Shigurui

Very gory samurai anime that some may call pretentious and overly arty but I think it's an excellent show in so many ways. The story line is simple, easy to follow and classic: pitting two swordsmen against one another and telling their story by jumping in and out of a chronological order.

The art is well done and some of the sword-fighting scenes are superb not because they are flashy but because they pack a whole lot of tension. It's like being coiled up like a spring and unleashing at the sound of a drum-beat. Lethally cool.

Each character had a specific style or look, ... which was excellent. Particularly Seigen Irako and Gennosuke Fujiki, both of which have distinct/unique fighting stances or skills.

The series ends in a cliff-hanger and leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I was expecting a few more episodes to wrap things up so it definitely left me hanging. Will be looking forward to a season 2 and hope that they do create one too. This is a terrific anime and a great mood piece. If you're into samurai movies/animes you should really give this a watch.

Summary: The art in this anime is fantastic... it is one of the few I'd recommend watching in 1080p instead of a lower quality. That said, everything else about this anime is pretty bad. The story is extremely confusing (told in flash backs and flash forwards), most of the characters look very similar, tons of plot points are dropped or not nearly as relevant as the amount of screen time they were given, almost all of the characters were awful people and had little development, and the story STOPS IN THE MIDDLE. IF you're not interested in intense violence and gore with flashy animations or ... samurai and the Edo time period, I suggest just skipping right on by this one. In fact, do yourself a favor and watch Basilisk if you're looking for that kind of thing, since it is basically this story but 10x better in basically every way.

Story: 4/10
The story is bad. It is extremely confusing, told in an odd way, and doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I didn't really know who a lot of characters were, what their motivations were, or where they were going. It certainly doesn't help the story starts with an epic scene and then flashes back and concludes before the flashback (so you have no idea how the intro fight scene turns out).

Art: 9/10
Flashy and done extremely well, this is an artsy piece. The violence is gory and realistic, if this isn't your thing you won't like the overall art style.

Sound: 6/10
It is period appropriate and gets the job done. The voice actors do a good job but generally the sound is minimalist.

Character: 5/10
Maybe it was because I couldn't tell anyone apart except for a few of the main characters, but I didn't understand most of the characters development, motivations, or really much else. This may be better than I am giving it credit for, but you have to have a very good sense of what is going on and pay very close attention.

Enjoyment: 3/10
I did not enjoy this. It took me nearly 2 weeks to get through it (and it is only 1 season). I just didn't empathize with the characters or have much of an idea what was going on. The style of story telling was fairly bad and if I hadn't invested into it for the first half of the season I would have dropped it.

Overall: 5/10
If you have a good attention span and really like samurai and period pieces with gore and sex and violence you might enjoy the. Then again, if you like coherent stories, a diverse cast with character development and a story that wraps up at the end of the anime, you'll hate it.

Sidebar, if you are planning to hold on to see who wins from the fight in the 1st episode, just drop it. You never find out in the anime. I was thinking about using google to figure out how the manga ended, but I think I'll just forget about it and move on since honestly at this point I really don't care.

I recently watched a 12-part Anime series on Blu-ray, which was available in English 5.1 and the original language (2.0). The series was translated well, and its atmosphere and presentation were quite impressive. The series features good voice acting, with great ambient sounds and an artwork that is both impressive and hypnotic. While the story may seem a bit complex, it comes together in the end.

This isn't your typical Samurai-Anime series, and if you're looking for something action-packed like Ninja Scroll, you may not find it here. However, this is the perfect series for you if you're into Ghost in the Shell's more arty ... and trippy style and appreciate the atmosphere and animated art. The Samurai mostly duel, building up tension with dialog and great scores before bursting into short but intense fights. There aren't any huge battles or war scenes, but the series does feature some pretty graphic violence, making it only recommendable to adults.

