MovieChat Forums > Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan: Tsuioku Hen (2000) Discussion > Two questions

Two questions

posted 11 years ago by Fffianist
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I am in love with this OVA. The music, the animation, the way the two stoic characters' emotions and aims are represented through intimate object, is all brilliant and it's a shame this isn't popular enough to even warrant a full IMDB synopsis.
Two questions, though...

1. Where is the OST Shades of Revolution featured? ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCyQh40Biis ) In the movie, when Kenshin decides he's going to murder for Katsura it plays up until about 2:21 then it stops, which is a shame because 4:23 is my favourite part of the entire soundtrack. Is it used any where else in the OVA that I missed?

2. What's the significance of Otsu? And the statue in the last episode? My knowledge of Japanese symbolism is horrendous. In the fourth episode Kenshin is wandering through the snow after defeating three of the four ninjas and he falls over. Then he starts having a dream or hallucination about wandering through a dark place with lots of those red flowers that were native to the area where he killed Kiyasato. He's walking past lots of people talking about Tomoe and himself. Then it shows really nice shots of the Otsu scenery and he starts yelling into the wind about going to Otsu. Don't get me, wrong, it was very chilling and he was barely strong enough to even walk at the time, let alone think, but it left me so confused.

[–] vicdaman 11 years ago

1. My guess is that Shades of Revolution was an unused track. It could have been originally intended to play during the final fights but wasn't because the second half of the song didn't fit the mood. (love that part though.)

That's only my speculation, based on where it was placed in the OST. Right before Kotowari.

2. I believe Otsu's significance is based on the fact that in Otsu Kenshin was at his happiest he's ever been in his life. By the point you mentioned in the film, he just wanted to return to that moment in his life, with Tomoe, and live happily ever after. As a simple farmer, with the woman he loved. In Otsu.

[–] ScarredSwordHeart 11 years ago

I think Otsu was used just because that's the countryside closest to Kyoto. The statue by the roadside was Jizo, the boddhisatva who looked after miscarried babies and children who died before turning seven (called mizuko or "water children" in Japanese). The significance of his appearance leads me to believe that Tomoe was pregnant and miscarried in that scene where we see her sitting in the outhouse and the flow of blood.