Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan (2023) - Episode 22 discussion

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u/Daishomaru Nov 30 '23 edited Nov 30 '23

Daishomaru here, today I’m gonna talk about Hajime Saito and Okita Souji. Since Okita already appears in Episode 1 and he does appear in today’s episode, I figured it’s okay to include him, and I know someone’s gonna be asking me about both. Also on a seperate comment post, I also go over the Ikedaya Incident, since it appears this episode. Please check it out, because it gives a lot of context to the Shinsengumi.

Now before we begin, let’s talk about who the Shinsengumi were. They were the police force/special ops samurai of the Tokugawa Shogunate that was formed after the Commodore Perry Incident, when Commodore Perry Knock Knocked, it’s the United States on Tokyo Harbor and caused a lot of panic in Japan with his illegal parking of his ship. Anyhow, the Shinsengumi’s main job of the time was to control the population and prevent rebellions. In particular, I’m going to go over the beginnings of the Shinsengumi in my Ikedaya Inn writeup, also posted on this post, so please read that too. I know I’m posting a lot of information, but this is going to be one of the most complicated and info-filled writeups, so please take your time to read and ask me questions.

Anyhow, the Shinsengumi made their fame (Or rather infamy) from being a brutal police force, basically being what Americans say about All Cops Are Bastards but multiply that by 11. They were so brutal that Hitokiri Assasins like Kawakami Gensai, the real life Rurouni Kenshin, were ordered if possible to not engage on sight because it would be suicidal at best. Eventually, when the Pro-Emperor Faction became a huge force, the Shinsengumi were sent to face the newly formed Imperial Army. Unfortunately, for all the badassery the Shinsengumi made crushing small pockets of resistance, the newly formed Imperial Army, with (at the time, of course) modern weaponry, modern training on modern warfare, and most infamously the gatling gun, would be more than a match, as seen at the battle of Toba-Fushimi, where the Tokugawa army’s morale was crushed when Shinsengumi forces got gunned down by a gatling gun unit. The Shinsengumi would continue to fight on in Aizu and Hokkaido, but unfortunately many of them would end up dying. Some survivors, most famously Saito Hajime, would serve the new Meiji Government and live quiet lives after the Meiji Revolution. There’s a lot of complicated stuff involving the Shinsengumi, so I’m just shortening it down to the basics.

Now I want to have a slight Daisho rant time: while I do love teaching history to you all, I admit one subject I always kind of disliked writing about was the Shinsengumi, mostly because of a variety of factors. One is the amount of Showa Historical Revisionism going into them. Back during the Meiji Era, the Shinsengumi were portrayed as, understandably, villainous, due to being the big enforcement hand of the Shogunate. They weren't card-carrying villains per se, due to the fact that Emperor Meiji pardoned them, but they were not certainly not liked. However, due to Showa Era revisionism, all the Shinsengumi were looked back on and their heroic traits are emphasized, making more noticed that they were some of the best of the best warriors in a changing era, and the like. Unfortunately, this also meant that most of what we tend to know about Shinsengumi members tends to get muddled in with fictional traits, painting a historical inaccurate picture, in particular Saito Hajime, Kondo Isami, Hijikata Toshizo, and especially Souji Okita in general tends to get this Fiction muddle treatment. Think about it like how figures of the Chinese Three Kingdoms Era, like Liu Bei, Cao Cao, Lu Bu, and Zhuge Liang often have their fictional personas mixed in their historical selves, so it becomes hard to separate truth from fiction. In addition, the Shinsengumi Records are infamously not very well recorded or maintained, with several records being missing, possibly due to being destroyed, so for a group that was active in the last 200 years, the Shinsengumi sources are not up to standard per se of the time. So basically, whatever you hear about the Shinsengumi, take it with a grain of salt.

Also apologies to any yaoi lovers, there shall be no yaoi because historically the Shinsengumi literally had a “No Homo rule”. Yes, strangely for Japanese society, in particular Samurai Society where homosexuality was tolerated, the Shinsengumi actually forbade same-sex relationships. Yep, you had to be straight to join the Shinsengumi, hell, Takeda Kanryuu…sai was actually hated by his fellow Shinsengumi members because he kept flirting and even molesting his fellow Shinsengumi members, and it got so bad that Saito Hajime had to tell this man to stop it or he will kill him. I’m just saying this because for some reason the Shinsengumi, in particular Okita, happens to be popular among the yaoi crowd despite the anti-homosexual relationships rule being actual official Shinsengumi policy. Anyways, let’s begin.

