Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan

March 2003. That was when the Rurouni Kenshin anime first premiered on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block. I looked up the original year expecting to feel old, but somehow 2003 doesn’t seem that long ago. It’s actually almost exactly 13 years. I grew up on this show, and one way or another I’m willing to bet the same could be said of most people still visiting this MAL page. Rurouni Kenshin gave me the hope that I too could be a samurai in a modern world unsuited for one. That hasn’t worked out very well for me.

Rurouni Kenshin stars its titular protagonist, Kenshin Himura, a former ... assassin who became legendary for his skill and body count during the Bakumatsu wars of Japan. Years later, Kenshin becomes a rurouni (an unemployed samurai) and wanders the country now seeking to atone for the lives he’s taken by helping others, and vows to never kill again. He soon meets up with Kaoru Kamiya, the manager of her own dojo. After Kenshin saves Kaoru’s life he’s given a place to settle down in and protect. The two are later joined by the young child of a family of samurai, Yahiko Myojin, and a roughish street fighter named Sanosuke Sagara who mainly battles with his fists. This main four accompany Kenshin as he fights other lost souls from the Bakumatsu who often seek to challenge the new Meiji government who threaten their archaic sword-wielding way of life.

With the manga beginning in 1994, Rurouni Kenshin became a flagship title of the “battle shonen” subgenre that was now truly beginning to acquire momentum, and the franchise is now considered a staple classic of the entire genre. Getting into Rurouni Kenshin now is rather interesting, as it holds this historical evolution inside of its own story. Rurouni Kenshin begins as not fully a battle shonen, being more like that earlier hybrid of action-adventure where fights were frequent but typically short, simple, and bookended by longer exposition or downtime. As the series progresses it changes and benefits from becoming increasingly about the fight themselves as special fighting abilities become more common, villains stick around longer and violent conflicts are hyped, and the pacing changes to nearly non-stop action as entire episodes become centered around the battle ahead.

One way of looking at this progress is that it means Rurouni Kenshin “starts slow” and doesn’t reach part of its full potential in the early stories. This would be true for the manga or anime, but it’s the anime that really suffers from this crawl. Given that the manga was still in development when the anime began, the producers started preparing filler material early on. Shorter stories and plot details from the manga were stretched out to get more of an episode out of them, and many original episodic stories were also introduced between following the manga’s events. Not only this, but parts of those original manga stories were arbitrarily changed, such as Kenshin’s fight with Sanosuke, and nearly always worse off for those changes. The anime also tries to appeal to a younger audience by censoring much of the violence and darker imagery depicted in the manga, an example here being Hannya’s back story.

Despite many of these frustrating concessions, the original storylines of the manga are present enough to still make the anime’s beginning engaging as long as you’re out of the stretches of original filler. The soft-spoken, peaceful Kenshin Himura is a very unique protagonist for shonen anime. The typical shonen protagonist is a young boy, or at the very least someone who begins weak but has a lot of potential to become more powerful or grow as a person. Kenshin is nearly the opposite of this, being a fully developed adult whose philosophies on life are already finalized by his vow to never kill again, and he’s instantly implied to be the best swordfighter in Japan and routinely demonstrates that fight after fight. Kenshin feels almost invincible at points and lives up to his legacy, but how does the action maintain dramatic tension if the match-up results always seem so obvious? The answer is by giving Kenshin two serious handicaps. One is that Kenshin fights using a blade where the sharp edge is on the opposite side so as not to easily kill his opponents and betray his vow, and the second is that vow itself. Kenshin is forced to hold himself back from full strength to prevent killing anyone, which levels the playing field somewhat between his opponents. As Kenshin is forced to face stronger enemies he’s routinely challenged to revert to his merciless killing ways to stand a chance. Because Kenshin does not change much as a person throughout the series, the progression of watching him is centered on revealing more of who he actually is. That is, his personality as a cold assassin. Kenshin also doesn’t spend the series learning new attacks but instead slowly reveals ones he already knows. Kenshin’s fights stay interesting as he’s forced to find openings to incapacitate his opponents instead of killing them, which would actually be far easier.

Kenshin’s love interest is very obviously and immediately Kaoru Kamiya. The original title of the manga was “Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story”, but anyone who recommends this series as a romance would have to be out of their mind. If anything, Kenshin and Kaoru’s relationship is the poorest major part of the storyline. Kaoru’s romantic interest in Kenshin begins almost right after they meet, and from then it doesn’t really evolve beyond this unrequited gushing of Kaoru over Kenshin and falls into a generic anime stasis. Kaoru struggles maintaining agency in the story because nearly all of her thought processes involve Kenshin in some way, and she is almost never, ever seen contributing to major fights. This only gets worse in the anime due to its countless light and comedic filler episodes revolving around Kaoru’s feelings towards Kenshin and his “hilarious” misunderstanding of them. She becomes almost annoying in the anime because of these additional jokes making her character even shallower, and her breakdowns over Kenshin possibly becoming the killer he used to be can cross over into trite melodrama. Given that Kaoru is trained in the art of the sword to the point of teaching it, it would’ve been nice to see a character who’s around at nearly all times actually contributing to the fighting around her. Instead she’s seen as too weak and is never really given opportunities to prove herself in the first place. This also would’ve given her more personal stake in what’s going on rather than nearly all of her actions being centered around Kenshin. It’s disappointing that one of our main characters is one of the show’s few females who can fight and she does nothing with it, instead usually being relegated to cheerleader status and an irritating ditz.

