It’s finally time to get some defenses built, and Kanbei decides that they should try and turn Kanna Village into Kanna Castle. While most of the Samurai direct/train villagers, Katsushiro is set on patrol duty (you know, what they make all weak characters do). While there, he finds one of the FF2000 units trying to sneak in to molest the rice bundles, and is finally forced to chop the aluminum-cesium alloy monstrosity in half. Naturally, this kills the guy inside and Katsushiro is all angsty and upset. Kanbei tells him to snap out of it, because sometimes killing is the only way to keep the fruit/grain/women in your village safe.
Meanwhile, the attempt to castle the village hits another snag as super fugly villager Manzo finds that the samurai are planning to abandon his house in order to strength the village/castle’s defensive position. His attempt to betray the village is thwarted, however, and Heihachi is beside himself with glee at the opportunity to behead another villager. Kikuchiyo intercedes on Manzo’s behalf, and explains that since the samurai are the ones who have made the villagers poor, devious, cowardly, and ugly (omfg, Katsushiro wants to take the only good looking female from the village, dooming them to another generation of fugly villagers!!!), Manzo cannot help but be a cowardly rascal. Then everyone is happy again, while the Nobuseri decide to make a preemptive strike.
These two were mostly lull-before-the-storm type episodes, and so they were not particularly exciting. I have to admit that I did not feel the Kikuchiyo speech was particularly moving, because when you look at him, he doesn’t look anything like the villagers. It almost would have been better if they had given him a triangular shark fin head (ahahahahaha), an overbite, and ugly hair. On the other hand, I can understand Gonzo’s decision not to go with this character design, since it would be very difficult to cheer for Kikuchiyo if he looked like the other villagers. Also, I am starting to really dislike Heihachi. In addition to his creepyass Brock-eyes (as Jeff mentioned), the man is one betrayal away from going postal on someone. It’s like all those stories you hear about cruel samurai testing out the sharpness of their blade by cutting a farmer in half. BTW, does anyone else suspect that his murderous tendencies are why he knows so much about rice? Of course he can recognize the different varieties of rice; he’s killed villagers in every single area that rice is grown!!! In the Gonzo universe, the act of killing villagers at every opportunity is referred to as “chopping wood.”
And why is all this work being put into making the village a castle? Couldn’t the villagers defeat the Nobuseri by just throwing some sharp rocks at them? Or cutting them to bits with spoons or something? If I were a Nobuseri, those pointy wooden logs would make me want to go home and cry. Overkill!
Related posts:
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1940 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
You can’t dislike Heihachi!!..a little bit of psychopaty won’t hurt anybody…mm..well…it will, but he’s still the nicest guy on the show, specially with those eyes—–> ^^;
Yea, just gotta love Heihachi!! We learn why he’s like that later on….poor heihachi…
Katsushiro seemed to be VERY weak, I wonder if he would became stronger later.