English Dub Review: Katana Maidens: Toji no Miko “Aradama Domination”

Time to dominate.

Overview (Possible Spoilers Below)

The episode begins as things are taken in quite a dark direction. To be blunt, Yomi basically pushed the plot forward in the most brutal way possible so Tagitsu can have a personal Noro-powered army at her beck & call with the reveal that Tagitsu can evidently control anyone injected with Noro in them, though why she isn’t controlling Maki and Suzuka is anyone’s guess. The Shit Yomi pulled in the last episode just to make this even possible was despicably underhanded, but it adds a lot of tension to the situation and clearly establishes that the president wants nothing to do with this while creating dramatic conflict for our leads. Because now they’ll have to fight fellow Toji, including Kanami’s number 1 Toji fangirl Ayumu.

As Kanami and her friends are assigned to protect Princess Takiri, everyone has different reactions & attitudes on how to handle her since her goal is to rule over humanity and negotiations with Takiri aren’t going well. Kanami suggests sparring with Takiri since she believes seeing each other face to face is the best way for humans and Aradama to understand each other, but Takiri turns her down, But this is where things take an odd direction as Kaoru’s cute Aradama pet, Nene shows up. And in a simple montage that says so much with so little, Takiri reads Nene’s mind. It’s an unexpected yet cute scene that shows how long Nene’s been part of Kaoru’s family while showing that it’s possible for Aradama & Humanity to co-exist. In response to this, Takiri has a change of heart and later spars with Kanami which itself is a decent scene, but it comes to an abrupt halt when the building housing Takiri is under attack by Tagitsu’s imperial guard, while Maki & Suzuka take on Yomi when they fail to get through to her.

What happens next, is all hell breaking loose as we see the full extent of Princess Tagitsu’s power and leadership skills to achieve her goal in both defeating & absorbing Takiri which causes Nene to do something unthinkable and whoop some ass, But of course it’d be a much shorter series if Nene could easily defeat Tagitsu, so Nene ends up being injured along with Kanami and her friends, But the episode ends on a bleak & uncertain note as for some reason, Tagitsu spares their lives and straight up leaves them injured, while Kanami’s shocked at seeing the death of Princess Takiri along with discovering that her fangirl, Ayumu is part of Tagitsu’s army.

Our Take

Damn, there was quite a lot to take in this episode. With the stakes raised now, with only one Aradama “Princess” left to protect, I’m left with more questions than answers to the point that we’re beyond plot holes in this episode, it’s more like a plot-canyon in regards to the inconsistencies of what Noro supposedly does to the human body since each episode either depicts it as a cursed performance-enhancing drug, or something that heals injuries and extends your lifespan. But If Noro is capable of keeping you from dying, why did Yume still fucking die?

Also, If Tagitsu can control Aradama, why bother controlling Toji with Noro in their system at all? Why not just create a ton of the Aradama monstrosities at her command? If that’s the case, she could’ve also controlled Nene if she wanted to instead of injuring the creature. I’m hoping these questions get answered in later episodes because while the action and dark moments excelled, the inconsistencies of how Noro works and what it does to the human body aren’t touched-upon in great detail and that can hurt the plot from a storytelling standpoint.