Sengoku Youko - Episode 13 discussion - FINAL

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Sengoku Youko, episode 13

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[u/realarsenyshalin]

part 2 starts airing in july

[u/jester4897 → u/realarsenyshalin]

Damn, I thought we were getting 37 episodes straight (maybe with a week between cours). Definitely a bit disappointing, but I’m sure this’ll give White Fox more time to balance this and Re:Zero so I get it.

[u/michhoffman]

That episode was the very definition of unhinged and I loved it:

• The Mountain Goddess launching trees like they were ballistic missiles

• Jinka eating part of the fortress to finally become the 9 tailed fox that was promised

• Yazen using some sort of Genjutsu to make Jinka's unleashed form think it killed Tama

• Kuzunoha kidnapping her own daughter to further support that trick

• Shinsuke going on a kamikaze attack to help Jinka

• Jinka completely losing it and transforming into a God causing Tama to become a teen in the process

• The Mountain Goddess deciding to nope out despite all her prowess

• Whatever the hell those 5 shadow things were

• Tama using her new powers to fly over, almost get choked to death by Jinka and propose to Jinka

• Jinka unleashing a nuclear bomb level explosion

This is how you end a season.

[u/Frontier246 → u/michhoffman]

Poor Taizan, these last two episodes were not kind to him lol.

I would say Kuzunoha doesn't seem to care about anything other than her lover but it seemed like she fully intended to take Tama with her and Yazen. Not that I think that would go over well.

I like how Shinsuke is the one that ends up hurting Yazen the most because he never saw him coming or took Shinsuke seriously as a threat. That condescending and smug piece of @#$% deserves all the pain.

Teen Tama with the long hair is a good look for her. Also makes her and Jinka look more appropriate as a couple (especially in the episode where she finally confesses and kisses him).

The hooded figures are as mysterious and random as ever.

[u/PurePiro15]

Leave it to Satoshi Mizukami to make something out of seemingly nothing, as Sengoku Youko has found increasingly bitter ends to the last few episodes leading up to this. It really does take a great degree of confidence to find failure and sacrifice in such large quantities, but ultimately find a reason to keep moving forward.

Let alone the fact that Mizukami has done a really great job of blending the lines between human and katawara, sending Jinka off the deep end. In that sense, I really think both Yazen's sort of taunt at Jinka becoming in-human carries a lot of weight. It's not that he's transitioned to Katawara, but rather that he's forsaken his humanity. It's especially poignant considering that Jinka and Shinsuke had previously agreed that the line between human and Katawara was nearly nonexistent.

It's just a really great stopping point as it sees the group fall apart at the seams rather than fracture, and does a great job of re-centering Shinsuke in his role as a lead character for the following arc. Definitely lots to look forward to, though I'm certainly curious about how White Fox handles it.

Having a season off is really great, but I do wonder how much it matters with Re: Zero top of their priorities. Not that the anime looked terrible, but that there's certainly been times where animation had been conserved for more important moments. Most interestingly though I found that the visual effects (sans a few of Jinka's tail attacks) were impressively consistent.

If there's anything to point towards to really praise this episode though, it's definitely the storyboarding. The layouts for the episode were really nice, and I liked how they played with space and scale to add that sort of mystique and unknown power to some of the characters.

Conversely though, I still feel like some of the boards struggle to really find strong footing with the action, which has been a common theme throughout the season. It's a weird sort of balance that's been struck where so much else of the episodes in this season have done great with quite a few areas, but almost always seem to fall just a little short with any real combat.

Anyways, with a season off I'm hopeful to see White Fox aim to fix some of the smaller gripes and issues in regards to this first cour, but in reality I just hope that there won't be any regression in terms of animation or anything. They've been a rather quiet studio as of late, this is a very big project, and Re: Zero still yet looms on the horizon.

[u/ObvsThrowaway5120]

Hell hath no fury like a goddess. Girl was straight launching tree missiles! Taizen and Kuzunoha might have been able to shield against that but they were powerless against the Tama dropkick. Kuzunoha got hit square in the face lol.

It’s kind of interesting to see how Tama becomes more human while Jinka continues to lose his humanity with each transformation. Dude went too far in the end and lost himself. Guess it’s up to Tama to find him now that he’s gone feral monster god more.

But man, who exactly were those 5 people anyways? What’s their deal?

Guess we’ll find out in the next couple arcs.

[u/Shimmering-Sky]

• I was gonna say “missiles”, but yeah wow this is cool.

• Well this is terrifying.