The first 27 episodes of the anime are a mixture of filler episodes and mild to moderately altered adaptations of the manga’s arcs. The best of these arcs is the one that stays truest to the manga, which is the Oniwaban/Megumi arc. This is where the show’s transition to battle shonen begins, with a variety of opponents who use weapons other than swords and specific techniques rather than raw strength and agility. With the exception of the arc’s final fight against Aoshi and the subsequent climax these battles are fairly short and not that interesting, but they are fun to watch now that our opponents are intriguing and have surprising fighting styles to show off. Despite this satisfying arc, the rest of the first season ranges from average to downright boring. Its canonical manga stories are mainly short introductions to characters and the Meiji era setting and culture the series is set in, and we’re prevented from getting to the really good stuff by a bevy of terrible filler that threatens to destroy the quality of the series as a whole.

Rurouni Kenshin isn’t just full of filler, it’s full of some of the worst filler I’ve ever seen. Filler that’s so bad and mishandles the base material so much that it insults the characters and cheapens the surrounding canonical storylines. I’ve already brought up how the lighter tone of the anime and the filler’s focus on comedy relies on Kaoru’s shallower traits and develops her as a worse character than she actually is, but the same goes for everyone else as well. Yahiko is turned into a whiny spoiled brat because there’s more to work with there when it comes to comedy than a stubborn inspiring samurai, and Sanosuke may not be very bright but he’s turned from a badass into a doofus as he’s constantly insulted by Kaoru and Yahiko. The attempts at comedy are the most painfully generic and lazy jokes you’ll come across, as literally the same gags are spread out in filler across this 94 episode series. Kaoru is a bad cook! Yahiko is always complaining and calling Kaoru ugly! Sanosuke is a freeloader! All of this hundreds of times as you’re also forced to put up with extremely dull original storylines that can revolve around main characters being frustratingly stupid (Yahiko stealing Kenshin’s sword), or they revolve around simplistic, awful original characters that only show up once. The typical filler plot is some random helpless idiot needs to be encouraged by Kenshin’s group to not give up at doing whatever, and these episodes can involve the group trying to help a circus girl blast off out of a cannon or Kaoru pinching a sumo wrestler on the ass. And the filler villains are usually the most cartoonish, relentlessly evil brigands that would make a real serial killer look like a more reasonable guy.

The filler in Rurouni Kenshin fails to retain anything that made the original story captivating. For starters, the action (or any excitement at all) practically doesn’t exist in the filler. The series’ excellent ability to capture the grace of the time period its set in by its semi-realistic tone that contextualizes the super-powered characters into something believable is upended by the anime’s constant appeals to children with no regards to quality as it’s doing so. Rurouni Kenshin’s filler is almost always excruciatingly boring, and I’m almost stunned that the anime’s writers could even bear to write around 50 episodes of such trite stories for a living and would never be encouraged to try harder for the sake of their own entertainment. Even something like Dragon Ball Z’s filler sometimes tried to do the base material justice by making its own supervillains and staying close to what the main stories were about. If you’re wondering why I have this series as a 6, then it’s because the anime’s filler is actually what makes up a majority of it and it’s worth a 3 if not even less. But enough about numbers, because it’s time for the part anyone who’s seen the series before was waiting for me to get to.

After about 10 enjoyable episodes of manga adaptations and about 17 mind-numbing episodes about Kaoru being ugly and a bad cook, it’s almost (not) worth it to fully experience the revitalizing whiplash of the series instantly taking the kid gloves off. A mysterious man named Saitou Hajime shows up at the Kamiya Dojo searching for Kenshin. It turns out Saitou is a former member of the Shinsengumi and an old rival of Kenshin’s from the Bakumatsu. Saitou challenges Kenshin to see if his abilities have weakened since he’s settled into a more peaceful life. The anime’s production and sense of direction finally comes alive in this scene, as Kenshin’s warm crimson visage is dominated by the icy navy blues of Saitou that exude from his cold personality and cover the entire screen for the duration of the fight. Yahiko appropriately seems to mimic the perspective of the young audience during this fight as he shouts “I knew it! Kenshin can never lose! Kenshin is invincible!” right before his hero is cut down by Saitou with the same ease Kenshin has been defeating his previous opponents. Kenshin is barely spared, and Saitou insults him afterwards by saying Kenshin Himura as "the wandering samurai" will be of no use to him and the police in the upcoming battle for the nation of Japan. Another man said to be the closest to Kenshin in skill, or possibly better, during the Bakumatsu is raising an army to overthrow the Meiji government. The psychotic Makoto Shishio and his gang of underlings are threatening the country from within the city of Kyoto, and Kenshin leaves for Kyoto as his friends chase after him to make sure the Kenshin they know isn’t lost in the fierce battle ahead.

This is the beginning of the Kyoto arc, and this arc is the sole reason why the Rurouni Kenshin anime has obtained classic status, and it’s a perfect beginning to boot. The creators address the audience and tell them things are going to be different. There’s going to be more violence and blood, and even major characters could die against a villain that’s said to be too much for even the man who just beat Kenshin to handle. The stakes and threat level are higher than ever before, and the new sub-villains are set up early on to give as much anticipation of their battles as Shishio’s himself. Aiding that anticipation is everyone in this arc having unique fighting styles which reach their full potential through more dynamic action sequences than seen before.

