The fight between Jinya & Tsuchiura concludes with another tragedy and Jinya passes by an old friend as the Tokugawa Shogunate officially falls.

Video Review

What Stands Out About This Episode?

“Hardening” Your Trauma

Tsuchiura gets BETRAYED by the woman he loves.. But it isn’t that simple, as attempting to YEET your loved one isn’t a simple decision made on a whim. This episode revealed the true contradiction of a life of a demon, and it all stems from an unreal desire to obtain power to cover a “weakness.” It’s a deep insecurity of negative emotions filled with trauma that no power granted can actually overcome. Jinya explains this reality of demons with Tsuchiura’s backstory being the perfect representation of why demons are a living contradiction that can never live up to their impossible desires. It’s actually leaning into those vulnerable “weaknesses” and not casting it aside that will ultimately set you free.

In Tsuchiura’s case, it’s a combination of being betrayed by his lover, YEETING her, and then finding out the true details behind why the villagers attacked him. Ultimately, it was revealed that his lover and her family were blackmailed into setting him up. She truly did love him, but not everyone can be strong-willed or smart enough to get around a mob of people that have leverage over you. It was this reason that Tsuchiura felt the guilt for not believing in her for the fact that she would never do this willingly. Before he realized the entire truth, he too made the mistake of exacting his immediate revenge and SLAUGHTERED EVERYONE!

A Perfect Ending

Ending the episode with Natsu crossing paths with Jinya is the perfect amalgamation for the entirety of the story’s themes. With Jinya YEETING Yasuhide and the episode literally taking place at the end with the Tokugawa Shogunate giving his powers back to the Emperor, it marks a new era. It’s a new era where Jinya with Nomari officially leaves Ofuu behind in Edo. By a stroke of a coincidence, Natsu notices that she just walked by Jinya on a bridge and overhears him talking about hoping to “cross paths” again. It was an amazing non-interaction that is layered with everything that Sword of the Demon Hunter represents as a story.

In an arc that focuses on the pain of change like the end of Soba Sadanaga’s life, it layers that idea along with the macro picture shift with the end of the age of the samurai with the Tokugawa Shogunate losing all political power to the Emperor. Then, there was this episode where we learn how demons are formed—learning that demons are demons because they yearn for something they can never regain, living a life of contradiction of masking a weakness that one can never accept. If they were able to accept the pain, the trauma of whatever that “weakness” is, they would never become a demon in the first place.

It was actually Jinya that notices her first with Nomari in his arms and relayed the message of hoping to “cross paths again,” likely referring to not only Ofuu, but Natsu as well. We know that Jinya feels a sense of sadness in the same way he lost all of his friends before, but Jinya momentarily seeing her means he doesn’t hold anything against her from his perspective.

It is an older, more mature Natsu who we last saw in complete anger for what Jinya did to her adoptive father, who is Jinya’s biological father by YEETING him after he transformed into a demon. So it only makes sense that Natsu of all people, accepted all of the symbolic weight of this story’s themes to not only accept the trauma of losing her father, but forgive Jinya for what he did. She acknowledges that her anger for Jinya was misplaced. And there is no better happiness than a happy marriage with a good guy like Zenji! Without providing flashbacks, we can tell that she reminisces about the good times with Jinya and even provides a symbolic sendoff for Jinya with a “sayonara!”

This new forgiving and understanding Natsu is actually symbolized with the netsuke Sparrow ornament that she bought from Somegoro back in episode 8. It’s another metaphor similar to the snow willow shrubs that her feelings need to outlast the times when it gets cold. That essentially became the metaphor for Natsu having to outlast her change of heart for how she handled watching Jinya YEET her adoptive father, especially when she admired him for many years prior. It’s another beautiful layer and callback that just makes this scene and moment that much more satisfying, as Natsu doesn’t hold any hate, still appreciates the time she had with Jinya, and is able to change with the times in a loving marriage with Zenji. Perfection!

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Miscellaneous

• This episode still takes place in Keio Year 3 (1867) and by the end of the episode, specifically on October 14th, when the 15th Commander-in-Chief of the Edo shogunate, Tokugawa Yoshinobu, officially handed all political power back to the Emperor
• The episode opens up with another flower symbol, “Japanese irises“
• Natsu is still carrying the netsuke Sparrow that she bought from Somegoro Akitsu