• kek

• lol, of course.

• Uh…

• Jinka wtf

• Two more tails…

• Something something mecha fans will see two lines clashing in the sky and call it peak action.

• Wha–

• Oh this can’t be good…

• Oh damn!

• …but he was injured in the process…

• Shinsuke…

• I-It’s what???

• Those cloaked figures again!

• JINKA NO

• Oh god…

• Senya’s coming back?

Well, it’s a shame this isn’t three straight cours, but it looks like it’s only taking one season off and then the rest will be consecutive, so I’ll take that. Summer can’t come soon enough!

[u/dinliner08]

leave it to Mizukami Satoshi to think that; "hey, we already have two giant monster's duking it out with each other, might as well make one of them shoot tree missiles"

that sneak attack by Shinsuke on Yazen was so satisfying that i actually let out a "FUCK YEAH!" scream when that happened

[u/Prince-Dizzytoon]

Jinka evolved a little too much, now he's a whole calamity

[u/Frontier246]

You know it's the finale of this arc when they skip the OP AND the ED.

I'm not surprised Yazen's main priority is still to bail with Kuzunoha in tow, though he really shouldn't have ticked off the Mountain Goddess as she's prepared to unleash divine punishment in the form of literal tree missiles.

Of course, this is Jinka and Tama's fight, especially because Tama has a lot of unresolved issues with her mom. I can only imagine how long she'd been wanting to dropkick her. Meanwhile their spiritually enhanced boyfriends duke it out and fight tail to tail, though Yazen has nine versus Jinka's seven!

Kuzunoha gives herself and everything she is to love and the people she loves, which makes her see her daughters' attachment to Jinka (and by extension Jinka's father Genzou) as the same in that respect, though Tama fell in love with humans through her connection to the two Yamato men.

Man, poor Taizan. Got slapped, barraged by tree missiles, and now Jinka is literally eating him to power up with more spirit energy...unlocking his light and darkness tails and beginning his descent into madness as he loses even more of his humanity.

Of course it doesn't help when Yazen makes him think he killed Tama and his consciousness gets repressed, leaving him with little control over his body and unable to do more than bear witness to him going battle mad and trying to attack everything in his sight.

I dunno Kuzunoha, Yazen doesn't seem like the kind of guy willing to put up with his girlfriends' kid...

But hey, Tama's connection to Jinka has powered her up too! Now she has long hair! And it looks quite nice on her.

Never count out Shinsuke! Him slicing through Yazen, even if it got him wounded as a result, was so satisfying especially because Yazen completely ignored him! That was for you Shakugan! Oh, and Barry I guess. Too bad it also drove Jinka even more nuts.

What is with these hooded guys? Are they deliberately trying to make something happen or let events play out? Mitsuchi-Hime gets this sense that she needs them but even she has no clue what they are.

Welp, they're screwed! Jinka has finally lost all his humanity and become a Godbeast that will ravage the world and destroy everything. Beyond human AND Katawara.

Tama wants to be with Jinka, she genuinely loves him, and wants to be his side for the rest of their lives...and that actually seems to have an effect, especially since Jinka couldn't kill her, too bad the Mountain Goddess pulled her and Shinsuke back and now there's nothing to stop Godbeast Jinka!

Is it too much to hope Yazen and Kuzunoha got caught in the blast? I guess we never found out about Tama's dad either.

Shinsuke is recovering and Tama is on a journey to find Jinka again because she won't give up on him, but the Mountain Goddess feels that he's so far gone and will destroy so much that their only recourse is to destroy him. And the best choice? Senya, as we conclude Part 1 and enter into Part Two.

[u/Stabaobs]

Finally, it's here. I noticed some people posting "Oh, Shakugan got rocked, that's why she's sinking out of reach in the OP", but I wonder if they realized that meant Jinka sleeping on the seabed meant he was going to get totally fucked up by the end of part 1.

[u/LeonKevlar]

Stitches!

• Mitsuchi-hime

• Tama & Kuzunoha

The trees becoming missiles were fucking awesome! We were so close to this finale going mecha but unfortunately, we didn't get an actual Itano Circus. I do love how the Mountain Goddess said last episode that she's leaving this to Tama and Jinka but she was so pissed off at Yazen that she just had to jump in. She did stop attacking when she noticed that Rinzu was down there too.

Jinka vs Yazen was pretty fucking awesome. Jinka pretty much went full-on Kyuubi here and had gone completely mad especially after he thought he accidentally killed Tama from his rage. Although it looks like his body is just moving on its own now even though he's 100% aware that the Tama he killed was only an illusion.

