Ranked #575

Shigurui

Popular to contrary belief, Japan's Tokugawa (or Edo) period, wasn't all about fancy clothes and fairy tales at all. It was a time when honor and loyalty ruled in a man's world. Where women were treated as mere objects and held rather little to no power. And being formal with your enemies was as common as wielding a blade. This story basically follows the trials and tribulations of two warring clans rife with sex, lies, and deceit.




Don't get me wrong, Shigurui isn't a complete historically accurate show, but it's damn close. Starting off with the music, its very reminiscent of something you would hear straight out of a Japanese stage opera and sets the mood and pace perfectly for this show. If you turned off your monitor you swear you were watching a Japanese play unfold before your very ears its all a beautiful experience. Even the cold silence can emit a feeling unlike any other.

The actual sound effects of the show are also very play-oriented. It's usually silent with the exception of the actors playing their role, but when there are sound effects they are usually very subtle, environmental, sound effects like wind rustling, or flames snapping, or even the sound of gravel being undisturbed beneath a warriors feet. Less sound in this instance is good as it gives immerses the viewer in to such an intriguing drama.

The voice acting are all top notch as well. I'm not a big fan of a mostly male seiyu cast, but all the voice actors play their part with such passion and seriousness that I am not very accustomed to. Albeit its not very hard to act as a badass or a madman with very little lines in every episode. Compared to all the cute loli anime being released in droves recently, this is a very welcome change of pace.

From the beginning of the opening credits, one can already see that they are in for a visual treat. Its not often that you get to experience something like this. EVERY scene in this show is so beautiful that each cel can be a masterpiece in its own right. The background art is so pretty you swear you've seen the art off a history text or a museum its that immaculate. Even every camera angle has its own beauty and flair. To add to its historic feel colors are pretty limited to a neutral tone (brownish green tinge) more reminiscent of tapestry paintings of the time. Apart from the background art, the character art has its own beauty and uniqueness not found anywhere else. Each character (including stand-in's) are all drawn with the utmost care. Wrinkles, shadows, beards all drawn in with large detail. Each person looks completely unique from their eyes hair and face, all the way down to their clothing (with unique patterns and colors) and sandles. Little forewarning there are a lot of adult situations including violence and sexuality, but they are all there for reason. Even if its only there to show how brutal and harsh (yet elegant) the Edo period really was.

The story itself is a rather hit and miss mostly because of the "Tarantino" effect they did with the main story. After a few episodes you almost forget about the main story. But how they skillfully use art and sound and voice acting in every episode the viewer is more drawn to the situation at hand rather than what happened 4 episodes ago. It can be intriguing for some and a turn off for others. But I really appreciate the detail and accuracy they try to pull off with this show. Now I'm no expert in the Tokugawa period or Japanese history in general, but I am a decent history buff and know more than enough to truly appreciate an epic such as this.

For you kiddies expecting to watch something like bleach or samurai champloo or even Inyuasha, i highly recommend reading up on some good Japanese literature. Namely, Amaterasu, List of Divinities, or Kojiki (they were required reading for my uni). Or wiki up some Tokugawa period history (specifically Kan'ei) if you don't feel like reading up on such historic pieces. As for everyone else, I highly recommend watching this as this should be one of the best examples on how to do an artistic anime. Don't expect much in terms of pace, treat it like you were watching a stage play on your pc. One word of caution, be prepared to experience cold, brutal, reality read more

Do not drop this anime, endure a few episodes! (Assuming that you are aware that this one has maybe too much gore/blood/violence!).
This anime has one of the greatest plots I have ever seen (and not just anime), every scene is there for a reason and a part of the complete picture. So, from my! point of view Shigurui is underrated.

Why?

Let me tell you how I started to watch this one; I wanted to watch something with samurais in it and started to watch Shigurui as a coincidence. The first episode was just awful, I did not liked it at all; too much blood, too much violence(I even covered my eyes with my hands instinctively at some scenes). So at first it was just an anime that was tried to be made interesting using lots of unneccessary disturbing scenes, so I nearly dropped it but still there were some interesting things (or lets say unexpected character reactions) so I could not drop the series as a result... Next day I had nothing to do and so I took a deep breath and resumed watching it but after a while the general atmosphere of the anime got me very very interested. The story was very solid not to say disturbingly unique (due to the realistic reactions of the characters maybe; not the usual either black or white characters but ones with shades). The art was top notch as the sounds (no music at every scene, sometimes just sound of cicadas -though I found them rather annoying- but perfect both for reflecting the mood and complementing the plot).
So before I realized, the series was over and I was awestructed, cause I did not get the ending at first. But after 5mins or so I started to remember scenes, scenes from first episode, scenes from 5 th or 9th episode and I just got it. It was like oh my gosh ( stupid sentence but describes my feelings precisely). So watch it till the end because the masterpiecycity (copyright at Guuguk) of the series is increasing exponentially.

This is a very sophisticated anime which might be enjoyed by careful and patient viewers only, so take notes :), take a deep breath and complete the 12 episode in e few days (to avoid the 'baccano effect')
So finally :) the process of watching was hard for me due to the high gore level but it was worth it! This is one of the stories that I will possibly remember for a long long time, not for the story itself but for how it was told...


PS: I admit that I am not familiar with the 'actua'l Edo period (I learned a little bit in Kenshin though :) ) but still the value of the plot is unbelievable and it is just fiction right.
I did not give examples from scenes and stuff, just to avoid giving any spoilers, which might really spoil the ' it was like oh my gosh' effect...
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