Taira no Kiyomori opening music & Yoritomo ep 32-34

Yoritomo, Yae-hime and baby Senserumaru (NHK)

I've been listening to the opening music of Taira no Kiyomori so many times. The music is so beautiful. Alas, I can't find the opening credit in YouTube or other embed-dable sites. However, I found this video on YouTube containing just the music (without the video), but that should be enough to give you a taste of how it good it is. Click here to watch the opening credit (it's actually the first ep of TNK with English sub).



 
Also, since there isn't enough Okada Masaki these days (I'm still waiting for the English-subbed of Space Brothers and Akko-chan), I watched ep 32-34 of TNK just to know what happened to Yoritomo. Well, as I posted earlier, in ep 32 Yae-hime and Yoritomo had a son. A kawaii son called Senserumaru. From what I saw in ep 32, it seems that Yae-hime was scolded by his family for getting pregnant with Yoritomo's offspring. But Yoritomo insisted that he would protect Yae and the baby. So, when the baby was already delivered, Yae took the baby boy to see his father. Yoritomo's surprise and happiness were very apparent. For a while, he believed that he could be happy again.

Baby Senserumaru, NHK screen cap

It seems that Yoritomo lived together with Yae-hime and Senserumaru for a few months. But then, Yae's father, Lord Ito Sukechika returned from his off-island trip (they lived in a small island in Izu called Hiruga Kojima). Sukechika wasn't happy at all that his daughter had a baby boy with the exiled Yoritomo, such that he murdered Senserumaru right away and whisked her daughter away from Yoritomo. Not sure what happened to Yae-hime later, it seemed that she just disappeared from historical records. 

Yoritomo trying to save his baby boy, NHK

Then, as I suspected, in eps 33 and 34, Yoritomo was just shown for a maximum of one minute, gloomy and depressed. The only time he uttered a respond was when To-Kuro and Hojo Tokimasa talked about Kiyomori who were just taken ill and had a very high fever. Yoritomo snickered cynically and said something about (if I'm not mistaken) how it was still a much better fate than what he had now. 

It is actually a sad story. For the people of Shizuoka, the tale of Yoritomo and Yae-hime has become a legend on its own. Below is the picture of Otonashi Shrine said to be one of their dating places. Sobsobsob...

Otonashi Shrine, Shizuoka

But not to worry, Yoritomo, for at the end of ep 34, we are treated with the scene of Hojo Masako (Watanabe Anne) hunting ducks and shooting arrows, completely filthy and carefree. Yoritomo narrated the scene with something like, 'I didn't know what my future would be.' 

Well, Masako was to be his future. Ep39 and 40 cannot come soon enough!