Amatsuki Episode 3: "Monster Journey"

This is the face I have when I go “recruit” more lolis.”

A singing yokai with a metalic voice, a fox-faced historical character and an androgynal looking mysterious guys. Amatsuki really is as diverse as New York in rush hour….Or as #Animeblogger at Friday nights.

Episode Summary

Shamon warns Toki that he will have a visitor, and tells him to go out for a while. As he stepped out to the streets, a middle-aged lady and a young girl is trying to flirt with Toki, bringing him food. Toki’s easy personality makes them extremely happy, as he charms the two ladies by saying that such beautiful food will be wasted if it is not shared with everyone. Kon and Heihachi are grumbling over Toki’s attractiveness toward the ladies.

Toki’s attention is attracted toward a small figure who starts to sing a song about the “Shoten Doji”. It sings about an ogre and refers to Toki. It continues and calls Toki an abandoned child. The chase of the monster leads Toki back to Shamon’s temple, as he meets Sasaki. Sasaki seems to be here regarding the three samurai, and also to chat. His brothers are in charge of the political scene, the shadow world and him the mysterious world of the monsters.

Toki is trying to think about whether he has any success trying to convince Sasaki about the samurai incident. Kon warns him that outsiders like them have no chance of winning. Strangely, Toki freaks out and tells Sasaki the truth. However, Sasaki did not truly punish him but simply asks Toki to take care of his two children.

A few days later, he is asked to follow Sasaki in a carriage. Kuchina and Kon follows Toki, despite quarreling along the way. They make some excuse about preventing Toki from fouling up. Toki thought that they are asked by Shamon to follow, as they realize they could use that excuse. Along the way, they passed by a spirit road. Kuchina urges Toki to follow closely, if not he will never get out alive. At a T-junction, the carriage suddenly splits into three. However, Toki sees a feather and runs off in the direction as Kuchina and Kon closely followed.

Thoughts

The more I see, the more I get excited about Amatsuki. The anime is keeping a great job on animating all the small details that made the manga interesting, and the same happens with this episode. The first detail I should mention is the Shuten Douji song the small Yokai was singing.

To be short, he compares Toki refers to Momotarou and Minamoto Raikou (also known as Minamoto-no-Yorimitsu), both very famous demon slayers, but he also compares Toki to Shuten Douji, a very vicious Oni who Raikou has slayed. The manga scans also refer Shuten Douji as a abandoned child, although I can’t find any source that confirms it. Is the yokai hinting that Toki is both a hero and a demon?

But there is more to the song; he also refers to the kind of connection between Toki and his parents. It seems that he hates his father but has a strong attachment to his mother. Now what kind of attachment is that to be called a demon by the yokai?

Other detail to be mentioned is the introduction of Sasaki Tadajirou. While he is fairly unkwown, to the point I don’t even know if he really existed, his brothers are more famous, specially Sasaki Tadasaburou. He is one of the suspects of killing Sakamoto Ryoma, a important character of Japan’s history. (he was a anti-shogunate nationalist with progressive thinking and father of the modern Japanese Navy)

The last detail I will mention is Bonten, which appears inside the hole that Toki fell by the end of the episode. This individual who we had of him in the previous episode will be a fulcral point of the plot and will reveal that he knows a lot of what happened with Toki and the origins of the world they are living.