Our story opens on a dark and stormy night. Rain is pounding down against the facade of a mansion. Inside, a policeman falls. A sword is covered with blood. Its weilder, a shadowy figure in a kimono, scarf, and wide black hat menaces a man in a suit and mustache, who is backed up against a wall, the floor between them strewn with his slain bodyguards. The man begs for his life and offers any amount of money, but to no avail, and at last he panics and runs. Glancing back over his shoulder, he catches the killer's eyes---terrifying white pupils on black, and a look from those eyes freezes him on the spot, still perched on one foot where he was running. The figure raises his sword above his paralyzed victim. "Die!"

The blade descends in a crash of lightning.

Morning at Kamiya Dojo. Kaoru has set up a pot in the yard and is cooking. Sanosuke, Yahiko and the girls are eating with quizzical frowns; only Kenshin can manage a strained smile. Yahiko, Ayame, and Suzume push on bravely through the meal as Sano complains. He thinks Kenshin must have a hard time of it, eating Kaoru's cooking all the time, but Kenshin says it tastes a bit better everytime he eats it. "So this is some exotic acquired taste, huh?" Sano says.

Kaoru's had all she can take. If Sano doesn't like the food, he doesn't have to show up every day to mooch it, she insists, hurling vegetables and cooking implements at him. Sano defends that he's broke because he stopped taking fights for pay, using Kenshin for a human shield, so it's the hapless rurouni who's dazed and covered with bumps when the police chief unexpectedly enters. The chief apologizes for the interruption ("Please, go on pummeling Himura-san, don't mind me...") and for all the trouble back in episode three, but now he needs to ask Kenshin for a favor.

Inside, the Police chief asks Kenshin to defeat a serial murderer---the killer from the opening scene, known as Kurogasa. For the past ten years, Kurogasa has been killing highly-placed officials, all of them from the ranks of the Isshin Shishi, and the government has kept it out of the newspapers to avoid seeming compromised. Before a kill, Kurogasa announces his target, then seemingly delights in slaughtering police guards and bystanders---including women and children---on the way to his objective. "Why don't you just shoot him?" Yahiko asks. The chief says they have stationed gunmen around every target, but Kurogasa kills them before they can draw their guns.

Kenshin, who has sat silent through the entire exchange, at last looks up at the sky outside and speaks. He believes that Kurogasa was a Hitokiri of the revolution like himself, and was taken by the thrill of killing, the sight and smell of blood. Even ten years into the new, peaceful era, he cannot stop being a Hitokiri. A misfortunate man...

That night, at the mansion of Kurogasa's new target, Tani, police are stationed outside in the yard. Inside, it is five minutes before midnight---when Kurogasa said he would appear---and Tani sits in a plush chair, surrounded by fighters and ruffians; he's promised them huge sums of money if they can kill the assassin. Kenshin and the police chief are there, looking on, and Sano arrives as well. When there's a fight brewing, he won't let Kenshin have all the fun. Still, he wonders about the gunmen being killed before they could draw; Kenshin seems to have an idea, but just as Sano asks him about it, and whether he knows who Kurogasa is, the clock strikes midnight.

The appointed hour is at hand. The hired fighters circle Tani. Outside, the police guards are on alert, but they cannot stop Kurogasa as he emerges from the trees and charges them. Their screams are heard inside and Kenshin and Sano throw open the windows to see the fallen officers. Moments later, those in the room can hear the guards in the hallway being slaughtered. "Sano and I will take the front!" Kenshin declares. The hour keeps chiming, nine... ten... eleven... The two face the door, with Tani's hired fighters arranged behind them, but as the clock falls silent, the room is still. "He's not coming," someone says. A fighter in the back of the room relaxes. "Was it just a prank?" he wonders. (I suggest you ask all the dead cops littering the hallway...)

In answer to his question, a blade slices into him from behind and he falls. All eyes turn to find Kurogasa framed in the window, grinning and chuckling wickedly as he surveys the room with his terrifying inverted eyes and counts his opponents. "Little bugs with no lives," he says. ". . . Fourteen or fifteen; less than I thought."

Kenshin tells Sano to take care of Tani while he fights Kurogasa, but Tani disrupts everything, ordering his hired fighters to attack Kurogasa and promising to pay the one who kills him fivefold and with an army officership. "Idiots!" Sano screams as they charge, "Are you going to throw your lives away for greed!?" Kurogasa easily cuts down the first wave of them and grins. Realizing what they've gotten into, the rest try to back away, but Kurogasa fixes them with his gaze, freezing them all in place, including Sanosuke. "What is this!?" Sano wonders.

Meanwhile, back at the dojo, Kaoru and Yahiko are in bed. Yahiko's dead to the world, but Kaoru lays awake, fretful at Kenshin having gone to fight another Hitokiri like himself. She gets up and wanders out to the porch, looking up at the full moon. "Why do I have this bad feeling?" (Yeah, psychotic serial killers will have that effect sometimes...)

At the mansion, Tani and his hirelings are terrified, frozen like statues. "It's no good to run," Kurogasa tells them. Once a fight begins, the fighters are in it until someone dies; otherwise, it's no fun. Sano begins to inch forward. "What the hell did you do to me!?" he growls. Kurogasa approaches him, realizing this one isn't such a bug as he thought. "What do you want me to cut off?" he asks Sano. "Your hand? Your head?"

