Kai Doh Maru

I absolutely hated this anime. There is nothing good to say about it. It felt as if I was watching a child playing with its toys that were made in the early bronze age in a room with rubber walls. It was a struggle to finish this anime from the start. I can honestly say, that I have had workouts that lasted an hour and a half that were less physically demanding than sitting through this anime.
Absolutely ridiculous. You can tell that incorporating CG was not something the company that produced this garbage was used to doing. The colors were horrible. Perhaps the art ... directors were trying to create a specific feel for it by choosing the colors that they did. If they were going for an amateur look that was intended to bore me to tears, then they succeeded well beyond their wildest dreams.
I have NOTHING good to say about this anime.
If anybody likes this anime, or even lists it in their top 1000 anime, then I most definitely do not want to be friends with that person.
Avoid at all costs. This isn't even one of those where you tell your friends "Hey, you gotta see this, this is SO bad that it's awesome." No, this anime is so bad that it can't even be used as a joke. It's so bad I can't think of any ways to make fun of it, because every second of this anime was insanely boring and there is nothing interesting that you can reference to.

I watched this to kill 45 minutes and basically that is all this OVA is good for. The art is different than what most are used to, it uses a lot of crosshatching and pale colors but that is also because the setting is feudal Japan when they used a lot of pale colors in their art. The plot is really hard to "get" by just watching the anime, I suggest you find an outline like the one found on Wikipedia and reading along. Don't come in expecting a GREAT anime, its just minimally good for when you're really bored and have nothing ... better to do.

Beautifully produced and interesting concept, but has a lot of faults.

PLOT: Allowing 45mins to explore the political intrigues of the Heian period is not nearly enough time and as a result the plot becomes extremely fragmented and disconnected – like a series of short snapshots of Kintoki’s life. The characters are not given enough time to develop so there is no real emotional connection to them and they remain shallow throughout. This is a pity as even in their basic form they do hold promise if only they were given some time to develop. It is confusing, but there is a defined plot here and ... I did find it interesting. Don’t expect a Samurai action flick from Kai Doh Maru though as its much more about the political background than the action set pieces.

ANIMATION: Now this is where the majority of my enjoyment came from. The animation is done in a style I haven’t seen before – almost like an animated scroll painting in its watercolour, pastel glory. Everything is pale coloured with simple lines, but things like trees, leaves and grass are extremely detailed. Character designs are also very simple and quite generic but fit well in this setting. Movement is very natural and fluid – the few action scenes are well choreographed with bright red blood making for a striking contrast to the otherwise pale colour palate. CG rendering is used to great effect as well on things like wagons and falling snow – it’s a very visually attractive piece of animation.

MUSIC & VOICE ACTING: Music is done in a period style with a hint of a modern twist – very fitting for this anime. Voice acting is mostly unremarkable, there is not a lot of emotion on display and the seiyuu’s didn’t seem to have much of an emotional tie to their characters.

Overall it’s a pretty piece of animation, but they tried to cover way too large of a story in too short a time. Given a bit of extra time Kai Doh Maru could have been excellent, as it is its merely average and confusing.

Lovely use of traditional Japanese clothing, very detailed and unafraid of the characters falling in great pills of robes. Really interesting drawing and color style. There also a wonderful use of color, where everything is monotones or almost translucent and then the bright color of the drips of blood. But, I can only be captivated by the pretty pictures for so long.

I'm not sure if i was lost in translation b/c i was utterly confused and bored. A semi-strong female character (raised as a boy, then a soldier) and a crazy female protagonist with two creepy twins. The Lord that saved her, i ... guess, loves her.

This isn't a particularly bad OVA, but it does suffer from a few issues which
ultimately detract from its overall enjoyability. The artwork looks decent, but
the colors seem washed, and at times the animation itself seems a bit disjointed.
The sound is acceptable, but otherwise not particularly noteworthy, and at times
the sound effects seem to be almost generic.

The biggest issue is the lack of any real kind of motivation for any actions
which are being taken. The story is disjointed and difficult to follow, leaving
the viewer with the sense that a series of fairly random events occurred for
... no real reason.

With a more complete story, some added depth to the characters themselves,
and some additional effort on the artwork and coloring in particular, this could
be a decent OVA, but as it stands, it is average at best.

It's nicely made, many nice drawned scenes, but overall - i totally hated, hated, HATED this story. I fell asleep the first 4-5 times i tried to watch it, then i forced myself to complete it. But yeah, it sucks.

I watched this ova as a part of otogi zoushi watch which is a direct sequel, thinking it's ok to start here and see if this could be any good. Kai Doh Maru is quite interesting to watch, feels like 2007 morning tv vibe and I like that, but I must point out the flaws of this anime being animation it could be done much better, your screen may look misty but it not its fault. Tho the biggest issue this anime has is I just didn't care from start to finish all I remember is like first 10 minutes and last 5 of ... the plot between where is just white noise. Everything else is okay, I'd say mediocre but sometimes really good.

Paintings are straight fire and I would like to have these on my wall, hard af