Mugen no Juunin: Immortal (Blade of the Immortal)

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Alternative Titles

Japanese: 無限の住人-IMMORTAL-

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Information

Type: ONA

Episodes: 24

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Oct 10, 2019 to Mar 26, 2020

Producers: Nihon Ad Systems, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Pony Canyon, Kodansha

Licensors: Sentai Filmworks

Studios: LIDENFILMS

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Adventure, Drama, Supernatural

Themes: Gore, Historical, Martial Arts, Samurai

Demographic: Seinen

Duration: 23 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 7.43¹ (scored by 27,911 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #2173²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2330

Members: 83,371

Favorites: 461

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Synopsis

Manji is an infamous swordsman in feudal Japan who is known as the "Hundred Man Killer," as he has killed one hundred innocent men. However, there is something far more frightening than his ominous reputation: the fact that he is immortal. This is the handiwork of eight-hundred-year-old nun Yaobikuni, who placed bloodworms capable of healing almost any wound in Manji's body.

To atone for his crimes, Manji resolves to kill one thousand evil men. Yaobikuni agrees to this proposal, saying that if he succeeds, she will undo his curse of immortality. Soon after this promise, Manji meets Rin Asano, a 16-year-old girl who requests Manji's assistance in killing those who slaughtered her parents.

Initially reluctant, Manji refuses Rin's desperate plea. However, owing to her evident lack of strength, Manji changes his mind and agrees to protect Rin for four years. With this partnership set in stone, the two embark on a perilous journey of bloodshed, vengeance, and redemption, each to fulfill their own life's cause.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Mugen no Juunin
Alternative version:	Mugen no Juunin

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Characters & Voice Actors

Manji

Main

Tsuda, Kenjirou
Japanese

Anotsu, Kagehisa

Main

Sasaki, Nozomu
Japanese

Asano, Rin

Main

Sakura, Ayane
Japanese

Otono-Tachibana, Makie

Supporting

Kuwashima, Houko
Japanese

Magatsu, Taito

Supporting

Suzuki, Tatsuhisa
Japanese

Hyakurin

Supporting

Hayashi, Marika
Japanese

Shira

Supporting

Nara, Tooru
Japanese

Giichi

Supporting

Shirokuma, Hiroshi
Japanese

Yoshino, Doa

Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie
Japanese

Habaki, Kagimura

Supporting

Nakata, Jouji
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Aoi, Hiroyuki

Producer

Hamasaki, Hiroshi

Director, Storyboard

Shimizu, Youji

Sound Director

Kitamura, Junichi

Episode Director

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Opening Theme

	"SURVIVE OF VISION" by Kiyoharu
	2: "Mugen no Juunin Butouhen (無限の住人武闘編)" by Ningen Isu [TV Rebroadcast eps 13-23]

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Ending Theme

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Reviews

Mar 2, 2022

Lin_Wu

Recommended

This is one of those animes that you would enjoy if you studied a bit about the history revolving around the period. Though I cannot confirm the costumes' accuracy nor the protagonist's Rin's mindset to be accurate, the overall picture of seeing how the samurai is represented is told very well.

Starting with a few points to cover, the buildup of the tale is pretty average, there are the major heroes, there are the villains with empathetic backgrounds, and there are the average "hero's journey" conflicts along.

The art is actually quite well done. I enjoyed the unique way of depicting the characters and the colors ...

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Aug 15, 2022

hexashadow13

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr: An anime that has a few highs and points of interest, but is largely a mess that doesn’t handle anything its trying to do well.

This anime is a very strange one. It starts off simple enough. A girl named Rin wants revenge on a school of samurai known as the Itto-ryu, particularly its leader Anotsu, for the murder of her father and rape and kidnapping of her mother. She’s not strong enough to accomplish this, so she is advised to hire someone to fight alongside her. She ends up hiring Maji, a swordsman that seems to be pretty laid back due to how he’s ... somewhat lazy and constantly making jokes, but is actually the immortal Hundred Man Killer, who killed a hundred innocent men and was cursed to wander the Earth until he killed one thousand evil men in repentance.

