Katana Maidens ~ Toji No Miko [Episode 10 REVIEW]

By: ThunderheavyarmFollowing up from last week, where the forces of Mokusa were attacked at their mountain base, the sword administration goes after the rebelling schools. Toji are disarmed, the girls are in hiding in their submarine and the aradama posing as Origami is making the final preparations that it needs. When it does become ready however, every Toji in the country is made aware of it. Undergoing a strange feeling, the show shows shadowy projections standing in front of and behind them, which Friedman says is what occurred twenty years ago. With that in mind, the girls find the missing resolve and gear up for a daring raid on the main headquarters to defeat Origami.The show, I feel, has taken a slight stumble in what it was doing. Up until now we’ve had many fights, even in the first episode where they were short bouts just to progress the story. But when compared to the night in the mountains and the fighting with third seat guard, the show set a precedent for what to expect and then for some reason it’s thrown that away in the last two episodes. This last one, the entire first third was dominated with jump cuts of special forces arresting Toji and capturing their weapons. Why couldn’t this have been done in the last episode and only for a few minutes? We could have used the time to go over the characters and their internal anguish and decision to fight against something that is well over their heads. Mai is at the forefront of my thinking since she has a 10 second flashback and finds the resolve that she needs to lead them. She gives a long speech on what her thinking is, but this is a show and I want to see her eventual decision, not her telling me how she has.The only redeeming quality that I can think of for this show is at the end. And no, I don’t mean when credits rolled, that’s way to cynical for me. It’s when the girls land and emerge from the armored rockets containers. It’s runs just a little too long, but does manage to set the atmosphere for the next episode. So it’s still maintaining my interest, at least for the last three episodes where the large fight hopefully takes place. And the only reason that I say hopefully is because the show will be around next in the next season. So here’s hoping that we can get back to the pacing that the show got earlier. GG, everyone!