Supporting the Industry - What I Did in April 2015

I bought something a few months ago that was pretty atypical for me.

I should explain first that I’m not a gamer – truly. The only games I was ever decent at were Galaga and Tetris. If my character has a machine gun and has to kill zombies, the zombies will eat her first. I’m not adept at action games where you have to move a character around and make her/him do things.

But I have two young friends who are gamers. One works in the game industry. We’ll call him Ryan, because that’s his name. ;-) The other is Yumeka, who writes a popular anime blog you've probably read. =D

Both Ryan and Yumeka own Nintendo 3DS XL portable game consoles. After watching them play, I decided to buy one of my own.

And here it is.

The machine is plain black, but I bought this nice golden Asian-themed metal case for it.

Even though I’d watched Yumeka and Ryan play on their 3DS XLs, I was clueless when I bought mine. Still am in many ways. More on that below. =D

So, here is the home screen:

How did I support the anime industry with this purchase? Because there are anime-themed video games available for the 3DS (actually, there are more available for the Sony Vita, but I digress). And in April, I bought one – the Hakuouki - Memories of the Shinsengumi game.

I saved money by buying the download of the game instead of the cartridge, which I found out I could do while browsing the Nintendo eShop. ;-)

Hakuouki – Memories of the Shinsengumi is a visual novel game. The game opens with a very nice song and a montage of the various characters. Here’s Saito:

Previously, my only familiarity with visual novels were the clips I’d seen on You Tube. Here’s one for the Hakuouki - Demon of the Fleeting Blossom game. It’s not too clear, but I just wanted a short clip to show the general idea of visual novels:



Basically, a visual novel is a kind of walk-through of a story utilizing pictures and captions. Visual novels are very popular in Japan, but I don’t think games like this are produced in the U.S. I could be wrong about that, though.

I’m a huge fan of Hakuouki the anime. But I need to say something about this game.

So far, I’ve only played through part of the prologue. If you’ve seen the anime, this is the first episode where Chizuru arrives in Kyoto and gets chased by vampire samurai.

She arrives, it’s nighttime, she thinks about her missing father who she came to Kyoto to find… she thinks some more about her father… why she hasn’t heard from him for a month, how worried she is about him… and then…

… A vampire samurai appears! Chizuru hides and watches while other samurai kill him!

And then she thinks about how frightening this is… and how scared she is… and how she doesn’t know what she’ll do next… and… and…

Are you getting the sense of what my experience has been so far? I honestly was excited to get this game and start playing it. I’ve played it for about 40 minutes now, and those 40 minutes turned out to cover – wait for it – the first seven minutes of episode 1 of the anime.

I'm not going to judge based on this first experience with it. I haven’t gotten to any of the “paths” yet, each path being Chizuru choosing a different Shinsengumi love interest, that is the heart of the game. Plus, the game offers other things like Media, Encyclopedia and Extras that I haven’t even looked at yet.

I had heard that each path of a visual novel takes hours, but I didn’t believe it. I believe it now - trust me. The question is: does a visual novel do what it’s supposed to do? Is it, in fact, entertaining?

Again, I’m still at the beginning of this game, so I can’t answer that yet. I can say that the story captions, while written in (thankfully) good English and easy to follow, became tedious to read after a while. The illustrations were lovely, the sound effects added realism to the story, all was as it was supposed to be. The only confused element was the player, me. Was clicking through the narrative “playing” this game? Or was I meant to do something more?

The beautiful elegiac Hakuouki anime series I love so much was based on this game. The game came first. Which is food for thought, especially since I’m a writer. It piques my curiosity. What is the appeal of this form of storytelling?

When I’ve been through all the paths in the game, I’ll write a review. It might be a few years from now though, at this rate. ;-)

I guess I’ve been on a gaming roll, because I then downloaded two games for my Amazon Fire.

Sonic Dash is my first experience with Sonic the Hedgehog. I’ve heard of Sonic for years, but never watched the anime or played the games.

