.

With the blame centered on Nobutsugu, Nobukatsu’s retainers pressure him to enact swift vengeance against him and asking Nobunaga to assist. However, remembering Nobuhide’s words about the importance of raising an army for a just cause, Nobunaga refuses to help. Infuriated by this, Nobukatsu forsakes his brother, fulfilling Tsuzuki’s secret goal.

OUR TAKE

Oh boy, things are starting to get juicy. Tsuzuki’s machinations are starting to bear fruit, laying just the right mixture of manipulative kindness and half-truths to stress Nobukatsu’s faith in Nobunaga until it finally snapped. This was made rather easy due to their usual isolation from one another and the growing displeasure within the family regarding Nobunaga’s seemingly selfish escapades. With all of this pressure building to take power away, the only thing that needed to be done was slowly chip away at the waning faith Nobukatsu had so he could see his brother as nothing but an obstacle. This sets the story up for a fateful showdown between the brothers that the Opening and Ending have been foreshadowing.

In that sense, Hidetaka basically acts as both a walking metaphor for the bond between Nobunaga and Nobukatsu AND a puppy with a “please kill me for story development” sign placed on his back. As the only other male child of the group, he basically acted as a go-between for his brothers when their responsibilities kept them from one another, so it would only be natural that Tsuzuki would see him as someone to kill in order to set things in motion. Kind of odd then that the one we see spending the most on-screen interaction with Hidetaka was Tsuneoki (who is also starting to fall into the background a bit), but…hey, whatever gets the point across and gets the plot ball rolling, because MAN has it needed a push for a while not.

As for what Tsuzuki is after in all this, I’m not entirely sure. Could he be someone who, like the retainers and their mother, sees Nobukatsu as the proper head to the Oda clan? He also seems to be have more than a bit of sexual attraction to him, going by body language, but then it never seems to lead to anything worth mentioning by ANY of the characters, leading me to question what exactly DID happen between them in the scenes where it seems almost obvious that they had sex. It also makes me more than a bit worried that we’re not going to get a clear motive here, just like how Gozen just seems to hate Nobunaga’s guts for…reasons. We get it, they’re the villains who will force the kind-hearted Nobukatsu to become their puppet and lead to a brother versus brother showdown that Nobunaga will inevitably win. But antagonists are more than just their specific roles in the story! Ah well, maybe we’ll get to it next week.