The second season of the mythology-themed action adventure anime Sengoku Youko kicked off its Chaos of a Thousand Demons Arc today with Episode 1, and a new trio of main characters versus its first season.
It was a solid start for Season 2, beginning with decent production values, a very fast-paced plot for a first episode, and the main leads heading off on what will hopefully be an interesting quest.
Here then is our Sengoku Youko, Season 2, Episode 1 recap.
Sengoku Youko, Season 2, Ep 1, “Thousand Demon Night March” recap
The new season begins with a dragon that, it soon turns out, is being dreamt about by Senya — the small boy and major demon hunter we were quickly introduced to, along with his father Jinun, in Season 1.
This time, however, Senya is alone with Shinsuke who, while Senya wakes up in bed alone, is outside chopping wood and talking about a band of katawara bandits on the loose.
When Senya leaves his bed and ventures outside, it is only to see ronin Shinsuke and katawara Furukoke thankful that he is finally awake.
The problem is, Shinsuke soon finds out, Senya has no idea that Senya is his name and he definitely doesn’t recognize Shinsuke.
In fact, he can’t remember anything at all.
After getting bent out of shape about Senya’s lack of memory, Shinsuke finally decides to just leave things as they are. After all, it gives Senya a chance of starting over with a clean slate.
With that in mind, he kicks Senya out of the house, and tells him to find some friends and go play.
It isn’t long before he meets a young girl gathering firewood who knows who he is.
That is because she saw Senya falling from the sky, and creating a massive hole in the ground, before she ran off to tell Furukoke.
Her name is Tsukiko, and she is friends with three young boys who also soon show up and ask Senya if he wants to play at swordfights.
When he does, he easily beats the boys, but isn’t able to beat Tsukiko who, according to the boys, is the strongest person in the village.
Later that night while back at the hut with Furukoke and Shinsuke, Senya admits he had fun with his new friends.
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When Senya goes to bed, though, even while he thinks about that day being the first day of his new life, he is visited by thousands of katawara spirits while he sleeps.
Spirits that won’t let him forget who he is.
A little while later, he wakes up to find himself being carried towards a clearing by a huge kitawara. In the clearing he finds Tsukiko and the boys, who have also been stolen from their beds.
It turns out this is the band of katawara bandits Shinsuke was talking about when Senya first woke up, and they have kidnapped the children so they can eat them.
Senya, however, realizes he isn’t afraid. He is even less afraid a few seconds later when Shinsuke bursts onto the scene with his famous sword.
But Shinsuke being Shinsuke, and pretty much useless much of the time, he soon falls over and vomits as, yep, he is drunk.
That is why Tsukiko tries to kill one of the katawara by grabbing Shinsuke’s sword, but she is flung backwards as the sword can only be wielded by specific people.
This leaves Senya responsible for saving himself and the other children (and Shinsuke), which he does by growing enormous tree branches in place of his arms and hands and smashing the katawara bandits.
Soon the children’s parents arrive to find them, and are happy to see they are safe.
It is then that Tsukiko thanks Senya for saving them, while Shinsuke tells him he needs to get ready to leave the village as, due to the katawara bandits, it is no longer safe for them to be there.
As Shinsuke walks away, however, Senya turns to look behind him only to see a stranger in a shimmering haze waving at him and smiling.
The morning after, Senya wakes up to find Shinsuke drunk again.
A few minutes later, Tsukiko arrives to take Senya to her house to introduce him to her parents who want to thank him for saving their daughter.
After eating a meal with her parents, Tsukiko and Senya head outside together and, as she tells him she hopes he stays in the village, and he responds he would like to, the strange man Senya saw the night before arrives.
Senya immediately knows he is a huge threat, which is confirmed when the man turns into a spirit, attacks a villager and eats him.
Senya rushes at the man in an attempt to kill him, but is easily stopped, while he hears the spirits inside his own head screaming at him that the man is a “mad God”.
We then see several minutes of a fight scene with Senya attempting to kill the mad God, while Shinsuke helps, but failing.
Even though, by this point, Senya has grown enormous blades on the ends of his arms.
The fight ends after the God violently throws Senya who falls backwards and slams into Tsukiko’s father who has arrived to save his daughter from the God.
As he hits him, Senya’s enormous hands accidentally slice through his body, immediately killing the man as Tsukiko screams.
At this, Senya is so angry he goes after the mad God again and, this time, is able to kill him.
As the God dies, he apologizes for losing control of his mind, and tells Shinsuke ‘Beware of the five”.
Back at the hut while Senya sleeps, Furukoke asks Shinsuke who they really are, and Shinsuke replies “We’re looking for a fox — a thousand-tailed youko”.
He then tells Furukoke he and Senya will leave in the morning, as they cannot put the people in the village to any more trouble. Even as Furukoke tells him the villagers will not blame them for what happened.
Shinsuke is worried though, as he thinks the mad god was looking for Senya.
The following morning, Shinsuke and Senya say goodbye to Furukoke and leave the village, but are stopped by the three boys who want to say goodbye, and who give Senya a parting gift — a stone shaped like a cat.
They also ask him to come back to the village and visit them.
This upsets Senya, who believes everything that happened the previous day was his fault. But Shinsuke assures him it wasn’t.
In the final moments of the episode, the last person who is waiting for them on the road out of the village is Tsukiko who asks Shinsuke to take her with them as his student.
Sengoku Youko, Season 2, Episode 1, “Thousand Demon Night March“, the beginning of the Chaos of a Thousand Demons Arc is now streaming on Crunchyroll.
And yes, a Season 2 is already in the works.