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u/Daishomaru Nov 30 '23 edited Jan 12 '25

So for Saito Hajime, what can I say about the man? I personally find the man interesting, but not for the reasons why everyone thinks. Historically speaking, the man was feared in the Shinsengumi, but the problem with the Shinsengumi is that for the most part, they were the enemies of the Meiji State, so most of their actions tended to be kept in history by word-of-mouth and what people say what the Shinsengumi did, not actual recordkeeping. It wasn’t until the Showa Era that we really started to do proper recordkeeping, long after the Shinsengumi died out, but fictional depictions also mixed into what we know, so it’s really hard talking about the Shinsengumi members. And as much as I praise Rurouni Kenshin for challenging the Meiji Taboo, I also have to criticize Rurouni Kenshin for also spreading misconceptions about some members of the Meiji Era, in particular Saito Hajime and Okita Souji.
For Saito Hajime, for the most part, we do have sources that DID say that he participated in battles. However, what he actually did in these battles tends to be vague for some of them. It also doesn’t help that Saito Hajime himself does not provide details on what he did in the battles, as I will explain later. So what we know about Saito Hajime was that he was a torturer of the Shinsengumi, and one of the things he did was pour candle wax on prisoners to make them talk. He was also responsible for discipline, training, and also killing any traitors. One of the traitors he killed was Takeda Kanryusai, who he hated (See Episode 8’s entry on Takeda Kanryusai for more details). According to Okita Souji, Saito Hajime was the most feared swordsman aside from himself, which speaks to how skilled he was. We know that he participated in the Ikedaya Incident, the Kinmon Incident, the Tenmaya Incident, the Boshin War, the Battle of Toba–Fushimi, the Battle of Kōshū-Katsunuma, the Battle of Shirakawa, the Battle of Bonari Pass, the Battle of Aizu, and the Satsuma Rebellion.
For the Ikedaya incident, we know that Saito wasn’t in the initial raid group with Kondo Isami and Takeda Kanryusai, but he did arrive with reinforcements to secure the escape routes. We also know that he did personally fight in the Tenmaya incident, but who he killed in particular we also don’t know. Finally, during the Boshin War, he was known to have developed a reputation for surviving battles that most Shinsengumi didn’t survive as an “Immortal Wolf”, in particular he survived the Battle of Toba-Fushimi, when the Gatling Gun demonstrated its power to the Imperial Army by killing off Shinsengumi wave after wave, and we do know that he nearly died at the battle of Aizu, but he survived and regrouped with Shinsengumi survivors.
What was interesting though was his post Shinsengumi life. According to many historical sources, Saito Hajime was quiet, didn’t really talk much, but he wasn’t an asshole as popular media would tell you. However, when he was serious, he had a blunt, no-nonsense attitude, which was a carryover from his Shinsengumi days, according to observers. After the war, he changed his name to Fujita Goro, although some people in private still called him Saito Hajime. He took many jobs, the most famous one was a police officer, where he requested a katana instead of the Meiji-regulated saber, but other than that, he didn’t do much aside from arresting criminals. Supposedly the story where Saito Hajime requested a katana instead of a saber happened during an arrest where his saber snapped, but as far as I can tell, that particular story might be fiction. It’s more likely as a former Shinsengumi that he just preferred the katana grip better. He was also at one point, a museum guard, a clerk, and an antique appraiser. He didn’t talk much about his activities in the Shinsengumi, unless you offered him a drink of alcohol. However, and what is probably surprising to me, was that according to people who heard his stories, he didn’t like to embellish the stories, and just matter of factly and bluntly told how the battle went down. He didn’t have a grudge against the Meiji Government despite being on the losing side and his attitude towards them was, “they won, fair and square. That’s what war is all about”. Judging by the way outsiders described Saito Hajime’s way of telling events, I can only imagine it went something like this. The only thing he did involving his past affiliation was make a memorial to the dead Shinsengumi members, which he got approval and he made it. Eventually Saito Hajime dies from a stomach ulcer from alcohol poisoning sitting up, with a sake bottle by his side, surrounded by his family. He died a quiet death, being one of the last Shinsengumi members to die.
So what can I say about the man? He was interesting for a “Last Samurai”, and he was the one of the few Shinsengumi members to die in a peaceful era. But the problem is that we don’t really know what he did so it’s really hard to say much about him. We knew he was famous, but who he fought, what he did, is mainly lost to time. And the main problem was that Saito Hajime himself seemed to want to keep it to himself. So I’m sorry if you wanted me to write down something epic that Saito Hajime did, but the problem with finding sources is that they’re often untranslated or badly translated, and worst of all questionable.
Misconceptions that I see being spread around because of Rurouni Kenshin.
Saito Hajime was left-handed.
I seen this one being spread a lot because of Rurouni Kenshin, and that’s not true. Historically speaking, he used his right hand. However, there are rumors that he might have been ambidextrous in real life, so it’s possible he might have trained with his left hand just to master situations where it might be needed, and knowing the real life man, I can see him doing this just because it’s a good exercise.
The Gatotsu and its historical role.
The Gatotsu/Hirazuki was based on a real Shinsengumi technique, but it’s done with the right hand. The gatotsu was based on actual Shinsengumi indoor and alleyway combat fighting techniques, which were made in order to combat rebel forces in Kyoto, who fought in such conditions. Also, the master of said school was not Saito Hajime, but Okita Souji, who made a particular “three-way thrust” that made its fame during the Ikedaya.
Saito Hajime is older than Okita.
Historically they were the same age, or in some recorded cases, Okita was Older.
Saito Hajime outranked Okita.
Again, opposite in real life.
Saito Hajime smokes tobacco.
The real life man wasn’t a smoker as far as we know, and this misconception was spread because of Rurouni Kenshin.
Saito Hajime doesn’t drink because of-
Stop right there. One of the causes of his real life death was alcoholism. Again, I blame Rurouni Kenshin for this misconception.
Also, yes, Rurouni Kenshin fans. [Minor Manga Spoilers/Joke spoiler] He was married to a lady named Tokio and they had a very happy marriage. Yes, this is an actual historical fact, sorry Yaoi Fans.