But from behind Sano comes Kenshin's voice. "Nikaidou Heihou, Shin no Ippou: the technique of freezing in fear." He vaults over Sanosuke and crosses swords with Kurogasa, whose hat is split cleanly in half as Kenshin lands lightly. He says he heard rumors during the revolution of the one who could use the Shin no Ippou technique, projecting his chi through his eyes to paralyze opponents: "Renegade Hitokiri, Udou Jin'e!"

Kurogasa heard rumors, too, of the strongest of the Isshin Shishi, the practitioner of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu with the cross-scar on his cheek, Himura Battousai. It's been a long time since he had such fun as facing an opponent like this, much more fun than going after lazy fat cats like Tani. "I change my target to you!" he declares, fixing Kenshin with his paralyzing stare---but Kenshin throws off the effect. "Shin no Ippou is a contest of wills," he says. "If my ken-ki is equal to yours, I won't fall prey to it." In the revolution, Jin'e slew many, regardless of what side they were on, just to see their blood, but that is no longer the way in this new era. "Open your eyes! Wake up for yourself!"

Jin'e can hardly believe these words coming from the fearsome Battousai of the revolution, but Sano, throwing off the power of Shin no Ippou, declares that Kenshin is no longer a Hitokiri and swore not to kill anymore. "He's not like you!" he shouts, tearing a statue off its base and charging Jin'e with it, but as he smashes it against the floor, he's missed, and taken wounds to both wrists in the process.

Kenshin again charges Jin'e and they exchange blows, with Kenshin finally leaping up and pushing off the cieling for a downward stroke, but Jin'e deflects it, and as they come to rest, a cut opens up on Kenshin's arm. "Boring! Boring!" Kurogasa declares. Ten years of not killing have eroded the Battousai's ken-ki that used to freeze men's blood. That is what Kurogasa wants to fight, and he gives Kenshin one day to return to it as he leaps back up onto the window sill. A sudden gust hides him behind the curtains, and he vanishes.

Later, Kenshin's arm is bandaged. Sano seems to think things have gone from bad to worse, with Kurogasa completely off his nut and now targetting Kenshin, but Kenshin thinks it fortunate that the danger is now limited to himself, even if Kurogasa was right about his fighting skill. "There is no way I could win against him now, but... I will defeat him," he says, raising his head with sharp, narrow eyes. With both of them having been Hitokiri from the revolution, Kenshin knows that the battle with Jin'e is one he cannot escape. "It looks like I'm out of the picture this time," Sano says, but Kenshin does have a request for him, to take a message to Kaoru.

The next morning at the dojo, Kaoru has fallen asleep on the porch, drooling slightly, while Yahiko sweeps the walk. Sano entertains him by playing with Kaoru's face until she wakes up and snaps a shinai over their heads for a "welcome back." "Wait, where's Kenshin?" she asks. Sano tells her that Kenshin isn't coming back---he needs to leave everything behind and focus to defeat Kurogasa; Sano thinks he's trying to come as close as he can to the Hitokiri inside him.

Hearing this, Kaoru drops the broken shinai and dashes toward the gate to go and look for him, but Sano stops her. Kurogasa is much stronger than Kenshin's other opponents and this is no time to get in the way, Sano insists, but Kaoru won't be swayed. "What will we do if Kenshin never comes back here?" She remembers the day he came to stay with her, he said that as a rurouni, he never knew when he might leave again, and she's certain that after fighting Kurogasa, Kenshin will go back to his old self and leave on his wandering. With her parents dead, Kaoru won't stand for Kenshin to go and leave her alone again, and she runs off. Yahiko and Sano run after her, but she's already out of sight. "She can't stand to be separated from Kenshin, what a selfish girl," Sano declares, but with a smile. "But then, you can't separate selfishness from love." Still, he and Yahiko know they have to find her, and take off again.

On the shores of the river, Kenshin sits on a log, watching the water rush by; it's high and fast, brown with churned-up silt. Can I defeat him with my Sakabatou? he asks himself. Hearing footsteps behind him, he knows that it's time to find out and clicks his sword open---but it's Kaoru behind him. "K-E-N-S-H-I-N... I FOUND YOU." He's so startled he cuts his thumb on his sword and nearly collapses. "She's scarier than Jin'e! @_@x" Kaoru sits down beside him. Even having heard about Kurogasa, she refuses to go back to the dojo and insists on staying there with Kenshin, but he tells her that if he has to protect her, he can't win against Jin'e.

She reflects on this for a moment, softens, and gets up to walk around in front of him. Her ponytail falls as she pulls the ribbon from her hair and offers it to Kenshin. "This is my favorite indigo ribbon," she says. "I'm lending it to you." At first he tries to refuse (It doesn't match his outfit---plus indigo with red hair; it just doesn't go...), but she insists so violently that he has to take it. "All right, I'm just lending it to you," she says. "You have to give it back." He stares at her blankly. "If you go off wandering after the fight and forget to return it, I won't forgive you." He stares for another long moment, then suddenly his eyes widen in recognition (Damn, he's cute... ^__^). He promises to return the ribbon to the dojo, so she can wait for him there without worry. "All right," she says. "It's a promise, Kenshi---*"

Her words cut off as she is suddenly snatched up by Kurogasa, who speeds by in a boat careening down the rushing river. "I've seen that this girl is your woman," he shouts at Kenshin, laughing maniacally. "Angry! Get angry! Return to the way you were ten years ago! Hate! Hate me! Return to the Hitokiri, Battousai!" Kenshin watches the river carry the boat out of sight as Kaoru cries out his name, Jin'e still laughing. "JIN'E!!!" Kenshin shouts after them, his eyes sharp with rage.

