Talk:Katsugeki Touken Ranbu/@comment-85.203.21.3-20180927131528/@comment-108.67.105.101-20180929132330

For me, Katsugeki is in that no man's land of not quite well written enough to genuinely enjoy, not the right kind of train wreck bad to have been fun, and too good in some respects (art, animation, score, loving attention to certain historical details) to completely dismiss. I will forever suspect that they were given a list of popular characters that they had to include and tried to write around it, hence the weird randomness of which characters were where. I should make myself rewatch it some time to see if I can catch anything that sparks me to put together what they were going for.

I'm fine with the idea of them ultimately forgiving Horikawa (though the complete lack of any real resolution was frustrating). I also think a better written version of his plot could have worked. But I see the comparison to the end of Hanamaru a lot, and would argue the situation was very different. Following an entire season of slow build and reflection, Yasusada went out of his way planning their mission to avoid seeing the Shinsengumi, and had no intention of doing anything more than his job. He encountered Okita accidentally and went into something like a fugue state when Okita adressed him directly and expected he was there to fight with him. He snapped out of it after being physically restrained and yelled at/talked down by Kashuu, and came away realizing that he wasn't over this. He then went on a Saniwa-sanctioned kiwame journey.

Probably the closest parallel in Hanamaru was with Honebami, though it was still not quite the same. But like with Horikawa, it at least involved some forethought and a plan of action, rather than just sort of happening. (Though the show still established that Honebami had just experienced some trauma and wasn't feeling well, which drove his action.) The whole group who inapprpriately used the time traveling device also seemed to have ended up in some trouble, at least. (The interesting thing about Honebami's plot was that his motivation came solely from feelings he had developed for his brothers in human form, rather than from having a foot in the past.) Fudou is the better comparison to Yasusada, though again, it's pretty different, since Fudou had only just manifested and had no particular reason to feel anything for his new situation yet.