English Dub Review: Katana Maidens: Toji no Miko “A Night of Mountain Hunting”

The hunt continues!

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

Long after waiting for a thunderstorm to pass, Kanami and Hiyori are approached by Erin and Kaoru, who instead of attacking them again, they straight up celebrate saying they both “pass” and claim they’re working for “Mokusa”, a faction of Toji freedom fighters who oppose Yukari and wish to restore the Okatana & Toji’s way of life without her rule. And much like Seraph’s fight with Neo in The Matrix Reloaded, their previous battle in episode 4 was simply to test of their worthiness to join. Hiyori remains skeptical but after explaining the situation to the two, along with a cute scene that delves into Kaoru’s pet Nene’s backstory, they end up being separated by an insect-like Aradama swarm.

While a good portion of the running time is spent on all four of them avoiding danger, Erin realizes that her electronic spectrum device isn’t detecting the very Aradama swarm that’s chasing them, compared to Hioyri’s older traditional Spectrum Device and realizes something is up. Meanwhile, Kanami calls out Hiyori’s on her trust issues with people pointing out that she seems to only Trust her to some degree but hopes she’ll acknowledge that not everyone is her enemy. As Hiyori & Kanami encounter two Elite guard members, Kaoru is attacked by the swarm, which is revealed to be controlled by one of the three Elite guards, who can disturbingly release them from her body.

Back at the Sword Administration, Mai meets the semi-emotionless Sayaka leading to a scene between the two involving friendship & cookies, while Yukari promises the sadistic Yume that she will arrange a “fun game” for her. In a series of decent action scenes, Kanami and Hiyori learn to function as a team and disable Maki, giving them an opening to escape. While Kaoru defeats Yomi in battle and forces her to flee, but decides to take a rest afterward The episode ends on a cliffhanger when next morning, Erin appears at the Elite Guard’s base camp that’s surrounded by troops.

Our Take

Another good episode, as we learn new pieces of info in this unraveling mystery. So far there’s a group of people who already know the horrifying twist of Yukari Origami along with some of her Elite guards having a close relationship with the very thing they’re supposed to destroy, The Toji’s assigned electronic spectrum devices are specific and don’t detect every Aradama as exmplified with when they encounter the swarm, and characters like Sayaka and Yume feel like extreme opposites of each other as demonstrated by their interactions with people such as Mai offering cookies and Sayaka who emotes very little, while Yume’s form of getting her jollies is lunging a fucking sword at her own boss. It kinda makes you wonder how these two were raised to be the way are, or if either of them she had any sort of human connections outside of military protocols at all.

With the cliffhanger at the end, I’m wondering what’s Erin’s master plan when approaching the guards or if Hiyori & Kanami will all regroup with them after escaping? I guess we’ll find out next episode.