To explain the title I gave this page: "Kurogasa" does in fact mean "black bamboo hat," like the one Kurogasa wears. Maigo-chan's manga translation actually refers to him as "Black Hat."

Also, something noted in the manga but not immediately clear to a non-Japanese speaker watching the anime: the strange geometric pattern of Kurogasa's sword-strokes as Tani's bodyguards charge him has a significance. Kurogasa's style, Nikaidou Heihou, involves numbered stances, One, Eight, and Ten, whose strokes form the kanji of those numbers: a horizontal line for One (ichi), two diagonal lines for Eight (hachi), and a cross for Ten (jyuu). The lines Kurogasa's strokes trace on the anime screen form the characters like so:

The old Hecto fansubs are valuable for some things, like they show the episode titles written in the original Japanese, but among their odd mistakes, they just couldn't seem to wrap their minds around Kurogasa's real name, "Udou Jin'e." I think they got it right on one occasion, but other instances of Kenshin saying or shouting "Jin'e" were subbed as "Jyu" (???), or even just "Kurogasa"---when actually I think it very significant that Kenshin always calls Jin'e by his name once he knows it. Throughout this first episode, Kenshin is trying his best to humanize his opponent, no matter how much Jin'e resists. To Kenshin, Jin'e is not the inhuman killer "Kurogasa," but a misfortunate human trapped in the needless violence of a bygone day.

Manga Comparison: Episode six corresponds to manga chapters nine through eleven. The manga version of the story begins very much the same, depicting first a kill by Kurogasa, then the cooking incident and the police chief's request for Kenshin's help against Kurogasa, but in this version, the chief mentions already Kurogasa's ability to freeze his opponents, and Kenshin identifies it as the rumored "Shin no Ippou" but does not explain further. Segue to Tani's mansion. At first, Tani acts very self-important, refusing to accept police protection and instead swearing by the "supporters" he has gathered, the "strongest of the strong" (actually just the same band of ruffians we saw in the anime---in the manga, Sano remembers trouncing every one of them in some scrap or another), but when Kenshin enters, Tani changes his tone---it seems Kenshin saved his life more than once during the revolution.

As the appointed hour approaches (in the manga, it's 1 AM, not midnight), Sano and Kenshin play Shogi and discuss the situation until they hear the cries of the guards being struck down in the yard. As in the anime, they all rush to face the doors, only to have Kurogasa appear in the window (couldn't Tani have holed up in an interior room??). After a brief cut to Kaoru fretting back at the dojo, we see Kurogasa laughingly count his opponents, cut down the first who charge him, and freeze the rest with his terrifying eyes. Sano alone can still move, but only barely, until Kenshin identifies the Shin no Ippou technique and leaps over Sano's head to exchange blows with Kurogasa, breaking the eponymous hat and taking a cut to the arm (rather than recieving this cut later as in the anime). He even recalls from the rumors Kurogasa's real name: Udou Jin'e.

Jin'e recalls rumors of Battousai, as well. When he attempts to use Shin no Ippou on him, Kenshin's inner strength matches his own and he throws off the effect. Jin'e is delighted to have such a powerful opponent, but unlike in the anime, he takes one final charge at Tani to fulfill his original objective. Tani cannot escape the power of Shin no Ippou and screams as he stands frozen, but at the last moment, Sano breaks free, seizes the statue and comes to the rescue, shattering Jin'e's sword, but he doesn't come out unscathed; Jin'e drives the broken blade through Sano's right wrist, laughing insanely.

At the sight of Sano's injury, Kenshin charges Jin'e, who deflects his initial swing, but Kenshin unexpectedly leaps upward, pushing off the ceiling for a downward blow that sends Jin'e flying and bloodies his face. The rest of the room is freed from the Shin no Ippou paralysis. In the manga, it is at this point that Jin'e declares the change of target. A battle with Kenshin is more interesting to him than anything since the Bakumatsu. "Wait for me and bring a real sword this time!" he shouts, escaping through the still-open window.

As those involved recover themselves, Kenshin says that if anything it's fortunate that he became the target; in fact, it seemed to be what he expected all along. "I'd hoped to settle it here," he says, but with Jin'e, things aren't so easy.

As Sano and Kenshin walk home the next morning (with Sano's arm in a sling). Sano says that everyone injured by Kurogasa pulled through (stretching believability a skosh, but no matter), and Kenshin recalls what he has heard about Jin'e's career in the Bakumatsu. He first appeared in Kyoto as a leader of the Shinsengumi, killing far more of his Isshin Shishi enemies than necessary, but he fled the Shinsengumi due to internal conflicts and switched sides, working from then on as an Isshin Shishi Hitokiri. Jin'e's only motivation is the thrill of killing, making him extremely dangerous.

