Forum - View topicRurouni Kenshin (TV 1996 + movie + OAVs).
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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Just finished watching Kyoto arc. It was great, as good as YuYu or other classical shonen anime from 1990s.
As always, this one has suffered from "fighting corpses syndrome" (where heroes are beaten to death many times in row and still fight), but it is forgivable because it is great anyway. Less usual is the fact that most of the fights were combined with psychological therapy sessions for one of the parties. It might seem overboard, but it works because main law of drama is that characters at the end have to be not equal to themselves at the beginning -- simply speaking, character development is present, not just purely dumb fighting. |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11305 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Awesome. Now prepare to be wowed by the OAV. Tsuioku-hen is, by far, my all-time favorite piece of anime. It's so epic, and yet so tragic at the same time. It will probably be a total shock to you in terms of the mood change. Tokyo was light, Kyoto was dark, but Tsuikou-hen is downright brutal in its violence and storytelling. It's the perfect setup for the Jinchuu arc, though, and will put a lot of things (both in Kenshin's past and the progression of the arc) into perspective. Enjoy.
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Bugnin
Posts: 575 |
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The first two OVAs are okay. They would be better if they weren't a kenshin story. It works as a really good standalone story, it just isn't a Kenshin type of story. EVen in the manga it isn't told like that.
The third ova is so terrible and insulting I deny its very existence. Last edited by Bugnin on Sun Oct 26, 2014 10:51 am; edited 2 times in total |
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vanfanel
 Posts: 1245 |
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Tsuioku-hen is brilliant.
Sousei-hen is...an expensive-looking fanfic. That's about the nicest thing I can say about it. New Kyoto-hen (the half of it I watched, at least) is an unmitigated disaster. (How could it be anything else trying to cram the whole Kyoto story into two episodes?) The sad thing is, the director described it in an interview as a "bridge" between "Tsuioku-hen" and "Sousei-hen," which means he's still under the impression that his above-mentioned fanfic is part of the story. Nobody else agrees! After the anime, we now have live action movies, about which I'll say: (General impressions follow, but don't read if you want to go with no expectations.) The first one is my favorite version of the material it covers. A lot of details are different, but what works in the source is molded and streamlined into something a lot more cohesive than the rambling Tokyo stories originally were. Respect for the source is balanced remarkably well with the need to adapt things for the format. There's also an excellent balance struck in the fight scenes, too: wild enough to be amazing, but not so over-the-top as to be ridiculous. The second film begins the Kyoto arc, and continues the quality of the first. And for the first time ever, I actually liked Misao. The third one...is good too, but its second half is where the lack of time needed to fit in everything starts to be an issue. I came out thinking, "They really should've made the Kyoto arc a trilogy." I do want to see it again, though, and re-evaluate it with more realistic expectations than I had going in. The good news is that the last two films have made a huge pile of money at the Japanese box office, so the possibility of Jinchuu films seems not-so-remote. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11305 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Actually, I have a theory with the live-action movies where they could create a 6-film saga:
1st film - Tokyo arc 2nd + 3rd films - Kyoto arc 4th film - Tsuioku-hen flashback 5th + 6th films - Jinchuu arc And once the entire story is told, Viz will dish out a hefty amount of money to license it and make boatloads more when they release it in the U.S. I nominate Viz, because, over in Japan, the films are distributed by Warner Bros, who also distributes a few titles for Viz, here in the states. So it would make sense for the international licensing and red tape to fall into Viz's hands more easily. Not to mention this would be a *great* tie-in to the manga, which they also already own. All they'd need after that is the license for the TV series, once Media Blasters' rights expire. Heck, maybe Viz will even put the series on BD at some point (albeit upscaled like Sailor Moon, but I'm definitely willing to try it and a new dub or subtitle track). |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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Yes, women voicing male characters was a thing in 1970s-1990s, but not any more. The third one is an "okama". Soujiro is too big for female voice, while Yahiko is fine.
Thanks for the trivia; a rare cases when something added in the anime that at least does not make things worse (or even, in my opinion, makes things better).
Too bad it was too short. It would love this manga/anime to last for hundreds of episodes. This is a type of shonen that I could watch forever (unlike school clubs, ecci harem, ridiculous mecha).
