For the record, I went into this episode pretty much cold turkey. I’ve never read “Sakabatou Shougeki”, the special chapter Watsuki Nobuhiro wrote for Ruroken’s 25th Anniversary celebration in 2023. Until a week ago I didn’t even know it existed (or if I did, I’d forgotten). In principle I’m fine with adapting any material that hasn’t been adapted before, especially as it makes it that much less likely Lidenfilms was going to try and adapt the entire Kyoto Arc in two short cours. Still, there’s an unease with any major change to the narrative holy sanctum that is the Kyoto Arc. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it, and shounen doesn’t get much less broke than “Kyoto”.
I can say this unreservedly: whatever my expectations were, “Sakabatou Shougeki” exceeded them. Comfortably. I like the parts of the Hokkaido Arc I’ve read, but it’s fair to say the material Watsuki wrote in the original timeline has been the best. But this – this was really good. I would venture to say it was one of the best episodes of the series. Not just because it’s a terrific self-contained story, but because it was one of the most stylish and beautiful episodes in the entire reboot so far. And it fit perfectly where director Komada Yuki placed it in the narrative (I say that both in terms of what preceded it and what’s coming next). It was perfectly consistent with the main story and absolutely relevant.
Kenshin’s backstory has been fertile ground for exploration, both in canon and non-canon channels. And that’s hardly surprising. When you have a protagonist this perfect, one with a personal story this exquisitely constructed, any cross-section of it is likely to prove fascinating. The theme here is – appropriately – Ken’s first experience with a reverse-blade sword. He’s in Tokyo in 1868, just after the Battle of Ueno. This was one of the final major skirmishes on the mainland, with a force of Tokugawa loyalists (known as the Shougitai) squaring off against Imperialist forces led by Saigou Takamori (who won a decisive victory, with much collateral damage in the area).
This being 1868 Kenshin would have been just 19 years old (a reminder of how young he was when he performed his feats of assassination). Having renounced his Hitokiri title and sworn never to return to Kyoto, he winds up in Edo (with Shakku’s blade – which he’s never drawn – in tow). As we meet him here Kenshin is sick with fever and sheltering from the rain in a tiny shrine hall, in the company of an abandoned kitten. A woman named Satsuki (Koshimizu Ami) finds him (thanks to the cat). Someone with a clear soft spot for strays, she tells both of them back to their humble farmstead way out in the sticks (Tokyo was not yet a megalopolis back then).
Satsuki lives her her husband Giichi (Majima Junji) and lots of cats, and the pair of them quite naturally assume this haggard young samurai is one of the stragglers from the losing side in the Battle of Ueno. Imperial troops are searching for them at the moment, so hiding Kenshin is a major risk for them (or so they believe). Satsuki is pregnant, and Giichi farms his small patch despite having lost his right arm. Lost to a band of paramilitary thugs committing crimes in the name of the new Meiji government, thugs who ran afoul of Giichi in his former job as a private eye.
These are themes we see reinforced over and over in Rurouni Kenshin. Despite the genuine desire by some to create a better, more modern Japan, many simply saw this new order as a means for payback and self-enrichment. And kindness thrived at the fringes of society, people with little for themselves being happiest to give to others even worse off. This is where the strands of fate, which always entangle Kenshin, pull him in opposite directions. Fundamentally his decision to be a rurouni is sort of running away, but the things he’s running away from always find him and force a decision. It’s a pattern we’ll see play out many times in his life, not least the Shishio rebellion itself.
Giichi still has his jitte, but with one arm he’s not in much of a position to defend his wife (or cats). When we hear the outlaws describe a target for their payback we’re meant to think it was Kenshin, but in fact it’s Giichi, an old nemesis. And this will force a choice for Kenshin that he will face over and over. He has to act, to draw that sword despite having sworn never to kill again (and despite still being very sick). But to his surprise this is a strange sword – the blade is on the wrong side. It’s a sakabatou of course, Shakku’s message to him, but Ken has never held one before. A sakabatou is still a sword, however, and he very much knows what to do with one of those in his hand.
This is all superbly staged and really beautiful to look at. But more than that, it manages to add something new and vital to a story that’s been established as a masterpiece for 25 years. The way Kenshin frames the experience of seeing the reverse blade for the first time – how it says that the enemy is in fact himself, the beast who took all those lives and is always slumbering inside him – is one I don’t recall Ruroken using before. And it’s an extremely powerful idea, one which encapsulates Kenshin’s arc in a really elegant way. By managing to meaningfully embellish a deeply beloved and well-established story this episode is something of a revelation. And it feels like a statement of purpose for this adaptation – notice served that it’s grown into the job and ready to soar to even greater heights.
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