Ranked #2165

Seiken no Blacksmith

Seiken no Blacksmith is an anime that be described in a couple of words. Sadly, none of these words are "great" or "good" or even "Meh, okay".

Manglobe Inc. is generally a respected animation studio. They are known for producing the (now legendary) genre-busting Samurai Champloo, the philosophical Ergo Proxy and the stylish Michiko to Hatchin. Pretty respectable and impressive resume there, isn't it? So it is almost expected that they would pull through again and make another great anime series.

After only five minutes into the first episode of Seiken no Blacksmith, the only thing I could manage to think was "Manglobe, what have you done!?"

For anyone who is going into this because they know of the great works produced by this studio, do not bother. If you do not care about production companies and just want an anime to watch, still, do not watch this. This series is a sadly mediocre anime that drips in moments so dull and so bad that the surprising good moments are rendered completely meaningless in the end. And for an anime about a female knight especially, it feels so anti-feminist in sentiment.

The protagonist, Cecily, is a knight who is just the most worthless and offensive character in the entire series and it is hard to even stomach that she is able to be knighted by any council when she dresses like a maid. Do her peers take her seriously? They do not. And neither can the audience. The story of this fantasy/action series seems to be about a sacred blacksmith as the title implies, yet so much of it makes you wonder why. WHY is this series about the blacksmith? The titular character is a fellow named Luke, easily the second most annoying and least likeable character in the main cast. Is this series about him? Maybe... Not really. Yet it might be. It seems to be about a lot of things, actually.

This is where the problem starts. What Seiken no Blacksmith creates is a world of knights, magic and battles, but it manages to be plodding, uninspired and clichéd. There is some kind of big bad to be defeated, yet the story meanders aimlessly around stupid service episodes and random fights, and forgets about the main storyline. Except for the moments when it remembers it. And when it does, it beats it into your head, over and over and over. Think of a dull mallet hitting you on the same spot on your cranium till you are left simply as a stupefied drooling vegetable in front of your screen. Long story short: the anime is about Cecily-- no, about Luke!-- no, about Demon Swords!, and how she/he/they fight against one another and this big evil... mountain?-- no, guy in a black cloak!-- no, little girls! Right, follow that?

Seiken no Blacksmith ultimately tricks the viewer into thinking they are going on an adventure, when really, you never leave the same settings. Again, it makes one wonder if Manglobe decided to use scrap material to make this anime since it all takes place in the same three or four places: Luke's house, Cecily's house, the town hall and the market. Seriously, they do not leave the confines of their city walls. Manglobe again is noted for taking their characters to various places and generally, they are generous in creating lush and beautiful settings (rustic villages, drab futuristic cities, or ethnically-flavoured towns) but the one settlement in which this anime is set looks like a brown prison.

As per the character design, it contrasts with the dark themes of violence and black magic, but it works well with all the fanservice, since it is so "moe". In fact, the characters look like they are from K-ON! which is irksome, considering Cecily is supposed to be a fighter, yet she looks like a fragile dolly. Luke looks a bit like Renton Thurston but with a nasty ponytail that seems glued on to the back of his head. Maybe rat-tails are back in style, because lately it seems a lot of guys in anime are getting that awful hairdo.

The animation is generally good though, and some of the fight scenes look very good, and are at moments pretty impressive. The one major grouse of the series is the costuming. It is awful. Cecily has a breast plate that is literally a breast plate; it contours exactly to her boobs, making it look like two balls are just sticking out her armour, and it just looks plain stupid. Also, what is with Lisa's Goth loli get up? So not of the time period.

Seiken no Blacksmith has a bland score as well. The OP and ED themes are nothing special at all. The background music is boring too. Again, it makes you wonder what went wrong with Manglobe since they are renowned for creating anime with memorable and amazing scores. This anime is dull, dull, dull all around and it does not help that the music does not help. The voice acting is generally fine, and most of it best work comes from Lisa's seiyuu, Toyosaki Aki, rather than any of the leads.

Speaking of Lisa, she generally seems to be the best thing about the anime, though that is not saying much, since essentially she can be chalked up to a moe blob. Cecily and Luke are hands down the worst pair of leads you can assemble for an anime series. They have absolutely no chemistry with one another as people, comrades, or potential lovers, and yet a lot of the anime is spent with Cecily pining in typical tsundere fashion over Luke while Luke acts like the usual aloof douchebag with loser pervert reactions to Cecily. The saving graces are perhaps the Demon Swords and the half-demon, who are more human and complex than the human characters. Lisa manages to be cute and likeable and it makes you wonder why she puts up a jerk like Luke, but hey, the anime tries and fails to explain why. But at least it tries!

Generally this series is horribly inconsistent. There are moments when it is amusing, when it is exciting and when it is good... but there are more moments when it is enraging, boring and bad. By the end of the series, your viewing experience is so soured that all the good moments are practically unmemorable and all you can think about is how you just wasted collectively six hours of your life. But then, it is only six hours. But then, when you are on your death bed wishing you had six hours to do something else, you might be cursing yourself wondering, "Damn it, why did I watch that trash!?"