Kenshin’s journey across Kyoto introduces several new characters. The aforementioned Saito is a fantastic addition to the series and probably my favorite character period. Saito’s eclipsive moral compass makes him a great character to demonstrate the ethical borderlines of maintaining a samurai code of justice in a more rigid judicial government. He’s a true anti-hero in a series that had previously been defined by righteous do-gooders, and his complete misanthropic disdain for everyone else around him makes his personality starkly stand out and he has both some of the funniest and most dramatic lines in the series. His begrudging companionship with rival Kenshin and the less-skilled Sanosuke makes for a highly entertaining dynamic. The female ninja Misao also contains much of the series’ best attempts at humor, and her relationship with the Oniwaban group is an excuse to bring former opponent Aoshi into the Kyoto arc and make it even bigger. Misao is also never shown being as helpless as Kaoru, and even Kaoru and Yahiko get literally their one important fight of the entire series in the Kyoto arc. Kenshin’s former master Seijuuro Hiko is brought in to establish more of Kenshin’s past as well as some actual growth, and Seijuuro’s every action becomes significant as he’s a monolithic type who’s implied to be the strongest fighter in the series but prefers to stay out of the action as much as possible.

The Kyoto arc just does everything right and is exactly what Rurouni Kenshin had the potential to be. The pacing is brisk and the story filled with large obstacles the heroes must overcome at a moment’s notice, such as Shisho’s army advancing on the city of Kyoto or his heavily armored battleship threatening Japan from the seas. The growing cast is full of universally good additions, and they are divided evenly across this big adventure and are all given at least one special moment to shine. Later shonen works could take lessons from how to effectively manage a big cast of characters as well as Rurouni Kenshin does during the Kyoto arc.

The production team stops cutting corners here and adapts the manga more faithfully, and the increased amount of effort is palpable in the greater quality not just in the writing but in the animation as well. Fights are extremely dynamic with more constant camera movement that darts around the frame, and the characters themselves move very quickly and fluidly with no noticeable framerate skipping. The main reason the Kyoto arc is such a joy to watch is because everything’s always moving. There’s a kinetic soul to this entire production that the rest of the series completely lacks that makes this story, its characters, and its action breathe and come to life. When the studio plays with color like in the aforementioned Saitou fight, all of the story’s events feel more dramatic. The speed and intensity of matches is emphasized wonderfully, and Rurouni Kenshin’s Kyoto arc is the golden standard of 90s shonen anime productions and it even transcends the basic story it adapts from the manga. This all peaks exactly where it should in the final fight against Shishio which is a serious contender for the best match ever in a battle shonen anime. In addition to the scenes often rippling from the humidity caused by the torrents of flame surrounding the arena, the studio also plays with aspect ratio at parts to give a broad widescreen perspective that recalls Rurouni Kenshin’s original influences from samurai films and makes the scenes as intense as those classic film moments.

The Kyoto arc is full of the heart the rest of the series doesn’t have and then some. It has the courage to go beyond the original manga story’s quality and understands the story and its implications well enough to be able to successfully accentuate them into something more powerful but nonetheless faithful. The characters reach the peak of their established personalities and every single one of them grows in some way from the challenges they face. The action is enthralling and absorbing. Everything comes together in this big arc and none of it flounders to deliver a perfectly satisfying experience that deserves to stand the rest of time as a blueprint for a fully-realized battle shonen arc.

Things were looking good for the Rurouni Kenshin anime now that the team was taking it more seriously, but the anime had now gotten too close to the manga to have anything new to adapt. You know what this means: more filler. But after a few episodes of the same terrible junk from the first season, something promising is done as the team decides to write more serious original storyline arcs. They clearly learned something from covering the Kyoto arc and putting so much more effort into it, and I was open for the possibility that the team could finally write filler that did the base story justice even if it didn’t reach the same heights. There’s very little information on Rurouni Kenshin’s post-Kyoto arcs so I had to find out for myself if they were any good. As it is now, most people haven’t even seen anything past the Kyoto arc and still shower the series with perfect scores (this ought to be a federal offense). The anime also makes a strange decision to change the animation and art a bit after the Kyoto arc, but it’s so minor and subtle that its “uncanny valleyness” just makes it even more off-putting whenever the changes stand out. Regardless of how minor the style change is, it’s lower quality than before and these final filler episodes are full of a lot of very still frames with little movement.

Rurouni Kenshin’s first filler arc is… actually tolerable. The storyline come up with here is about the religious persecution and exile of Christians from Japan and their return to take revenge on the country. It’s actually an extremely clever way to stick to Rurouni Kenshin’s historical setting but not settle on the same stories of swordsmen alienated by the new government. It’s another story of disenfranchisement caused by old grudges but with different motivations and different types of characters. The main new character is Shogo Amakusa, a sort of prophet to the Christian movement who claims to have sword skills blessed by God. He fights using the same style Kenshin was taught which makes him an acceptably threatening follow-up to Shishio, and there is ethical conflict regarding their religious motivations as Shogo and his group are willingly taking advantage of their followers’ beliefs for the sake of revenge, even though it may be justifiable for their religious freedom.

