A story about a strange Ronin that has stationed themself in the city.
Each character represents a different deal with fate:
Kikuchi emerges as a figure born from death, a man who, like rain, brings both destruction and renewal. The killer destined to kill, his dream spreading absurdly into killing the whole world. He doesn’t resist fate so much as he expands it, carrying it to its furthest conclusion, and in the end his life closes as violently as it began.
Senou, our strange Ronin, wants nothing more than to escape the demon within him, to carve out a quiet life as a teacher in the city, conversing with talking animals. His dream is small, even mundane, and yet it is by far the most unattainable. His refusal to fully acknowledge heritage or past only amplifies the hold it has over him. In the end, his life becomes shaped by heritage, shattered steel, and a severed arm—the punishment for seeking freedom from the sword. For when you seek to reject the sword, the sword (and everything it symbolizes) will not reject you. His escape from it all is a form of submission: he becomes a lord in the literal sense, a casualty of his bloodline and his own resolve.
Kankichi, a simple towns boy that Senou taught in the school perhaps has the most frustratingly sad conclusion. He dreamed of a life no different than Senou's—a life of chasing butterflies, growing up, and to experience all of life's child-like wonders with him. A child punished by the fate of another's life.
Omurasaki represents the afterimage of Senou’s violence. Scarred by a single devastating encounter, his life becomes fear, shaped entirely by one moment. Unlike others who desire freedom, Omurasaki couldn't even frame an alternative dream. His tale ends when he confronts Senou and requests Senou to kill him, seeking release from the cycle of fear. Senou refuses. Instead, Omurasaki responds by revealing the truth of Senou’s heritage: that Senou is the 6th generation head of the Taki house. In doing so, Omurasaki plays the role of fate, forcing Senou to recognize the legacy he had tried to escape. Omurasaki then kills himself in the night. His suicide achieves release, but only through self-destruction, and only after re-binding Senou to the heritage he ignorantly ignored.
Only Mikoshi Daizaburou breaks this. A failure amongst his family, embraces eccentricity, living as the sole protagonist of his own life, selecting his stage and his ending. His path is futile and pointless, failure-ridden, but it is entirely his own. In a world so clearly dominated by fate, Mikoshi rides us into battle knowing that a meaningless freedom holds so much more than any alleged meaningful fate. His death in battle, silenced to the public, is fittingly ironic—his personal victory denied recognition; this may be the only true form of escape.
I also admired the world-building of Takemitsu Zamurai. What could have been a conventional samurai narrative is instead fleshed out into the heart-beating environment where the weather and the animals (I love Meshi) possess mini-arcs and personalities. This slice of life texture grounds the impact fate has on all lives on a day-to-day basis, not just the one's written about in stories.