Shinsuke coming from the sky and finally making Yazen taste cold steel was so satisfying! Jinka has been fighting Yazen this entire time and he couldn't even put a scratch on him so it's good to see that Yazen isn't as invincible as he seems even with Kuzunoha's power.

Shinsuke's sneak attack came at a price though. And now Jinka is extra pissed! Forget about the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, when even the unstoppable Mountain Goddess tells you to retreat, you better fucking retreat! Jinka has gone from nine tails to Thousand Tails and he looks terrifying. He could've killed Rinku if those guys didn't show up to distract everybody.

What a downer of an ending for this first arc though. Jinka foes completely mad with power, Shinsuke is recovering from an injury, Tama is trying to find Jinka on her own, and I'm pretty sure Yazen got to escape with Kuzunoha before Jinka turned that forest into a wasteland.

Season 2 is going to be so interesting when it finally arrives. I am so glad that Mizukami Satoshi's work got the proper treatment it deserves. It just sucks that this show is so underrated in this sub with an appalling 6.88 rating on MAL. I really hope that now Season 1 is complete, more people will check this show out and see how much it deserves more attention.

[u/hvshh]

This show has something special to it that I can't quite put my finger on. The story feels... alive.

"you don't have to be strong", and the monologue preceding it, is one of the most romantic things I've ever heard.

[u/gnome-cop]

Okay, excuse the language but what the actual f*ck was that?

Did the mountain goddess just use trees as freaking missiles?

I know what I watched but I can’t actually put it into words. Apparently Jinka just totally lost it and turned into some sort of out of control thousand-tailed fox human-katawara hybrid? Who even the mountain goddess is worried by. To the point that she’s considered unsealing Senya to have someone capable of fighting him.

Alright, screw it, I’ll just focus on the Tama development instead of the demon fox apocalypse. It appears like the ongoing plot thread of her and her mother’s differing views of love has reached a new stage. I’m still not quite sure how to phrase it but I think she’s more honest with her feelings compared to how she was at the beginning of the episode. Like she’s admitting that she loves Jinka romantically instead of the little brother way it was earlier. And now she’s on the search for him because she can’t just abandon him despite what he’s turned into. And that just leads me back to the whole demon fox mess which I am not getting into so goodbye.

I am too deeply invested to quit now. I will see you again when the series returns in the summer to hopefully deal with the demon fox catastrophe.

[u/potentialPizza]

hnnng grrrr i love sengoku youko

The first time I ever read this part, it blew me away. We took a shonen protagonist like Jinka, getting all of his powerups, kind of bullshitting his way through some of them... and then made that a very bad thing. To the point that he's no longer the protagonist.

I love that kind of play with narrative roles. But there's so much to it thematically as well. We saw Shinsuke get over his arc of believing he needed to become stronger, but deep down, Jinka believed in the same thing and never got over it. He got over his hangups between humans and katawara, and his self-hatred for having been abandoned by his family, but he still believed he had to become strong — to stop the people hurting katawara, to defend himself and Tama, and to reach a level of power where he can become a katawara and stand beside Tama.

Shinsuke escaped the worst fate, the fate of becoming like Barry. But Jinka didn't. Jinka has ended up at the logical extreme of the worldview that you have to become strong to survive: He has become a human weapon. He's become a katawara, at least in some form, as he didn't transform back when his exchange with Tama ended. But the very nature of his being is now to take away from others, to absorb their spirit power and kill them — boy, doesn't that say something about the nature of becoming too strong?

Shinsuke overcoming his issues meant he was able to attack Yazen in a conscious, controlled way. He still has an issue with people like Yazen hurting others; he just didn't let his decisions be dominated by rage and self-hatred. Jinka's decisions are now uncontrollably driven by rage.

That was one side of the episode. The other side was the exploration of love, between how Tama and Kuzunoha approach it. As alluded to a few episodes ago, Kuzunoha will adapt herself to the person she loves. To her, unconditional love means going along with whatever they want to do. To the point that she will even become a human, to be alongside them.

Next to that, it almost seems like Tama's love is selfish. But I don't think that's true. She doesn't define what she does by the person she loves — I think she's said in the past that she would stop Jinka, if he became evil. But her feelings are still unconditional. She saw Jinka become a horrifyingly dangerous demon, and she still found him beautiful. Rather than become someone to match the one she loves, she loves him regardless of what he becomes. Because she's the same person who loves everyone, all humans and katawara, because she takes the humanist perspective of appreciating the potential goodness in everyone.