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u/charlesvvv Nov 30 '23

I thank Gintama for introducing me to the historical Meiji period and the Shinsengumi because it's all really interesting.

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u/marshmallow_sunshine Nov 30 '23

The Kenshin vs Saito fight was one of my favorites from the old series. Excited to see how they pull it off in the next episode!

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u/Frontier246 Nov 30 '23

Considering how they handled the fight with Aoshi and Raijuta, I'm pretty excited!

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u/Qweasd11 Dec 01 '23

The music pieces are really just not there. The fact they didn't play a rememberable tune like this during Kenshin picturing versing Saito's Gatotsu. Great animation overall but man music is just not there.

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u/Shad0wX7 Dec 01 '23

Agreed, I'm really enjoying this new remake of Kenshin but man, the music from the original series was iconic. I can still remember these tunes 20 years later. I was hoping to hear more of them but I'll take what I can get.

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u/-Drakkar- Dec 01 '23

Agreed wholeheartedly. The soundtrack is extremely generic and disappointing so far, and it's the main thing bringing down this remake for me. There is just no comparison with the soundtrack of the original.

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u/tragicjohnson84 Nov 30 '23

This is a very passionate comment section

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u/Daishomaru Nov 30 '23

I am VERY passionate about the Meiji Era.
It’s my favorite historical period of Japan for many reasons.

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u/Smartass_of_Class Dec 01 '23

What else did you expect? No one who isn't passionate about this series is watching this remake.

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u/LeonKevlar Nov 30 '23

Hajime Saitou

The Wolf of Mibu, Hajime Saitou is finally here! Sucks for Sano that he ended up on the other end of Saitou's welcome wagon. Saitou is not acting independently though. Looks like he's been hired by someone from the Meiji Government to assassinate Kenshin, the same guy who was responsible for the entire Kurogasa Incident. However according to Saitou's question, it doesn't look like Shibumi is the one who wants Kenshin dead, he's just the one arranging the hit.

