[DreamSword]

Episode 12: Conflict

Probably the most fitting title an episode has had yet.

This episode's' central theme is conflicts of interest, and how they can be a crushing emotional weight for everyone involved.

There's alot of interplay here between the cast. Raiko trying to bring peace and unity by being the traditional hero, Hakamadare taking the route of the anti-hero as he finds it more practical, and Seimei trying to get Raiko to realize the value in his own life.

What it leads to is three people who, while ultimately all wanting the same thing, are going about it in entirely different ways with no real room for compromise, and as such, conflict and discourse abound.

I really dug how Raiko's' ideology was challenged this time around. It's nothing new for superhero stories(the classic "Act vs React" argument) but I felt it was pulled off rather well here and the entire thing felt very natural to the characters. And not just from Hakamadare either, but also from Seimei. Kamen Rider Agito also touched on this; the hero's' life being every bit as important as everyone else's'.

It's also only for a brief bit, but the episode also brings up the age old argument on whether one should prioritize themselves or others first. While it's a debate over ideology that will never go away, it felt pretty pertinent, given the times we live in at the time of this writing, and both in real life and in this story, it's easy to see where both sides are coming from.

The end result in all this is yet another classic superhero scenario(most known for with Spider-Man); The lives of many vs the life of one. Interesting twist here though in that rather than it being the hero having to choose between the life of the people or the life of a loved one, it is instead a "sidekick" having to choose between the life of the people or the life of the hero. That's a really cool twist on the concept and I dug it alot. And in the end, Seimei makes the difficult decision that Raiko's' life is the one more valuable, despite his protests.

Overall, I liked this episode alot. Not one of my favorite ones, but it knew what it wanted to do and it overall did it well, making for a great mid-season hook. Given the abrupt nature of the ending and the hook with one of Mystics becoming a Horror, it'll be interesting to see how all this is followed up on, ontop of the already ongoing character drama that this show has been overall great at so far. Very excited!