(I have read a fan essay that slashed Sonic the Hedgehog and Shadow the Hedgehog together. I’m saying this just so I can mark “yaoi” as a label for this post. LOL)

As I said, I’m not good at action games. All Sonic does in this game is run madly along a road where he has to jump over obstacles. I keep sending Sonic headlong into brick walls and into bodies of water where he drowns. I’m slowly getting better, but I’m guessing that games like this were not destined to be my forte.

The second game I downloaded is the exceedingly sparkly and pretty…

Yumeka showed me Frozen Free Fall on her phone. I saw it while browsing Amazon’s app store and downloaded it. Amazingly, both it and Sonic Dash were free. I guess these free games exist to advertise the companies’ paid games.

I do okay at puzzle games, though I won’t win any competitions. And Frozen Free Fall is really beautiful to look at, which adds to the enjoyment of playing it.

I also received two free games for my 3DS, both Pokemon games - Pokemon Shuffle and Pokemon Rumble World.

Pokemon Shuffle is a simple puzzle/aim-and-capture-the-Pokemon game, but Pokemon Rumble World sends Pikachu and other Pokemon characters out to fight enemies.

I had difficulty maneuvering Pikachu in Rumble World until Ryan showed me that the round rubber button on the console’s upper left slides. I had been pressing down on it, really hard, expecting this to move Pikachu around.

Yeah. Real gamers have no reason to fear me anytime soon. =D

Seiyuu Appreciation Day - The Other Guys

In the current endless run of flashback fillers in Naruto Shippuuden, we're seeing more of Neji now than ever before.

I miss Neji. :-(

Look at Neji's picture above. Now imagine you hear his voice.

...

Were you able to hear him? Neji's seiyuu, Kouichi Toochika, has a very distinctive voice - soft-spoken with a certain husky timbre.

Neji is only one supporting character in the Naruto universe and he even got killed off - but I can still hear Neji's voice if I call up the character in my mind.

Most of the time in these seiyuu posts I talk about the big-name seiyuus, the stars, because they're the ones I see most in anime. But sometimes you'll hear a voice in a supporting role that really catches your attention.

One such supporting character was Kensuke Fukui, the point guard for Yosen in Kuroko's Basketball.

Fukui only has a few lines in several episodes when Yosen battles the main team Seirin in the semi-finals. I didn't even know the character's name until I looked him up for this post - I only thought of him as "the point guard from Yosen with dishwater blond hair and a nice voice." Since that's a mouthful, it's good that I know the character's name now. ;-)

The seiyuu voicing Fukui just had a really nice voice and I noticed it. Warm, masculine, sexy. I looked up the seiyuu and found to my surprise that Kaito Ishikawa has played two main roles in series that I watched, and I didn't recognize him.

First, he was Tobio Kageyama, the second main character in the volleyball anime Haikyuu.

Kageyama is one of the best male tsunderes I've seen in a while. ;-) I mean, look at that expression. XD I couldn't believe Ishikawa played Kageyama and I didn't recognize him as Fukui, but the next surprised me even more:

Ishikawa was Ledo in Gargantia! I didn't recognize him from that role either! And Ledo was a difficult role. You'll recall that the character comes from a different universe and has to learn the language, speaking it hesitantly and with an odd cadence at first.

Ishikawa also played Nine in Zankyou no Terror and has done main roles in other series. So even though I didn't remember his voice from the two big roles I'd heard him in, I heard Ishikawa's voice in this small role as Fukui in Kuroko's Basketball and enjoyed it enough to notice and look up who the seiyuu was.

Often you'll see big-name seiyuu playing special characters in an anime, like in the last Shirobako episode when the director finally comes face to face with the elusive mangaka whose manga MusaAni is adapting. I didn't have to look it up to know it was Takahiro Sakurai playing the mangaka, since I can recognize his voice. =D

But seiyuu who play big roles will also play smaller roles without any fuss or fanfare, like Kaito Ishikawa playing Fukui. Actors love to ply their trade, after all, and every role is another chance to do what they love best.

Thinking of warm and distinctive masculine voices makes me think of Kenji Hamada, who plays Teppei Kiyoshi in Kuroko's Basketball.

Hamada's voice is so distinctive, I've recognized him in two small roles in other series since I first heard him in Kuroko's Basketball.

