it could very well have been cut down for timing reasons, couldn't it?
I wanted to say that I got to see the episode last night (thanks to my helper here
..) and loved it.
did you notice that the village from which usagi picks up kintaro is resembling closely the village in kurosawas film yojimbo?even the little tokage with the severed hand is an image taken from that movie
(in yojimbo it was a dog)..
loved that in particular!