Kenshin tells Sano that he will fight Jin'e alone, but asks Sano another favor, to take care of Kaoru in his absence.

Sanosuke returns to the dojo where Kaoru has nodded off after her sleepless night and tells her that Kenshin is waiting for Jin'e by the river (Kenshin had explained that in the Bakumatsu, Hitokiri often operated from riversides). Afraid that Kenshin will go back to wandering after the battle and never return, Kaoru runs off in search of him; at first, Sano tries to stop her, but she turns to him with hot tears on her face. Orphaned by the death of her parents, abandoned by her students, and betrayed by Kihei whom she trusted, Kaoru would rather face the danger of Kurogasa than lose Kenshin as well. At this, Sano lets her go. Unlike in the anime, he and Yahiko don't follow after her. After the rough night, Sano goes to get a bath and some sleep. (Um... Kaoru in path of psycho killer...? Maybe... you might want to...? Well, nevermind...)

Also, a touch unique to the manga, we find that Jin'e was lurking in the trees outside the dojo, listening to the conversation, and now he knows where to find Kenshin---and of the connection between Kenshin and Kaoru.

Down on the riverbank, Kenshin sits waiting for Jin'e, watching the swollen river's angry, rushing water. "If you fell in now, it would be all over..." he muses. As in the anime, Kaoru finds him and startles him out of his reverie. She sits down beside him and at first refuses to leave, but when Kenshin tells her he can't worry about her and defeat Jin'e both at once, she changes her mind and lends him her ribbon. "All right? I’m only lending it to you. Be sure and give it back. If you forget and go off wandering again, I’ll never forgive you."

Kenshin (so cute and clueless as he is) has only just realized the significance of the gesture when Jin'e speeds by on a small boat in the rushing river, snatching Kaoru and carrying her off. "Get angry, get angry!" he shouts at Kenshin, "Angry like you were last night when I broke that rooster’s arm! Return to the way you were ten years ago! Like you were when you could have killed me, the matchless, strongest, cold-hearted Hitokiri!" As he throws a note of where the battle will take place, Kaoru calls out to Kenshin, who watches, enraged, as the river carries them away.

---Having already napped at the guys for abandoning Kenshin and Kaoru to the whims of the homicidal psychopath, I was struck especially by two differences between the anime version and the manga version.

First, the manga did not tip the scales in Jin'e's favor at Tani's house, as the anime did. In the anime version, Jin'e immediately targetted Kenshin wanting to fight the legendary Battousai, but crossing swords showed him that his opponent had gone soft in the last ten years, and as he left he gave Kenshin one day to return to his strong and merciless Hitokiri self. In the manga, by contrast, Jin'e was not fascinated enough to target Kenshin exclusively until he had actually tasted the Battousai in his opponent's anger---when Kenshin saw him wound Sanosuke and charged him in a rage, Jin'e had the worst of the exchange. Unfortunately, after this, manga-Jin'e didn't have to guess that he could bring out that Battousai by threatening those close to Kenshin; he'd seen firsthand that he could.

Secondly is more of a detail, but I found it fascinating: the state of the river as Kenshin waits for Jin'e. In the anime as well as the manga, the water is high and rushing fast, and the anime shows it brown with churned-up mud, but in the manga Kenshin points this up with a line of internal monologue: "There must have been heavy rain upstream, the river’s swollen. If you fell in it’d all be over." I included half of that line in the summary because I thought it was such an interesting touch. Naturally it appeals to my shameless inner angst-lover, but the river swollen from "heavy rain upstream" at once hints at tying in the stormy opening scene of the Kurogasa story, and also serves symbolically. Especially since Kenshin associated the riverbank vantage point with his Hitokiri past, waiting here for Jin'e, alone, is heavy with the shadow of the Battousai inside him. The physical danger of drowning in the rushing water echoes Kenshin's equally real danger of being utterly swept away, back into the violent world of the Hitokiri. Excellent touch from Watsuki-san as the author, and maybe it's no accident that it is Kaoru's appearance and her desire that Kenshin not wander out of her life that interupts these dark musings.

As you may already know if you frequent my website, in my Fanfiction, Soujiro once had a run-in with another practitioner of the Nikaidou Heihou style, a character of my own creation named Aizawa Ametarou, in Hanasenai mono (but if you haven't read my fanfic, don't just run to read this one; it's a piece out of the middle of a much longer story), so I watched the Kurogasa episodes specially for that and now, just a couple of months later, am going over them again for the guide. They really are one of RK's crucial moments, but I'll get into that more in the rambles on episode seven.

As a matter of fact, everything I could think of to ramble about this episode either already made it into the notes or is just as well saved for next time, so let's move on, shall we?

