YMMV / Sano Ichiro

• Replacement Scrappy: When Lord Matsudaira took over as Sano's main antagonist, the general consensus was that he wasn't as good an antagonist as Yanagisawa.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: After Sano calls out the Shogun's weaknesses, Tsunayoshi agrees with him and declares his intentions to turn around his behavior. Then the final book starts five years after this event in order to show the Shogun being stabbed. While he does initially survive the stabbing and is shown to be more assertive than in books past, his physically weakened state makes him unable to proceed as usual. Whatever complications Sano's investigations might've had with a more competent Shogun at the helm are left unexplored.
• The Woobie: After obtaining a severe injury that gives him a limp, Hirata's character arc turns into a slow descent towards his own destruction. While becoming a martial arts expert does improve his self-esteem significantly, it also turns him into a target for a group of three fellow martial artists. They trick him into joining their group with the allure of learning more fighting techniques. It isn't until much later that Hirata learns that they intended to use him in order to further their own goal of restructuring Japan by taking out the Tokugawa shogunate. This includes turning him into a host for a vengeful ghost named General Otani, who forces Hirata to do his bidding or he'll kill Sano. Throughout it all, Hirata tries to overcome General Otani's influence or figure out ways to get rid of him, but since they share a body, the General can easily see through his schemes. By the time Hirata sacrifices his body for the safety of Sano, you want to weep along with Midori and Sano as they watch their beloved husband and closest friend respectively pass away.