It’s hard to believe we’ve got five episodes left after this. More or less I would get, but five seems a little awkward.
The main gist of this episode is that the team is giving three days to redeem their honor or the Shinsengumi will be disbanded. To do this, Ichibanboshi is imprisoned and the rest go hunting after a ronin gathering forces in the city, likely to do with the Masked Demons. Ichibanboshi busts out of prison and conducts his own investigation, finding the sister of his dead drinking buddy from the last episode.
Both teams arrive at the same conclusion, whether through their lower city contacts, Akira dealing with the weird “dresses as a geisha” guy, or Ichibanboshi talking with the sister. This results in the main group making an arrest and Sakuya torturing information out of their target, while Ichibanboshi recieves insider information on the same plot, but with a different hideout.
The evil plan seems to be to burn the city down during a festival and, in the confusion, make off with the Emperor in order to take power out of the hands of the shogunate. Since the event itself is set to be inside the Shinsengumi’s deadline, it’s desperately important which of the two sites (or both) will need to be raided to stop the massive arson. The episode ends with Ichibanboshi, stating his resolve to save the day even if he has to give up his life, being accepted back into his role and the team getting ready to roll out.
All in all… this episode actually felt a little light. I know why it’s here and why it sort of has to take up a whole episode, but compared to previous entries we don’t really get a lot of character and the plot movement I feel could have been dealt with in a slightly cleaner way. Part of this is that we really have to double or even triple up on the investigation beats, with Akira being sexually harassed by her contact while Ichibanboshi takes a stab from a fairly upset grieving little sister and Gyatarou and Sakuya continue to prove themselves the most competent of the substitutes, though in the latter case his directness and lack of moral compunctions is implied to be something that could come back to bite him.
There really isn’t much more to say; the show is on autopilot, which is entirely fair for what it is, just a forgettable little period action piece with some light fantasy elements. Nothing more, but nothing less either.