After a brief recap of Kurogasa snatching Kaoru away from Kenshin (Uwagh, too many K names 0_o;) on the riverbank, we find ourselves in a forest clearing at sunset. There, Kaoru has been bound and placed in an abandoned shrine in place of a statue as Jin'e sits waiting for Kenshin and smoking a cigarette (I'm told Cartoon Network edited this scene to avoid showing the cigarette---kidnapping, swordfighting, cruel and malicious attempted murder, that's all kosher, but smoking just crosses the line, I'm sorry!). Kaoru accuses him of kidnapping her to gain an advantage over Kenshin, that he couldn't beat Kenshin without cheating, but Jin'e tells her that it's just the opposite. In Kenshin's present state, he would be no match for Jin'e and it would be a boring fight, so he kidnapped Kaoru not to gain an advantage, but to make Kenshin angry enough to turn him into the Battousai he once was and bring out his fearsome skill to the fullest. Kaoru has no idea, he says, what Kenshin was like during the revolution: Hitokiri Battousai, a killer so skilled that men's blood ran cold at the mention of his name.

Jin'e was also in Kyoto during the revolution, as a member of the Shinsengumi, he reveals with a snicker. The Shinsengumi fought for the Shogunate and were enemies of the Isshin Shishi, but in a flashback, we find that Jin'e's bloodlust disgraced them, and three of his compatriots attempted to kill him, but he defeated them all, and enjoyed the sight of their blood as much as anyone's. Back in the present, he grins at the thought of fighting another killer from the revolution, pushing both their skills to the limit. "Can anything be as fun as that?"

Kaoru protests that Kenshin isn't bloodthirsty like Jin'e and would never return to being a Hitokiri, but Jin'e only chuckles wickedly as a flock of crows takes off from the surrounding trees, cawing an omen of foreboding.

Back at the dojo, Sanosuke and Yahiko recieve a message from Kenshin, telling them of Kaoru's abduction. Kenshin writes that he will fight the duel at the place Kurogasa chose, and asks them to get the police and rescue Kaoru if he doesn't return. Sano realizes that Kenshin means to try and rescue Kaoru alone, to resolve this battle between two Hitokiri. "But Kenshin isn't a Hitokiri anymore!" Yahiko protests. "That's why he might lose," Sano says, but even knowing that, Kenshin accepted the challenge. Indeed we see him at that moment entering the forest alone.

It's more than Yahiko can take, and he tries to run off in search of Kaoru and Kenshin, but Sano grabs him and holds him back. Yahiko shouts at Sano not to stop him, that he doesn't care what Kenshin was like before, he's going to save his friends now. "Who's stopping you?" Sano says; Yahiko had forgotten his shinai. Sano hands it to him, and they both dash off to the rescue.

Meanwhile at the shrine, Jin'e looks at his watch and sees the appointed hour arrive (midnight again, BTW). Sure enough, Kenshin enters the clearing. Jin'e chuckles with anticipation, and Kaoru is happy to see him---until she catches sight of his face. His mouth is grimly set, his eyes narrowed, sharp and dangerous. Jin'e notices those eyes, too---and likes them. "Angry?" he asks. "Yes," Kenshin says, "angry at you for involving Kaoru-dono, and at myself for not stopping you." The tone of his voice (see the notes, below) drives home for Kaoru that this is not the Kenshin she knows.

Jin'e is delighted; he's beginning to sense a willingness to kill. "Now all you have to do is turn over that silly sword of yours." "Shut up," Kenshin growls, and they charge. The two exchange blows, swords flashing, their movements blindingly fast. "This... This is Hitokiri Battousai?" Kaoru thinks, watching in horror.

But Jin'e thinks not yet, he wants Kenshin angrier still. As they fight, Kenshin recognizes the pattern of Jin'e's strokes and deflects one, knocking his sword-arm back. He closes in, pressing the advantage, but Jin'e uses the momentum to pass the sword to his other hand behind his back and thrusts forward again. Kenshin dodges to the side, but the unexpected counterattack slices deeply into his shoulder and he falls to the ground. Kaoru watches, aghast, as blood streams from the wound.

Meanwhile, Sano and Yahiko's search brings them to the riverside, but they have no idea where to go from there.

At the shrine, Jin'e stands over Kenshin, who he says isn't ready to kill yet. Until he lets go of that reluctance, he will only be a pale shadow of the Battousai he was, no match for Jin'e. "How boring." Kaoru cries out Kenshin's name, struggling against her bonds. "You're crazy!" she screams at Jin'e. "You're a monster! A monster!"

Jin'e chuckles, struck with an idea to drive Kenshin to a greater rage. He turns to face Kaoru directly, staring into her eyes, and paralyzes her with Shin-no-Ippou, freezing her even more fastly than his previous victims. When Kenshin demands to know what he's done to her, Jin'e explains that he used Shin-no-Ippou more strongly, so that even her lungs are paralyzed; she'll be dead of suffocation in five minutes (again, see the notes) unless the hold is broken in one of only two ways: One is for Kaoru to free herself, but only ken-ki stronger than Jin'e's own could achieve that, so it's impossible for a girl like her, he says. The second way is for Jin'e to die. "In other words, unless you kill me, that girl dies."

Kenshin seethes, still on his knees, as Jin'e taunts him. "Death by suffocation is so ugly," he says. "You don't have any time for chit-chat. If you want to say something, say it with that silly sword of yours."

Suddenly, Kenshin seems to vanish; he reappears with his sword inches from Jin'e's face, striking a horizontal blow that smashes his opponent's nose. Jin'e exults at Kenshin's form, too fast for the eye to see, "This is Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu! This is Hitokiri Battousai!!" "No time for talk," Battousai says, his eyes now burning red. "I'll kill you; come and fight me."

