The World Is Dancing

Episode 6

So, Oniyasha pretty much bombed that lion-dance competition against Zojiro, the representative of the Shinza Dengaku troupe. Even the shogun is ready to give up on his protege after such an embarrassing showing. However, as with all things in show business, failure is just another stepping stone to future success, and our boy ends up getting his next shot almost immediately. Thanks to both Zojiro's sportsmanship and the graciousness of a select few audience members who at least claim to have enjoyed Oniyasha's bizarre performance, the unbearable shame of the Kanze troupe has been forestalled for one more day.

It is interesting to see the fallout of Oniyasha's loss as it ripples across the cast. The Kanze troupe's reaction is predictable enough; their entire reputation is resting on whether or not Oniyasha can impress his royal patrons, after all. I wasn't expecting to see the shogun so upset since he was characterized as such an eccentric and relatively easygoing guy when The World Is Dancing introduced him. Yoshimitsu is a young warlord, and he is hungry for the respect and loyalty commanded by his forbears, so I suppose I can see how he would take the failure of his hand-selected artisan so personally. Oniyasha himself takes the loss the most personally, going so far as to fling himself into the river in his despair.

Obviously, we know that the kid cannot die here, but Oniyasha is clearly in need of some serious assistance if he is going to be ready for the rematch with Zojiro. This is where Kogane comes in, that village boy from the early episodes who I honestly didn't even realize had vanished from Oniyasha's life. As it so happens, Kogane also has a history with Zojiro since he was actually kicked out of the Shinza troupe before taking up with the kooky old monk, Toku. The increasing tensions between the Northern and Southern shogunate mean that Oniyasha cannot visit his friend as Yoshimitsu's dancer, but this is how Oniyasha arrives at the episode's great temptation. He may not be ready to give up his life, thank goodness, but he's seriously considering giving up dance and fleeing to the anonymous life of villagers like Kogane.

This cannot continue. Kogane fled to the village because he ultimately failed as a dancer, but there is a fundamental difference separating him from Oniyasha that explains why our hero is destined to return to that stage, no matter how angry or ashamed he is. The truth is, Oniyasha is not a dancer. He is simply filled with an overwhelming love for the stories of the earth and the people who toil in it, and dance is the only way to exorcise those stories from his soul. This is the lesson that the mysterious (but apparently quite tangible and human) white-haired man keeps trying to teach Oniyasha, and it's what he is slowly coming to understand as he gathers the stories of the people he encounters. As we see with the doomed old monk at the end of the episode, stories come at a cost, because life comes at a cost. The question is, how much longer does Oniyasha have to go until his art can fully do justice to the lives of the men and women that live and die all around him?

This was a very solid episode of The World Is Dancing, even if it feels very much like a lot of setup for whatever is coming next. That's just the nature of stories, I suppose. We have to have the ebbs and flows that bring the waves crashing to the shore. Let's hope our hero is becoming mature enough to make use of the stories that people like Toku are giving him.

Episode Rating:

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on BlueSky, his blog, and his podcast.

The World Is Dancing is currently streaming on HIDIVE.