Taira no Kiyomori ep 41: Yoritomo started to trust Masako

Minamoto no Yoritomo (Okada Masaki), ep 41

This week’s TNK brings us more Matsuda Shota – I mean, Go-Shirakawa – mourning Shigeko with Lady Gion (Matsuda Seiko) by his side. We also had quite a lot of Yoritomo-Masako, to my glee, in addition to the budding bromance of Benkei and Yoshitsune.  In the Heike side, we have Taira no Shigemori starting to question his father’s action. Below is the summary from Auberginefleur:

In 1177, Saiko's son gets into a skirmish with Buddhist monks at a temple on Mt. Hakusan, and the incident escalates into a brawl, involving Buddhist monks of Enryakuji on Mt. Hiei. The cloistered Emperor Go-Shirakawa orders Shigemori to take up arms against the warrior monks, however, Shigemori's retainer accidentally hits the mikoshi (portable shrine) carried by the monks with an arrow, which triggers a new problem. To quell the disturbance, Kiyomori again leads his troops into Kyoto.

As you may be well aware now, I’m not a Japanese speaker. So I rely on several times watching TNK to understand what transpires in each episode (or at least in the scenes I’m interested in). Unfortunately, the Pandora TV site hasn’t uploaded ep 41 yet (they even deleted ep 40, OMG!), so I am just writing this based on my memory and notes (yes, I did make notes while watching TNK, in between stirring my risotto tonite!).  

[Edit 27.10.12: Click this (Pandora TV) or this (FC2) to watch  TNK ep 41 online.]

So anyway, we see Go-Shirakawa singing to the deceased Shigeko, with Lady Gion next to him. After some imperial/Heike scenes, we return to Izu. Some people came to Hōjō Tokimasa’s place. I have no idea what happened; I couldn’t catch a single phrase. Perhaps the people were the Heike men? Or were they the Genji? I doubt it. At this stage, I don’t think the Genji will show themselves as blatant as this. Nevertheless, Tokimasa (Endō Ken'ichi) was still concerned with what the guests said. 

Sweet To Kuro (Tsukamoto Takashi), ep 41

Hōjō Masako (Watanabe Anne) went to Yoritomo’s place and met Tō Kuro (Tsukamoto Takashi) in the yard. You gotta love Takashi as Yoritomo’s most loyal aide. His sweet smile was just what a fallen master needed during depression. Tō Kuro started to address Masako as 'Princess Masako' to show his respect on her position as Hōjō Tokimasa’s daughter. However, Masako dismissed the formality and insisted to be called just Masako. She then asked Tō Kuro what the fuss was with the sword that fell and made Yoritomo angry (in ep 40). Tō Kuro reluctantly told her that the sword was the Higekiri (Beard-Cutter), Genji's heirloom. However, Yoritomo (Okada Masaki) suddenly appeared and said something to Tō Kuro (perhaps, something along the line of ‘don’t talk to outsiders’ or the like).

Since she couldn’t retrieve the story from the loyal aide, Masako switched strategy and asked the master instead. She asked Yoritomo to show her the 'Sumekiri' (to which Yoritomo snapped and said 'it was Higekiri!'). Masako was like, 'Yeah, Higekiri, sorry. Could you please show me the sword?' She even bowed down on the ground, begging Yoritomo to tell her the truth, and nothing but the truth. After some reluctance, Yoritomo finally relented at Masako’s persistence.

Yoritomo invited Masako into his house. Inside, he explained the story of the Higekiri, which in essence told the story of Genji’s tragedy. He showed Masako the sword. Being a swordswoman, Masako was excited to see how beautiful the sword was. However, she became pensive when Yoritomo started to tell the legend behind the sword.

Yoshitomo (Tamaki Hiroshi) vs Kiyomori (Matsuyama Kenichi)

Higekiri apparently belonged to Minamoto no Yoshitomo, Yoritomo’s father. Yoshitomo used the sword during his last duel with Kiyomori. I think the sword fell into Kiyomori’s hand after Yoshitomo’s demise. Kiyomori used the same sword to attempt to kill Yoritomo, to no avail because Kiyomori’s mother begged him not to. Apparently, Kiyomori let Yoritomo kept the sword. Ever since, the young Genji son had kept it faithfully in the box. 

Afterwards, Masako started to make some comments about the sword and about something else (Genji vs Heike?). Doesn’t matter now. What I understood clearly was that Yoritomo actually smiled a bit when she talked! A real smile, albeit small, instead of a cynical smile he had been displaying for almost 10 episodes. OMG!

Yoritomo and Masako then started to talk about bushido (the samurai spirit) and dreams. God knows what they talked about, but they started to argue (again). Masako stood up and said something like Yoritomo should stand for the what the Genji elders have done. Yoritomo smiled and said that Masako was such a carefree woman. He said, ‘Kino wa kyō demo, kyō wa ashita demo, ashita wa kino demo’ (yesterday is but today, today is but tomorrow, tomorrow is but yesterday??). Tomorrow is unchanged. I think Yoritomo said something like, whatever you do, nothing will change what should happen. Tomorrow is tomorrow, he wouldn’t know what would happen tomorrow.

Of course Masako disagreed. I think she said something like, we can change tomorrow based on what we do today. Yoritomo still doubted her opinion, but he smiled once again before leaving her guest alone.

After some Heike/Imperial scenes (which I didn’t bother to take notes, my head hurts), near the end of the episode, we’re shown Hōjō Tokimasa talking to Masako. I like this Tokimasa, he was different from the Tokimasa that would order the demise of Yoritomo’s sons. 

Baby Ushiwakamaru and his mother, Lady Tokiwa

 The scene switched to Shanaō (young Yoshitsune) playing flute, replaying his off-screen meeting with Benkei. Apparently, before Benkei was a monk, he was a general in Yoshitomo’s army. He actually held baby Ushiwakamaru (Yoshitsune’s name when he was a child) in his arms for a while. Benkei then told Shanaō that the boy was actually a Genji. His father was the deceased Minamoto no Yoshitomo. He was saved from death when he was a baby. But in return, his mother Lady Tokiwa had to become Kiyomori’s concubine. After telling the story, Benkei gave Shanaō a sword to join the rebel against the Heike. However, to his surprise, Shanaō refused. Despite whatever happened in the past, Kiyomori had been kind to him. The overlord never hurt him or his mother. When Benkei persisted, Shanaō stormed out of the rustic hut where they talked and returned to his monastery.

The last scene showed us Yoshitsune playing flute, while his brother Yoritomo, miles away, playing shō. Masako was shown again, looking pensive. Then we saw Yoritomo with his shō again. It seems he was thinking about Masako and Kiyomori at the same time. 

Yoritomo and Masako in the rain, ep 42

Episode 42 will treat us with Yoritomo and Masako together under the rain. The spoiler seems to suggest that either Tokimasa insisted that Yoritomo married Masako, or Yoritomo made the exact move to marry the rascal girl. Arrrgh!!! I want to know what happens! Can’t episode 42 come tomorrow??

Edit 27 Oct 2012: 

Click this (Pandora TV) or this (FC2) to watch  TNK ep 41 online. Click this to read the complete scene-to-scene summary in Japanese.