"I'll kill you"---at last Jin'e has what he's been looking for, and is delighted, even as Kaoru watches in horror, just managing a strained whisper. "No... Ken... shin... No..."

Jin'e throws off his scarf and kimono sleeves and charges, but is spooked by Battousai's ken-ki and leaps away to the side short of his mark. Battousai glares at him, unmoving---"What's wrong?" "Nothing less from the legendary Battousai," Jin'e says; to face such an opponent he must bring out his own strength to the fullest. Shin-no-Ippou is the power of suggestion, strong enough to freeze an opponent like a statue, but Jin'e can use it for other purposes---including using it on himself to bring out his full potential. As he stares into the reflection of his own eyes in his blade, his muscles swell to super-strength and his eyes switch to dark-on-light. "I am the strongest!" he declares. He hasn't used this hidden Shin-no-Ippou technique since he left the Shinsengumi, and he revels in his newfound strength, slicing deep gashes in a boulder.

Battousai is unimpressed. "You can use whatever technique you want," he says, "But once I've said I'll kill you, your death is certain." He sheathes his sword and crouches into a battle-stance. Jin'e recognizes it as the stance for battou-jutsu, a technique of attacking by whipping the sword out of the sheath, killing an enemy instantly with Battousai's godlike speed. "Come at me," Kenshin says, "and I'll show you where the name 'Battousai' comes from."

Jin'e weighs his chances. A battou-jutsu is a one-shot attack, he thinks. If he can dodge the initial blow, his opponent will be momentarily vulnerable, but can it be dodged? Yes, he realizes---the dull edge of Sakabatou creates more friction inside the saya, slowing the draw a fraction of a second---enough for him to win. He charges Battousai, and as Sakabatou whips out of its sheath, he dodges back---the blade slices through the air an inch in front of his face, but the dodge is successful, and he brings his sword down. "I WIN, BATTOUSA---*"

Battousai's saya impacts on the elbow of Jin'e's sword-arm with a sickening crunch. "Sword and saya, double battou-jutsu," Jin'e realizes too late---after the initial swing of the sword, Battousai swung the saya as well with his left hand. "Hiten Mitsurugi Ryuu battoujutsu, Sou-Ryuu-Sen," he announces. Sakabatou might not be ideal for battoujutsu, but he earned the name "Battousai" because he mastered those techniques in every way. That blow destroyed the joint in Jin'e's elbow, he says. "Your career with the sword is over, and now, so is your life." He turns Sakabatou around and raises its deadly edge into the moonlight.

Kaoru is beginning to collapse, her vision blurring. "Ken... shin..."

He stands still with his sword upraised for a long moment. "Why are you hesitating?" Jin'e asks him. "To free that girl, you have to kill me." Battousai agrees. "To protect Kaoru-dono, I will become a Hitokiri once again!" Even at this extreme, Kaoru's face falls open with shock. "Do it!" Jin'e exults, "Let me taste the sword of the legendary Battousai!"

Kenshin at last brings his sword down for the fatal blow. "Die!"

As the blade falls, Kaoru remembers the day Kenshin came to the dojo, remembers his words about her Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu teachings of a sword that doesn't kill. "A sword is a weapon. Sword techniques are killers' techniques. That is the truth. What Kaoru-dono says is an idealistic joke, but I like that joke better the truth."

"I like it better..."

"Kenshin---NO!!!" Kaoru screams out loud, shattering the bonds of Shin-no-Ippou.

Kenshin hears her, and his sword stops an inch above Jin'e's head. "Don't become a Hitokiri again, don't use the killer's sword..." she begs breathlessly, and Kenshin dashes forward to catch her as he collapses. "Kaoru-dono, hold on! Are you all right!?" he cries, back to his old way of talking. Hearing that, Kaoru is assured. "I'm all right."

But in the touching moment, they've forgotten something very important (Um, is anyone watching the crazy guy...?). Jin'e appears behind them and draws his wakizashi with his left hand. He can't believe that a girl like Kaoru could break his Shin-no-Ippou. Kenshin tells him that he doesn't stand a chance with just a wakizashi in his left hand, that the fight is over and he should surrender peacefully to the police, but Jin'e says it's not over yet, and plunges the wakizashi into his own chest. "This... feels good..." he says as he falls. (Oh, okay, he took care of it himself...)

"Don't look at me like that, Battousai," he says, "your eyes were better when you decided to kill me. You're really a Hitokiri inside. As one myself, I can say it without a doubt. A Hitokiri is a Hitokiri until he dies; he can't be anything else. I'll watch and see how long you can stay a rurouni... from the edge of Hell..." Those are Jin'e's last words.

Kenshin reflects on those words as he and Kaoru stand before the ghastly scene. They are just about to go to the police and leave the rest to them when they hear Sano and Yahiko's voices finally catching up to them, and they hear the two take a wrong turn and tumble into what looks like a rice field full of mud. As Kenshin and Kaoru come out to see them, it's such a welcome break in the tension that they manage to laugh.

