Peacemaker

Publisher
ADV
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
24 episodes/ 25 minutes
Year
2003

Peacemaker Volume 4: A Path to Destruction

By noghri
6th Jun 06

What ADV said

Impatience runs rampant through both the Shinsengumi and Choshu camps. Stricken with cabin fever, both groups give in to rowdy behaviour. But though it may seem like fun and games, it masks a deeper, more volatile undercurrent of discontent… and escalating bloodlust. Still, no wounds are as deadly as the ones we inflict on ourselves. Caught up in the painful memories of his past, Tetsu’s hatred threatens to consume him, as it grows stronger. At the same time, Susumu questions his worth in light of his failure on the enemy front. Is he bound to the logical conclusion of the unforgiving warrior code - to commit seppuku?!

Review

After the pick up in pace from the last volume, I was initially surprised to see that this volume contains only three episodes, would this change the dynamic of the show again? Or would this volume seem lacking due to this? Well let’s read on and find out.

DVD Content (may contain spoilers)

This volume provides some development in the relationship between Tetsu and Yamanami, they start off spending time in the red light district house of ill repute. Yamazaki is continuing to enjoy his downtime spending time with only one of the women there, who he seams very familiar with.
Meanwhile, Tetsu spends his time hanging out with Suzu, whose master has ordered him to meet with the every same woman as Yamazaki, and Saya, who they discovered has started to work in the house as an apprentice. Saya's sitting there enraptured by Tetsu though she does a good job of hiding it and mostly just listens to the two young men talk. The pair has an interesting relationship so far but it's with this conversation that we get further depth into the similarities in their personalities and lives they also find out something more about each of their masters.

Suzu talks about Yoshida while Tetsu goes on about Hijikata, each without revealing the names of their masters. Both of them reflect on how similar their two masters are with their dark looks, personality and overall nature. But when it comes to the attitude of the "pupil" towards their master the views differ greatly. Suzu has nothing but complete respect for Yoshida and would follow him to the ends of the Earth while Tetsu sees Hijikata as nothing but an overbearing creature that's intent on making his life complete hell.

The insight displayed in this section of the episode is very interesting and the method of exploring this topic is done well and it displays how each of them approach their daily lives.

This single moment turns out to profoundly affect Tetsu and sends him into memories of the past, of what happened to his parents and his family in general. It completely overwhelms him that he is lost in thought for many days to come after return to the Shinsengumi compound despite everybody’s attempts to rouse him. The way that his brother tries to deal with the situation is particularly revealing into how the boys have survived since the loss of their parents. Also the methods employed by each member of the Shinsengumi whilst trying to help him recover, goes to show exactly how the boys have been integrated into the social group contained within the compound.

The best episode of this volume, has got to be the last one , it provides nothing but comedy. It’s so ridiculous that I could not stop laughing. Taking place in the compound, Okita swipes a secret book from Hijikata, which is filled with all the haiku's that he's written. They are quite simply awful, and Hijikata goes all out to get the book back, we can see from this episode why he is referred to as the demon. Okita's gets Tetsu involved, while they are sitting laughing Hijikata realises the book is missing and tries to retrieve it, Okita passes the book to Tetsu. This results in Hijikata going completely insane with flames surrounding him and flies around the place looking for Okita. It spirals into other people seeing and reading the book and Hijikata adding them to his list of people to kill, all of it tied together with lots of jokes and humour, this is a fantastic way to round off the volume.

Thoughts

I thought this fell just short of the last volume, it was probably my second favourite so far in the volumes that have been released, it is still a little slow at developing the main plotline, but so has every other volume.
One question I asked at the beginning was concerning the reduction of episodes.
So has the reduction in episodes affected the show?, well it actually didn’t turn out to be an issue at all. The pace continues as the ‘filler’ episodes appear to have been abandoned, so now if anything the storyline appears to have been focused a little, with the exception of the final episode which is just pure fun.

Overall

As always with this series the main foundation is the depth to which the characters are explored, there are few series where so many characters are developed so deeply. I am very impressed with peacemaker and would recommend it to most fans of anime, my hope is that it continues to entertain me as much as we now move into the closing volumes of the series.

R2 DVD Notes

Features: Reversible Cover, Production fold out insert, Clean opening and closing animation, Production sketches, Voice actors commentry, Character collection 3: Toshizo Hijikata and character collection 4: Susumu Yamazaki

Release information: ADV RELEASE DATE: 20-03-2006

Notes: A DVD-only release, including four episodes in English 5.1- and Japanese 2.0-language, with English subtitles. Extras include: clean open and close animation; production sketches; Character Collections 3 and 4; original Japanese DVD spots; Commentary with Luci Christian (Tetsunosuke), Mike MacCrae (Toshizo) & Braden Hunt (Soji Okita); reversible cover; production foldout insert; and ADV Previews. RUNNING TIME: 100 RATING: 12 VIDEO FORMAT: DVD Region 2 AUDIO FORMAT: English 5.1, Japanese 2.0 SUBTITLES: English

-- noghri 6th Jun 06

Peacemaker Images