Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru

Fellow Saniwa here. I just wanted to make this clear: just because it is an adaptation of a game, it doesn't mean it has to be shitty for newcomers who watches it without having played the game. Let me repeat: it shouldn't be necessary to play the game to enjoy the show. Don't try to pretend that the show delivers anything well.

The show is quite pathetic in appealing to the people who haven't played the game in several ways. They don't develop any characters; they are only busy adding more to the plot. I can understand that this ... happened because it was aimed at the people who played the game. But it still doesn't change the fact that it fails to develop characters.

The plot is laughable, the animation quality is mediocre and there are too many things wrong with it. But hell, I love it. I love the game and love the characters and I absolutely adore it.

I'm just going to start off by saying that I have never played the game this is based off of and probably never will. If you are in the same boat, then I would recommend that you don't even try to watch this. I honestly would have dropped it pretty early on if I didn't need to complete it for a MAL challenge. It's obvious that this show was made solely for fans of the game and they don't really even try to make it appealing to other viewers. As a newcomer to the franchise, these are my thoughts of the show based solely on ... it being an anime rather than an adaptation of a video game.

First of all, don't be fooled by the underlying plot of these swords being animated to fight an organization bent on changing history because the anime doesn't really focus on that most of the time. Instead, the series is pretty much centered around the characters and their interactions with each other in the citadel. Throughout the series, you will constantly see the same exact plot points being recycled such as introducing new characters, forging bonds between characters, and dealing with internal struggles of characters. It's kind of obvious once you know the background of the series that the whole point of doing this is to give fans the chance to see their favorite characters stirring up emotions inside of them. However, without that excitement of seeing someone you know that you can only get from previously playing the game, the cycle becomes repetitive and boring after awhile. On top of that, they introduce like 50 different characters in the span of the series, so it is hard to keep track of them all without having prior exposure to them. By having so many characters, I felt a lot of the shows attempts to deal with internal struggles fell flat because it's really hard to be impacted by a scene involving a character you are still trying to figure out the identity of. I will admit that there were maybe 2 times where a scene involving a character actually made me feel something, but most of the time attempts to make me sympathize with them were unsuccessful and even the times I did feel something I get the impression it didn't impact me as much as it was supposed to. This series is definitely built around character interactions, so not developing characters before emotional moments and cycling through so many of them in such a short amount of time because you assume the viewer already has an understanding of them through the game is definitely the fatal flaw in this anime for viewers who haven't played it.

Honestly, I was just bored most of the time watching this series and you probably will be too if you haven't played the game. I understand that the anime would have been a lot better if i did play it and this may even be considered a masterpiece if you view it as an addition to the franchise rather than as an adaptation of the game. However, I don't think you should have to delve into a game in order for an anime to be good because if a show is good it should be able to stand on its own. Yeah, the series probably was more successful pandering solely to fans of the game considering it's getting a second season, but as far as being a stand alone anime, it is pretty bad in my opinion. The whole aspect drawing viewers into the series is their connections to characters from the game, so without that, there really isn't too much about the anime that keeps you interested. If you really want to watch this then do yourself a favor and play the game first. Based on the numerous top rated 10 reviews I've seen on this show's MAL page, it may be worth the time and effort. However, if you don't want to do that, then don't even bother watching this because you will probably just continuously lower the score to an anime that wasn't even meant for you to begin with.