At the risk of fanboying, this is one of the few if not the only series's I've ever encountered that manages to not idealize feudal era Japan. It truly reflects the stoic and jarring world of honor bound killing and entire communities premised on power and violence.

In addition to its starkly accurate historical perspective, the directing aides the story so well, suspending every moment to discomfort and stress. One of the most unique animes ive ever seen, truly fascinating and well crafted.

Shigurui is an art piece.

A significant visual style, combined with unique audio, a samurai story and a sizable cast of characters, creates an atmosphere I’ve never seen the likes of.

Envision a post-modern art exhibition. You’re entering a large white room filled with a few abstract objects. You definitely recognize the objects, but you are unsure of what their purposes are. In the background an old cd-player let's off a reverberating noise, this noise could be anything from a car engine to a water droplet, graciously touching the water. The sound and the visual objects are supposed to converge into a symbiosis of something deep, something ... meaningful and passionate. This combination of perceptual information is supposed to reflect the artist's feelings and expression, and convey some sort of message. At least that is usually the intention.

Shigurui tries desperately to be like this sort of art piece, and some people would probably regard it as a successful one. The subjectivity of the matter is therefore prevalent.

Objectively the art and animation is of a high quality. The animators of Madhouse successfully create a dark and washed out canvas, which really adds to the usual perception of the romanticized vision we hold of Edo Era Japan. The outdoor scenes during daytime are particularly beautiful, albeit most of the scenes are contained within Dojos, which feels like it does the animators a great disservice, hamstringing the visual variety to a great degree. Understandably this is a limitation created by the story and the source material, which is a bit unfortunate in my opinion.
The way the story is told felt disjointed and messy. Focusing around a “final lesson in the artistry of violence where nothing is more beautiful than the kill.” (episode description), the story emphasizes strange parts of what’s important when conveying a good story. The characters throughout the series are never really introduced in a way that differentiates them, except for their respective fighting styles. The whole cast of characters neither feel protagonistic, nor antagonistic, they simply feel bland. Like soldiers (in this case samurai) following their generals orders. Instead of conveying thought, judgment or even consideration for their actions, the cast is more reminiscent of participants in the Milgram Experiment than actual human beings. Historically this might be somehow accurate, but it when conveying a story, this really hurts the ability to generate emotion and recognition for the viewers.

The story in itself is really basic and boils down to “People must kill each other because (insert reason)”. Devoid of characters of interest, the plot doesn’t generate any purpose. Simply put, when characters you don’t care about simply die, you simply won’t care. Thus the kill serves no purpose except for the visual presentation of a murder. When this is expressively described in the episode summary, you certainly must realize that the focus of the storytelling is simply wrongly weighted.

In addition to the unbalanced storytelling, Shigurui is also its self-perception. The fact that the anime takes itself so seriously makes the action feel forced and unnecessary. Perhaps this is historically accurate, but that is still no excuse for such a dull presentation of an interesting subject as Samurai. Instead an idiosyncratic presentation of each of the samurai, and a battle after such an introduction, would’ve felt much more satisfying.

The focus on the “Beauty of the kill” and not on the characters isn’t the only fault of Shigurui. The way the audio and visuals converge feels horrid. The simple noises, always playing in the background distract you from what happens on the screen, instead of simply adding to the story. A good musical score would have fit this story a lot more. Even though I prefer a good score, the creators should be commended for trying something different, but when taking such a risk, you should be prepared to fail. Shigurui fails strongly in this regard.

TL;DR: In short Shigurui tries to be a post-modern art piece about Edo Era Japan, but fails in every regard in doing so. The presentation is hamstrung by its historical ties. Even though the art is beautiful, the story feels disjointed, the characters feel mechanical and they don’t reflect any emotions or characteristics worth noting. The sound design is weak and detracts from the overall experience.

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.

've watched a lot of anime, but this one is one of the most unique out of all of the ones that I have watched. I've never seen an anime that is this violent, explicit, and drenched in darkness and stark realism. This is probably the most realistic samurai anime that one will ever see. Fights end quickly and characters die in gruesome fashion.