And then there's Hasumi Itou, whom I've mentioned before, who played Kaoru in Hakuouki, Chizuru's cross-dressing long-lost brother who we see in makeup and a kimono for many episodes until he finally reveals his evil little male self. ;-) Itou is the seiyuu who did that weird, unforgettable scene where her voice slid from fake-female to low-male without a hitch, just a pure slide from one to the other.

Aside from Hakuouki, Itou only has one other credit, as Aoi Toosaka in Fate/Zero. She is definitely a seiyuu to keep one's eye on.

Of course, one of my favorite seiyuu who never gets a main role but is always one of the other guys in a series, is Nobuo Tobita.

Tobita was the star of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam decades ago, and since then has only done supporting roles. But his beautiful gentle voice remains one of my favorites and hearing him is always a treat.

Finally, talking about supporting seiyuu and being one of the other guys wouldn't be complete without mentioning Shizuka, who finally got a voice acting job in last week's Shirobako episode. Shizuka, you'll remember, was the only one among her college friends who hadn't succeeded in the anime industry yet.

In honor of Shizuka getting her first role, here's a photo of Shizuka's seiyuu, Haruka Chigusa.

In the episode, Aoi Miyamori is in the recording studio when Shizuka walks in to record her role. Miyamori is shocked to see her friend, then nervous for her as she reads her lines, and then finally cries in relief and happiness when Shizuka finishes the acting job without a hitch and to the director's approval.

It was all done without words and was beautiful to watch. Ah well, might as well show you Miyamori's seiyuu's picture as well. Here's Juri Kimura. :-)

Again, if you're not watching Shirobako, you're missing a gem. =D

Hakuouki Revisited

Warning – Spoilers for both seasons of Hakuouki

January is usually a time for beginnings, but I’ve found myself rewatching a few anime series this month.

Hakuouki is based on an otome video game and is a fictionalized account of the Shinsengumi. Somewhat dismissed by many anime fans as being fujoshi bait or “just for girls,” actually, I believe the DVDs for both seasons made Japan’s top ten list when they were released. I doubt there are enough fujoshis in Japan to account for that many sales, so we can safely assume there was something more to the series than just bishonen eye candy.

And in rewatching it, I can now see that this is absolutely the case.

I don’t rewatch a lot of series. There are so many anime series that are new and come out of the pipeline so quickly, season after season, that there’s almost no time to rewatch something even if you want to. But I just had the urge to see Hakuouki again and am glad that I did.

Why was this series so popular in Japan? First, it’s about the Shinsengumi, the famous samurais who played a pivotal role in Japanese history as the Edo period came to a close. Commander Kondo, Vice-Commander Hijikata, Soji Okita, Hajime Saito, Shinpachi Nagakura and the others are legendary figures. Their motto on the banner above, Makoto, meaning “truth,” still resonates in the Japanese psyche.

Hakuouki’s protagonist is a fictional character, Chizuru Yukimura, a teenage girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to travel from Edo to Kyoto to search for her missing physician father.

It’s interesting to rewatch a series. When you already know the twists and turns of the plot and how the story ends, the tension of “what’s going to happen next?” is gone and, as I found in rewatching Hakuouki, I could sit back and appreciate the story solely for its execution.

So Chizuru, whom I found quite annoying when watching the series initially, became a bit more likable in the rewatching. Now that I know that she never develops into a warrior, I’m not frustrated when I see her acting like a stereotypical girl in waiting for all the guys to rescue her. For whatever reason, the writers wanted Chizuru to stay very traditional and maidenly in that way and for a certain kind of audience I can understand that would make sense.

Season one shows the Shinsengumi in Kyoto where they first came to prominence. When I first watched the series I thought this season moved very slowly, but in rewatching I could see how deftly the various conflicts were woven in to be more fully developed later on.

Something else I could appreciate more on my second watching was how there was only the slightest hint that Chizuru was falling for Hijikata. It was very gradually introduced and not clearly brought out until the beginning of season two.

The Shinsengumi’s involvement in historical events in Kyoto was interesting, but the true tragic nature of how they came to their end is excruciatingly detailed in season two after their move to Edo. First losing Kondo to execution and then various of their members one by one, the second season is a long drawn-out homage to courage, honor, manhood and the samurai code of bushido. And none of the characters exemplify these traits more than Hijikata.

