JIN 2 [ep 9]

 As always, this contains spoilers, so if you haven't watched, reading will be at your own risk. ^_^

Summary:
This episode was a bit of a drag. But I'll go to that later. So in the previous episode, Jin sensei finally recalled that the assassination of Ryoma Sakamoto was on his own birthday. So that gave him only less than month to warn Ryoma. He decided to go straight to Kyoto to find him, and hopefully could prevent him from  being slaughtered. He went with Saki-san and Saburi sensei. At first, he lied that there was a patient waiting for him at Kyoto. Only Saki and him knew the real reason of the journey.

Meanwhile, as a samurai under the Tokugawa Shogunate, Saki's brother, Kyotaro was ordered to kill Ryoma, for betraying the Shogunate. With a heavy heart, he embarked with two other assistants, following Jin. I think this episode was one of those that really portrayed Kyotaro's true character, as a loving brother, someone who respects his friends, but at the same time, also someone who needed to uphold his duty as a son in a samurai family, under the Shogunate. He even went to the length of asking if Saki would ever return home in the future. I think he knew that this mission wasn't going to end pretty. So he had made some preparations. He did ask Jin sensei to take care of Saki too, but Jin never saw it coming.



More than half of the episode was concentrated in the journey. So nothing much really happened. At Ryoma's side, he presented a list of people who would be appointed in the new government, once the present Shogunate fall. But his name wasn't in it. He decided to 'retire' and wash his hands off politics. This is a good move, but a bit too late. By now, there were dozens of samurais hunting him.



Finally, Jin met Ryoma at Kyoto, right on the actual date he was predicted to die. Ryoma's guard found Kyotaro lingering outside the inn Jin and Ryoma were having dinner. They fought a while until Ryoma saw them. Jin, by now was having the splitting headache.





Ryoma went out, thinking he'd use his gun to shoot the enemies. But he left it upstairs. So , he was defenseless. Not even a sword to protect himself. And Kyotaro, pressured by the orders, finally shouted 'Sorry!' before swinging his sword towards Ryoma.


Out of the sudden, before Kyataro's sword landed on Ryoma, Ryoma's guard slashed him right on the forehead.

Why? Well, that was the only way to save Ryoma, really. I'm sure Ryoma's somehow gonna live? Because if it was Kyotaro's attack, he'd have been killed off right away. This way, Ryoma was slashed first, and people would think there was no hope for him to survive. The next episode's trailer shows the attempt to rescue him, dubbed the final operation.



Thoughts/rants:
Yup...this is more of a rant than my thoughts. Like I previously mentioned, the episode was kinda boring. The whole journey just for the sake of Ryoma made me wanna yawn halfway through the episode. I think this Ryoma side story is somehow taking over JIN 2, when it's supposed to be about Jin! It's been dragged too long. And actually, by now, I wouldn't even care if Ryoma died already. His character was way over the top this season. Compared to last season, I actually really liked his character, but when he's over-reacting in 90% of this scenes nowadays, I was turned off almost immediately, especially with his over-exaggerated expressions, he scares me now. And whenever he's on, I just feel like skipping his part. That said, I was dissatisfied by this episode. After such an emotional-wrecking episode last week, they gave us this? Hurry up with the assassination already! It seemed to me that the script writers are out of ideas and they just drag and drag this to make up for 10 episodes. No, forgive me...the FINAL episode will be separated into TWO parts. The first part next week will be 70 mins long. I hope they don't use up the whole 70 mins just for the operation. Because, really, there are other loose ends to tie up too. Not just Ryoma's story. What about Saki and Jin? Nokaze's probably is ending already. And there seems to be some trouble with the penicillin issue too. I won't be surprised if Ryoma made it alive, which would be defying historical facts, but with how 'gay' his relationship with Jin has been over the last 8 episodes, Jin would cry his heart out if he didn't make it.

So there, I could've ranted a lot more. Like for example, when Jin wanted to tell Ryoma about his assassination but couldn't when Ryoma's all over the place with his usual attitude and wouldn't listen, Saki could've told him. It didn't have to be Jin to tell him! Jin as we know, will always get this massive headache everytime he tried to change history. But Saki won't! Urghhh....such frustration, watching this one episode. I should stop. Well, here's to a better episode.

Fav character for this episode?
Hands down, it is Kyotaro. Yes, out of everyone else, I picked him. Why? Because he was the only one who seemed conflicted (in a good way, not over the top...like how Jin was, I'm sorry but he was over-reacting a bit in this one), and probably the one that did the most sensible thing, although he finally decided to carry out the assassination. But he definitely got my respect. It was ironic because honestly, I wasn't really paying attention to him at all previously, but this episode was made for him. Not for Ryoma or Jin. Him, definitely. He won my heart.