So, you are advising to skip the rest of original anime (episodes 62-95) as it is fillers, as well as "The Motion Picture" -- it is a filler, too? By the way, I do not know if it is in manga or not, but in episode #62 Kenshin answering with "oro" question on whether he used "oro" just earlier is super funny to me. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11305 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Heh, the irony in that is that Kamatari is played by the lady who does Naruto's voice (and also Gon in the first Hunter X Hunter series). So I guess you can say Takeuchi is still fairly active in the "women playing guys' voices" spectrum.
Yes, absolutely skip the filler episodes (63-95) and jump straight to Tsuioku-hen / "Trust & Betrayal" while Kyoto is fresh in your mind. The OAV will pretty much tell you everything about Kenshin's past: how he met his master, how he got the scar, who the tombstone belongs to, etc. Then after that, just read the manga from volume 19 to the end (do NOT watch Seisouhen / "Reflections"). You'll end up repeating the the Tsuioku-hen flashback again and will see the differences between the anime and manga, but there's also lot of other stuff before, after, and in-between it that will set up the Jinchuu arc from there. And yes, the "oro?" scene, along with everything else, is straight from the manga. The Kyoto arc is an unfiltered adaptation with no filler or add-ons, whatsoever (aside from the grandkids, I guess). If you want, you can go back and watch all the non-essential stuff: the movie, season 3 (popularly labeled as the Meiji arc), and even the 2nd OAV (just to see how insulting it is) after you finish all the important stuff just for completionist's sake. But it *really* pales in comparison to all the canon material, so I would recommend saving those for last. |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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Thanks again.
I was courageous enough to finish the anime to the end, whole filler "Meiji" arc. Obviously it was more superficial (with few ridiculous anachronisms), but still written on par or even better than most anime -- this does not say a lot since most anime is average/mediocre, but still. Many cute characters. There was even one more serious sub-arc, where psychological therapy along the corpse fighting syndrome was revived in style of manga's original material. 
I can easily compare the quality of filler writing when I remember the dreadful torture that the first year of D-Gray Man was (out of 100 episodes the first 50 were unbearable, I hated humanity; the last 50 episode were great; too bad there was no continuation). There were few moments when I laughed out load, and it is not easy to make me laugh (too bad for me). One of the funniest moments ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHGOGBc-hWA Overall, I find the swordsman character really loveable. Obviously, it is hard to compare, but I usually not affected by shonen main heroes (Luffy) or find them annoying (Naruto) or almost hate them (ever-screaming Bleach guy). But not this time. I also loved the voice of Broom-hair guy: beautiful timbre. It looks like this was this guy's only role in voice acting. Main heroine's actress was good, too, and this also was her only role. Last edited by MaxSouth on Sat Nov 01, 2014 9:45 am; edited 1 time in total |
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String Chess
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I wonder if Viz could afford the live action movies considering they're made on a much higher budget than an anime series. I don't know how much the licensing costs vary, though. I don't think foreign films are expected to bring in that much money here. This looks like a question for Answerman. |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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I forgot to add that I did not like that the filler "Meji" arc turned to concept of overt magic; it was unnecessary, because this project was about non-overt magic, and it could be continues this way.
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11305 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Viz has a pretty big customer base since they do both anime and manga. Not to mention two of those properties are among the most popular of the shounen market (Bleach and Naruto). And then there's the resurgences of both Ranma and Sailor Moon, as well. There's no telling how much money they really have to throw into new licensing. But given how popular the Kenshin franchise is and that possible subsidiary connection to WB, I think it still puts Viz at the forefront of ever licensing this, as there's too much possible profit for those movies *not* to be eventually picked up by someone. |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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By now I also watched "Rurouni Kenshin: Requiem for Patriots" aka "The Movie"; it was better than I expected. I liked the realism, that there was no BS happy ending.