The animation and framing of the scenes make it so that it invites the viewer to pay close attention to bask in gruesome ends to characters and so that they don't miss clear cases of foreshadowing and symbolism methodically placed in ... the anime.

This anime is clearly for mature audiences. Not only are scenes gruesome, but there is explicit sexual content. Clear shots of female nudity, sex acts, sexual assaults, etc. However, the anime doesn't show these things to simply be edgy. Overall, these scenes are meant to portray the setting has a very awful time in Japanese history. Women are treated like objects, characters die in horrific circumstance, and samurai are portrayed either as glorified attack dogs are complicit pawns.

Characters are a bit of a mixed bag. The character that you initially might hate eventually will gain your sympathy and some characters you can't describe. Some characters are the vilest scum ever portrayed and yet you wonder why other characters ignore this fact or don't address it the same way the viewer might think they should. The story revolves around a rivalry between two main characters: one with a clear motivation and backstory and one with none of that. He just seems like a blank slate with no clear motivation or personality really. However, I appreciate that this anime takes its time to tell a story at the pace it needs to be told. It is unfinished which lowers the quality to an extent with some key details left unanswered at the end.

To a degree though, I found the show to be wrapped up satisfyingly enough for me. I did hate how weak the musical score was for me. It failed to make me feel tense during the scenes I was supposed to feel tense. The opening was forgettable and the soundtrack made it feel like the viewer is hearing silence instead of being in a show.

I would recommend this show if one wants to see an anime that portrays samurai in a different light than usual and tells an interesting, albeit slow at time and unfinished story. I will say that this is a show that will make you think about characters and appreciate a show differently than you normally would.

It will be a mixed bag though: some will be able to appreciate the show for what it is and some will be turned out by its grotesqueness and slow pacing. It is worth giving a try and drop it if nothing seems interesting.

Shigurui is something new for me, coming in after samurai champloo and samurai gun. its a show set in a historical setting, and has a much more grim tone.

the story is great for me as it is character focused, set around a dojo and the people within it. they have a motto, "show them our way, then send them back with a new look" that i love. this dojo is barely holding together and they will resort to desperate and dis-honorable measures to be sure that it continues. the structure of the story could have been better, it has alot of flashbacks, showing us an ... event, flashing back before it for a while then flashing back after. it could have been re-structured.

the art is great. its dreary and grayed out, fitting well with the grim atmosphere. the gore is my favourite part of the art, not the blood but the deformation of the bodies. people getting struck across the face to have their jaw shatter and turn to elastic with their eyes bulging, the injuries plastered across peoples bodies, you meet a character who looks like they are always smiling until he opens his mouth and you see the strings of meat hanging between his cheeks and the best part is CGI intestines.

the music is good. the opening could have been better if they didn't have the violins and stuck with the traditional instruments, a male chorus would have been better. the ending was better but not much better. the music used during episodes was great, it wasn't something made to be listened to alone, but is used to enhance the scenes to great effect.

my favourite thing out of the whole show was the fights, i'm not a big fan of sword or katana fights in anime they are often weightless and boring to me. in shigurui the fights don't have alot of action, instead it shows us what is going on inside the bodies of the samurai, the tension in their muscles, the cracking of their bones, the amount of power they put into each strike. it adds incredible weight to each fight. it also explain the techniques that the samurai use which is cool to understand. this is the height of the art and the sound, as during the fight, the background will turn white and the samurai's will become naked, the sound lets us hear what is going on inside their bodies too. when the samurai look at each other, they see the internal organs of each other, almost as if they see opponents as bags of meat rather than people. while it is less animated and more drawn out, i much prefer this style of fighting compared to that of samurai champloo.

