Reviews

Having been attracted to the show because of its gory theme, I was ready to embrace the brutality, but upon looking a little deeper, there's just no substance here. To quote a character in the last episode, “This isn’t a dojo, this is hell.” Beyond displaying the bleakness and brutality of the Edo period, this show has nothing to say. Even those looking for beautiful kills and gore will not be satisfied. Heralded as one of the most violent things out there, I see why, but not in the way I had wished. The reason it has this reputation is that it focuses on the blood and innards of its victims. Intestines spilt out in the beginning scene is a forewarning. This is their go to for showing brutality...intestines! I appreciate this the first time, I don’t often see this level of the grotesque, and I appreciate that, I’m not squeamish, but you see intestines spilt 4-5 times. It loses its shock by the second time, and by the fifth time, in the last episode, I was laughing. “O God, they're going for the intestines again?!” All jokes aside, lets show some creativity here, there are many ways to dismember samurai. Grotesqueness does little for the viewer unless there’s some meaning behind it. That goes for the nudity as well, they just take off the clothes of their two female protagonists like no body’s business, it is done in a very pornish kind of way, “wow look at her tits,” beyond the shock value there’s no meaning behind the nudity. If you're going to have nudity, do it a little more skillfully.
The show looks phenomenal, but too often I feel like they wasted money and detail on dreary settings and guts, hence why the show doesn’t even make it through a season. Yes, that’s right, some reviewers here have glossed over the fact that this show is simply not completed. It just dies after 12 episodes. After a promising first episode they flashback to 2 years previous, intentionally of course, to develop the characters, yet in the end, you never even make it back to the first episode. The rivalry between the two main protagonists and their eventual battle, which i thought was the entire motivation of the show and intention for the flashback, never comes to fruition. So, I get it, the show is not finished, I won’t judge it on just that, plenty of good shows get the plug pulled on them, if those 12 episodes are brilliant then that’s great, there will be the blue ballz effect as some story arcs will never be fulfilled, but I can still appreciate it an extent. This is pure pornography though. The story is at times intriguing, but the way scenes jump around doesn’t make sense. I could follow the show but I had to assume a lot. I’m sure it was created with the manga reader in mind, but that doesn’t mean they should leave huge holes. There’s no real narrative, random things just kind of occur.
On top of that, there are no real likable characters. You’re naturally drawn to Fujiki, I guess the main protagonist, but that’s only because he’s slightly nicer than everyone else. Every character in this show is a piece of shit. But even with shows like Death Note or Game of Thrones, inhabited by antiheroes, there are things that attract you to the characters. There’s no one worth rooting for in the show. Everyone acts for the sake of power and for themselves. Maybe this is realistic, which some reviewers say Shigerui recreates a realistic Edo Japan, but I have a hard time seeing that none of those samurai, especially, the dojo leader, have an ounce of wisdom in them. There is no love of life in these characters, just in furthering their own power and exacting revenge. They are all quite shallow, sure we can enjoy characters like this in many shows, but when all the characters have this viewpoint the show becomes a bit of a boor. You could plug any character (besides Fujiki) into any situation and they’d probably do the same thing.
The intentional flashback 11 episode arc, doesn’t even do a good job of building up characters. Characters rarely last longer than an episode. A character is often introduced, there is a brief flashback to show what a character is generally like, and then they kill him off frighteningly quick. There’s no point of showing background info for a new character if you’re just going to kill him off in 7 minutes, its a waste of time for the viewer. And that’s also the problem, I understand its realistic for samurai to take their enemy down in as few swords swings as possible, but because of the quick nature of these fights, there’s no real satisfaction in the fighting. They build up a fight for ten minutes and then someones dead instantly. Every fight has potential and then in end it was obvious how much stronger one of the samurai was. What’s the beauty in that, samurai didn’t just kill to kill? There really aren’t many fights per se, there are some murders, and sometimes they don’t even show the fight, just the result of a decapitated head. For example, one samurai is said to have incredible strength, they build up his potential, then he is merely killed in a hot tub, he is unnamed and doesn’t put up a fight, what’s focused on is the blood splattered in the bath house. Later, another might warrior is killed when his back is turned to his enemy. Not trying to go on here, but what I’m saying here is there is no beauty in the kill, the gore is just exemplified, and let me make this clear, I love gore!
On top of that the show tries to be deep at points, showing closeups of flies on guts, cicadas screeching, but it just falls short, being artsy without real meaning is cringe worthy, it made me laugh in the end. Its all too bad because it really seems like there is tons of talent on the show. They really just needed the writing to pull it all together, but as is its just a bunch scenes mashed together. Beyond showing the brutality of the era it doesn’t give me much. If you’re a fan of intestines and want to see something brutal, go for it, it’s only 12 episodes, but by the end, like me, you’ll probably feel a little cheated. This is just not a real show, it is incomplete.