But overall, this project bears a lot of idealism and naivete that does not seem realistic in context of the era at all. Besides, many of the villains the swordsman did not kill in reality would be murdered by the state one way or another without exception. More importantly, no-kill policy by the swordsman in real circumstances would sometimes lead to much more blood than less. In a sense, this principle is kind of selfish. The reason why wars were/are bloody and so many people got murdered is because a spared person can come back and kill you or many more of your kind later. So humanism is false. Even more barbaric war tactics such as killing off all of people in villages, including even elderly, women and children, came not from senseless cruelty per se, but because leaving folks alive makes retaliation in the future as likely: majority of people would definitely hate you even you were noble towards them -- you still have killed their husband/father/brother. In this regard Yahiko never showing strong feelings against corrupt post-revolionary government is not quite realistic character. In "Rurouni Kenshin: Requiem for Patriots" this issue was touched a little bit. Actual moral is that there is no place for idealism in war and fights, even though this show tries to say otherwise by covering up some of real life cruelty that would ensue if character such as the swordsman would exist and act the way as depicted. Of course, personally, I do not advocate for war crimes, I just explain reasons why people had to kill each other en masse (and almost never felt any remorse about those murders, unlike the swordsman from this manga/anime). |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11305 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Max, this is why I recommended you watch the Tsuioku-hen OAV, first. It's brimming with themes of conflicted morals/idealism and not only sets the precedence for Kenshin's beliefs for his post-Bakumatsu days, but also is a great allegory about the loss/corruption of innocence and the frailty of the human psyche. He kills a lot of people in that, and quite brutally, too. But given everything you've seen, now, I guess you'll like this OAV even more.
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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The reason I could not skip filler part of anime and the film (by the way, it turns out it was mangaka's scenario) is because I would not be able to return to it after watching OVAs.
I have just started to watch Trust and Betrayal OVA. This could be very powerful, but I am always nitpicking about everything, so I have to say: 1) the way people are slain in this anime is too similar to cheap horror films, which lowers the class of the work. People are not bags of blood, the more so backs of their heads. I know many have fetish for this type of ridiculous, unrealistic, grotesque violence, but it is not realistic. Accurate portrayal of violence is absolutely sufficiently horrible, there is no need to make a farce of it by such tricks at all; 2) Also, I found it weird in the anime and this OVA that Kenshin buries corpses with wooden crosser over the graves. Unless Kenshin somehow was secret Christian child of Bakumatsu period (where it was forbidden), there is no way he could possibly have an idea to put a cross over the graves. Most of people would not even understood what the hell is that and would have no idea that it signifies a grave. |
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MaxSouth
Posts: 1363 |
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By now I completed watching Trust and Betrayal OVA; it is excellent.
The subject of idealism is touched in this, indeed, however in different sense than I wrote about it. What has happened is that Himura spared a life of a woman and almost got killed as a result. This confirms the rule why assassins have no mercy -- not because they are necessary heartless, but because it is practical and eventually and overall more humane (for your side) thing to do comparing to little short-sighted humanism some kind people prone to fall in. In essence, those many adversaries -- that Kenshin fights later with -- are right about this, and Kenshin is wrong. It would be more natural if he would develop the opposite way: at first, never wanting to hurting anyone, but later, admitting how dangerous and selfish this perry humanism is, turning into merciless man-slayer. This would more realistic, but not very interesting, though. Kaoru also behaves selfishly through whole project. While it might sound romantic that she was always so eager to risk her life to be with the swordsman, in reality it would cause great pain for him as he would be always at disadvantage and nervous about keeping her safe, and eventually losing her's and maybe his own life due to this petty expression of love and devotion. Thus manga/anime version of Kaoru is eternally immature and unwise woman. Another nitpick is that "Hitokiri Battōsai" never translated to English properly. Actually, this nickname means "Manslayer-The Unsheathed Sword", but it is in none of subtitles. I understand that the reason is that it is too long in English, but arbitrary shorting is inaccurate. EDIT: Reflections OVA -- maybe the saddest anime film I have watched ever (X was also very sad). Creation of such thing is not allowed, though it was epic, poetic, and has made sense in terms how Kaoru is as character; she is selfish here again. I know I was not advised to watch it, but since I have even survived all of the fillers, I still did. Tony is right, it looks like it is not canon at all, though original mangaka is not super judgemental about it since there is art in such story, too:
I did not read it yet, but I think the last part of manga has to be animated fully in canonical form, too. For now, it seems similar to Fullmetal Alchemist/Brotherhood situation, but with Brotherhood not yet released. Though the difference is that Reflection OVA, according to mangaka, could be an ultimate ending. |
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