the characters are great, especially Fujiki, Irako, Kogan and Ushimata. the rivalry between Fujiki and Irako is very well done, my second favourite thing about this anime is that despite it leading you to believe that one is more evil than the other, if you pay close attention to their actions and their thoughts, you see that this is not the case.

i watched the Dub, the main characters were voiced well, but the side characters and the narrator were bad. it got better towards the end though. the main problem i have with the dub is that it seems to have been translated more literally than others. it is probably a difficult task to translate something like shigurui, which was made to be historically accurate, especially in the way they talk, but they could still make changes to make it sound more natural without changing the meaning. like mentioning peoples honorifics all of the time causes them to talk very fast, a way around this would by to only mention this when in their presence or when it is important. the worst line is this. "Right... an imitation sword, you said when his head was put out in public an imitation sword was put in his mouth". the narrator was bad, it was useful to explain the setting but the voice actor was really bad. this may be more to do with the anime itself as it has a confusing structure, causing the narrator to mention the date many times over the show. he sometimes explains things when we already know whats going on which breaks the immersion a bit. i still thought it was worth it for the main characters, especially Ushimata, but dammit it coulda been amazing and they missed it and that really makes me angry. i really hope i don't come across more dubs in the same situation as this..

i'm giving it a 10 because i either love something or throw it away all together, i don't think the dub should have an effect on the score(unless its great). this is only coming after i had watched the show and know where it was all leading to, while i was watching it i was questioning whether i liked it or not as i didn't have any idea where it was going, so you will have to finish it before you can appreciate it, if you don't like rough starts then you won't like this.

one thing i almost forgot, this is only half the story, they never got to make a second season. i hate it when people say that anime is just an advertisement for manga, even though i will read the shigurui manga one way, there is no way the fights will be brought to life like it was in the anime.

The way they presented the story felt a bit overly dramatic to me,& the ending was a cliffhanger...Which pissed me off very much.Needs a season 2 badly,but other than that this is a must watch for people who want realistic,gruesome & dark Samurai based anime.
A very dark,unusual,realistic & engrossing samurai based storyline..This anime is a lot more different than your typical samurai ages,It focuses more on the story than the actions.
The animation/artstyle was a bit different & can be kinda disturbing at times,but that's what makes this anime unique..The action scenes are simple,short,gruesome & realistic too..The kind that keeps your eyes wide open.
This anime is ... intended for mature audiences,contains extreme blood & gore,mild nudity,sexually explicit content & some very disturbing scenes too..So steer clear of this anime If you dislike these kinds of violent content.
The characters in this story are absolutely amusing is all I can say.
The soundtracks are basically old school samurai era based music,so perfectly suitable for this kind of anime.

I was looking for something over the top. Lol I found this. If you can handle some serious crazy **** this is for you. It was a little slow but the art work is good and the gory factor was high. The storyline was interesting enough for me to watch when I'm not really into samurai stuff. Truthfully, I think only finished it to see what other horrible things could happen. Definitely entertaining. I probably will not watch again, however it is worth watching. I will not be forgetting this anime any time soon.

Spoilers.

He really ate that nipple.....

Watch and beware of this horrific scene. ... As a lady, I could not think of something worst than this lol.

Shigurui is dark, gritty, relentless, and communicates its story to the viewer fairly well. Midway through this series it was headed for my top ten. Upon completion it will not be. There are a ton of things this show gets right, most of them actually. But it has a fatal flaw and I hope to bring that flaw to light with this review.


