No Sagiri or Gabimaru today!
Instead, we focus on the Emeshi girl, Nurugai, and the Executioners around her: Her assigned executioner, Tenza, and his blind mentor Shion.
We get from this a lot of Tenza and Shion’s history, how Tenza was a street punk who Shion took in, and how Shion trained him both out of kindness and out of regret for failing a former student who turned to crime. Tenza, it seems, has the same regard for Nurugai that Shion did for Tenza, and thus Shion accepts her. He even knows of a spot where the currents seem to lead away from the island.
Before they can really investigate that, though, they’re set upon by one of the flowery immortal gender-shifters. Any sort of talking doesn’t go over well and it turns into a running battle against the native foe. Eventually, Tenza ends up making a heroic last stand, fighting to the death (much to their enemy’s annoyance) and letting Shion and Nurugai escape, with Shion now taking charge of Nurigai per Tenza’s last wishes.
Now, that may not sound like a lot for this episode, but the backstory segments here are long and involved. And you might think, haven’t I blasted that before? Shows developing characters just as they kill them off?
I feel like there’s a difference between what’s here and what’s in, say, Magical Girl Raising Project. Here, we do get Tenza’s story pretty much as he’s dying, but it’s also very much Shion’s story. It’s not just hamfisted pathos for Tenza (the only moping is his momentary dying dream of what the potential in his life might have been), it’s an exploration of who Shion is and why the blind man is probably not going to let Nurugai down no matter what, given what’s brought them to this juncture.
All the same, I miss our leads, and while this episode was fine on its own I am kind of counting down to the more and more probable lack of a satisfying finale to the season. To my knowledge, Hell’s Paradise has not been announced for a second or later season of outing, which seems perilous with the pace they’re telling the story at.