Shogo is accompanied by his own gang of villains similar to Shishio, and they also each have distinct character designs and powers. Where this arc particularly falters though is the action goes back to being very simple and dull. The choreography is basic again, the animation goes back to being cheap, there’s no tricks with color or perspective to give the fights that same energy, and the fights don’t build up suspense as they’re all settled in 3 to 5 minutes. It’s a massive disappointment that shows the team hasn’t abandoned their laziness, even if the basic promise of these qualities is more than they’ve done previously. The actual plot is somewhat interesting as Kenshin is given a very serious handicap I won’t spoil, and most of the villains this time around are victims who need to obtain religious freedom but don’t want more violence. Sanosuke is actually the best part of this Christian arc, as he becomes an actual deuteragonist and a major player to the plot with his (actually somewhat touching) relationship with Shogo’s sister, Magdalia. He’s actually focused on in a bigger ratio here than he was in the Kyoto arc. While this arc is ultimately rushed (for literally no reason since they just make more filler after) and doesn’t execute well the same things it copies from the Kyoto arc, some parts of it actually work to a degree and there’s a basic foundation for a good story set up which is more than I can say for the rest of the filler. It’s by -far- the best filler story in Rurouni Kenshin, but that’s less of a testament to how good it is and more of an example of just how little the rest of the series tries. I got a baseline enjoyment out of this arc but as a stand-alone story it’s not good enough to the point where I would recommend anyone watch it.

At this point I was relieved to see any improvement in the filler quality and thought the team might continuously evolve in future filler arcs, but instead the exact opposite happened. Subsequent arcs got increasingly shorter and the characters even worse. After several stupid comedic episodic filler like brought up earlier the team decides to make one of their terrible two filler ideas into a mini-arc. This time it’s the one where Kenshin and co. encourage some pathetic sap to achieve his goals, so you get several episodes of a wimpy nerd crying about swinging a wooden sword being too hard. There’s no threatening villain in this part or anything, just a total bore and flavorless story.

The next arc begins immediately as a group from Europe called the Black Knights have come to Japan seeking an ancient treasure called the Divine Elixir which is said to be able to cure any illness. Ignoring the fact that putting a magical MacGuffin in a historical setting at this point is stupid, the Black Knights are basically the illuminati with a medieval fetish who secretly plan to control the world from the shadows with the money they get from the elixir. The Black Knights we see are a main trio that wield a lance, an axe, and rapier each. This is actually a very solid idea that the original manga itself could’ve used, as the characters being western is a perfect excuse to bring new weapons and fighting styles into the series. Don’t get your hopes up to see any of those fights brought to their potential though, as like in the Christian arc every fight in the Black Knight arc is short and unexciting to watch (though the final is borderline okay). The Black Knight arc isn’t a total pain, but it’s quite worse than the Christian arc because the plot has no momentum whatsoever. Many of the episodes focus on adventure and exploration over any action, and there’s a lot of the characters just wandering around and trying to figure out clues to the elixir. And as we expect, the filler writers are not good at creating entertaining dialogue to carry these slow moments.

After one brief filler episode that’s actually okay just because it dares to develop a certain main character without the manga’s guidance, another mini-arc begins that’s the finale of the series. And what a finale it is, because this is the worst one yet and the most egregious core concept. The Feng Shui arc revolves around magic. Literally magical spells that control dragons made of water and sudden blasts of wind. What an insult that so close to the end of this series they throw in magic that betrays the historical setting like never before. Rurouni Kenshin has always crossed the border of reality into fiction, but it made an attempt to disguise it with its serious tone and convincing explanations for its ridiculous powers. There’s a guy who breathes fire, but oh he does it by carrying oil in his stomach and using flint on his teeth as a spark. It may be total bull, but the idea of it is constructed out of the materials of the setting so that it doesn’t seem too out of place despite being a fantasy. There is no justification for magic because its very definition means it’s conjured from a place outside of reality, and it’s so fitting that the final idea to come out of the filler would remind of us of how poorly the series was understood. It’s not worth covering this arc more other than to mention there are no real fights and the final confrontation is two guys trying to overcome each other’s spiritual force or something like Dragon Ball Z. The anime series ended up being so mishandled that they didn’t even get a proper final episode done in time and the story abruptly ends after this boring arc. They could’ve cut these five episodes and come up with a better ending. They could’ve cut this entire “third season” and the series would’ve ended better. What’s even the point of doing filler if you’re not biding time to adapt the rest of the manga?

The series’ music is pretty solid all around. It’s often anachronistic with its frequent use of electric guitar, but it doesn’t sound out of place because the modern instrumentation doesn’t draw attention to itself. Guitar chords are slow and smooth, almost sounding like a flute and very organic. I think I still would’ve preferred to see a more classical score with more folk instrumentation that matches the setting, but they didn’t screw the pooch from the choice they made and the compositions can be quite nice. The opening and ending themes are good all around too, but only having three openings across 94 episodes is kind of tiring. I do like how they changed the second opening’s animation to include new characters, and the opening during the Kyoto and Christian arcs is especially cool because of the “flickering flame” effect over the arc’s antagonists. I grew to like it even more than the first opening, “Freckles”. Siam Shade’s "1/3 Pure Heart Emotion" is fucking awesome too, especially with its accompanying graffiti art animation.

For those not already familiar with it, the English dub is well done. The casting is what mostly stands out, particularly because I feel the same way about Mayo Suzukaze as Kenshin as many people do about Masako Nozawa as Goku. I realize Kenshin is meant to be effeminate and has a relatively small constitution, but he's definitely not an 8 year-old boy. I find it impossible to take Kenshin's original voice seriously, especially during his violent "battousai" phase, and it's enough that I'd take any dub over the original. Sorry folks. Richard Cansino carries a similar light, gentle tone with him that's more suitable for Kenshin's age. Not to mention his starker, sterner tone when Kenshin's personality switches stands out far more and further emphasizes the difference between each of his two halves while also being more threatening due to his more mature tone. The line delivery isn't always perfect depending on the assigned actor, however. Dorothy Elias-Fahn as Kaoru can be irritatingly shrill, and Lex Lang can be somewhat monotone as Sanosuke despite being a perfect voice. But Philece Sampler is hilarious fun as Misao.

