Episode 14 of Katana Maidens ~ Toji No Miko is one that focuses on families – more specifically, Mai and Ellen’s families.
There’s also the mystery of the hooded Toji, and more hints about that are dropped as well.
Mai with her younger sisters
Let’s start by meeting the Yanase family. Mai has two younger sisters, Shiori and Mio. Their parents arrive home shortly afterwards.
Mai’s parents
Mai’s parents want Mai to transfer out of Minoseki Academy, as it has become more dangerous to be a Toji as of late. They even have a school already decided for her. However, Mai doesn’t want to do that at all; she is a Toji after all.
Mai’s parents decide to give her some time to think about it.
A mysterious Toji defeats a powerful aradama with a single blow
Elsewhere, a group of Toji struggle to subdue an aradama. When it looks like one of them is about to meet their fate, a Toji wearing a hood appears out of nowhere, defeats the aradama with ease and then just takes off.
Following that, Mai’s dad takes Mai to a facility where they are researching tamahagane steel – the material that okatanas are made of. In that facility, Mai meets two researchers.
Kimitake and Jacqueline Kohagura
The surname Kohagura should be familiar – the two researchers are Ellen’s parents. Their research into tamahagane steel involves using it to removing the impurities of noro. I don’t know about anybody else, but that seems like they are just asking for trouble…
There are also a couple of familiar faces present as well.
Richard Friedman is there, too
Richard suggests that noro has consciousness and a will, and he wants to be able to communicate with it in order to try and find out what the best thing to do with it is. He’s even named a particular piece of noro ‘Nemo’.
Ellen is there to keep an eye on things
Ellen is pleased to see Mai again, greeting her with a hug. Ellen is there on a mission – Richard specifically chose her in order to get the whole family back together. That doesn’t really happen too often – Mai’s family aren’t together too often, either.
Though Ellen may not see her family that much, she receives a birthday present from her dad every year. The dress she is wearing is one such present – whilst its not practical for sword fighting, she figured she would wear it where her dad could see.
Kanami and the others take a look at footage of the mysterious Toji
Changing gears for a moment, Kanami is asked to identify the mysterious Toji who took down the aradama earlier on in the episode. Kanami is pretty confident that it is Maki Shidou, much like Kaoru suggested previously.
A mysterious Toji shows up at the research facility
Talking of mysterious Toji, one just appears at the research facility and steals the noro that Richard named Nemo. Mai and Ellen confront her. As Mai’s dad, and Ellen’s family watch them fight, Richard has a few things to say about how their children grow up faster than they realise.
Mai and Ellen fight, but ultimately their enemy is able to escape.
Afterwards, Mai’s dad gives up on getting Mai to transfer – it seems his talk with Richard as well as seeing Mai fight has made him rethink that.
The Yanase family eat breakfast together
This is where the episode ends – well, almost. There’s a stinger after the credits, which gives us a hint about the identity of the Toji who attacked the facility.
Yukina and Yomi kneel upon her return, and call her ‘princess’
Perhaps Princess Tagitsu was able to survive Hiyori’s attack…
This was a fairly decent episode, and it seems like there are two mysterious Toji running around hiding their faces with hoods. It has been strongly suggested that one is Maki – both Kaoru and Kanami would attest to that.
As I’ve already mentioned, my guess is that the other mysterious Toji is Princess Tagitsu. It’ll be pretty interesting to see whether that proves to be true or not.
Mai’s family stuff in this episode was all right, I suppose. It was resolved almost as quickly as it was introduced, so I guess we won’t need to worry about it overstaying its welcome.
I’m far more interested in the mysterious Toji, though.
Rory Muses 