In rewatching Hakuouki, it becomes clear that the main character is really Hijikata and not Chizuru. It’s Hijikata’s character and grit that sees the Shinsengumi through their losses, their humiliating demotions and the flight to the north to join in the doomed effort to start a new country.

Even the vampire subplot, where they drink a red potion that turns them into created oni with super strength, plays on the Shinsengumi’s real-life situation. For hundreds of years only those born into the samurai class could become samurais, but at the end of the Edo period this was opened up to other levels of society. So Kondo and Hijikata, from farming families, were able to train and become samurais. But the self-doubt never went away, the feeling that they were frauds, country boys only “playing” at being samurai.

Throughout Hakuouki, the oni prince Kazama taunts Hijikata about being a fake samurai, a pretender not strong enough to defend Chizuru. But in the final scene, Kazama grudgingly bestows a special name on Hijikata meaning “oni of the fleeting blossom.” The name he gives him is “Hakuouki.”

Hakuouki, then, is not just the story of a girl and vampire potions and bishonen guys with swords, but of the end of an era and an archetypal Japanese figure—the samurai. Like many other memorable Japanese stories, it’s a beautiful tragedy. I was impressed on rewatching it to see the layers of complexity I missed the first time around. I think it was a big hit in Japan because it’s a quintessentially Japanese story, and very well told.

Supporting the Industry - What I Did in December 2012

Happy New Year to everyone!

December was a pretty quiet month. Right at the end I ordered two DVD sets from Right Stuf.

The first was the second season of Hakuouki.

The second was an impulse buy (and dirt cheap at only $9.00). Goblin Cat (Bakeneko) is the third story in the Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales series. It tells the tale of a bakeneko that haunts one particular family. When a mysterious medicine seller comes to visit, the family's secrets are revealed and we discover the reasons why the cat is after them.

Bakeneko's quirky Medicine Seller character and startlingly original art style led to a spinoff anime series, Mononoke.

In the Edo period, a medicine seller known only as "Kusuriuri" (literally, "medicine seller") travels from town to town exorcizing mononoke. In the process, dark truths are usually revealed about the humans being haunted by them.

I can't recall how I saw Mononoke, but I think I rented it from Netflix. Unfortunately, I don't think it's licensed anymore or I would probably put it on my DVD to-buy list. Aside from the dazzling art, the stories are unsettling and told in a uniquely disjointed manner: every moment it feels like something unexpected might happen - and it usually does. And Kusuriuri is appealing as a stoic supernatural warrior, someone who can no longer be surprised at anything he finds in the human condition.

If you get a chance to see Mononoke, I highly recommend it.

Hakuouki - Licensed!

Great news - Sentai Filmworks has licensed the entire Hakuouki animeverse (first and second seasons, plus six-episode OVA series), and the word is that they will probably pick up the third season as soon as it's available.

Finally! Am I buying these DVDs? Do you even have to ask?? =D

New Hakuouki Video Game Announced

Hakuouki Bakumatsu Muso-Roku Otome Video Game Release Announcement

I may have to buy a PSP and become a gamer girl soon...

Anime Summer 2011 Watchlist

Having read the always-awesome Moetron's seasonal visual guide and anime listing for summer 2011, I've got only one new must-view series for summer: the second season of Nurarihyon no Mago.

Other series look promising: Dantalian no Shoka, Sacred Seven and No. 6. The problem (and what a great "problem" it is to have) is that my schedule is already full with continuing series from spring 2011: Blue Exorcist, Hanasaku Iroha and Steins; Gate, not to mention the usual Bleach and Naruto Shippuuden. I've got too much good stuff on my plate already.

There are also some good OVAs coming out this summer: Hakuouki has a five-episode OVA series and the long-awaited Saiyuki Gaiden OVA series will see its second and third episodes released.

There are simply not enough hours in the day for anime viewing. ;)

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - Episode 22 and Final Thoughts on the Series

In the end... it was all about Toshizo Hijikata of the Shinsengumi.