---Story---

This story is not for the weak of heart. If you prefer dainty, lighthearted, adventure seeking, and unrealistic fights then this is not the anime for you. The story of shigurui tracks the downfall of the Kogan style of swordsmanship and intertwines a ... story of competition between two protagonists. It does this quite masterfully and by episode 4 I was hooked to see what would happen next. The drama in this series is extremely believable: jealousy, sex scandals, betrayal, and the ensuing fights that occur. This anime is a little bit of a slow burner but this works to the advantage of the story perfectly. The juxtaposition between the pacing of the actual story and the frequent yet lasting mere seconds of fighting create a very tense and realistic atmosphere. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that ALL the fights in the show are realistic: they merely have a realistic grace about them. The downfall of this story is that it begins from a point that is never properly revisited or explained. The whole show is a flashback from the events of episode one. While I actually do like this kind of show (akin to Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinju), Shigurui butchers it. I'm talking it beats the meat more than an otaku who just found his new waifu. I felt that this series did not have a proper ending; I was drug along down this fabulous path only to have an unresolved conflict I was looking forward to the most. ALSO the fact Fujiki's injury isn't explained is rather sad and pulls this story down even further from its initial lofty heights. Despite my problems with the show's story resolution I quite enjoyed this tale. It doesn't give you room to breathe, and I liked that.

Story score: 8 (Very Good)


Art:

The art is this series is a toss up. Most of our time is spent in dark rooms lit by candle or outside in the evening/night. This makes some scenes extremely hard to analyze fully. Facial expressions and body movements are fairly realistic yet animation is sub par. Sometimes the characters have extremely realistic reactions to events yet other times they look like wax sculptures or figurines. This is most likely due to the attention and care that the faces received for this series. This resulted in some rather powerful moments with a few that fell flat or missed the mark. Overall it was a positive experience.

Art Score: 8 (Very Good)


---Sound---

The sound is another strong suit of Shigurui. It tosses the idea of normal OST's for something more edgy and yearning in a sense; it is one of the biggest reason the conversation between pacing and action in the series works. The drums, strings, chants, sung songs, cicadas, and moments of utter silence all exemplify the notion that these characters are on edge all of the time and are as sharp as the swords they carry. It is both breathtaking and simplistic. Bravo. This being said, the lack of a true OST isn't something I welcome with no setbacks. I find that music can take an average anime and turn it to an amazing one. The lack thereof is a *slight* detriment since I won't have a single track to remember this series by.

Sound score: 9 (Great)


---Characters---

Few anime have made me hate a character with every fiber in my being. Irako is a little bitch. A talented swordsman none the less, but an utterly disgusting human. He reminds me of a snake: strong, powerful, and extremely deceptive. The narrative of his continued struggle with Fujiki and Kogan is powerful and is one of the highs of this series. The story fleshes out each character with stunning acuity, all except for Fujiki himself. That is a major disappointment given that he is by far my favorite character. I think the characters most well done in this series are Irako, Kogan, and Lady Iku. Gosh... especially Kogan. What an odd and demented man. The characters in this series are sure to impress Each person fulfills their role and truly feels alive in the harsh world of samurai.

Character score: 9 (Great)


---Enjoyment---

I have to say, given the flaws of this series it really brought down the enjoyment score. As I said earlier I did not feel satisfied with the ending of this show whatsoever. I practically enjoyed every other aspect of this show. It's a bummer.

Enjoyment Score: 9 (Great)


---Last impressions and final score---

This series is special amidst all of the anime that frankly isn't. The scene and tone are practically the grittiest I've seen in the medium . The action is to the point and battles are decided through cunning swordsmanship. Art and sound complement each other and characters seem to leap out of the screen at points. I full recommend this title to anyone who 1. Likes samurai, 2. Likes blood, 3. Enjoys diversity in the anime they watch.

Overall: 9 (Great)

~This anime is about the stories of Fujiki Gennosuke and Irako Seigen, the two extraordinary skilled swordsmen of Iwamoto Kogan's "academy". One of them will eventually become the heir of the academy, which creates a bit of a tension between them, even tho the potential heritage isn't the only thing that makes them dislike each other.
~I find the story really interesting, and the gore element makes it even more appealing to me (hehe) but despite all that, during the series, I felt like something was missing.
~I soon realised that I didn't really care about the death/torture/rape (yes it includes all that) scenes ... towards most of the characters. I found that I was having a hard time bonding with the characters, mostly because I felt like I was just a spectator to whom the feelings and the emotional states of the characters weren't fully displayed. Most of the characters are closed to themselves, rarely expressing any feelings. Some people might like that, but after a while it made me lose interest in the story and be amused only from the interesting gore scenes.
~After all, it is a great story, with interesting animation (everyone looks alike yet so different), character development but lacks expression towards the viewer. If only I could sympathise with a character or really feel what it's like for them to change, this series would be so, so much better.