When everything's said and done, Rurouni Kenshin deserves better than what this series gave us. Outside of the Kyoto arc, even the material it adapts from the manga is weakened. The filler is an insult to the canonical storylines and setting as well as being downright painful to sit through. If you want a number, I’d gladly slap an 8 on the Kyoto arc alone, but I’m not rating the Kyoto arc. I’m rating all 94 episodes. Even the score I’ve given it is generously curved in the Kyoto arc’s favor because of how the amount of terrible filler dwarfs the length of the Kyoto arc. With this recent trend of manga re-adaptations giving worthy revivals to old manga that was mishandled, I hope to the bottom of my heart Rurouni Kenshin will get the treatment it truly deserves. Funny enough, the outlier in how incredibly well the anime adapted the Kyoto arc here and made it better than it was before with remarkable animation, dynamic perspective, and color theming, makes me think a newer anime would be unlikely to match this series’ adaptation in quality. It’d be worth doing the manga in its entirety again however to improve the pre-Kyoto stories and finally take on what’s after them. Will it happen? Who knows, but I’m waiting patiently.

Maybe we who haven’t gone back and finished this anime until now have prevented a new one from happening. It seems like many people are perfectly satisfied with their memories of this show that’s actually extremely troubled, and it frequently ranks on “best of all time” lists. Ultimately though, this anime as a whole is not a classic, and I recommend no one watch it in its entirety. If you want my advice, then read the manga up to the Kyoto arc, watch the Kyoto arc, and then finish the manga. You could watch the pre-Kyoto stuff too because it’s not -that- much worse, but I don’t think it’s worth it. Let’s let it be known that Rurouni Kenshin needs to come back and become the anime series we wanted it to be.

story:
the story is very linear and follows a predictable format -- random encounters followed by their addition to the support group which stays stable throughout the entire show. kenshin's brandishing of a reverse blade in order never to kill again and his quest to maintain that vow and not revert to his old self becomes a crutch
plot device. the more subtle and appreciate aspect of the story which i liked especially because it was not so flagrantly touched upon was the romance budding between kaoru and kenshin. given that rurouni kenshin is a typical adventure/fighting anime, the story is comprised mostly of battles ... with fierce foes -- some of which are tasteless brawls, others suspenseful. 6/10

art:
as the anime proceeds, the quality of art definitely improves; however, before that, it is very hard to get used to the unkempt nature of kenshin's hair, sanousuke's disproportionate feet and the overzealous detail to the face like excessive wrinkles (needles to say, some of these problems do not even go away).
8/10

sound:
the sound is definitely a supplement to the anime; the music soundtracks are perfect for setting up the mood, especially for the battles and truly embody the sentiments of the fighters when they feel joy or sadness, defeat or victory. the only complaint would be that the same tracks are used again rather than creating new ones which could bore the viewers with a lack of creativity.
10/10

characters:
by far, the most detrimental aspect to enjoying the anime was the character development. the main female protagonist, kaoru, travels between the extremes of brash haughtiness and parasitic loneliness. it seems that her character is written not only to abuse kenshin when she feels comfortable (a typical cliche to veil her true feelings, no doubt about it) but also to weep uncontrollably at the sight of parting with him. when she is neither nor, she epitomizes the model individual, bringing great courage to everyone and showing no weakness. her emotional instability throughout the anime makes her very hard to appreciate as a protagonist;
her poor written character is only outmatched by the samurai boy, yahiko, who was a nuisance as well. yahiko has a deluded sense of self-righteousness believing that because of his samurai blood, he can be stronger as a swordsman and protect others. this is also supplemented by his bratty attitude towards everyone and his rash decision to intermittently involve himself in affairs which are much too dangerous for him. the level of his "strength" is unprecedented, apparently, as he learns to mimic kenshin's sword moves solely on observations and comes out victorious in many hard battles -- all of which are unbelievable and eyerolling-worthy.
while the other characters are not as obnoxious as the aforementioned two are, they do have their moments. while kenshin's struggle between taking life again and facing his past sins is imperative to the foundation of his morality, it is brought up too many times that his indecisiveness is both a contributing factor to the action and unpredictability but also to the viewer's impatience.
2/10

enjoyment:
as far as enjoyment goes, i was even browsing for other anime to watch as i watched this one. that is about how enjoyful it got for me. the sword fights are rather intense at times, particularly when the opponents are sizing each other up with psychological taunts. however, they can also be verbose and incredibly dogmatic about matters like kill or be killed. these discussions turn the fighting into a backdrop. i could not find myself sympathizing with the struggles the main characters had in their endeavors because of how poorly written the plot was written in that in the end the good guys succeed and get what they want in true moments of crisis. the imbalance between victory and loss made it predictable when people would die or the outcome of an event which make the overall performance boring.
4/10

overall...: (a disappointment)
6/10

I watched it to the point where it runs out of manga material and I dropped it.

The anime can be split in two parts:

Epides from 1 to about 45 - this part is amazing. There are interesting and relatable character, tesne fights, good storytelling and great music. WIt is at least 7/10 or 9/10 material.

