Anime Pilgrimage RTT

Utawarerumono – episode 3

April 25, 2006 on 12:08 am | In Utawarerumono | 1 Comment

“Purple amber”

New characters all around, but can we trust them? After all, they threaten to kill Hakuoru just for walking a path at night. It’s good that we get new members of what looks to be an incredibly large cast, though; I ain’t complaining.

Eruruu comes to Hakuoru in the night and tells him that Tusukuru has been kidnapped. After some investigation, it turns out that she has, in fact, gone to visit a sick patient who lives in a fortress. As there are wars going on, Tusukuru doesn’t want the rest of the village to worry about these things.

The patient is Yuzuha, the sister of the hotheaded Oboro, who eventually faces off against the famed samurai Benawi so that he may claim some medicine.

Oboro and Benawi aren’t really characters yet; they’re more of an angry young man and a conceited warrior. This is the sort of anime wherein a benevolent act is justified with arrogant posturing. These two characters are obviously going to become the best of friends, or one will give their life for the other, but these early stages are just … unwarranted.
I will admit that I like hearing about the “honesty” of a fighting stance giving a warrior away.

I really haven’t been thinking about this in terms of a larger story. Obviously there has been some sort of conflict, because otherwise there is no way for Hakuoru to have been injured and masked. I’ve been concentrating more on the fact that Hakuoru appears to have become the equal second-in-command of the village along with Teoro.
Yet a war lurks on the horizon! And I won’t mind if matters shift from domestic life to battles, because the brief fight enjoyed by Hakuoru and Oboro was actually pretty damned cool to watch; I’m enticed by the idea that a metal fan can be used as an effective weapon of warfare.

Utawarerumono, despite not yet having gone anywhere, is really proving a treat in this most populist of seasons. The one problem is that with this episode, the RPG roots shine through: pallet swapped twins, baby!