On the way home, the guys are disappointed that they didn't get to save the day, but Kaoru thanks Kenshin for coming to save her. "No, it is I who should be thanking you," he says; he realizes that if Kaoru hadn't saved him, he would have been lost to his old self and become Hitokiri Battousai again. (In the subs this is a bit confusing; it's subbed as if he actually told her the reason, but I don't think he did, because afterward she asked "what are you thanking me for?"; it's also presented as his internal monologue in the manga.) Then he realizes that he hasn't given her her ribbon back, and takes it out of his kimono---stained with blood from the wound in his shoulder.

Angry at seeing her favorite ribbon ruined, Kaoru chases him up and down the street. "I shouldn't have made a promise with you!" she shouts, which gets Sano and Yahiko in on the chase, wanting to know what this promise was about. Despite it all, Kenshin is smiling (as a matter of fact, everyone is running with these dorky smiles on their faces ^_^;). Jin'e, even if my true self is a Hitokiri, I'll never become one again. I'll be a rurouni until I die, as long as I'm with my friends.

Firstly, translation notes on Kenshin's Battousai transformation, things that don't really come across in English---although Anime Works tried with pretty good results. Most obviously of course, Kenshin drops his ubiquitous "gozaru" when he goes into Battousai mode, but another part of rurouni-Kenshin's speech pattern is that among the many "I/me" words in the Japanese language, he uses the humble "sessha." When he said he was angry at Jin'e for taking Kaoru "...and at myself for not stopping you," and Kaoru realized that this was not the usual Kenshin, it was because in that line he referred to himself as "ore," a more informal reflexive pronoun than "sessha." And of course, in the end, Kaoru knows that Kenshin is back to normal because he asks "are you okay?" as "daijoubu de gozaru ka?" "Daijoubu de gozaru yo (Yes, I'm all right), Kenshin," she answers. "Oro?"

More obvious of course are the visual Battousai cues; in Battousai mode, Kenshin's eyes turn from violet blue to red or more usually yellow. In the most extreme moments, his hair turns from its usual orange-toned red to a more cherry shade or even pink, and the pallette change even affects his clothing, turning his kimono green or occasionally purple.

And I also wanted to note about the technique Jin'e used to suffocate Kaoru. I'm willing to accept it story-wise, but practically I have doubts that it would have actually killed her---he might only have been able to make her hold her breath until she passed out. Shin-no-Ippou works by inducing a certain mental state, and might depend on the operation of the conscious mind---partway through the fight, Kaoru seems to partly collapse forward onto her hands, which could indicate that she isn't completely frozen, but is unable to move under her own will. If we follow this chain of reasoning, we find that breathing is in a sort of gray area for humans. It can be consciously controlled, but it also happens involuntarily---i.e., no matter how determinedly you hold your breath, you can't kill yourself that way, because you would start to breathe again when you lost consciousness. The fact that Shin-no-Ippou makes victims stand rigid rather than collapse is enough to convince me that it could override physiological inertia so-to-speak and make a conscious victim hold their breath, but would the effect continue after the person lost consciousness? From a real-world practical viewpoint, I would tend to say "no," but RK has a bit of fantasy to it and that answer would kind of fork up the story, so yeah, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief for it. I still couldn't resist nitpicking.

Kenshin also showed us another named technique this time, the double battoujutsu, Sou-Ryuu-Sen. The "Sou" character means "pair, set", and it's the same "Ryuu" and "Sen" as with previous moves ("Dragon" and "Flash," respectively), which would give us a translation something like "Double Dragon Flash," appropriately enough.

Speaking of techniques, I think this is the first time we actually see Kenshin use battoujutsu, which include some of the most crucial techniques of the entire series and, as noted, are so central to Kenshin's own technique that they earned him his nickname, "Battousai." The word "battoujutsu" literally means something like "sword-drawing technique," and of course that's exactly what it is. The manga devoted a caption to it, explaining that whipping the sword out of the sheath can increase its speed two- or three-fold, and thus battoujutsu are ideal techniques for cutting down an opponent in a single swift blow.

This story was full of pivotal firsts for the series, but more on that in the ramblings.

Manga Comparison: Episode seven corresponds to manga chapters twelve through fourteen. As noted last time, in the manga, Yahiko and Sano completely sit this one out, so the anime's opening scene of them getting a message from Kenshin is absent, and the manga goes right into the fight itself. The sequence of events comprising the fight is practically identical, so unlike last time I won't put you through the whole play-by-play again. The notable differences come after Kenshin has defeated Jin'e with his Sou-Ryuu-Sen and Kaoru has broken free of the Shin-no-Ippou to stop Kenshin from killing his opponent. When Jin'e appears behind Kenshin and Kaoru, it appears that his self-hypnosis technique has worn off, and it seems to have cost him a lot physically speaking. As in the anime, the self-hypnosis inflated his physique, and now that it's worn off, he still looks muscular, but much thinner than before, with ribs showing.

The most crucial thing the manga adds however, is that after Jin'e stabs himself, he reveals a reason for his suicide not mentioned in the anime: if he survived and the police investigated the incident, it would uncover his patron. Yes, he says to Kenshin's shock that even ten years into the Meiji Era, power-hungry politicians are still playing the same shadowy games, using Hitokiri to destroy their political enemies. Jin'e met his end by straying outside his commission to fight Kenshin for his own enjoyment, but even at this price, for such an exquisite battle, he has no regrets.