Episodes 46-62. - this is where it gets bad. Suddenly we have long string of fights, and usually a single fight takes 2 episodes, plus the singer in the intro starts singing off-key. Drawn out, slow, with pacing problems, and all the hallmarks of bad shounen anime - people talking for ... 10 minutes mid fight, discussing each other's techniques and how exceptional those techniques are. This part is very very bad, something around 4/10 or even 2/10. I didn't like it, although this arc has its fans.

And past episode 62... I heard it only gets worse and mostly contains filler. 30 episodes of it.

I don't know, maybe one day I'll finish it (probably not), but as far as I can tell, it is only worth watching to around episode 45, if you want quality materail, and anything past episode 45 to 62 is for mostly shounen fans.


Some details are below. For the purposes of review I'll call 1-45 as "part 1" and "46-62" as part 2.

Story:
Very interesting in part 1, and very tedious in part 2.

Art:
Decent, but it is low detailed and fairly low-budget, because it was a tv show.

Sound:
Good in the first part (the intro song is nice), and gets slightly worse in the second part, where singer in the intro starts singing off-key.

Characters:
They sorta progress/change over time, but some of them can be extremely annoying. Yahiko is incredibly annoying, and if in the first part it is sorta tolerable, in the second part I was seriously wondering why he isn't dead. Kaoru can be annoyingly needy and manipulative too. Overall, however, it is less about characters and more about the overall story, which is focused on kenshin.

Enjoyment:
Liked first part, hated second part, dropped 3rd part.

Overall:
First 40 something episodes are worth watching, past that point it is worth watching only if you really like shounen anime. Haven't seen it past episode 62, but a lot of people seem to be saying it only gets worse past that point.

First, a disclaimer. I only watched the first 62 episodes of Rurouni Kenshin. I've been assured by nearly everyone that I come into contact with that I am missing nothing of importance in the remainder of the series. There's a good possibility that you may feel differently, and that my review is rendered invalid because I have not actually completed the series. And that's fine--let the down voting commence. Still, after completing the Kyoto Arc, widely considered to be the high point of the series and a high watermark in 90's anime period, however, I found myself pretty underwhelmed. If this is the best that ... the series had to offer, then I really did not want to see the worst. Let's proceed with this review, shall we?

Rurouni Kenshin tells the story of the not-so wandering Kenshin, an expert swordsman who has sworn a vow to never take another life. In order to fulfill his vow, he fights with a unique 'reverse-blade' sword, which is exactly what it sounds like: the blade is on the wrong side of the sword, so that the blunter edge is what his opponents are up against. Within the first episode he's settled into what seems like pretty permanent residence at a dojo run by the young and pretty Kaoru, who teaches a style of sword-fighting that also espouses sanctity for life--a style expressed by fighting purely with wooden swords. We quickly meet the other primary characters, Yahiko and Sanosuke, who also begin living at the dojo, the residents of which have an uncanny knack for getting themselves into dangerous situations, and for extricating others out of them. The first twelve or so episodes pass by quickly in this way, and we get a handle for the show's style. I went in expecting a more grounded take on sword combat, but it didn't take me long to figure out that Rurouni Kenshin had other ideas. The fights are about as over-the-top as they get, and fall quickly into that irritating pattern of 'exchange a few blows, talk for fifteen minutes, *cliffhanger,* finish this fight next episode.' It doesn't drag on as long as some fights do from other series, but it does quickly drain the show of all suspense and drama. Which is further drained by by the fact that literally almost the rest of the first season is nothing but filler arcs.

Let me take some time to talk about filler. I'm not immediately opposed to filler. Some of my favorite anime series of all time are composed largely of what you could probably subjectively call filler. Cowboy Bebop springs to mind. But there are 'degrees' to filler, and important distinctions between these degrees. In Bebop, only a small handful of episodes tie directly into the 'main story' of the series, however, nearly all of the remaining episodes explore either the pasts of the characters or the current dynamics between them. I'm not sure that either is the case here. Die-hard fans might argue otherwise, but as a Kenshin newb, I was *bored.* Things do improve immeasurably in the second season, the fabled 'Kyoto Arc,' but really only insofar as there's no strict filler. The pacing of this arc is a different story altogether, but I'll get to that in a bit.

First, the art and the music. Considering its age, the art and animation of Kenshin have held up pretty well, particularly in the second arc and especially in the climax, which not only receives a significant animation bump, but takes greater risks with style and accordingly reaps greater rewards. I did have problems telling many of the minor characters apart, but the leads (with the possible exception of Kaoru) are all distinctive and easy to pick out of a crowd. The enemy designs are imaginative and fairly varied, though only a small handful of them are truly memorable. Background art ranges from the bland to the impressive, but spends most of its time in the bland range, unfortunately. Fights that take place in interior spaces are especially uninspiring--coupled with the animation shortcuts and repeated animation, some fights quickly become an exercise in patience, which the lethargic pacing doesn't help. Fight scenes almost completely lack the kinetic thrill of more modern series, like Samurai Champloo. I suppose they have a certain old-school charm as the characters fly above the ground at one another and shout out their attacks, but old-school charm works best in small doses, and the team behind Kenshin don't understand the meaning of the word 'moderation.' Granted, Kenshin is pretty old-school, so I suppose I can't fault it too heavily for not doing something 'new.'

The voice acting is fine in the Japanese version, though some of the voices will take some getting used to. (Kenshin's in particular.) What little I heard of the English dub was also fine, if a bit flat. The voice actors in English do seem better suited for their roles than the Japanese actors do, but the Japanese play their roles better. The music goes through a pretty dramatic shift between the first and second season: in the first it's laughably bad, to the point of distraction. Frequently I was too busy giggling at how wildly inappropriate the background score was for various scenes that I was totally not paying any attention to the action unfolding on the screen itself. The music during the Kyoto Arc, while not any less understated, isn't as riotously goofy and painfully '90s' as it was in the first season, though it's equally unmemorable.