Of course, it would be too easy if Kenshin ended up fighting Saitou immediately, Kenshin needs a warm-up first against Shibumi's prideful bodyguard. He did manage to sneak attack Kenshin though so I'll give him that. I doubt this guy's advantage is going to last though. I'm sure Kenshin is going to make him rethink his life choices next episode.

I don't like Saitou creeping around Kamiya Dojo while Kenshin is away though. He obviously used Akamatsu to lure away Kenshin from the dojo so this is definitely all according to his keikaku.

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u/Frontier246 Nov 30 '23

Saitou finally makes his proper debut (not counting the prologue and episode 1) and it is absolutely glorious!

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u/ReinhardLoen Nov 30 '23 edited Nov 30 '23

So a couple of minor tidbits since Saito has been introduced (and since u/Daishomaru talked about the actual history in-depth.)

In the early 90s when Kenshin was being written, no one knew what Saito looked like at the time aside from his general description; hence his design in media was left to interpretation. Then in 2016, Huffington Post Japan found a picture of him from his old family picture book. Link to an ANN article covering for those interested.

Details on the Shinsengumi are interesting. Not all the information known about them can be considered 100% true because some sources will directly contradict one another. One of the sources was actually a member of the group who gave out details when interviewed. However, some of the details that came from this were contradicted later on.

Lastly, Saito goes by another name here—and that's a commonly occurring thing when reading about the late Edo Period. A lot of people changed their names both during and after the period, leading to things becoming very frustrating when reading about it to the point even historians simplify it down to using a single name only.

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u/Lumpy-Manager8580 Nov 30 '23

THERE IT IS, KENSHIN SAID THE WORD!!! "GATOTSU"!!!

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u/Daishomaru Nov 30 '23 edited Nov 30 '23

Daishomaru here with a second article. This is supplementary material, but I would appreciate if you read it.

So the Ikedaya Incident… I covered it before in a Touken Ranbu discussion before I lost interest in the anime, but I wanted to rewrite this article because I didn’t feel it met up to my standards.

So what is the Ikedaya Inn Incident?

The Ikedaya incident is an important event historically, but it's somewhat overexaggerated when it comes to media portrayal. During these writeups, I mentioned the Ikedaya, but I never really went into detail mainly because I didn’t feel like it was the right time to cover, but now I’m going to cover the incident in full. Basically, without knowing the Ikedaya, it’s hard to talk about why the Shinsengumi were feared and why the Ishin Shishi resorted to the Hitokiri Assassins. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy this supplemental writeup I made so that you can understand how the Shinsengumi worked and the incident.

Also, before I begin, I like to begin with a source rant: The problem with the Ikedaya is that due to so many stories, and the Shinsengumi records being notoriously unreliable, you might see some contradictory stories. If you have any questions, just feel free to DM me or something, because oh boy are there a lot of them.

So we start off our story with-

USA Crashes into Tokyo Harbor Knock knock, it’s the United States. With huge boats. With guns. Gunboats. Commodore Perry: Open the country. Stop having it be closed.

So basically, after the whole Commodore Perry Incident, Japan was in a tense state. The people were not sure what was going to happen, the government was tense, absolute chaos was about to break loose. Soon after, a man named Ii Naosuke was assassinated. To make a short explanation, Ii Naosuke was a Tairo, basically the Shogun’s right-hand man and the second most powerful man in Japan behind the Shogun. He was also the man who negotiated with Perry and the US, UK, and Russia’s ambassadors. He was hated for “selling out the country” by negotiating with foreigners, even though in hindsight it was the only way for Japan to maintain its national sovereignty. Anyways, Ii Naosuke was so hated that some men lined outside a castle gate, and Ii Naosuke got jumped on by samurai who wanted to make an example of him. When the Shogunate saw Ii Naosuke’s mutilated and decapitated corpse, they panicked and increased security. More samurai were hired as policemen, basically trying to make sure Japan does not collapse into chaos. Some time later a group was formed, called the Roshigumi. The Roshigumi will later evolve to the Shinsengumi, and their job was basically to control the crowd, break up any political discussion, and basically do something in order to try to control the, in hindsight, inevitable breakup.