After Kaoru has had it out with Kenshin for getting blood on her ribbon and they've gone home to the dojo, we finally see Yahiko and Sano again in the very last panel. Sano congratulates Kenshin on staying out with Kaoru until dawn. The rurouni takes it with a long-suffering sigh as Kaoru stalks from behind with a shinai...

My understanding is that Watsuki-san is (or at least was when he was working on RK) a big fan of American superhero comics, especially the work of artist Jim Lee. I dislike superhero comics myself, but I adore RK even in occasional places where that influence shows through, as it does in the case of Kurogasa. Am I the only one who notes striking similarities of character design between Kurogasa and Gambit of Marvel's X-Men? His hairstyle and headpiece (what would you call that anyway? It's like a hood with holes for his ears and hair) are similar, and combining that with the reversed eyes, it's just hard not to notice the resemblance. For broader connections to the superhero genre, what is that black stuff he's wearing under his kimono? Lycra(TM) hadn't been invented yet, it wouldn't cling to the contours of the human body like that if it had, and the alien technology the X-Men use to explain it is definitely out, so I'm forced to conclude that that's some kind of body paint. And then Kurogasa uses his self-hypnosis technique to give himself the classic superhero physique. I must confess, even as adoring an RK fan as I am, I just can't watch him do that with a straight face. It cracks me up every time. (Where Battousai just looks up from examining his fingernails to ask "Are you done?")

Speaking of combat techniques, comparing this battle with the one in episode 5, the fight choreography is already looking much better, although it's still not nearly as good as it will be. Certain shots---Kenshin and Kurogasa repeatedly running into each other and bouncing back along perfectly straight paths, the shots over each of their shoulders as they run really fast circling each other, the blade-flashes superimposed on portrait-shots---still look kind of cheesy, and the brassy, festive soundtrack is good action music, but it seems out of touch with the gravity of the moment. Anticipating an opponents' moves will remain an important part of Kenshin's technique, but the way he rattled off the names of Jin'e's stances here came across as pretty clunky. Nonetheless, it's a big improvement, and this fight looks good overall.

As I mentioned in the notes, the Kurogasa story is a major turning point in the series in a lot of ways. This is the first time we see Kenshin confronted by an enemy he can't easily defeat, and as a direct result, it's the first time we see him become Hitokiri Battousai.

To balance that out, it's also our first hint at a deeper relationship between Kenshin and Kaoru. Kaoru's love for Kenshin is clear; the story doesn't go out of its way to cast it in a romantic light, but that is the not-too-subtle hint. His feelings for her are more difficult to peg. We see that he cares for her enough to become Battousai again---to essentially throw away his life---to save her, but it seems to me to be in Kenshin's character to sacrifice himself for pretty much anyone. Perhaps he wouldn't be driven into Battousai mode for just anyone, but still, it isn't necessarily a sign of unique affection; in fact, the manga ascribed this Battousai-triggering level of attachment to Sanosuke as well as Kaoru---at Tani's house in the manga, Kurogasa apparently found the opponent he was looking for by wounding Sano, and even said when he snatched Kaoru that he wanted Kenshin "angry like when I broke that rooster's arm." The lack of exclusivity clouds the waters for Kenshin and Kaoru's relationship status (although from another point of view, I'm not a fan of alternate pairings regardless of sexual orientation, but as alt pairings go, I find Kenshin/Sano uncommonly believable). Not that I'm complaining. I'm more on the psychological/emotional/shoujo-fan end of the spectrum, but I actually like the fact that the romance in RK is very slow and subtle, and in light of the issues we're discovering now (and future revelations especially) I can see where Kenshin has a lot of baggage to sort through before he's ready for a romance.

The broader Battousai issue is, I think, more central than the relationship angle. In the first few episodes, Kenshin's role was basically that of the local god in our machine. Whatever dangerous tangles the rest of the cast got into, throw Kenshin at the problem and everything gets solved. It served to ground us on how extremely formidable he is---a major structural element of the story---but if the series had gone on like that, it would've been not only boring but ultimately dehumanizing for Kenshin. Thankfully that role began to break down with Sanosuke's intro---his justified hatred of the Isshin Shishi was too complex and human a problem for Kenshin to entirely solve by kicking butt and taking names, and now with Kurogasa, the tables have turned on our poor rurouni entirely. Physically, his sword still saves the day, but on the psychological level where the stakes are if anything higher, Kurogasa strikes to the heart of Kenshin's ultimate vulnerability, his danger of losing hold of himself and his beliefs and succumbing to the killer inside him. For the Kenshin we love, it would be a kind of death (or maybe a fate yet worse), and in that inner battle, his incredible sword-skills are more threatening than helpful. Indeed, he was lost, until Kaoru found the strength to break Kurogasa's Shin-no-Ippou and save him.

My point, I suppose, is that this is the story that rounds out Kenshin's character by revealing his weakness and starts to bring out his pivotal character issues, issues that are dealt with further and ultimately resolved in the Kyoto Arc (at least according to my take). They basically remain on hold until then, but they are what I use to read an overarching plot into Rurouni Kenshin's collection of adventures, so take note of the Kurogasa eps; they'll be on the final. ^_~