Though reluctant at first, he agrees to her request and they set out to kill the evil samurai of the Itto-ryu. This seems simple enough in the first episode, as it involves them hunting down an evil Itto-ryu samurai, some explanation through flashbacks and such that clearly shows that the samurai is evil, and then Manji killing him. A similar structure happens a couple times after that, and though it has it’s faults, mainly in that it seems pretty rushed, it’s at least clear what they’re going for and everyone’s motivations, roles, and actions make sense.

However, in between episodes where things are kept black and white, it’s also setting the stage for more complex stories. It adds complexity to the Itto-Ryu samurai in various ways. For example, it shows that even if they were responsible for the atrocities committed against Rin’s parents, there are still people that love them and are loyal to them. And also that some may have moved on with their lives to become genuinely upstanding people that others rely on and respect. And even that Anotsu may have had reasons for why he needed to kill Rin’s father that he was fully committed to. While this does make things more complicated, it’s the standard way to add depth to revenge stories, wherein it results in the revenge pursuer questioning whether she’s truly just in killing others for the sake of revenge and such. Once again, it feels pretty rushed, but is otherwise a decent enough plot.

It’s beyond that things turn into a complete mess. It adds scores of characters and does half hearted attempts at fleshing them out and trying to get you to care about them in some way, whether it to be like or hate, or in some cases I have not the faintest clue. The one constant seems to be that Rin and Manji are always portrayed as being good people, but beyond that it seems to be trying to show that every group has evil in it and every group has good, even going to ridiculous stretches to do so. Another faction, the Mugai-ryu, appears that wants to kill off the Itto-Ryu who Rin and Manji join at first, but it quickly becomes apparent that there’s a sadist that literally loves torturing and raping women in it, which leads to them violently leaving. And then the head of the Mugai-ryu is shown to not care at all about the average person, authorizing and watching over human experimentation that results in a large stream of deaths. But this side also has clearly good people in it, and in that they’re shown as getting along well with Rin and Manji it feels like the viewer is supposed to like them too. The anime even tries to show that the guys behind all the human experimentation had some good in them. And it does the exact same thing with the Itto-Ryu, wherein it tries to show that some of them, even ones that were part of what happened to Rin’s parents, have good in them, and shows them getting along well with Rin.

It probably is possible to craft a multi-layered story that handles all of this well. I haven’t read the manga, so that may well have accomplished this. But the anime at least is not that story in the slightest. There are some parts where things get more narrow and it’s able to handle them reasonably well, such as the arc involving the human experimentation. But overall, it is incredibly clumsy with everything it’s doing. It introduces way too many characters and doesn’t feel like it fleshed them out properly at all. Character’s actions become increasingly difficult to understand and match up with what their motivations and personalities should lead them to do. Themes constantly clash with each other and lead to a bizarre dissonance that makes it hard to really care about any of anything. For example, a character from the Itto-Ryu that I think we’re supposed to care about gives a speech about how he doesn’t want to let anymore young men under him die and gives his life to try to protect them, and not long after that one of those young men tries to rape another character from the Mugai-ryu that it feels like the narrative tried to make the viewer care about. It becomes really hard to care about or be invested in anyone other than Manji and Rin, which is a major problem because they have very little focus towards the end. What little romance there was between the two was also completely handwaved and completely ignored in the ending, which all around felt pretty unsatisfying.

Ultimately, I think the anime was trying to do something very different from just the standard complexity that comes with a revenge story. Rather, I think that was just the opening to trying to create a story that emphasized the world doesn’t operate on modern values, where everyone goes through major suffering and inflicts major suffering, and that’s just a fact of life. It’s not a part of character arcs. It’s not particularly important to the plot. It’s just something that happens. Furthermore, the samurai involved, both the Itto-Ryu and Mugai-Ryu, are supposed to be even harder to understand through a contemporary lens because at the end of the day, they’re just people fighting because fighting is what they do.

But this anime simply isn’t able to pull off the world building necessary for that. Not just in terms of the standard world building in terms of the historical context, which while not as immediately understandable for western viewers I’m going to assume is pretty obvious for people in Japan who were the primary intended audience. But more so in terms of themes and tone. If it’s trying to convey realistic strife and convey that the way things were were completely different during a time period, it has to first flesh the context surrounding that, it needs to build up to it in a way that the viewer can understand it, and needs to give it room to breath so things can properly sink in. This anime did none of that. And thus, the vast majority of the plot in this anime felt pointless and lacking in substance. There’s a waterwheel motif that’s supposed to represent how time continues to move forward that shows up a couple times, and seeing it’s final appearance the only thing I could think of was how badly it was used despite liking the concept.

