Come Back to Life

Do you believe in reincarnation?

Sure, my sadly lapsed christian doctrines have incessantly drummed into me the fact that the glowing hereafter only consists of cheery, acapella-singing saints in unfashionable white frocks, shiny halos and gilded harps but something deep inside me believes differently. After all, we frequently make mistakes the first time round after all. Never actually get it right when we first start out that greay adventure so why not try it out all over again? Surely we're given a second chance to repair that karmic blunder we made in our previous lives.

Rewind. Restart. Reboot. Begin afresh.


We all deserve a second chance, don't we?
After all if no one ever comes down for that second time, all the souls from the beginning of time would be filling heaven pretty much to the brim by now wouldn't you think?

You ever get the feeling of deja vu so strong you're almost 100% positive that you've been to a certain place before? Well I have. A couple of times in the most peculiar locales. From a particular cobble-stoned alley set way behind the main streets in Edinburgh to one of the pleasure gardens hidden from view in the Forbidden Palace.

True, I could have an overactive imagination as well :)

Yet I felt that odd sense of familiarity.

Not everywhere though. Probably only in a handful of places where I lived a quiet, nondescript life, maybe a lowly peasant carving out a living on the land. I doubt I've lived that many lifetimes after all :) I must be a pretty young soul.

So what if you found out you were actually the spirit of a vanquished Japanese warlord tasked to rid the earth of vengeful spirits collecively called the Feudal Underworld for eternity? Me, I'd have gone all Way of the Samurai, slicing and dicing my bloody way across the ancient city making chopped liver of bad guys with my magical katana.

But in the anime Mirage of Blaze, the scrappy high school rebel Takaya Ohgi ( with considerably less bloodthirst than me ) finds himself in a quandary instead when he learns that he's actually the reincarnation of Lord Kagetora Uesugi, the adopted son of a noble samurai lord, Kenshin Uesugi. What more, Nobutsuna Naoe, the silent, studly hunk he initially takes as a mentor turns out to have shared a mysterious, stormy relationship with him in the past.



Not the sorta music I'd have chosen but hey, for the intense emotions blazing between the duo, I guess you do need something loud.