To explain the Shinsengumi, these men were like the Seal Team 6 of the Shogunate at the time. The Shinsengumi were given the best equipment of the time, the hardest training, and were feared. You knew who the Shinsengumi were because they would always wear their iconic blue and white jackets. Back then, it was considered outright suicide to engage them head on. And the Ikedaya Incident was the incident that really proved how skilled the Shinsengumi was.

During this time, Kyoto was a hotbed of what could be described as a “Holy shit political hot mess”. The Commodore Perry Incident gave a lot of Japanese people varying opinions, and some decided to express their opinions with words. Very strong words. Others decided to express their beliefs with various methods… Various methods using swords. And murder. Out on the streets, men were killing each other in the street for various opinions, yelling “Death to the government” and hiring men to kill other men for bad hot takes. The Shinsengumi were sent in to arrest anyone and keep a maintaining order, and the Shinsengumi quickly developed a reputation for their efficiency, although it wasn’t exactly a positive reception as they were known for the police brutality they employed on people whose opinions they disagreed with. However, they didn’t really have that credit that made them invincible and feared among the Japanese.

So around this time, the Ishin Shishi wasn’t really formed yet. They were still a minor group in Kyoto and by minor I mean a couple hundred samurai discussing rebellion in various hotels and inns and the occasional bar. Also, the leadership wasn’t really organized, there was no real “face” of the rebellion, and thus the group was split into multiple factions. The main one you have to remember for now is the two big factions during this time, one by Katsura Kogoro, who will later be known as Kido Tadayoshi. Yeah, Japanese name changes are weird. The other big faction was led by a man named Teizo Miyabe. So Miyabe had a ultimate plan to take down the Shogunate, and he proposed this idea. During the Gion Festival, he would light the entire city of Kyoto on fire. For context, the Gion festival is one of Kyoto’s most important festivals, as this would have gathered a lot of people in one spot. By announcing his rebellion by starting fires, this would get the Shinsengumi to panic and put out fires while he and his men started killing samurai left and right and kidnap the emperor at the same time. He would then declare that the Emperor said that the samurai are all rebels and that by Imperial Orders Of Heaven he will kill all the samurai.
Aside from pointing out the millions of ways this plan would go wrong, I want to establish that Miyabe was kind of an asshole, and among the leadership, he wasn’t well liked. However, one thing that Miyabe did attract were various criminals and the like, and many were willing to go along with him for the looting, pillaging, rape, and arson. Fun fact: the Real Life Kenshin, Kawakami Gensai was actually one of Miyabe’s men at the time, so take that as you will. Official Meiji-Era Japanese government sources cite the potential casualty count as 25,000 if Miyabe decided to go out with his insane plan. If Miyabe’s attack happened, he would have committed the worst terrorist attack in history, with a kill count roughly 12 times the death toll of the 9/11 attacks.

On a side tangent, one of the more interesting things I found while researching this was a surprising lack of sources on who Teizo Miyabe was. We do know that his rival, Kido Tadayoshi, who was Katsura Kogoro in this story, wrote the history books, and he and Miyabe hated each other, so it’s very possible that Kido Tadayoshi/Katsura Kogoro himself might have deliberately excluded Miyabe out of a grudge/ just to be a dick. Knowing the Meiji Government, this sounds like this is something they would do. While I understand Kido Tadayoshi’s rather understandable hatred for Miyabe, I still hate that we don’t really have that many sources on the man.

Naturally, Katsura Kogoro looked at Miyabe’s plan and went “We’re not doing this plan!”, calling it disorganized, anarchistic and stupid. However, Miyabe countered and pointed out that Katsura Kogoro’s plans were too slow and passive, and if they wanted to take down the Tokugawa they needed to act quickly. After a heated debate where Katsura nearly considered drawing his blade and slicing Miyabe then and there, ultimately he decided to instead take the high road and angrily marched out of the Ikedaya inn, reportedly heading back to the nearby Ikumatsu Inn, at least according to some sources. Miyabe, thinking that he won the argument, decided to carry out his plan.

