Board Thread:Anime/@comment-26032509-20170909162713/@comment-32886675-20170910121712

I wouldn't have thought of the possibility of Jinbeizaki, leaving Horikawa in the past to live up until  Hakodate battle. It would be an interesting thought, but to me it wouldn't match with Horikawa wanting to change Hijikata point of view on the warrior life and changing to another goal in life; with this kind of goal and 3 years to go by, he'd rather get close to Hijikata in his human form and try and change him by telling him things in advance for example and getting in his good graces. But definitely not staying in the shadows until the battle.

And to follow-up with the comment on Katsugeki Saniwa loving drama, and the title of next episode, it would be almost as if the Saniwa would send back 2nd unit (with or without Horikawa) to Hakodate battle (I must confess I don't care where I send my toudan to battle in-game as I still haven't memorized the kanjis of the different maps, and anyway, I'm not very good in Japanese battles / incidents history ^^;; )

Honestly, I was surprised with Horikawa in this ep. I thought he had taken his decision last ep, whereas it appears he's been mulling over a course of action during the whole time. And I'm even more surprised he'd submit to Kane's judgment without bulging. I'd rather think he'd pretend to submit to "test" Kane-san, but he'd parry at the last moment. I guess it all hinges on his real motivation: is he doing all this for Hijikata or for Kane-san? If it's Hijikata, he can't stand there and allow to be destroyed. If it's Kane-san, he'll lay out his life, because if he was wrong in his assumptions about Kane-san shedding tears for his old master, then he deserves to die; but if he were right, he'd assume he'd go and risk his life to make Kane-san realize his true feelings of wanting to save Hijikata in spite of his current master ("follow your heart rather than reason").

Somehow the true character at stake here seems to be Kane-san rather than Horikawa who's acting like a catalyst to question Kane-san's heart, which is an very interesting twist compared to Hanamaru that was more straightforward. There is an intense dynamics between these 2 that is new compared to Hanamaru and I actually don't care that much anymore about both series following the same generic trope, as the treatment and characters development differs so much :)