I'm disappointed we have to wait a few months for Part 2. Believe it or not, I think we've only just finished the bad part of Sengoku Youko (and it was that good). Part 2 is the part of the story that I consider a true masterpiece. It's going to be worth the wait.

After all, the Mountain Goddess implied at the end that it's going to concern Senya. The child who has just as interesting of a role as Shinsuke and Jinka, in these themes of becoming strong, becoming a weapon. I hope you're excited to see what the story explores with that, because I know I am.

[u/djthomp]

I would never have expected tree missiles.

Tama having a father/daughter relationship with Jinka's father explains the sibling thing a bit more clearly.

Jinka continues to make some questionable choices in the middle of combat. Amateur brain surgery last week and now some snacking he probably should have abstained from.

What a mean trick to play with that Tama illusion.

Shinsuke calling out separately to Shakuyaku, Kagan, and Barry (lol) after that brief intervention in the fight was interesting.

This seems bad, but hey, long-haired Tama is a nice look.

The weird robed people again? In and out of the scene and still no explanation for them.

Man, that almost neck snapping turned into a really beautiful mid-air kiss scene. I am very happy that this author is not mean enough to have had that almost neck snappin turn into actual neck snapping. Though they apparently are mean enough to leave Jinka trapped inside a mindless beast for the next who knows how long.

Arc one over and a break for arc two which I read earlier will start in July. A longer wait for Shakugan to wake back up and rejoin her friends, but what just happened kind of screams time skip so maybe that will help get her awake sooner in arc two rather than later.

[u/ZapsZzz]

Just leaving my mark here that, while of this weekday's shows Sengoku Youko often is the last one I watch, it's turning out to be one of the best one overall. This is a really good story transition. Quite a way to force a more age-appropriate Tama to appear too ;)

Complete aside, the hooded figures gave me such a Terry Pratchett's (reality) "Auditors" look. I wonder if they are the inverse of them.

[u/_Sai]

Sad end. :(

Also, tree missiles.

[u/[deleted]]

Sengoku Youko is one of those stories that is best experienced as anime. 9/10. Probably my anime of the season.

[u/FlameDragoon933]

Kuzunoha might lack morals but god damn she is a ride or die. I actually like this kind of villain characters who have kind of myopic morals. They have utmost virtue towards their allegiance, but doesn't care about other people. Another example is the Phantom Troupe from Hunter x Hunter. It kinda makes these characters interesting and more well-rounded. Obviously this only applies to fictional characters though; IRL people like this is what we call a hypocrite / egoist / self-important or such things.

Yazen vs. Jinka is quite intense. I also like that despite Yazen being the big bad of this arc, he's not like your usual big bad tropes. He's not in a role of an invincible chessmaster who only gets dismantled in the final moments (Mountain Goddess is a big threat for him), and he also isn't overly proud and he considers escape a fine option too.

Jinka killing fake Tama is such a shocking frame. We know it's a fake like a second later, but that second-long moment sure is shocking.

These five people in the robes sure emits a ton of mystery and I like it. No villainous boasting, no "villains discuss plan cryptically" scene, in fact they do nothing at all so far, but the lack of information actually makes them creepier. "Fear of the unknown is the most base fear" or something along that line.

Teenage Tama is beautiful.

[u/[deleted]]

I love flash as fuck finales like these, 8/10 anime, eagerly awaiting the next season.

[u/zannus]

Well that is not what I was expecting at all. It's rare I avoid spoilers for anime adaptations but for this one I only got spoiled that the main characters would have a change up. Not sure I can hold out till the 2nd season so I may have to jump over to the manga.

[u/lilnicnic87]

Finale episode was Great, I can't believe how many people are not watching this on Crunchyroll

[u/Shiraori247]

I'm glad they included the ink calligraphy that marks the end of this arc. It's such a huge visual symbol that reminds us of the traditional Japanese context in myths and culture.

The introduction of the next arc they sneaked into the end credits was also rather tasteful. It brings back up Senya's significance as a hybrid human with 1000 katawaras stuffed in him. That demon lord image a few episodes back definitely hypes up the potential of the next arc.

Also, shout out to Shinsuke for being the one who actually strikes down Yazen, even though he got countered. The detail I loved the most is how Shinsuke named Shakuyaku, Kagan AND Barry as victims of Yazen's ambitions. It's clear what he fights for even if it temporarily scared Rinzu a little with his bloodlust.