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Come listen to us chat about one of our favorite shows of the year!
We’ll be taking a short break after this until early January.
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:13 The Heike Story
- 23:29 Outro
Music Credits
- “Clover 3” by Vibe Mountain
- The Heike Story OP: “Hikaru Toki” (When the Light Shines), by Hitsujibungaku
- “Seasons” by roljui
Heike Monogatari really was a diamond in the rough. The ending floored me completely! In a great way. It’s the sort of anime that reminds me why I’m an anime fan.
Draggle is mostly correct that Biwa’s character is an anime-only invention. She’s based on the ‘biwa hoshi’ who were storytellers who propagated the Heike’s legend through oral and musical tradition (hence the musical interludes where Biwa strums her… uh, biwa, while narrating). She’s a narrator-in-character.
Reading some Japanese tweets made me realize this 11-episode anime only scratches the surface of the Heike Monogatari. It’s a much more expansive epic than the anime. Some of the figures we see (Yoshinaka, Yoshitsune etc) have a much more in-depth background that the anime doesn’t really dig into. I don’t fault the anime for this though, there’s only so much you can cram into 11 episodes. Science Saru and Yamada Naoko-san did a fantastic job with all aspects of it.
Also thanks Marina for the Oddtaxi rec, I need to give that a watch now!