The moon waning as Sano trains was some surprising attention to detail. The moon really was waning in the second half of May 1878, with last quarter on May 24.

The first conversation with Anji during training was good filler. The second one, I’m not so sure, but it worked.

There are four acts that make a monk immediately fall from the religious life and make him ineligible to ever become a monk again in this lifetime: sex, murder, grand theft, and false spiritual claims. Anji didn’t fall from desire, so what did he do? (Don’t answer that.)

This is the first episode so far this season that adapts only 2 chapters and adds several original scenes to fill out the runtime.

I liked the new scenes.

The much-expanded Senkaku fight was silly, but he’s never not going to be silly.

This episode was a noticeable improvement over the previous one, which itself was above the show’s running average. I’m getting my hopes up for the quality of the rest of the season, if not their odds of getting to chapter 128 at their current 3-chapter-per-episode pace.

The preview for this week’s episode is mostly Aoshi monologuing, but it’s funny rather than insightful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh0ciz8yWDk

I think the first anime handled Aoshi’s thought process in this episode more clearly. In this one it’s as opaque as the manga, even though Aoshi got a little more camera time.

Solid. Compared to the old anime, music isn’t quite as good, bloodier, more focus on Aoshi.

Seems more promising than last season, but I’m not sure how they plan to get through the entire arc in just 23 episodes at this pace.

Dragon Quest has lost both its composer and its designer within two and a half years. I assume Dragon Quest XII is far enough along to complete and release, but this might be the end of the series.

Filler arcs, such a common cause of show death.