Ranked #778

Souten Kouro

If you dislike blood and graphic violence, do not watch Souten Kouro. If you demand fanservice, panty shots, etc. there are none to be found here. If you like historical dramas, this is a good show for you.

This anime is about as GAR as it is possible to be without breaking the fourth wall. (It doesn’t quite equal the manliness of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which is so GAR that it defies reality, but it is completely serious about it.) If the viewer didn’t already know from the fact that it is derived from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the opening makes it clear that this show is going to be about blood, death, and brotherhood.

Souten Kouro does not merely tell a Chinese tale; it tells a Chinese tale using some elements of Chinese storytelling techniques, mixed with modern film techniques. (At one point, there is even a lens flare!) Thus the show has a different feel from the average anime, even from the average shounen series. Music is stirring and suitably grand, and timed to match dramatic moments.

There is a fair amount of violence and brutality, along with social critique, the main purpose of which is to explain the main character Sousou. It presents his mindset, long vilified in literature, as a reasonable product of the times and certain formative experiences. Overall, Sousou is treated with great sympathy in this work, a fact which is sure to cause controversy. read more

Story:

Based off Luo Guanzhong's 14th century Romance of the 3 kingdom novel, which is considered one of the 'Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature', it's one of the most well known and most adapted stories in China.

If you've seen John Woo's Red Cliff, played Dynasty Warriors, or any of Koei's ROTK games and enjoyed them, i'm sure you'll be familiar with the character names in the description, but just in case you missed it, well, now you know. This is ROTK, and you will most likely also be interested in this. Not much more else to say really, it's one of the most well loved and known stories of all time. I'm not too sure how far they will go with the story, but i really don't think they will do the whole thing in 26 episodes, seeing as i'm 9 episodes in and it's not even a quarter of the story told, and it is already moving quite fast. Time will tell i guess.

Art:

Overall high quality and unique style. I was kind of put off the first few episodes and i thought it didn't look realistic enough for such a historical title, but i got used to it soon enough and now i think that it lends itself quite well and fits the tone of the series, considering that some of the battles and scenes are especially over done to be epic and grand.

As of episode 9, fight scenes have been relatively realistic, especially when showing epic war battles with thousands of soldiers. Formations, tactics, strategies from Sun Tzu's Art Of War are all discussed and shown. Catapults, castle sieges, are all done well, with no ridiculous super powered individuals like in Sengoku Basara. If that's what you are looking for mainly, i suggest you go somewhere else. One major gripe i have is with the way they depicted Liu Bei, but i might be biased since i already have a pre-conception of how i think he should look. Also, one character in episode 9(where i'm up to) has shown signs of static electricity circling his body when he made an entrance, and i hope that that is the most 'shounen' it's going to get. I don't mind that so much because that character is meant to be powerful, and i guess that it's just artistic license since no one else so far is like that, but if it does change into a shounen wankfest, i will update this review to reflect it. Also, on the MAL page, it says R rated - Mild Nudity, but be warned. There is also quite graphic violence and plenty of blood flowing, as is to be expected.

Sound:

OP: Screamo rock/metal, which i think is ok even if that is not my cup of tea, it suits the animation well.
ED: Some feel good pop song played over floating clouds, otherwise nothing memorable.
VA is fine, and music/score suits the battles and tense moments well.

Character: Based on real life figures, they are all heroes and based on larger than life figures. In fact, one of them is actually defied and worshipped as a god/deity in Chinese folk 'religion'(the main 'religion'), even in this day and age. Every chinese person would know this character. However, as of episode 9, it seems to focus more on one character, while it neglects the other two(or at least, for the moment). Also, i do not like how they portrayed Liu Bei, so purists be warned. Otherwise there is a huge diverse range of characters who all contribute in some important way or other to the story.

Enjoyment: What else can i say? If you can't tell by now, i'm a ROTK fan, and i'm also a historical swordfighting/samurai buff, and i also love fantasy. This combines them all into one neat package.

Overall: I would like to give it a 10 based on enjoyment alone, but i do have some minor gripes with it, and that is that it moves quite fast and is kind of hard to understand the story even knowing the story prior to watching since they gloss over some relatively important characters, and that the first few episodes were kind of slow, which might put some viewers off and make them not want to give this awesome series a chance. I think it really starts to pick up after episode 5/6 after it has done the basic character development, it moves into fast pace action epic mode.. If you enjoyed Legend of Galactic heroes like someone said in the recommendations, you would probably also enjoy this. This has more fights and is more violent, but both use quite a bit of narration and voiceover to keep you up to date with the current happenings, which is quite understandable to tell a story of this magnitude in just 26 measly episodes compared to 100+ for LOGH.

Considering how cliche and unoriginal Sengoku Basara is, i'm really disappointed that not more people are following this anime, and that is has such a low rating. I guess it's the same way for LOGH however, which is a damn shame since this is one of the best series currently running.
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