The final episode of Hakuouki Hekketsuroku opens with the New Government Army invading Otobe, where Ootori and his troops are holding ground, as Hijikata leads another part of the army in Futamata.

It's May 1869 - close to the end for the Republic of Ezo.

Meanwhile, the oni Kazama boards a NGA ship headed for Ezo and demands passage.

At Futamata, a young lieutenant named Takigawa leads his men on an unexpected charge against the enemy, which succeeds. Hijikata backs him up, then instead of being furious with him - congratulates him afterward.

Later that night, Hijikata tells Chizuru that they're retreating: Ootori's line has been broken at Otobe and their route to Hakodate will be cut off if they don't leave now. He then suffers a rasetsu seizure, and Chizuru offers her blood again. Hijikata notes that his body is now "near the end."

In June 1869, Hijikata and Chizuru return to Hakodate and are reunited with Ootori, Shimada and the Shinsengumi. Shimada sees Hijikata relaxing with the men, and he tells Chizuru that Hijikata has changed...

The NGA's navy attacks Hakodate's harbor. The night before Hakodate itself is invaded, Hijikata asks Chizuru if she's still going to stay and she says yes. Hijikata tells her that he's "probably in love with her," embraces and then kisses her.

Hakodate is invaded during the night, and the next morning Hijikata, Chizuru and a number of soldiers set out for Benten Daiba to provide reinforcements for Ootori and Shimada who are pinned down there. Hijikata is shot and falls from his horse. While the others continue on to Benten Daiba, Chizuru helps the severely wounded Hijikata into the nearby forest where she bandages his wound.



She cuts herself and sucks up the blood, giving it to him in a kiss. Hijikata tells her that they need to keep moving.

Later, the two come upon a beautiful sakura tree. It's now evening.



Chizuru tells Hijikata that the falling blossoms remind her of the first time she saw him, that night long ago in Kyoto.

Kazama arrives on the scene. Chizuru pleads with him not to fight Hijikata in his current condition, but both Hijikata and Kazama are determined to finish what they started. Hijikata notes that Kazama has thrown his oni pride on the line for this fight, and as such there's no way Hijikata can refuse him.

Under the sakura tree, they fight.



As Hijikata's blade pierces Kazama's chest, Hijikata collapses.

Chizuru holds the dying Hijikata and recalls the men of the Shinsengumi, all gone now, and asks if Hijikata can see the "Makoto" banner that they helped him to raise.

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - Hakuouki's second season - is the more interesting of the two seasons, but you need to watch the slow-moving first season in order to make sense of Hakuouki Hekketsuroku. The first season sets up the premise of the oni clans, the rasetsu soldiers and their use by the Shinsengumi, and introduces Chizuru and the historical characters. The old Kyoto setting is beautifully depicted and the languorous pace is actually, I think, part of the story. In a larger sense, Hakuouki as a series is about the end of one era and the beginning of another: the movement from kimonos to trousers, from swords to guns and from the Shinsengumi - the last of the samurai - to the mechanized and westernized military that came after them. The seeds of the tragedy that unfolds in season two are planted in season one, so both seasons need to be watched for the complete story.

I think ultimately that Hakuouki is one long exquisite mood piece. The beauty of Kyoto, the old guard of the samurai fading into history and the attempt to keep the Shogunate alive with the Republic of Ezo are all presented with an underlying deep melancholy. It's painful to see the Shinsengumi becoming outmoded even as they continued to live and fulfill their duty in fighting for the Shogun, but that's historical fact. It's as if all the producers could do to make it palatable was to at least make it beautiful to watch; and this they did with great care. Hakuouki is a moving panorama of beauty from start to finish: the fine character designs, the late-Edo period Kyoto cityscape, the battle camp scenes, the clipper ships on the ocean at night in the falling snow... it's all a visual feast.

The producers' choice to go with Hijikata's route from the otome video game meant that Hijikata was really the main character of the series - though we don't realize this until the second season with the Shinsengumi's move to Edo and Hijikata's greater involvement in the plot. Hijikata is certainly one of the most celebrated of the Shinsengumi, but his romance (? if one can even call it that) with Chizuru teeters on the edge of being not believable due to the age difference and overall lack of chemistry between them. Hijikata as Chizuru's love interest was perhaps an odd choice, but then he was the last to die of the Shinsengumi so in a pure story sense he may have been the only logical choice.

