Impression:

Koikawa is a very interesting character. Why do I like him? I think that a swordsman like him is just a quality character. Zoro is great in One Piece and I think that Koikawa fills a similar role in this series. He is extremely strong and he uses his own style of swordsmanship. The guy is tough, but he can be a voice of reason and a nice guy even though it can seem out of character. I just love Koikawa and he is definitely my favorite character in this series.

This was an odd fight.

What is something that you always hate in video games? Bad guys that won’t die. Bosses that beat you even though you lay everything you have into them. That is what these assholes pulled against Koikawa. They are cockroaches, so their special trait was regeneration. No matter how many times Koikawa cut them, the Buddha praisers would not go down. There was a discussion going on within the group regarding Koikawa’s strength during this time. Ooka claimed that Koikawa was stronger while he was a murderer than he is currently. Why is that? When Koikawa was a murderer he had a goal. He wanted to take revenge on the people who were responsible for his mother’s death. Unfortunately, we cannot all be cold-blooded like the insect men. Koikawa still fights, but he lacks the blood lust that he once had. What has that been replaced by? Compassion if you ask the writers. Koikawa is an insect hunter and his current drive comes from protecting people by defeating insects. That is a noble enough goal, but things aren’t looking very good. There are more insect men left, Saizou is still alive, and Yukimura knows about the Mushibugyou. Things are really kicking off now.

Tsukishima is an idiot.

Current Opinion of the Show:

I  think that the series is back on track. I thought that Hibachi would have seen the illusions and known that she did not defeat Saizou. However, they quickly explained everything by having Hibachi say that the powerful illusions may be lifting slowly like fog. That made sense and I no longer cared about that. What I did care about was Tsukishima thinking that Oharu would show up out of nowhere with dumplings for him. Oh well, the fight was good. There was nice pacing in this one with a time share between the backstory and the actual fight. The question of whether or not a blind blood lust is stronger than a will to protect others was a good one and the fight itself was interesting. Some people may say that they didn’t like the fact that it was just Koikawa slicing people up, but I was fine with that. The guy did it in interesting ways and I enjoyed his wall running. Plus, you can only make a fight against regenerators so entertaining with the amount of time that it was allotted. Overall, I liked this fight much more than the last one.

You can tell that he isn’t a murderer at heart.

One of my favorite things about this series is the shared screen time. We get to see characters that aren’t Jinbei quite often and that is good because the other characters are great in their own right. Koikawa is my favorite, but I am sure that people likethe others as well. Mugai and Kotori are the only ones that don’t see the spotlight on the battlefield, but there is an element of mystery associated with their fighting prowess that explains that. I can appreciate what the series is doing in that regard. What am I most looking forward to right now? It isn’t the fights themselves. I want to see what happens with the Mushibugyou. Will she recover her powers? What is the story behind this whole princess thing? Will she end up with Jinbei? Will Yukimura take her hostage. Yes he will. This rising action is really good and I feel on edge with every episode. I am going to be really sad to see this thing go in a few more episodes. Unfortunately, it is quite obvious that another season is necessary, but I don’t know if and when that would come out. I assume that this series is fairly popular, but I haven’t looked at any actual numbers in terms of ratings and overall revenue. I just hope that we get to see the next leg of the story sooner rather than later.

Jinbei cannot control himself.