The Destination of Life

Synopsis

With the news of Mitsunari’s loss reaching Kagekatsu, he decides to retreat.

Yukimura is imprisoned in Ueda castle awaiting the end of his life as he doesn’t believe Ieyasu will keep him alive.

Meanwhile in Ieyasu’s camp, they debate what to do with Yukimura. But when it comes down to it, even Nobuyuki believes that executing Yukimura is perfectly reasonable.

Hideyori’s at Osaka castle and people are getting worried over a potential Ieyasu attack. But Hideyori is adamant that the Tokugawa are still vassals of the Toyotomi and will not attack.

In the end, Ieyasu decide not to kill Yukimura and exile him to Mt Koya instead. Whilst he doesn’t want to live on with the shame of loss, his brother and Kunoichi make him reconsider.

Hidetada has a tantrum due to his father’s decision not to execute Yukimura and is visited by Kotaro Fuma who offers to rid him of all his troubles.

We end as Yukimura heads off on his exile and Ieyasu is given the title of Shogun.

Thoughts

After 4 episodes of fast paced action and story, it’s now slowed to a snail pace this episode, and I welcome it. Many a silence this episode, some flashbacks added and we got to see some characters relax for a change. And speaking of character appearance, I wonder if Nene will make another appearance though this very short one.

I think Ieyasu didn’t kill Yukimura for many reasons other than what he talked about. Whilst it is true that it may be one of his reasons as quite rightly anyone who knows Yukimura knows that he’ll end up on the enemy side again and to fully end it there would be the best. However, I think that Ieyasu also did it to keep Nobuyuki on his side as killing Yukmura may have unsettled him. Plus that keeps Ina happy which means Tadakatsu is also happy.

Another thing is maybe he thought that this way he may perhaps have gained Yukimura as an ally too by showing his benevolence, bit of a stretch as he is exiling him, but not impossible. Either way Yukimura is definitely going to go one way or the other, he won’t sit still after this exile.

Also, just a random point, Hideyori didn’t look like that in the game, he looked far more masculine and much more useless, I find that ironic.

With the choice to side with Ieyasu, Nobuyuki really couldn’t back down from executing Yukimura. Like he said, he would’ve been shown to have been weak otherwise. That is the case at least in those times, even if it is understandable that he would want to save his brother. Like I said previously, to survive a time of war, you need to become a demon and lose your emotions. Close your heart and do what you must do, if you don’t, you won’t survive. Though of course this time, it was a different matter choosing family over clan who I guess you can say is also family. Well… leaders have got to lead and they can’t let emotions cloud their choices. It’ll hurt him, but I think history has shown that he made the right choice.