I could say much about Chizuru and how she remained underdeveloped throughout the series; and also about Kazama and the oni clans, about which similarly much was left unexplained. But in the end it doesn't matter. If the best anime series are those that make you feel something, Hakuouki, flawed as it is, easily makes the list. It's an anime series made for dreaming about the end of the samurai and of a long-gone era in Japan. Sit back, watch Hakuouki and let it all unfold before your eyes.

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - Episode 21

The Republic of Ezo is formally founded, and Hijikata and Chizuru reach an understanding of sorts.



Hijikata and Chizuru are now separated, with Hijikata in Ezo and Chizuru remaining behind in Sendai. After Hijikata and his men seize a local castle in Ezo, two important ships are lost to the old Bakufu army when they run aground west of Hakodate.

Hijikata suffers a rasetsu blood-craving attack while in a meeting to discuss the ship losses, and excuses himself before his hair turns white and his eyes red before the other Ezo officials.

As he recovers in a nearby darkened room, alone, he has a vision of Chizuru:



He says her name once, with longing.

Meanwhile in Sendai, Chizuru has been visiting her father's grave every day. One day she sees an unexpected visitor there.

It's Kazama.




Kazama begins by noting that Koudou has died, saying "this is what happens when you stray from the path of the oni." He taunts Chizuru about Hijikata's apparent abandonment of her and calls her a "pathetic woman" - to which Chizuru has no real response.

Chizuru asks if Kazama still intends to fight Hijikata. Kazama says no, but once out of Chizuru's hearing he murmurs to himself that he will finish his fight with Hijikata.



The new republic's Commissioner Ootori - the former Bakufu's Governor General - tells Hijikata that Ezo gaining naval supremacy will be the key to its national defense. Secretly, without telling Hijikata, the Commissioner orders Chizuru to come to Ezo to resume her position as Hijikata's attendant.

When Chizuru arrives - wearing a western soldier's uniform - Hijikata first tries to send her away, but Chizuru is adamant that her place is with him.



They go back and forth with Hijikata finally giving in, exasperated. "There's no defying an Edo woman," he says. He embraces Chizuru looking incredibly stiff and awkward as he does so and Chizuru asks that he allow her to help shoulder the burden he is carrying.

Hijikata and the Ezo soldiers attempt an abordage, a boarding of an enemy vessel with the intent of stealing it, but the other ships that were supposed to join them can't get there in time due to bad weather. The abordage fails, and Hijikata and the surviving soldiers return to port.




Chizuru meets him at the dock. Hijikata tells her that the attempt failed, and thus Hakodate is likely to be invaded soon. One last time, he tells her to leave - but Chizuru insists that she will stay by his side until the end.



The strangest thing about this episode is Kazama not taking Chizuru away with him to be his oni mate. This is the same Kazama, remember, who tried several times to seize Chizuru by force. It could be that Chizuru's repeated rejections have bruised his oni pride too much, or perhaps he needs the challenge of taking her literally from Hijikata's arms. At the least, it looks like the final duel between the two men will be played out in the final episode.

Speaking of which - I thought that Hakuouki's second season had twelve episodes, but there are only ten. So the next episode is the last. I'll do a final post on that episode, and include my thoughts on the complete series.

Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - Episode 20

In this episode, the following occurs:

1) My favorite character dies.
2) Three main characters die.
3) There is enough blood spurting in one fight scene that you half-expect the red stuff to come flying out of the screen.

Warning - this is a picture-heavy post - as there were many amazing visuals in this episode.



Sannan has gone AWOL. He was supposed to have taken the rasetsu unit on ahead to Sendai, but once Hijikata and Chizuru reach Sendai, Sannan-san is nowhere to be found. In the meantime, Vice Admiral Enomoto tells Hijikata that numerous murders have taken place around the castle environs. Hijikata - immediately suspecting Sannan - says that he'll "take care of the matter."