While Seiken no Blacksmith will undoubtedly fade into obscurity, it will forever leave a stain on Manglobe Inc.'s credentials. Seems like only a hat trick was in order for them. It is a shame that this series manages to be like this when it could have been something much better. What it manages to be is a testament that women should be kept in the kitchen even if they can wield swords (hey, maybe they can use it to slice and dice lettuce and tomatoes for the sandwiches they undoubtedly should be making!) and that one should never judge a book by its cover. Because from its cover, one would think this series was going to be good.

Seiken no Blacksmith is not a fantastic fantasy so much as it is a failure of one. Maybe Magic: The Gathering or Warcraft or Dragon Tales might give you a bit more in the fantasy realm than this series will ever offer. read more

Seiken no Blacksmith is a shounen series that was part of the anime line-up for autumn 2009. I decided to pick this up because it looked like it had interesting potential for good action scenes and possibly some deep themes. Unfortunately, this potential was wasted on a dull, predictable and linear storyline with almost exclusively clichéd characters.

Storyline – 5/10

As I said above, the story line is dull – the standard model of cursed demons attacking people and being killed by the main characters over and over again, a stereotypical antagonist who is referred to as “The man in black” (Such a cheesy and opaque name just makes it even more blatant that he is a typical villain) and strange weapons called Demon Swords that each control some kind of element – nothing we haven’t seen before.
The story is also predictable, we have the heroic swordsman and the unskilled hopeless knight who want to become strong – the latter of which remains useless until the last episode where they suddenly achieve their dream of being strong and “defending those who are important to them”. Again this is common to just about every single shounen anime on the planet, and isn’t even done particularly well in Seiken no Blacksmith.
We see a little bit of the characters pasts in the later episodes which have some potential to be interesting, but more or less tell us nothing, and then repeated and referred to several times in the remainder of the anime. This serves to do little more than drag out the already slow moving plot.

Art – 8/10

The artwork is nice by modern standards; the characters are consistently drawn and designed in such a way that they are distinguishable and memorable. The animation is mostly fluid but can be jumpy at times. There is good use of colour for artistic effect and symbolic impression. The special effects, ranging from lightning strikes to bursts of wind and just about everything else you could think of, are the highlight of the series’ artistic value. Most elements are portrayed at some point, and they look pretty good in a fantasy sort of depiction. When the titular blacksmith forges a sword using some kind of magic, the visual effects that go along with this are impressive and powerful.
The demons in the storyline vary from your typical mutated animalistic creatures all the way up to beings that seem to be made of some spiritual energy or element. The demons look scary enough to do the job, but do not look out of place as a result – the difference of style between realistic settings and unrealistic beings is not overly imposing. All in all, the standard of art is good, but not excellent and is probably the highlight of the anime as a whole.

Sound– 7/10

Firstly, the opening and ending themes are decent – not overly impressive, but suitable for the atmosphere of the show in general. I’m not sure if I would go out of my way to listen to the ending, but the opening is good and I would probably download it if it was available. The voice acting is annoying and cliché but acceptable. The background music is almost completely unmemorable – I only finished watching this series a few weeks ago and cannot remember anything particular about the soundtrack so it must be plain and uneventful.

Characters – 5/10

Nearly every character is a predictable stereotype with little to no development from start to finish. Cecily, the so called protagonist is simply irritating and weak, constantly moaning about wanting to be strong – but overall spending more time trying to make friends and eat lunch than actually training – we see her swinging a sword around in her back garden every so often, but it’s hardly believable. The creators were obvious far more focused on her fanservice inducing chest and her deadbeat social life than her quest to gain the strength to protect the town. The other protagonist is Luke, the blacksmith, who tends to do more sword-fighting than sword-forging to be completely honest. He is the typical closed-off and quiet badass who slowly reveals an emotional side. Supporting characters include Liza/Lisa/whatever her name actually is, the cliché timid girl whose purpose is to…oh wait never mind. There is Aria, a demon sword who constantly bitches about how bad her life is, and finally a dozen egotistical and sexist knights to fuel Cecily’s cheap rage. The main villain is supposed to have a concealed identity, but they more or less explicitly reveal who they are in the first couple of episodes because of opaque inferences and being a bit too overt with the foreshadowing. The character himself has a cliché motive and design as well as a common personality and attitude – arrogant, confident and determined, but very little insight into why he is like this is given – we just assume he is evil for the sake of evilness and because the story needed a villain. Even if the manga offers further development of characters like this, they could have at least briefly explained something in the anime adaptation.

Enjoyment – 6/10

While mostly terrible, Seiken no Blacksmith provides some dumb humour and some half decent fight scenes and is overall watchable if you don’t try and take it too seriously. This is no masterpiece by any standard, but if rarely leaves you bored to the point of despair and the initially dopey storyline does tend towards a more serious atmosphere, although never quite manages it until the last couple of episodes. If you are looking for some simplistic and thoughtless anime to casually watch for easy entertainment, this might just be the show for you – but if you go into this expecting a complex plot, then you are probably not going to enjoy this. You will have to be a bit open minded and endure a couple of parts which are pretty awful, but it’s worth a watch if you do not have much better to do.

Overall - 6/10 read more