Ranked #1867

Blade of the Immortal

I will start by saying that, having read the manga, I was very excited when I heard that there was going to be an anime adaptation, and I had high hopes/expectations for it. It is possible that my review will be biased in that regard. That being said, I'll begin my review.

Art: The art was, in my opinion, not bad. The character designs were true to the manga, I didn't notice any particularly huge problems with inappropriate scenery or just general sloppiness. However, this anime was based on a very violent, sword-fight laden manga, but there were few fights scenes to get overly excited about. The fight scenes that were shown were brief and unsatisfying. For example, if Manji is fighting someone, the beginning of the fight will be shown, then they'll either switch to another character who is watching the battle or even to someone completed unrelated to the current battle. Then suddenly, oh! there's the end of the battle. It was completely unsatisfying. The gore was toned down tenfold.

Sound: This was by far the worst part of the anime. If you like the opening theme, you'll love the sound. But whoever sings this song, her voice just grinds the gears in my head. And you'll hear her pipe up at the most random and inappropriate times. Sad? You'll hear her. Happy? Sounds the same as sad.

Character: Overall character development, I'd say was average. Despite reading the manga, I didn't leave this show feeling super connected to any of the characters. There was room for improvement, but it really could have been worse too. I noticed a couple moments that were glaringly out of character from the manga, but I tried to give some leeway.

Enjoyment: It was slow. There were times when I could have easily fast-forwarded several parts and not have missed any plot. One would think that by the twelfth episode, the penultimate episode, some sense of suspense would be building, or at least some problem that could feasibly end the series and/or set up a second season. Nooooope. Episode twelve left me with little desire to see the last episode. The slowness combined with the hideously poor sound and mediocre characters left me with little satisfaction at the end of this series.

Overall: If you haven't read the manga, you may enjoy this series. It is my opinion that if you were a fan of the manga, you should avoid this entirely. Seriously, you won't laugh at how bad it is--it'll just make you sad. It made me sad. So very sad. read more

I should start off by saying that this anime is great. It has involved characters, a solid plot, and wonderful art. But watching this show would be a horrible mistake. The manga surpasses it in every way, and watching Blade of the Immortal will do nothing but spoil the plot.

It's evident that a lot of time and effort was put into doing the manga justice. However, the nuances and subtleties which make Samura's work so great are simply not suited for anime. The mangaka himself was originally against animating Blade of the Immortal. I can't imagine why he changed his mind; it was clearly a mistake.

In many ways, this anime felt like a slideshow of the manga with music thrown in at the last minute. As can be expected when over 20 volumes are compressed into 13 episodes, the plotline was rushed, and character development was mostly left out. I'd write more about the high points of the anime (because there are plenty), but frankly, they can all be found in the original.

Though a lot of long-time BotI fans are insulted by this adaptation, personally, I enjoy it. I plan to watch it again before I get the next volume of the manga, as a quick recap of the story. It's nice as a summary, but in no way can it take the place of the original. read more

Blade of the Immortal. By first glance at the title, you'd think that the show would be pretty cool, but unfortunately after 1 episode you would be immensely disappointed.

Blade of the Immortal follows the story of a guy named Manji. Manji is a samurai who is known to have killed over 100 men and lived to tell the tale. To put it simply, he's immortal. In the beginning, a girl named Rin hires Manji as her bodyguard as she travels to get revenge on the people who killed her family. The overall basis of the story isn't all that bad, but everything else makes it worse.

Animation - When trying to stay positive, the animation isn't all that bad. I've seen worse. However, most of it looks the same (shows/villages) and overall creates a rather boring show.

Sound - Terrible. The sound is usually out of place and otherwise just bad. The OP and ED themes are horrible as well IMO. Most of the time there really isn't a lot of background music worth paying attention to other than some weird music that is played when something dramatic happens.

Character - 7 episodes into it and we know little on our main characters. We know obvious traits they possess, but some more background would be nice. There hasn't been many other recurring characters worth mentioning or even paying attention to anyway.