Aaaand that was my review teehee ~~~

I have no way of actually confirming, but this nigh-misantrophic anime feels a lot more accurate to what the samurai were probably actually like, compared to any more heroic depictions.
a hypermasculine cabal, high off authority, practicing nothing but worship of rigid power structures and the art of killing? yea, no way that wasn't a hotbed for corruption and depravity.
enjoy the not-so-subtle symbolism behind the school of samurai in this show being singularly devoted to a cruel elderly man, entirely succumbed to dementia, who only snaps into lucidity to commit acts of violence.

perhaps this is even the one actually great "horror" anime.
very slow paced and minimally ... animated, but incredibly dense on unnerving atmosphere, with occasional bursts of the grisliest, realistic violence ever put to animation.
Hiroshi Hamasaki's off-kilter direction and the amazing minimalistic soundtrack, full of ominous chanting and percussion, take center stage and achieve an outright hypnotic effect.
the show is the platonic ideal of a great, albeit incomplete, anime adaption - accurate to the source material, but with enough of a unique identity to warrant it's own existence.

It starts of very interesting. The animation and the way they display and build the characters is interesting. The gore is nice too. However the anime is very confusing to understand. The ending is greatly disappointing too. The more i watched this the further i became confused and less interested. As for the action i felt it was too slow paced. I'm a fan of action anime and usually prefer fast paced action or thrilling action. But as the series went on i felt that this was lacking so for that reason I wouldn't recommend this anime

Wanna watch a depiction of the reality in the samurai age? Then Shigurui is the right anime for you!

It basically follows the harsh reality of a sword style dojo, with the detail that the master has dementia.

In the first episode, you'll not understand what are those two crippled samurai doing there, in front of the feudal lord, having a sword battle, but it will all get explained during the show.

We'll see the challenging of the dojo by a outsider and how they treated them.
The story is mainly a tale of taking control of the dojo, revenge the power of the feudal lords, it will ... have sex, in several forms, including BDSM and raping. And don't forget, this is the most violent and gory anime ever made.

I enjoy blood with a purpose but this was just graphic and violent. Not my taste at all. The story was hard to get into - maybe I didn't give it justice as I know many anime start slow and get better but I just couldn't get past the violence. I also gravitate more toward heroine stories so this may have been part of my disappointment.

Be prepared, Shigurui: Death Frenzy is not for everyone. It's gruesomely violent, has very few redeemable or likeable characters, it's rapey, shockingly gory and has pretty much zero moments of humour.
I also kind of loved it.

The story takes place in the 1600's and follows a sensei who is training samurai in order to choose his eventual successor and the backstabbing, murder and betrayals going on in the background. That's the basic gist of it, i don't want to spoil anything.

Pretty much every character is a psychopath especially the sensei, the fight scenes are so stylish and brutal and the tone and atmosphere so thick with ... dread and tension that i do not blink when i watch this show.
The violence really is extreme with dismemberment, eyeballs being slashed with swords (and eaten), jaws being detached from faces and characters having teeth stuck in their fists after delivering particularly hard blows to their opponents.
It really isn't for sensitive viewers but if that sounds cool to you then....well it is pretty cool.

I enjoyed the soundtrack too which is mostly traditional Japanese instruments and dark ambient drones which make it feel really intense. It's like watching a horror movie.

I can definitely see some people hating it due to it's slow pace, relentlessly downbeat tone and extreme content (including sexual violence) but i think this is an underrated gem.

