Congrats to Shabake, which won the Patron Pick ballot for this season in a close vote. If I’m totally honest it’s likely I would have wound up covering it anyway but the validation is still nice. It’s never the show I most look forward to on the weekend, nor the best. But it does have something to be sure. A certain quiet patience in its storytelling that betrays its novel origins. An air of comfortable warmth that’s often attached to Shinto-themed series. It’s not quite in “that” niche (I don’t think any series this season is) – it’s a bit too edgy and dark to neatly fit that bill. But it’s close enough to see it while passing by on the oxcart.

As teased last week, we got a Nikichi- well, not an origin story (who knows how far back that would go). But a background story at least. A thousand years or so, back to the Heian Era. Nikichi has had this sideman gig for a long time, it seems. For most of the intervening millennium he dutifully stood at the side of Oyoshi (Yoshino), a spirit who chooses to live among humans. Nikichi is in love with her, but those feelings were never reciprocated. In fact Oyoshi falls in love with a human named Lord Bell. But humans in any era are short-lived compared to youkai, and certainly that one. After only five years he passed away, leaving her bereft but determined to wait for him to be reborn and return to her side.

Nikichi is skeptical of this. How would they even recognize each other? But he’s not a romantic, even in the “present”. And the man does return – twice in fact, each time separated by a few centuries. In total Oyoshi only has two years with Lord Bell before death calls for him again. But still she waits, and still Nikichi suffers. Surely there were many times over the passing centuries when he thought about ending their relationship, but he stubbornly refuses. And after some 550 years Lord Bell finally does return, but the circumstances are even more tragic this time as the two lovers never even meet.

This is a sad story, no doubt. But for me, sadder for Oyoshi than for Nikichi. She has no obligation to love him, and he’s free to leave her side any time he wants. His misery is his own choice – on some level he blames her, but it’s not her fault. He chooses the pain of being close to her but never with her over the pain of being parted. But Oyoshi’s dedication to the ideal of true love is truly tragic. Admirable in its way – she’s ever-faithful, and a thousand years is a long time even for a spirit. But her rewards are fleeting, each time. Nikichi says Lord Bell finally did return one more time, a hundred years prior, but not why he chose to finally end their relationship.

As for Ichitarou. he’s not much of a presence in this episode. It’s clear that Nikichi devotion to him is genuine – stronger than he’s felt towards any human, to be sure. But their association too promises to be a brief one from Nikichi perspective, even if Ichitarou weren’t frail and weak. For his part Ichitarou is insistent on living his life for however long it’s his to live, which is an admirable quality in him. Perhaps its the reminder of his impermanence that Nikichi tale provides that prompts him to go once more to his brother – but this time as himself, to reveal the truth of their bond. Boldness comes naturally to Ichitarou – a reflection, I think, of how little he feels he has to lose.