Chizuru is hanging laundry when Heisuke comes running up. He tells her that Sannan has been holding secret meetings at Sendai Castle with Koudou, Chizuru's long-missing father/uncle. At that point, Koudou himself shows up with a gang of rasetsu soldiers.



Heisuke begins fighting the rasetsu, while Koudou kidnaps Chizuru.

When Chizuru awakens, she is in Sendai Castle.



Koudou tells Chizuru that he is using the rasetsu to rebuild the Yukimura clan and to avenge their honor as oni. Chizuru says that her experiences with the Shinsengumi have taught her that a human life is worth the same as an oni life, and that the two races can live together in peace.

At that point Sannan shows up. He tells Chizuru that he joined Koudou to continue researching the rasetsu as Hijikata had forbidden him to. Hijikata and Heisuke then arrive at the castle, and Hijikata confronts Sannan:



Sannan tells Hijikata that Koudou has left the New Government Army, and urges Hijikata to help them build Koudou's "kingdom of oni" where rasetsu can live in peace. All of the remaining rasetsu soldiers then arrive, and Koudou tells Chizuru to join them.

Sannan prepares to fight Hijikata:



... when instead, he turns on the rasetsu soldiers with deadly force.







(Just how strong would you have to be to drive what is basically a blunt instrument through a man's chest? GAH - and with your non-dominant arm, too...)

Sannan has only been pretending to ally with Koudou. He wanted to continue developing the rasetsu for the Shinsengumi, but now the only solution is to put them out of their misery - by killing them.

A ferocious fight takes place inside the castle. In the midst of the fray, Koudou is mortally wounded while defending Chizuru:



Koudou tells Chizuru to "follow the path you believe in" and apologizes to her before dying.

The fighting concludes with the rasetsu soldiers being finished off by Hijikata, Sannan and Heisuke, with Sannan noting that "we never should have given birth to the rasetsu." During the fight the three of them went into rasetsu mode, but after the fight only Hijikata reverts back to being human.

Sannan and Heisuke, still in rasetsu mode, collapse to the floor. This final fight has used up the last of their life force:





Sannan asks Chizuru to forgive him for the way he treated her, and Heisuke tells Chizuru to "keep smiling." In the rasetsu tradition, their bodies fade to dust and disappear.



The Republic of Ezo is formed on the northern island of Hokkaido, with Vice Admiral Enomoto as President and Hijikata appointed as assistant secretary of the army.

Hijikata - no doubt realizing he will probably meet his death in Ezo - orders Chizuru to remain behind in Sendai.




The episode concludes with Chizuru seeing Hijikata off to his uncertain future.

The theme of loss - followed by more loss - continues in Episode 20 with Sannan, Heisuke and Koudou now joining Soji, Harada, Kondo, Yamazaki, Inoue and Kaoru. As the parade of deaths continues, the focus on Chizuru and Hijikata sharpens all the more.

A final word on Sannan (my favorite character). As the first of the Shinsengumi to turn rasetsu, Sannan was an ambiguous figure throughout both seasons of Hakuouki. Initially sympathetic - as the wounded warrior who couldn't bear to live with his injury - Sannan degenerated into a ghoulish character fairly rapidly in season one, and reached a nadir with his attempted knife attack on Chizuru in season two.

Both he and Heisuke were living on borrowed time - particularly Heisuke, who suffered a mortal wound defending (who else) Chizuru while the Shinsengumi were still in Kyoto, and who only survived by drinking the ochimizu and turning rasetsu. Heisuke managed to quell his blood cravings due to Sannan's medicine, but it was left unclear as to whether Sannan actually killed civilians for their blood or not. As is usual with "bad" anime characters, Sannan redeems himself at the end by destroying the very same rasetsu that he had staked his hopes on, realizing they had become a threat to humanity.

The death of Koudou leaves only Kazama to be reckoned with as the major remaining figure on the "evil" side of the equation. That Kazama and Hijikata are fated to fight over Chizuru seems a given at this point, as there's no real conflict left in the story except for that. The rasetsu and their inventor, Koudou, are now history and the real-life story of the Shinsengumi came to an end in the Republic of Ezo with the death of a certain figure. Get that family-size box of tissues ready for the final few episodes of Hakuouki Hekketsuroku - we'll all be needing it.