Now, about that Kyoto Arc. I found it to be incredibly boring, unnecessarily stretched out, and insultingly predictable. I'm a bit miffed as to why it's held in such high regard. Not that it doesn't have some positive things going for it (Shishio is about as memorable as villains get), but I can only handle so many fights that follow nearly the exact same patterns over and over and over again while characters narrate every move from the sidelines before I get bored. (Is it also necessary for almost every villain to have a tragic back-story?) Strip away all dramatic tension (for what story reason is Kenshin a pacifist? Nothing *ever* comes of it. Contrast how little Kenshin's pacifism means here to how much it means in the case of Vash in Trigun) and continuously escalate the ridiculousness of each fight to the point where one's suspension of disbelief is seriously tried and honestly, you've got something that's sort of a stinker. I suspect that I would have loved this show in elementary school--it hits all the same notes that something like Dragon Ball Z hits, but with significantly less drag. I'm not really sure that that's much of a compliment, though.

It seems likely that I'm just not at all the right sort of audience for this particular series, given how much love people have for it. Still, I figured my opinion was worth recording--if you're sympathetic to my general disposition, I think you'll be totally fine skipping this particular series. It may be a classic, but insofar as classics go, your time is better spent elsewhere. I would highly suggest Trigun as an alternative--it seems almost to have been directly inspired by Kenshin in many regards, but it had the good fortune to be scripted by someone (or a team of someones) who actually understands how to tell a compelling and moving story about a pacifist warrior.

Well this review is short and simple. If you want to watch an action-drama with a great main storyline, then this anime is for you. OR should i say the first 62 episodes anyways. There are 95 in total, but after episode 62, the main story simply ends. It turns into a giant filler arc or rather i should say it qualifies for a filler series its so long and boring. I watched it in hopes there would be something, anything that would revolve around furthering the story, but alas my patience were fruitless D: it has some good episodes to it here and there, ... i can say i slightly enjoyed the christian god-wad part of it all, mainly because the main character for those episodes voice was played by Crispin freeman who is by far one of my favorite english dub VA's. (In fact he played at least a dozen supporting characters through the filler arc which was kinda weird after awhile O.o; I started saying Wtf when every small time supporting character was played by him, it was really messed up xD total abuse of talent to make him play so many poor characters in one series) But anyways, if your going to watch this anime i recommend just simply ending it at 62, if you do that then the anime is a 10/10 and incredibly enjoyable! ^.^

I am a 90’s kid, but not enough of a 90’s kid to think that this amine is truly amazing. Now, don’t get me wrong - I enjoyed the whole thing and watched it till the end. It has a solid storyline, a handful of nice battle scenes, and a nice range of classic characters. But in the end, I give it a 6 because it pales in comparison to the current anime that I have seen in the past year.

Here’s what I like:

Kenshin - What an amazing character. From the very beginning of the anime, we are introduced to Kenshin as a ... man-slayer, who during the recent revolution took countless lives due to his unparalleled swordsmanship. However, after the revolution passes, he becomes a wanderer to partially atone for his sins and to find new purpose. Although he his already wise, calm, and a invaluable friend, he still undergoes some really interesting character development. Despite some of the major flaws in the anime, this “classic” sense of character development gives the show a powerful foundation.

Some of the other characters are quite interesting too (a necessary aspect for most anime so the show has dynamism). Sanosuke has that all-out, loyal, reckless, and I would even argue humble personality that makes him a really enjoyable character to watch. His relationship with a certain character who dies bring an emotional dynamism into the show. Yahiko is the funny, yet extremely determined kid - honestly I think he is a character that most modern shows have drawn a ton of inspiration from (I honestly see a lot of the characteristics of Naruto in him). Hajime Saitou and Aoshi Shinomori are fierce and demonstrate their fighting spirit in as little words as possible.

No super powers (for the most part) - Every anime/manga nowadays features characters of insane power. From the various stages of the Saiyan in Dragon Ball to the immeasurable chakra in Naruto, everyone keeps on getting stronger by acquiring more power. However, in Rurouni Kenshin, the only way to get stronger is to refine the swordsmanship skill. At least for me, this more relatable form of betterment is sobering - a sort of detox from mainstream anime if you will.

Here’s what I don’t like:

I wanted to see more of Yahiko - Various parts of the anime tease him as a student of Kenshin. We get to see him in battle a few times, but not enough. There is so much wasted potential in Yahiko - he is not only really entertaining to follow, but also has decent strength and unlimited willpower for a kid. There should have been a Yahiko arc as the inheritor of the Hiten-Mitsurugi style.

The end of the anime derails - Well, first of all, there are certain arcs and episodes that are pretty unnecessary; they draw out the anime and actually dilute the certain strong elements of the story. Filler episodes bring in a tacky sense, after Shishio the story devotes a little, and the last arc brings in magic powers (what a sellout).

If I had watched it in the 90’s, I would have probably given Rurouni Kenshin at least an 8 or a 9.

Oro? Oro oro??

Ruroni Kenshin… a beloved classic produced the year I was born. I decided to pick this up mainly because of how good I’ve heard Trust and Betrayal is, but after finishing the series proper I had to write a full review because it would do this show a disservice to just slap a number on it and move on. I’ll try and keep this one brief. I’ll probably fail.

