The Sekigahara Sunset

Synopsis

Whilst the battle at Ueda and the battle between Uesugi and the Date continue, the battle lines are set at Sekigahara in a dense fog waiting for the signal to charge.

Naomasa from Ieyasu’s army charges in first clearing the fog which gives the signal for the advance. Naomasa meets Sakon Shima and starts his fight. As Ieyasu’s army moves in, Mistanari’s artillery rains cannon balls on them breaking apart their formation which was then their cue to surround the enemy on all sides. Without Hidetada’s cannons, Ieyasu’s army is at a disadvantage.

Wanting to finish things quickly before reinforcements can arrive, Mitsnari orders Kobayakawa’s unit, who were hiding in the mountains, to move out. But when they don’t Yoshitsugu suspects that Kobayakawa is going to betray them so he heads out.

Back at Ueda, Nobuyuki finds an opening and forces Hidetada to retreat.

Kiyomasa figures out that Mitsunari isn’t even aiming at the troops with his cannons and they charge at Mitsunari. This forces Mitsunari to finally decide to fire the cannons on the enemy troops.

Meanwhile, Naomasa and Sakon’s fight ends with both sides taking a lot of damage but Sakon injury seems to be fatal due to earlier injuries he’d sustained.

Yoshitugu’s intercepted by Takatora Todo and is shot down by arrows. Takakatsu Honda charges into Mitsunari’s cannons and destroys them. It is then that Kobayakawa decides to make his move and betray Mitsunari.

With the tide of the battle going against him and knowing that it’s over, Mitsunari makes a desperate last attempt to kill Ieyasu and dies during his charge.

Nobuyuki returns to Ueda to tell Yukimura the news.

Thoughts

With the battle over and everything going as how the games depicted, I feel that my hope from last episode won’t come to anything. But you never know, they may play out the tale of the two brothers differently. I knew it was over once the Kobayakawa wasn’t moving. Which I thought was a cowardly move, he didn’t even have the conviction to go through with his betrayal unless he was certain that he was going to get away with it. I think the truth is, if he had followed Mitsunari’s orders at the start they might’ve won. There shouldn’t be indecisiveness in war, could easily have costed him. He was lucky and got away with it. Well, I guess it pay have been all part of the plan.

And speaking of indecisiveness, Mitsunari was another to blame. When the enemy forces are charging straight for you, surely it’s kill or be killed? Why even think about not shooting somebody in the face when they’re waving thousands of spears at you? He could’ve made a huge dent in the enemy if he fired at them from the beginning, what a waste of resources. I guess I won’t ever understand the situation he was in and no doubt it was a difficult one. But that’s war, friends today, enemies tomorrow.

I remember that Ieyasu was commenting on how he needs to turn into a demon, or something similar, to survive this era. And it looks like he has. As they said it quite clearly, Mitsunari was way too soft.

I liked Yoshitsugu’s philosophy, go against the flow. Fight against what should be and see what happens, what could be more interesting? Feels like what I do sometimes by arguing against something that is considered normal or what has been accepted, because it’s interesting to see what the other side looks like. And no, I’m not trolling, I do think of sensible arguments.

This battle ended much quicker than I had anticipated, episode time wise, and there’s only one big battle left before the end. I’m wondering if there’s enough that happens between Sekigahara and the last battle to last more than half season of anime.

In the game of course it was just one battle to the next and all the commentary had was that there was peace for a while before the last battle kicked off. So from that I can’t think of how they can stretch it out, but there’s obviously enough otherwise this anime wouldn’t be happening.