Impression:

Well, we got what was to be expected. Roman lost his ways and began to drink uncontrollably. The guy gets beaten up and taken in by his father’s partner Seibei who treats Roman coldly because of his disappointing downfall. Did you guys know that Seibei was basically a saint? The dude takes in orphaned children and raises him as his own with the aid of the oldest child Akane. The little girl even tries her best to help Roman when Seibei “gives up” on him. Oh man, Akane fell off a cliff into a flooding river! Damn, looks like someone has to save her. Will Roman be able to get over his mental trauma and help out the little girl? Of course he can because that is the purpose of these episodes. Look, the hero failed and lost his way, but all can be fixed by a kind person needing his help. Heaven forbid we get something new. Just let this incident bring him back to the world he left. Well, about 90% of that episode left me bored because of the way that they used this cliche “rebirth” story skeleton. The important thing in what happened back in the usual town. Suzuki found the chopsticks that were hidden in Koharu’s desk. Then, the meeting between the Oniwaban members gets cut short by the arrow of a certain priestess. Let’s just say that action, plus the stuff in the preview, are setting up for some big time action in the next episode that has me really excited.

Chopsticks would be the key.

Current Opinion of the Show:

I am getting back on the bandwagon. The preview has Suzuki, Roman, and Okuni fighting over the chopsticks which is a confrontation that I have been waiting for. Hopefully, the boring episodes will be over for a while. I am not trying to flip-flop here even though it does sound like I change my opinion regarding cliché moments quite often. What I care about is the execution when it comes to these things. I felt that the writing was very good when it came to Roman realizing that Okuni was Otsu. On the other hand, I felt that this “getting his groove back” episode was boring at best. That doesn’t really matter to me at this point because I am looking ahead. The future holds a showdown and I am more than pumped for that.