It also doesn’t help that the action in this anime was pretty weak. Firstly, Manji is a lot weaker than I expected and relies entirely on his immortality to win anything. I mean, I guess that makes sense, as since he’s pretty lazy and easy going I suppose he just stopped caring and just relied on his immortality in order to win everything. But that makes the action with him feel really dull and not that satisfying at all. And with everyone else, there are so many characters that any single character barely gets any action which results in their not really being anything interesting enough to really find all that exciting. Plus, because it’s hard to get invested in the rest of the cast, it becomes hard to get invested in who wins, even with the fact that the loser generally dies.

The art and animation are pretty weak. The art style isn’t particularly great, being overtly dull and washed out. The production values also felt pretty lacking, with very heavy use of things that felt like attempts at trying to squeeze the budget as far as it would go, such as overuse of random panning over unrelated scenery when people were talking. The story boarding also had very bizarre flow at times, wherein it would randomly cut to a completely unrelated scene for a second or two in the middle of other scenes. The action also didn’t feel particularly well choreographed and was generally lacking in how dynamic it was. The soundtrack didn’t particularly stand out though I suppose it fit well enough. The OP’s song was pretty bad and felt like it didn’t fit at all, but the visuals were even worse even though they fit somewhat, and the ED was just a random instrumental track with white text on a black background.

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Mar 27, 2020

JiangHaoyi1979

Not Recommended

Well, this was quite unique ONA, given that its title was Mugen No Juunin or Blade of the Immortal, but it was a bit of a disappointment when the ONA itself doesn't live up to its title, so here are my ratings:

Story- Good 7: For a while it does have a very good story plot when it involves a girl who was the daughter of a certain samurai master that was killed by them Itto Ryu antagonists. But, that just as good as it get, cu'z as one gets to the middle of the series it becomes a disappointment.

Art- Good 7: It does have ... mild nudity but most of it were artistic, however there times that when it comes to the fighting scene one would get blindsided as if if you'd like to ask "How did he/she do that???", also there time that some illustrations were just too distorted that it would take a while to get it.

Sound-fair 6: No comment here.

Character-Poor 3: Frankly, being an immortal this is were the main protagonist Manjin should have had that god-tier powers given that he's been alive for a very long time and he himself would had the experience to be able to see through his enemies attacks, instead, he finds himself in need of assistance and help from his side kick Rin, now I don't know about you guys but him having such attributes was a waste of his skills , it would have been better if original creator , Samura Hiroaki would have portrayed him as a mortal with skills in fighting and in the end he gives his life in defense of Rin when he squares off with Anotsu, Kagehisa, Rin Asano, was somewhat of a damsel in distares but there were times that she was this cold blooded killer and whats confusing about her was that there were time that she forgets her objective of getting revenge, there were time that her being with Manji was more like a romantic interest......also, about them Itto Ryu antagonist there were times that they're the good guys and time that they're the bad guys..Now this was the problem of the original creator, Samura Hiroaki, he basically jumbol from one set of protagonist to another set of antagonist that sometimes who the bad guy is would be confusing until he introduces them Mugai-ryū that was headed by Kagimura Hibaki that has finally identifies itself as the main antagonist.

Enjoyment- Good 7: As an ONA, this was worth watching but barely cu'z adding some mild nudity and some rape scene gives this ONA something to be not let go of.

Overall- Poor 3: As I've said , this was worth watching but only barely, cu'z how it ended was pretty much rushed that the ending was messy.

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Poll: Mugen no Juunin: Immortal Episode 4 Discussion Rider9530 - Oct 23, 2019	38 replies	by Apreggi »» Apr 21, 10:36 AM
Poll: Mugen no Juunin: Immortal Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 ) JustAnotherShiro - Oct 16, 2019	80 replies	by Apreggi »» Apr 21, 10:08 AM
Poll: Mugen no Juunin: Immortal Episode 2 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Joseahfer - Oct 9, 2019	61 replies	by Apreggi »» Apr 19, 11:28 PM
Poll: Mugen no Juunin: Immortal Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Joseahfer - Oct 9, 2019	81 replies	by Apreggi »» Apr 19, 1:04 AM
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Mugen no Juunin: Immortal

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