Ranked #309

Kekkaishi

Kekkaishi is basically one epic siege story. The very fact that its based around protecting one piece of land (conveniently the main protagonists' school) only at night time, is the show's main hook, and it fulfils its interesting potential throughout.

Yoshimori and Tokine, our plucky teens, are charged with the seemingly life-long mission to protect a mystical piece of land with their barrier technique. The ability to create barriers of all shapes and sizes by pointing their fingers and shouting "Ketsu!" and destroying the contents of their CGI boxes with "Metsu!" It’s a very cool and unusual technique and the animation remains consistently good throughout the series, so it never gets old watching the two develop their skills, or to watch Tokine take liberties and use her kekkai to smack Yoshimori in the face.

The manga is written by a female so you can expect some good characterization for Tokine. The two heroes are on an even level for most of the anime, and being that it’s written by a female, the relationship and romance has a more deft touch to it. Sexist observation? Maybe, but I can tell you that I didn’t really roll my eyes or get bored with any of the lovey dovey moments sprinkled throughout Kekkaishi.

Populated by interesting and amusing characters, an epically memorable Taku Iwasaki score, refreshing pacing, and creative action, Kekkaishi is the definition of how a shonen genre anime is meant to be made. It does get a tad derivative towards the end, being unable to escape the tropes of the genre, but its still good fun. Each episode also ends with a great Photoshop-like montage of characters, basically summing up the climax of the last 20 minutes.

The producers even had the grace to just end the adaptation at the end of an arc, rather than overtake the manga or descend into filler hell. It’s a bittersweet compromise but one we should accept and respect. For a show sponsored by McDonalds, you'd think greed would compel them to milk everything out of this show, but they knew when to stop. Whether it was due to Kekkaishi not being as sell-able as Naruto or One Piece for example, I don’t know, but I don’t care when what they leave us with is an anime as excellent as this.

So like I said, Kekkaishi is a kind of siege story, a staple of the action-thriller genre that live-action films occasionally excel at, but anime rarely ever touches. Kekkaishi greets the genre head on with shonen enthusiasm and ends up an entertaining show worth watching. read more

Perfect execution of a unpopular shonen anime. Even though it has a mainstream plot and presentation, it has a soundness of all the elements in the show that so many one shot animes lack.

I could not give the show a 10 for character, since no character stood out like the infamous L, or Light, or Luffy, or many of the other great characters. Even though I was captivated by all the characters, no one stood out. It may be due to the female writer's preference not to bias her character development to only one of the two main characters. Even though it is a male oriented theme overall, she has built a great relationship between the two characters. Their attachment and growth dependence on one another really shows in the later part of the anime.

The story I could only give a 9 because it did not have any shocking twists, nor deep revelations. The show was intended for amazing action, intense adventure, and they even blew the budget on the animation! I meant that last part as a figure of speech. The plot was always entertaining, so I was never for a moment bored, and I was always anxious waiting for the next episode. Excellent themes are hidden within all the episodes. Especially between the common male male female character trinity, just like in Naruto. Also the ominous older brother, and tiresome grandfather play out in some dynamic relationship with Yoshimori. Kekkaishi is as good as Bleach and Naruto at their best. I use those two, since they stories are the most parallel to each other.

The animation was incredibly done. For clearly being an unpopular manga and show, the production was high grade. Limited CG images composited into the shows main scenes. Princess Mononoke was one of the first to do this well, and has been proven to be an incredible advancement for the industry. Over the next 10 years we are going to see much better animation, once show budgets increase as the world turns to a complete global market.

The score is done with great meticulousness for the creation of appeal. The end character montage with a rock rift is such a great way to end each episode. It makes you crave for the next episode. Shows like this that repeatably use the same melodies to lead into scenes really enhance the appeal of the show, instead of forcing some repetitive melody in your head. Animation is nothing without sound. Shows that do not put money into their soundtrack... fail.

The dialogue was great, so my overall enjoyment was superb. The common banter in shonens is a great exemplification of how it is possible to escape from all your problems in a moment. One minute a character is stressed over being weaker than an enemy, the next they are cajoling with their nemesis.

If you want to watch a consistent anime that gives everything you want, just take it all and watch the show. It does not disappoint and delivers in action, with only marginal build up of suspense. The creators of this show analyzed all the popular anime, and formulated a perfect model for a show they wished to produced, then approached the closest show that matched their requirements. Pretty prehistoric method of manga selection, but does it ever make a great animation.

Now its time for me to go back to the pile and search for another show. There is still one more episode to be subbed, but I am already satisfied by the show that is Kekkaishi.

Oh and by the way, they use these cool barriers called Kekkai, which act as shields, and can perform a type of volume combustion, which they then consume as a form of garbage collection/religious burial for ayakashi (ghosts/demons), and they even play on the idea of encapsulating dimensions, and also about dimension construction. I said the show had no deep revelations, but it does use some damn cool archetypes. read more