This is a pretty bloody ronin show with surpringsingly little action. While there is so much gore, it hardly happens in swordfights but all kind of violent situations along the way. The show focuses mostly on establishing on this calm, unsettling atmosphere like in Seriel Experiments Lain or Kurozuka, wich is quite to my liking. Most of the sword fights consist of the characters meditating / starring at each other and are suddenly over in one blow.

Unfortunately this super slow story telling really eats on the enjoyment in the long run. The more episodes you watch, the more it becomes a drag. The story ... from these 12 episodes could have been told in 4 to 5 episodes and we are also faced with some major plotholes. So if you enjoy the atmosphere in the shows of Yasuyuki Ueda and Hiroshi Hamasaki, this one might be for you.

Let's get this straight. This anime is not for weak stomach. If you are a sensitive soul dont even try to watch it.

I dont think the 18+ is enough for this anime. Not just because of its goreness, but because of the series as a whole. This is definitely one of those which is made for mature audience. What did I say? (*ragenoises*) What I mean by this is after a while you'll start to see the repetitive patterns in the art. The same "deep meanings" that have been processed a thousand times, and they came to the same conclusion. Nothing new just different ... wrapping with the same content. In reality the man is simple... So you'll start to appreciate the atmoshperic art, which does not strain to convey something very deep (and doesnt try to be "such wow, much thinking").

This is where the anime came to me. The characters were nothing special. The story was simple. The music was minimalistic, yet I really liked it because as a whole it had really uniquely dark atmoshpere which was captivating to me. It was really facinating to me how it depicted the chaotic and animalistic nature of the humanity without the strong rules what keep us in bay nowadays. The anime settings was just after the sengoku jidai which was really chaotic and brutal period in japan's history (Unlike in the movies, where the samurai is a hero and the embodiment of honor, which could not be further from the truth, except maybe a few cases). The show doesn’t try to moralize, it just shows things the way they are, in their unjust form.

The story is really really slow, which is actually positive in this case. It lets you accommodate the experience. If you like long trashtalks between the villain and the protagonist, than this show is not for you. The flexing here is much more meta. This show tells its message through imagery mostly, so you need to watch it carefully (which is easier said than done in some cases). Additionally if you want to see long and flashy fight scense than you are in the wrong place. 1 slash and death thats all. You might consider this as budget sollution, but in reality the fights rarely last longer than 1 or 2 slash or stabs. In fact, this minimalism is a distinct characteristic of this show.

Visually this anime is outstanding and beautiful in its grotesque gorey way. Its really rich in details.

Audio wise the anime contains mostly traditional japanese music, which fits perfectly for the minimalistic theme. Just as the sound effects which gives the show a dark and sinister atmosphere.

Summary: The atmoshere of this show is really unique and excellent in its own grotesque way. I'll give to it a 9/10 (because the ending was abrupt for me). All in all this is a hidden gem (its a really dark gem though).

Oh boy, where to start with this one. I signed up to review it, so here we go. I'm currently reading the manga for this one, and while I initially enjoyed this adaptation (the first two episodes were super promising!) I found it to be quite detestable in the way it handled the plot and characters of this series overall.

Art and Sound Design - 9/10

These were, in my opinion, the main strong points of the show. You have high quality Studio Madhouse animations and art, which lovingly render a blend of 2D art with select moments of 3D (usually for gore) that lend an edge ... of uncanny valley to the gory scenes often portrayed in this show. Of which there were a lot. It paints a brutal takedown of the idea of the 'noble samurai in service of his lord', and almost everything shown here is in service of that goal. The palette is washed out, casting everything into a brilliant, uncanny white, or the dull browns of half-light. Interiors are often gloomy, decrepit greyscale. It lends the work a certain dreamlike quality, but... more on that in a minute.

