Samurai X, also known as Rurouni Kenshin, has been one of my favorite television series since a child. To date, it is still one of the most talked about animated productions by millions of people around the world. What made Samurai X stand out to many back in the day is that despite its “cartoony nature” it generally contained mature subject matter that was vital to us humans understanding realities of life and how we can live it better. But episode 63 in the, called Legend of the Fireflies was different. It was the one episode of Samurai X that literally changed me.
Samurai X: episode 63
{Spoiler Alert}. The episode centered around an old fisherman who meets up with Kenshin (the protagonist); the fisherman begins to tell Kenshin a story. This story is about a teen boy who practices swordsmanship in a dojo with a wooden sword; he is forever unmatched by his peers. The teen, tired of his success, begins to want more. He wishes to practice with a real sword and to put his life at risk. He believes it’s the only way he could become stronger and become a true swordsman.
Simultaneously there is a girl secretly in love with the boy who prays every day at the same location. Her wish is that the boy would eventually return her feelings for him, which he eventually does. But one day the aspiring teen swordsman gets his own wish. He unexpectedly gets caught up in a confrontation. The teens witnesses a mysterious swordsman murdering a group of soldiers in the speed of light. Each solider dies with no expression on his face.
Astonished, the boy picks up one of the swords from the fallen soldiers and kills a few men for the first time in his life. Unsatisfied that he didn’t kill them quickly enough, the boy becomes agitated. He yearns for more.
Samurai X: episode 63 … it continues
{Spoiler Alert}. The boy eventually speaks to his girlfriend and confesses that he has killed. He promises her that he would wander to different places to kill many more; he won’t rest until he masters the exact technique the mysterious swordsman had murdered the soldiers with. He would go on killing year after year, becoming more and more agitated whenever he didn’t kill men quickly enough to leave them emotionless.
Then one day, after over 20 years of killing, the boy is now a man. Surprisingly, he crosses paths with the mysterious swordsman whose life he had relentlessly shadowed for so long. They battle and he kills the mysterious swordsman. Abruptly afterwards, he realizes the man died with no expression on his face. Finally, after so long, he had done it! He not only mastered the ultimate sword technique but he surpassed the only man who knew it.
And then … he took a good look at the master swordsman he had killed. And an unusual level of sadness overtook him. He felt as though he had spent his entire life chasing an illusion; he would then spend many years haunted by the memories of all the innocent lives he claimed.
Samurai X: episode 63 … the end
{Spoiler Alert}. The man quits wandering and returns home. He then finds out that his girlfriend had spent the last 20 years praying each day at the same location for him to return. Sadly, he also discovers that she passed away and that she died while still in love with him. His world crashes yet another time and pure emptiness is all he feels.
The story ends and predictably it’s revealed that the boy in the story was indeed the fisherman. Now an old man, he is extremely humble. His goal in the present is to live a most honest and compassionate life to atone for his sins.
How that episode of Samurai X changed me
Now, before the fisherman started his story he said it is about “A man who was once young and full of hope but now he’s old and grey.” After the story ends he leaves Kenshin with the message, “A man probably only meets one woman in his life that he would never forget.”
This story touched my heart in so many ways because I was once the striking resemblance of that teen boy fighting with the wooden sword. I was becoming better and better at what I do but it was costing me more than I realized. I then put things into a different perspective.
Instead of chasing after the highest level of success, I started imagining having already obtained it and then asking myself, now what? Suddenly, the illusion I had been chasing disappeared. I had already become good at what I do, I hadn’t yet lost everyone and everything around me and I still had health and life. Now, instead of being grossly focused on becoming the greatest of all time, I just write.
