Okay, I just want you to know that Drifters episode 3 starts with Hannibal and Scipio (yes, Scipio of Rome and the famous general Hannibal he
defeated) then slowly torrents into a barrage of Lord of the Rings Two Towers style action as a dragon fights a fighter plane and Anastasia Romanov and Joan of Arc assist Hijikata of the Shinsengumi destroy a town. Now I don’t know why generally good figures are apparently evil and the only thing I can seem to connect them with is their deaths were the end of an important era and unjust in many ways. . . but I don’t know if it’s that and not just holy shit evil Joan of Arc. Listen, not many anime can pull off a fighter plane shooting down dragons as Joan of Arc burns people alive and Hijikata uses an Aragorn style ghost army to destroy innocent civilians. Remember how I said the antagonist plot seemed to be destroying non-humans? Nevermind, it seems the true villains of the show are the Black King and his Ends, who seem to want to destroy humans. Goddamn it can we just stop with the genocide stuff here and get back to the dragon airplane fights and seeing an impossible Anastasia Romanov use ice powers?
The first episode of Drifters was generally accurate to history, but now it is going off the deep end. Look, there is no much about history that concludes Oda Nobunaga had an eye patch and was the super pimp he is in Drifters. But if we need to smudge history just a little while still learning important concepts about different eras and making villains that are genuinely impossible (I mean Anastasia Romanov died as a child and was simply buried in another location from her family. Duh!) in a Japanese anime that has no bearing on reality in order to make fighter planes fight dragons and Anastasia Romanov into a sexy white haired ice villain I am okay with betraying history mmkay.
We cut away completely from Toyohisa today and one thing that was a little jarring was the narrative dissonance. At first the white clad guy
who was defending the humans seemed sinister, did the ominous leg cross, didn’t seem to be a good guy at all- now he is acting on the best interests of humanity as well as the Drifters. Is he up for human supremacy or is he a genuinely good guy doing the right things for the right reason? I can’t tell you now but I feel the narrative behind him was portrayed a little sloppily up until this point. Other than him, though, the show has been pretty spot on with motivations and idealism. I want to know more about the Ends! I’m curious as to the nature of the Black King, as the Drifters don’t seem to have an all powerful commander. It almost feels like the Ends have the Black King as well as Easy recruiting them whereas the Drifters are a little aimless after being recruited and only follow their gut instincts.
Look, I could try and come up with some ideas about what’s next. . . but dragons are fighting planes and I can only watch in horrified and glorious amazement.
Oki
Well, it seems to me that:
Drifters are people whose death were not certain. We know they died in history, but there’s no clear record of what really happened to them (things like people never found their corpses). They came to the world of drifters as people who are still alive.
Ends are people who have died horrible, public deaths. They certainly have died in the original world timeline, but seems to have been resurrected by Easy and sent here to the world of drifters for ‘her’ business (seems like a bet with the guy who sent drifters in episode 2). It seems like they gain supernatural powers associated to their death? Maybe? More explanation may be made in future episodes.
That makes a lot of sense to me. I wasn’t too sure at first because of Toyohisa and the others, because my knowledge of Japanese history is…well, zero. And again I wasn’t sure of Scipio and Hannibal, but when we got word of The Wild Bunch, I knew the new Drifters in this episode were Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and their deaths were unclear. I looked up the rest of them and saw pretty much the same. Not sure who the Japanese plane fighter was.
Joan of Arc getting fire powers because she was burned to death makes sense, but Anastasia was shot to death. But I’m sure they just gave her ice powers because she’s Russian. 😛
So far anime drifters are:
1. Hannibal – He was said to have been forced to commit suicide during his exile by Rome. Exact details unclear.
2. Scipio – He retired and later died. Cause unclear although there were guesses (disease or suicide).
3. Oda Nobunaga – Said to have died during the coup at Honnō-ji. His body was never found as the building was set ablaze.
4. Shimazu Toyohisa – KIA during their retreat in the Battle of Sekigahara. This is basically seen in episode 1 intro.
5. Nasu Suketaka Yoichi – Became a monk and died at the age of 64 during a ceremony. Kind of a plot hole in terms of history, although some can argue that the recorded Yoichi was not the same Yoichi who appeared (due to how Nobunaga said Yoichi seems to be different from what history says). What I mean is that in Drifters story, they may have implied that Yoichi went missing at a much younger age (well, cause he became a drifter) and the Yoichi in history is actually his doppelganger or just false history.
6. Naoshi Kanno (aka crazy pilot) – Shot down when he was on his final mission taking down B24 bombers (which probably was why he was traumatized seeing the dragon setting the city ablaze). His remains were never found.
7. Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid – Said to have died during a gunfight in 1908.
Seems that most have died an unclear death where some uncertainty exists.
That’s about it for the ones to have appeared, so far (not including the OP though).