Enjoyment - I was looking forward to this since I saw the manga was so highly praised, but the anime version is a big disappointment. Overall, don't waste your time and just check out the manga if you wanna check out this series. I'm sure the manga is better because there aren't many things that could be worse than this anime as a whole. read more

Stroy:

About anime:

Violence!
Violent is not definite for the kids, but for an older audience.
Nicely developed historical drama, but the theme unfortunately I have to say that I saw in anime called Samurai Champloo. This anime is quite cold, and similarities with the Samurai Champloo (revenge) again has no similarity in the drawing, the main characters and the coarse of this anime.

The main character is a serious violator who is not good, even do some people may call it good because helped one girl and she seeks revenge.
For this young girl, he shows little of its goodness that is left in him.
But what is the goodness for a one person if he slay so much people that he don't remember the number.
The main character, you will surely love.
But it certainly is not a good person. I say, because you can see that his katana became the hand that catches flies around, there is no feeling for human life. He lost it because he killed too many people.

He became immortal!
His punishment is that he can not die.
I did not read the manga, but he developed the story more. Because I do not believe that such a person as he is to have a peaceful night. He has hell on earth because he can't not die, but his sins haunt him.

ART:

Drawing is very nice!
Artistic as well as an introduction to the anime.

Sound:

OST 10 for home collection.

Character:

There details characters, but not those I expected. Many are detailed supporting roles as the main role was left with an empty memory, and to regret his murdered sister.

Enjoyment:

One of the best anime that I watched. 10

Final is 10.
If you love anime certainly do not miss this, it is very good.

**********************************************
kiss from mokunica22
**********************************************








read more

Yes, I have only just watched the first episode, I know that normally I would have no right in the least to write a review, but this is a special case. It is special because Blade of the Immortal is by far my favorite manga (sorry Berserk), period. When I first turned a friend onto the manga, he said to me, "Wow, thy could never make this into an anmie." He was right. From the wonderful sketched art (that has not been recreated in the anime) to the believable relationships amid complete madness (which I can already see are going to be screwed by the show) this manga truly stands apart. Now, I have to say for any other show, I would say it's very good. Very good art, cool fighting, badass characters, etc. However, these do not stand up in the least to the manga. In fact, I take it as an insult. The wonderful original story that acquaints us with our colorful cast of characters and intermingled relationships is thrown in favor of a super sped up plot to make it all fit in a series. Not acceptable. Second, the music absolutely sucks. An adaptation of such breath taking manga deserves music that chills and thrills and knows how to rock (I'm looking at you Kuroi Sabato). Instead, I'm handed some second rate synthesized crap that belongs in a much lesser plot. Another thing, where's the ultra violence?! The manga is filled with absolutely astonishing, beautiful, and creative violence. Stuff that really makes one cringe. In a good way. Instead the best parts are cut out to make it tv safe. And what's the deal with Manji's attitude? He's not nearly gruff enough. Who chose his voice actor, Who?! I'm telling you, he needs a raspy voice like the great Nakata Jouji. If they had used him I might be able to overlook the other stuff. Well, maybe I will change my mind as I watch on; but I doubt it. Read the manga, please, it's genius, by comparison this is a serious degradation of a work of art.

-Moritsune read more

Ive watched 6 of the episodes so far and i can tell you that this is a must see anime. If you like anime like Rurouni kenshin then this will be your new obsession. Its got fighting, blood, great story, great music, its got it all. The main character Manji is so intriguing with his story of redemption. Very similar to rurouni kenshin in my opinion but its way better. I love during the fight scenes this really good but weird to some music comes on it really intensifies the fights.Seriously if you were hesitate to watch this one, dont be you will not regret giving this brand new anime a chance.

I absolutly love the opening song, lots seem to think that its weird and i guess its all according to preference but whatever. This is something i would recommend to older viewers just because of the amounts of blood that is spilled in this anime. Not as much as in other anime i have seen but still just enough to make younger viewers squeamish.

I give this anime 10/10 on all aspects read more

I will say that this is based on one episode, however it is my firm belief that the first episode should be the absolute best of the series next to the final. If the first episode can't hold you, than a series has problems, and this was the case.

If you have read a certain amount of my other reviews by now, you will know that I am a huge BEE TRAIN fan, but I wasn't too excited over their acquiring of a new anime of this nature. I was expecting already from the start a bloody mesh of pointless violence and gore. Well being the fan that I am, I decided to go ahead and give it a try, and it was a pretty big mistake. I've never read BOTI so I have no idea what the story is really like but I can tell this was probably one of the worst adaptions I had ever seen.

