[DreamSword]

Episode 19: Vessel

No matter how jagged your path is, you'll always come back to the role.

This is another episode where I feel there's not really much I can say about it other than the fact that I liked it?

It's an episode focused almost entirely on dialogue and exposition, with alot of the emotional weight coming from Raiko struggling over the decision of whether or not killing Seimei would be the right thing to do.

The origins of Kaguya and Xehanort are also revealed. Kaguya being a Mado Tool designed to seal Rudra, and Xehanort being Michinaga's' twin brother, cast out of the royal family at birth. Thus, we also finally learned what Xehanort's' primary motivation is: Making the entire world feel as hopelessly empty as he does.

I feel like the scene between Xehanort and Michinaga was the one I was into the most, as if the episode wanted to it could have really dived deep into the sort of the things the two bring up there. How those who are self-righteous can be every bit as bad as those who embrace villainy, how being a Horror isn't just simply a result of being malicious, and the duality of man.

The show never really cares to dive super deep into those things, and granted, it doesn't need to, but I definitely found it interesting that it bothered to bring them up in the first place. Meanwhile because I care about the majority of the cast of this show, Raiko's' internal struggle over the burden that the Watchdog Center has placed on him definitely kept me engaged, and with Hakamadare now on the scene, it'll be interesting to see how he goes about things as well.

All in all, a good episode. Nothing super duper intrinsic or exciting, but one that felt necessary and kept my attention. Good stuff.