Having walked for quite a bit, Ryuko decides that they should stop for a bit to rest and wash up in the nearby river despite Taitou’s insisting that they would be wasting time. During their pit stop, Ryuko quizzes Taitou about the 8 Rules of Taika Happou, and Taitou was able to name 6 of them (Fist, Staff, Chain, Bow, Spear, and Sword fighting), but he suddenly realized that he didn’t know the last two. Ryuko fills him in about Shoukihou, which somehow manages to take up 2 rules, but Ryuko doesn’t really go into details. Shoukihou is the ability to channel your body’s energy into objects, and Ryuko demonstrates this by taking a towel and channeling some energy to break off a tree branch. Amazed by this, Taitou seemingly tries to one-up Ryuko by trying to break the tree trunk using the towel but without any success. To give Taitou some extra motivation to learn to channel his body’s energy, Ryuko reminds Taitou that he probably won’t beat Keiro (who is rumored to be the best Soukihou user) unless he is able to use it as well. Eventually, the trio rest up at this nearby town in a house owned by an old woman who seems to creep out Taitou and Laila every time they see her.
Meanwhile, a giant ship (aka Kashindan) led by Koyo rolls into the town the same day that our heros arrive. One of the ship’s passengers is Houen, a fat government official who ends up plundering the town of its wealth. As the night passes, a rain storm brews up and starts soaking the town, and a giant rock (Seiyuu), known as the town’s guardian, shows signs of tumbling down and destroying the city since the rain was wearing out the base that it sits on. Having noticed the ship earlier in the day, Taitou tries to reason with Koyo to have the townspeople stay on his ship to avoid the dangers of the rock, but Houen, who had started to bring in some of the town’s gold, tells Taitou to take a hike. Enraged, Taitou heads back up to the rock to tie it down and keep it from falling with the assistance of Ryuko. Meanwhile, Koyo sends Houen on a wild goose chase to find an essential “missing” gem near the base of the hill that the falling rock is perched on, and once Houen was gone, he tells Laila to bring the townspeople onto his ship. As the rains continued, Ryuko and Taitou nearly kill themselves as they ride on top of the rock down the hillside and into Houen’s crew who was digging for the gem. Part of the town is destroyed by the rock, but it gets rid of a corrupt goverment official and his crew in the process. I guess the townspeople were so indebted to Koyo that they let him keep all of their fortunes by the end of the episode.
Although this wasn’t a spectacular episode, we get an introduction to Koyo who is a warrior of the Hokushintenkun and shown to carry a symbol in the first episode. Also, we see again that Taitou seems to be only able to activate his Hagun powers or use Shoukihou not to serve for his own good, but to help those in danger that’re close to him. Taitou wasn’t able to break that tree trunk in the beginning of the episode, but at the end while he was holding onto Ryuko’s hand to keep him from falling, Taitou was able to break the tree trunk above him so that he could pull Ryuko into safety.
This post was written by...
Kungfucius – who has written 275 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the original founders, and a fan of long-running shounen series.
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Haha, that first caption is awesome, and I was thinking the same thing when Ryuko flicked the tree. You’re liable to get a bun blown off bathing with these guys. Hopefully this will be the first, last, and only loincloth episode.
I’m not sure anyone let Koyo keep the riches so much as he sneakily floated away without anyone realizing what he had done.
Laila seems to be in puppy-dog-eyes mode all the time. That is like the ultimate technique IRL.
It didn’t work on the beefcake pirate, though.