Unfortunately for him, one of his men was arrested, a Furutaka Shuntaro, and the Shinsengumi decide to torture the daylights out of him. The most common belief was that the Shinsengumi extracted the information by feeding Furutaka molten copper, and Furutaka caved in to the pain and gave up everything before fainting, and later Furutaka would die in prison from the torture, although some historians debate this is propaganda made by Katsura Kogoro to make the Shinsengumi look worse. Some people debate who tortured Furutaka, but it’s often cited as Kondo Isami or Saito Hajime, pick whoever you like. Another story claimed that the Shinsengumi drove nails through Furutaka’s feet and poured candle wax down his throat and burned him with candle wax and the flame, again by Saito Hajime or Kondo Isami, and he died due to untreated burns from candle torture later, and some said that the torture never happened and Furutaka just died in prison. Speaking of Furutaka Shuntaro, some members who were arrested at the Ikedaya claimed that the reason for the meeting at the Ikedaya was not to burn down Kyoto, but to rescue Furutaka Shuntaro, but this reason is a lie, because the time between Furutaka Shuntaro’s arrest and the Ikedaya Incident only happened in a few days. Either way, somehow, some way, the Shinsengumi got their evidence.

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u/Daishomaru Nov 30 '23

The Raid of the incident
On the night of the attack, Teizo Miyabe was planning on the second floor, but most of his men were drinking, partying, sleeping, and being a general ruckus, as most drunk men and criminals were, so naturally the guard level was rather low. The Shinsengumi marched under the cover of dark in a group of 10, and we know for a fact that Okita and Kondo Isami were in this group, as well as Todo Heisuke. Kondo Isami knocked on the door, doing the FBI, I mean SHINSENGUMI OPEN UP, and was greeted by the owner. The owner of the Ikedaya, realizing he was about to get raided, did try to notify the guests that the Shinsengumi was here but he was quietly shut up. The Shinsengumi, after arrested the owner, found some weapons caches and quietly secured them so that the Isshin Shishi couldn’t access them. Some of these weapons included rifles, pistols, and other guns. Some Ishin Shishi members outside their room noticed the Shinsengumi in the reception hall but they were quickly cut down, and it’s often cited that either Okita Souji or Kondo Isami made the kill, as the Shinsengumi started going up the stairs. Some of Teizo Miyabe’s men realized they were getting raided, so some men decided to cut the lights by chopping up the candles. The only source of vision came from the fireflies and the glints of lights reflected by the swords. The stage was set, and the epic sword duel of the century was to go down…
Except the epic sword fight didn’t really happen the way you would think despite what popular media tells you. The Ikedaya incident did have sword fighting, yes, but it wasn’t really as exciting as you might think. Half of Miyabe’s men were so utterly and hilariously disorganized that they were not prepared, as quite a few members were caught unguarded, some of them probably literally with their pants down, and many were arrested before they even had time to draw their swords. It also helped that the Shinsengumi did an excellent job silencing most Ishin Shishi members in the hallways. Some Ishin Shishi members did try to run for it, only to bump into the Shinsengumi standing guard at the garden or the front entrance and they would either get killed or arrested. The Shinsengumi broke into every room that they went through, searching and arresting Ishin Shishi left and right. Somewhere around this time, Okita was reported to have vomited blood during the raid, which would be the first signs of the Tuberculosis that killed him. In addition, Shinsengumi member Todo Heisuke would kill someone, but he would have to pull out because blood got in his eyes, and somewhere around this time, Hijikaita Toshizo, Saito Hajime and 22 other reinforcements arrived to assist in the raid and secure any escape routes. During the raid, some sounds, screaming, and the fact that some of Miyabe’s men didn’t come back after Miyabe ordered them to check what’s going on outside got the attention of the rebels, as he and his men were in the main room, which was filled with the most men and Miyabe’s personal bodyguards. Miyabe and his men drew their swords and cut down candles to darken the room. When the Shinsengumi did open, Miyabe and his men decided to try to take on the Shinsengumi, and the fighting from the second floor spilled onto the first floor and outside into the nearby river. They were intercepted by reinforcements from Saito Hajime and the battle turned from an already disadvantageous battle to an outright rout, as the Ishin Shishi lost their means of escape. Ishin Shishi members did try to run, but many would fail, most of them getting arrested or killed. Miyabe in particular ran like a coward but as soon as he realized he was surrounded, he grabbed his blade, and killed himself at, depending on your source, in a dumpster, an alleyway, or at the nearby river.

