Ushio and Tora Episode 10 [Let Me Out!]

And so, we return to the world of “We’re never going to get to his mother are we”? Because once again we are stopped dead in our tracks for another side story about something that is completely unrelated. (Are you noticing a theme here?) True, it does look like this series is going to be 39 episodes, so I guess they have to spread themselves out a bit but man…Didn’t think they’d stretch it out THIS much. Oh well. So let’s jump into fillerific episode # whatever.

So the episode starts out with the old lady that was in the shadows now just…..appearing onscreen.

She basically tells the guys who attacked Ushio before that they’re dumbasses and to not attack him again as the spear’s chosen him. You know, that thing she should have done from the beginning. She then tells them to treat Ushio as the wielder and to help him, not fuck up his day.

After the theme song (which..i’ve never really liked to be honest so I tend to skip it)

We see Ushio and Tora at a hot spring just chilling out. Then Ushio hears someone singing and looks over to see a girl.

She runs away and he feels bad. We then cut back to the girl at her house where her father and grandmother are basically assholes who don’t like her, but her job is to watch over a yokai they have trapped in their house. And yes, they actually explain why she has white hair rather than just “Oh that character has white hair for no reason despite not being albino or 74” Apparently she’s from a spiritual family line that can see and talk to spirits which is why she’s tasked in taking care of this yokai who grants luck and power to a household, but when she’s freed she brings ruin. So the two are doing their best to keep her there.

Ushio then sees that girl walking down the street (Yeah I know I should have tried to remember her name but there’s so many episodic characters I don’t even bother) and sees her faint and nearly get hit by a truck.

Ushio saves her and decides to take her back to her house. Of course upon returning to the house the father and grandfather are assholes and not worried for her health in the slightest, (oh yeah, forgot to mention, she’s sickly. hence the fainting and needing to go to the hotspring) Ushio gets pissed off and starts to yell at them. However the girl asks to speak to Ushio alone for 30 minutes. They agree and she tells Ushio the story about her family, her mother who was also sickly and died when she was young, and how they’re keeping the yokai here. She feels bad that she’s stuck there as she really wants to be free (she’s a kind yokai so it isn’t like..to go and murder people) the yokai knows the beast spear can free her, however, if they just destroy the barrier, the yokai will be killed in the process.

The father however realizes what’s going on and bursts in trying to stop them, telling them that if they free her, their house will fall into ruin. Tora then jumps into the barrier to create a shield for the yokai so she won’t die when the barrier gets destroyed.

However, Ushio tells the girl that it’s her decision not his. Thinking back to how miserable her mother was, she agrees that the girl should be free and the barrier is destroyed, freeing her.

However, afterwards, Ushio asks the girl what’s going to happen to her now as she obviously can’t stay with her family anymore. She says she’ll be all right, and, knowing she has a debt to her, the yokai agrees to stay with her and take care of her for as long as she lives.

And that’s where the episode ends.

This episode, while having a relatively simple plot, was cute enough. I think the biggest problem with the episode was that the father and grandmother were so evil that the story was very black and white. There was no morally ambiguous gray area like “Oh, the family’s nice and good but they’re prosperous by keeping a spirit hostage”. They’re just flat out evil so there’s no question in your mind if you want to see the spirit free. The basic idea of this episode is incredibly over simplified with no feelings of second guessing yourself. That’s where the episode really falls flat. You’re sitting there thinking to yourself “Wow, I have NO desire to see these people make it out on top.” Which really detracts from a story I think when characters are evil, but not even fun evil where you can root for them…Like Raditz

Did I really just make a comparison for the sole reason that I could post a picture of Raditz in one of my reviews? Yes. Yes I did. It’s my review and I’ll fucking put Raditz in it if I want to.

Besides that, Yes this was a filler episode in every sense of the word. It didn’t get them any further towards their goal, it didn’t add anything to the story, but, at this point, i’m not really expecting any of these episodes to do so as I walk into them. I’m actually expecting this to be like Tribe Cool Crew where you’ll have like 3 episodes of plot, and then like 5 episodes of filler, rinse, repeat.

Still though, it wasn’t a BAD filler episode. Granted, I would have liked to have had the sick girl follow Ushio from now on, but, you know, if there’s one thing that Ash from Pokemon taught us is that once you leave those episodic characters behind, you will never see them again. EVER.

The moral and story was VERY straight forward without any twists, turns, or anything like that. Really…you didn’t have think a lot in this episode. Which, I guess for a straight 90’s action show that’s fine. At least the fillers anyway.

Episode 7/10 (on the filler scale)

-Hideki