The sound design evokes the period the show is depicting in a way the manga honestly couldn't replicate, due to the limits of the medium. It's minimalist, using traditional instruments from the period to build tension in a way that's reminiscent of wild west films, or samurai flicks, an irony that does not escape me given the story's themes. It's unobtrusive for the most part, but still evokes emotion in a more subconscious way than some more bombastic anime.

So... why would I rate this a 5/10? Because of everything else. Because the story is needlessly obtuse in a way that the work it adapts just... isn't. Because it did a terrible job of making me care about any of the generally unlikeable fanatics this world is populated with. Because for all its amazing animation, portrayal of male-presenting nipples, anime people who look like actual Japanese people, and sheer unflinching brutality, it spends more time lingering on scenes of graphic sexual assault than it does on the core conflict it's meant to be setting up.


The Story 5/10

The story meanders all over the place for an extended period towards the middle of this series. As I have since read the source material, I can tell you this is solely a problem with this adaptation, for context. It's a pacing issue that lead me dangerously close to uttering the six deadly words, 'I don't care about these people'. Yes, people are maimed and tortured at the whims of uncaring madmen, while the idea of 'loyalty' is messily deconstructed, but at some point it began to feel more like the animators wanted to stretch out the sexual assault scenes for as long as they could. The plot felt aimless or plain nonexistent, ending with a whimper, telling you to go read the manga. This was because a large amount of background information for the world seems to have been cut to make way for more totes radical animation and vaguely surrealist moments. This has a horrible knock-on effect on:


The Characters 4/10

The characters in this show are, by and large, presented as mute psychopaths with nary a human bone in their body (apart from the ones that occasionally surface violently through their skin). I get it, it's a dark show. But even dark stuff needs some form of attachment to its characters. For context, the source material has a lot of internal monologue, personal philosophy, etc. Almost none of this is present, or at best, feelings are vaguely alluded to in mild facial tics and body language. As someone viewing this with no context initially, the show gave me almost nothing to work with. There were a couple of characters who were sympathetic due to their wretched circumstances, but Madhouse seemed more intent on forcing the viewer to wallow in their suffering than they did in developing anyone in particular. The main conflict feels barely touched upon, because this adapts a short stretch of the manga, and it leaves the characters involved in that conflict poorly fleshed out as a result. That leaves the conflict between loyalty and free will, of people striving against a slavish cultural devotion to duty - the thing meant to be driving the story- seem tepid and aimless. The characters really are puppets in this one.


Enjoyment 5/10

Shigurui came off as something like a weird, brutal indie arthouse project. It's enjoyable for those reasons, but it also felt pretentious to me. It's needlessly obtuse with its visuals, seemingly for the sole purpose of being 'artistic'. I didn't mind that the fights often end in a single stroke. That's what happens when people use swords on unarmored bodies. I did mind how often people seemed to get molested, and how the camera felt the need to linger over that in a way it never did with scenes of murder. It's kinda like Ninja Scroll in that way. Rape on display for mostly its own sake.


Overall 5/10

I'm sorry for mentioning the manga so much in this, but when the show ended abruptly, leaving me feeling mildly robbed, I needed to know what the hell just happened and why. It's just that I'm only now realizing what could have been done with this show, and why the end result felt lackluster. It was okay while I watched it (most of the time) but only after I got to the 'read the manga' ending did I realize how many important character moments and how much dialogue was cut out of this adaptation. It's okay if you want to watch samurai you don't care about get murderized in very flashy ways, or see lovingly animated girls get molested, go for it, but I wouldn't recommend this anime as a faithful adaptation of its source material. It's not awful by itself. It's... average, by way of being both great and terrible at the same time. It got myself and my partner to check out what it was adapting, and that's... better than nothing I guess? We're not likely to get a second season, so I'd say, save yourself the effort in divining the entrails on what scene X 'really means' and just read the manga instead. As my partner said, this show is to its manga what Berserk 2016 was to its own source material. It's not worth it.