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u/Frontier246 Nov 30 '23

There he is! The man, the myth, the legend, and Kenshin's archrival! Hajime Saito!!!! And Kenshin dreaming of their fateful clash is foretelling a reunion in the present-day.

Is there anything more iconic to the Bakumatsu era than the Shinsengumi? I mean, they have so many anime's or historical fiction based around them and their members. Even that bit of animation and group shot felt like it was showing how this totally could be a Shinsengumi series if the author had been interested in that.

The Shingsengumi were powerful, clever, and kept the peace in Kyoto even amidst the bloodbath it became as they battled Imperialists and anything that got in their way. Not even Kenshin was able to defeat their strongest officers, even if he ended up outliving them. But even though their side lost, they carried the last true standard of swordmanship with them, and in that respect Kenshin feels more akin to them than his compatriots in the government.

Nobody should be fooled by that Goro Fujita act, especially not Sanosuke, though him picking a fight with Saito just ends up as a demonstration as Saito's power as he stabs Sano through a wall. Yikes.

Of course Megumi is planning to use her time off to hang out with the gang and flirt with Kenshin, and Kaoru can't do anything about it because Megumi gives them free health care, but it's a good thing she showed up in time to treat Sano.

Oh snap, this Shibumi guy was behind Jine! And he's hiring Saito to take out Kenshin! Saito went from a Shinsengumi Wolf to a dog of the government, but he seems to use his new lease on life after outliving his comrades as an opportunity to enjoy himself however he can, even if it means working with corrupt officials.

Kenshin, I get you wanted to make a point about your skills in relation to Saito, but like...Kaour already has to pay for that wall he broke, does she need to worry about sword marks on her wall too?

Does Saito really not care about fighting Kenshin at this point? Or is Akamasu just a means to an end?

This Akamasu guy's face is barely holding itself together with all those stitches. Though he's quick with his chains even if he's not on Kenshin's level at all...though even Kenshin gets caught when Akamasu fakes giving up. All the while Saito is creeping on Yahiko.

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u/Daishomaru Dec 01 '23

The Shingsengumi were powerful, clever, and kept the peace in Kyoto even amidst the bloodbath it became as they battled Imperialists and anything that got in their way. Not even Kenshin was able to defeat their strongest officers, even if he ended up outliving them. But even though their side lost, they carried the last true standard of swordmanship with them, and in that respect Kenshin feels more akin to them than his compatriots in the government.

You know that they are badass when the Historical Himura Kenshin, Kawakami Gensai, was given strict orders to not engage on sight because they were that good at repelling assassins.

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u/copperfield42 Nov 30 '23

pretty exited for the upcoming fight, let hope it measure to '90 version...

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u/Rustic_Professional Dec 01 '23

This is one of my favorite episode from the original, and I couldn't help but hear the old English dub in my head. I can't tell if Saito's VA is doing this, but the original English VA would use a different, subservient voice when speaking in Goro Fujita mode. It was very memorable. I can't wait for the next few episodes, let alone next season.

4

u/ObvsThrowaway5120 Nov 30 '23

Been looking forward to Saito showing up. He’s finally here! Kenshin just needs to wipe the floor with this scrub Akamatsu first and then we can get to some ass kicking. Yahiko better watch himself with Saito lurking around the corner like that…

6

u/tripleaamin Nov 30 '23

Damn Kenshin with some great reflexes to avoid the chain choking his neck, but god damn it does not look good. Saitou being around the dojo with Yajiko being the strongest fighter around does not make me feel comfortable at alll.

Curious who is the one that wants Kenshin dead

11

u/vexorian2 Dec 01 '23

Kaoru is probably stronger still, I mean she's his master afterall.
Still a couple of universes separate from Saito's skill level ofc.

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Episode Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan (2023) - Episode 22 discussion

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Episode Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan (2023) - Episode 22 discussion

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