The Japanese Boa Constrictor grows to approximately 10 tons and 100 meters long, and can also self-destruct shortly after death.
Introducing Ana, another Sanada ninja who wields ice powers. In addition, she’s Saizou’s childhood friend somehow from somewhere and she’s extraordinarily sexy. (How can she fight with ice wearing so little?)
That brief explanation isn’t only because I’m studying for+taking midterms this week, but also because she’s pretty much pushed aside right after her introduction for more of Isanami. Ana appears for maybe two minutes tops through the whole episode. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, since Isanami’s way more important to the story.
Speaking of Isanami, it was good to see her performing the dance/ritual for the festival and showing that she’s actually a priestess. Because, other than that, she kind of seems totally useless, seeing as she’s been getting saved by Saizou about once every three minutes – probably five or six times total in the first two episodes. That explains why she’s so attached to Saizou, I guess. She’s kind of cute as well as annoying when she goes clingy on Saizou, I’d say leaning more to the cute side at this point. And even though Saizou keeps Isanami at a distance, he’s warming up to her for sure.
The episode also bring with it the villain (well, at least the first one) of the story, the unnamed-guy-behind-a-shutter. Since Hattori Hanzo is his subordinate, he has to be Tokugawa Ieyasu, though. He’s limited to about three seconds of screen time, though, and Hanzo gets a lot more. Hanzo’s clearly the most badass character of several contenders, clinching the spot by beating down Saizou pretty quickly and almost killing him. Hanzo echoes Saizou’s remark in the first episode about really strong people, and Saizou’s defeat probably comes as a huge blow to him since it seemed like he was acclaimed as a genius. He probably rarely fought anyone close to his level before, but now there’s Sasuke/Rokurou/Hanzo/probably Ana and more to come.
Historical triviality: It was cool to see the women of the castle patrolling around with naginata. Being able to take arms and defend from attack if the men were absent was something prized by historical Japanese women. Slightly less cool to see them used as sacrificial characters for Hanzo. Killing old women is bad!
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Brian
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Bokutachi no BLOG 
At least there’s another female character in the cast, and judging from the OP, Ana is bound to appear more (she’s most likely one of the “Brave 10” that Sanada is trying the recruit). I was beginning to find Isanami a tad bit annoying. Sure, she’s got this killer dark power but I dislike fighters who don’t know what they’re are doing. But then again, considering the context, I’m not surprised.
From the short transition-from-commercials screen, you can see the ’10 Braves’ – with the not yet introduced characters blackened out. Ana’s one of them, and apparently so is Isanami. Very curious and doubtful of whether she’s gonna actually do any fighting though.