As always I being with the writing, Hiroyuki Kawasaki the writer of such shows as Sakura Wars, Tsubasa Chronicle, and Captain Tylor was the screenwriter and he sucked. Big time. The writing in the first episode alone was all over the place and sloppily thrown together it makes even his Tsubasa fillers look like Oscar worthy screenwriting. I was lost 90% of the time, I had no idea who anyone was and ultimately why they existed. The loony sister Machi running around was a nice touch but in the context it made no sense. I had to be told as to why she acted the way she did. There was very little time spent on character development and absolutely no exposition given and no motive for any of the characters.

Equally terrible was Koichi Mashimo's direction. Mashimo who is the one to usually take his time went into high-speed on this. As a result the episode suffered greatly. I've always admired Koichi Mashimo for taking time and making all the elements come together, he is at his worst when he is in hyper-speed mode. His visuals are delpalated and dreary and his execution of the music cues is equally bad.

The visuals were very a-typical for this kind of show. Overly dark overly shadowed and dyed in black ink. It's a major departure for BEE TRAIN's usual colorful atmosphere and eye-catching style. It's like watching Boogiepop where you want to scream, turn on the lights! And of course the action was very typical with the usual blood flowing like a fountain routine. Just once I would like to see an Anime character bleed normally. The character designs are nice though, if that's any consolation.

When it comes to music Ko Otani has in the past made some pretty amazing music scores. Shadow of the Colossus being one of them, but in this case the music is terrible. The score is mediocre and the opening themes are terrible. The background and theme song vocalist sounds like a screeching cat it's like listening to Ali Project only 10 times worse.

From the first episode alone you can tell Blade of the Immortal is going to be a complete and absolute failure. And from watching various clips of different episodes, it doesn't look to get any better. Highly unsual for me to write a review on the base of one episode, but what is there to say, don't waste your time with Blade, I would even recommend Avenger over this.

read more

Autant l'avouer, le scénario est relativement faible. Cependant, la galerie de personnages donne beaucoup de charme à cet animé et certains de leur dialogue amènent la touche de profondeur qui manque à l'histoire globale. En plus, le graphisme est beau, l'animation des combats est agréable à l'œil (^^) et l'Opening très réussi. S'il y a une suite, je l'attendrais donc de pied ferme ! ^^.

Car il y aurait largement de quoi faire étant donné que le manga est toujours en cours ! Entamé en 1993, il compte à ce jour 24 volumes parus au Japon. J'ai aussi lu que la version papier est bien meilleure que l'adaptation animée, notamment en ce qui concerne le développement du scénario puisque l'animé n'a retranscrit qu'une partie du 1er arc (sachant que le manga en compte pas moins de 4 à ce jour). read more

the most poor adaptation which is, the worst of enliven which is, the opening is whole program. animation is very poor, the chara is ridiculous, flat narration, yes I detest this enliven and however I continue to look at it but I find nothing of definitely this poor man majin even (which is obliged to kill his adversaries in the back) the worst swordsman is who is it is void! veils my very personal opinion I recommend it to nobody, kurozuka am much better (I know this has got nothing to do but I wanted to write it....

I have to say, the manga of Blade of the Immortal is purely genius piece of work, however the anime plainly ruins it. I don't really see much of a point of turning this wonder piece of work(manga) into an anime, it's just degradation....

Story:
The story is simple, a girl wants to revenge for her parents, hires a bodyguard and kills every baddy. The anime itself lack side storylines, which disappoints me.

Art:
Not as good as the manga, but still decent. Maybe they should make it a bit more similar to the manga? (Haha, but I think that would definitely make the anime itself R18...)

Sound:
Horrible...just horrible, I don't even want to talk about it.

Character:
In manga adaption, character developments were great, however, in anime, too little information is given for every character. Perhaps a bit more of every character's background mentioned would make the anime a bit better.

Enjoyment:
Don't really need to explain it but, no, I did not enjoy it.

Overall:
It's a mediocre anime, it could be improved in various ways. It seems like the making of this anime was rushed but eh...it's still acceptable in some aspects, such as artwork.

PS. I'm not a critic....and I'm trying to be as neutral as I can...so please don't get me wrong.

~ICE~ read more