Jumping right in! Our undercover cross-dressing “bijins” begin their investigation.
The Plot Begins
The hilariousness of the plot is going to be one for the ages. Tengen’s 3 wives are undercover in the Yoshiwara district and have stopped contacting him and he has to figure out what happened. Like any smart person would, Tengen takes the 3 boys to become.. prostitutes-in-training as “Oiran” (花魁), meaning being the most respected top bitch in the game. One by one, we get to see the docile obedient Sumiko(Tanjiro) get sold off to the House of Tokito, Inoko(Inosuke) being scouted off the streets from the House of Ogimoto and poor Zenko(Zenitsu) get passed off to the House of Kyogoku off-screen. We get to see the 3 boys get sold off into 3 different houses that Tengen’s wives reside in. One of the wives, Suma is housed in the Tokito House, Makio in Ogimoto House and Hinatsuru being housed in the Kyogoku House.
Yes. Tengen has 3 wives from his previous shinobi life. Yes. He sent in 3 boys to be a few ugly undercover cross-dressing prostitutes. There’s so much to love about this plot setup and destination that they are in.
The Plot Thickens
Eventually, we got to hear rumors from the House of Tokito about people disappearing . Demons seems to be using “ashinuke,” meaning that prostitutes are running away without paying their debts. Tanjiro begins to question Koinatsu (鯉夏), who is explained earlier in the episode as the oiron of Tokito about Suma oiron(Tengen wife).
Then, we get to see Inosuke use his beast-like senses to sniff out something sinister. We see one of the wives, probably Makio of the Ogimoto house, get entangled with one of the demons. This gives us a nice cliffhanger that would definitely lead to some action the next episode. We are only 2 episodes in and there is so much character interactions and questions that need to be explained.
Really, we are being teased with so much; from the hot wives, the unknown demons, not seeing Tengen’s flashy abilities, trickling all the way down to Zenitsu being teased with beautiful women everywhere that he can’t have. As always, the show looks amazing and we should see some cool animations pop up soon.
The Salty Zenitsu and Tengen Relationship
Finding motivation and character development for our main heroes beyond bad guy versus good guy troupe can be pretty bland. The fact that they play off Zenitsu’s saltiness over Tengen’s attention from women, actually makes him so much more relatable. It’s actually quite an easy dynamic for everyone to see.
Anime vs Manga Differences?
I went back and reviewed which chapters this episode covered and it was chapters 70 and 72. This was a pretty spot on anime adaptation and cliffhanger for chapter 72 as well.
Interesting Japanese History
If you were wondering what all these Japanese terms meant and wondered what is the difference between Oiran and Geisha. Here is an article that gave a good explanation of the differences.
OTAKU SINH 