The Osaka Tempest

Synopsis

Yukimura and Keiji arrive at Osaka and meet with Hideyori. After the conversation about the upcoming war, Keiji decides to stay and help.

Nobuyuki reports back on his meeting with Hideyori to Ieyasu and also reflects on him and Yukimura’s future.

Kiyomasa and Masanori also arrive at Osaka and begs for Hideyori’s forgiveness before he sets out to meet Ieyasu and is accepted back into the Toyotomi’s army. They accompany him to the meeting.

The meeting is entirely about that Ieyasu believes Hideyori’s preparing for war. And so he wants Hideyori to come to Edo to dispel that ‘rumour’. But Hideyori invites Ieyasu to Osaka instead. Neither agree. And by the end of the talk, Ieyasu deems Hideyori a man powerful enough to lead the nation and so wastes no time in the call for war.

Yukimura is left in charge of the defenses of Osaka and he immediately gets to work strengthening the weak side of Osaka castle.

With the call to arms, feudal lords all over Japan gather under Ieyasu and start their march to Osaka defeating the Toyotomi in various smaller skirmishes along the way. And after all that the 200,000 strong army surround Osaka with less than 100,000 to defend. Their first line of defence is Yukimura.

Thoughts

Whilst I still don’t like and don’t think much of Hideyori, he has shown leadership and more intimidating qualities this episode. I still think he just gives off this lackadaisical feeling, and yeah, I see where Nobuyuki’s coming from when he says the guy’s mysterious, but I’m still surprised that he thinks so highly of him. He’s hard to read I’ll give you that, but that doesn’t mean anything, someone could be hard to read and be lazy unsure of how to make decisions.

But I guess he did show some intimidation tactics and at least fended off Ieyasu for the moment. Still, no matter how hard a rabbit tries he can’t scare off a wolf. I’ll also give him credit for at least not surrendering which was enough to earn Keiji’s respect by the looks of it. He’s also quite the smooth talker, very much plays it like an intricate game of chess, like most politicians.

Although I don’t remember Keiji or Kiyomasa and Masanori being in the final battle in the game. So I’m again wondering if this’ll have another ending. Ignoring history, with the way the story’s gone, it’s very unlikely for the Sanada brothers to come to terms with the other and would seem extremely forced otherwise. But still… is it that much to ask for a sorta happy ending? Even if it seems a bit forced I can live with it, I dunno… revision is soon upon me again and I’d rather not go into it with a sad ending.