This is a show I want to be able to say I love, because there’s a lot here to love. Kenshin is one of the gems in director Kazuhiro Furuhashi’s Infinity Gauntlet, next to Hunter ... x Hunter, Gundam Unicorn, and Spy x Family. This is a director who needs no introduction—his work across 40 years of anime speaks for itself. His blood runs shounen, and he’s made a name for himself because almost everything he touches is quality. And directorially, Kenshin lives up to the hype. Despite having to get by on a 90s budget and make it stretch for almost a hundred episodes, Kenshin has a certain energy to it. Action scenes are never sakuga-infused eye candy, but the cuts, angles, and sense of kinetic energy keeps it exciting to watch. But… what are we even watching?

This is where I’m going to have to show my hand a little and explain that I do not typically enjoy shounen anime. Like, at all. The tropes that everyone loves… shouting attack names, speeches in the middle of battles, the-former-enemy-is-now-your-friend, all that stuff just really doesn’t resonate with me. I’m a big salty bald adult man now, not a teenager; I’m decidedly not the target demographic for these kinds of shows. I prefer a bit more subtlety and maturity in what I watch. However, when I decide to spend my time doing anything I like to put my best foot forward, so let me get into some of the things that kept me watching through the entire lengthy series.

First of all, there’s the setting. I’m a huge history nerd, and an even bigger Japanese history nerd. And my favorite period of Japanese history is definitely the Meiji Restoration. This show doesn’t just take place during the Meiji period—it embraces it with reckless abandon. Actual historical characters appear left and right—we’re talking people like Yamagata Aritomo, Saitou Hajime, and Katsu Kaishu—and most of them play large roles in the plot. The entire central theme of the show revolves around Japan’s transition from a warring feudal system to a modern peaceful nation-state and the philosophical predicament that places on the people who must use force to enforce that peace. Heavier stuff than your average shounen.

That brings me to the second strength of this show: the man who used more force than anyone to achieve his goals, Himura Kenshin. Among shounen protagonists, Kenshin stands apart for several reasons. For one, he’s 28 years old—much older than what we typically see in these kinds of shows. That age lends credence to his dark past because he’s had enough time alive to actually… you know… HAVE a dark past. And second is his ideals. While every other shounen protagonist’s ideals can be easily boiled down into something you can shout at the baddie in the series finale, Kenshin has a little more complexity to him. He combines optimistic pacifism with pragmatism.

Early on in the series Okubo Toshimichi approaches him and asks him to become part of the new Meiji government and Kenshin declines, which is surprising to Okubo because Kenshin fought so hard to put that government into place. But what Kenshin knows is that to keep that government in place, he’ll have to continue to perpetuate a cycle of violence that he doesn’t agree with. This is basically Max Weber’s philosophical treatise “Politics as a Vocation” presented in an anime for young teens: the fundamental characteristic of any government is the monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Kenshin both understands that fact and disagrees with it. After all, even if he fought to establish the Meiji government because he felt it was a better alternative to the Tokugawa shogunate, would everything they ask Kenshin to do be justifiable? He knows the answer to that is no, so he chooses a different path: rather than blindly do the bidding of some dubiously moral entity, he just tries to help the people who are directly in front of him who are obviously hurting or in danger, because that use of force requires the least possible amount of mental gymnastics to justify.

This is where my opinion on this show begins to fundamentally differ from most other people’s. Everyone else I see talk about this show unanimously agrees that everything before and after the Kyoto arc is boring filler, and the Kyoto arc is the real 10/10 stuff in this show. I have the complete opposite opinion: I think the “filler” is the best part, and the Kyoto arc is boring as sin. Those slow episodic “slice-of-life” -ish bits are where the show really takes its time to establish characterization and explore the show’s themes and setting. The Kyoto arc is where the show slides right back into all those same tired cliché shounen tropes that I mentioned hating a few paragraphs ago. By the time the Shishio battle was nearing its conclusion the show had become an absolute slog for me; I contemplated dropping it a few times but was barely able to finish it.

Is this the show’s fault? Not really—it just wasn’t written for me. I touched on this briefly in my last review of Kemono no Souja Erin, but I’m not the target audience for shows written at the YA level. And if you’ve read my review up to this point but haven’t seen the show, don’t let my over-analysis fool you—this show really doesn’t explore those interesting concepts it presents very deeply. I guess that’s the most frustrating part of this whole experience for me: the show teases my brain with these interesting themes and characters, and then barely scratches the surface with them because we can’t go too deep since we’re a shounen and need our battle arcs gosh darnit.

Overall, I’m going to have to give the show a 6—which on my rating scale is still a recommendation, albeit a weak one. If I were 13 years old again, this might be one of my favorite shows. If you’re a shounen fan, you should definitely check this one out. As it stands though, this is a battle shounen first and foremost, and an interesting historical thinker a distant second.

Oh, and Misao best girl don’t @ me.

Some cite Rurouni Kenshin as one of the best battle shounen series and I agree with that for what it is. Retired badass swordsman with a dark past and a facetious exterior that masks deep regrets is pulled back into the world of the samurai and emotionally revived by meeting a girl named Kaori. In the early episodes Kenshin acquires his group of allies and defeats some minor villains to show off how badass he is and how much he cares for Kaori. Then shit gets real when the big bad Shishio threatens all of Japan and only the legendary Battosai can defeat him. Throw ... in a bunch of boss battles mixed with philosophical sparring and the message that one's own life is valuable, and you have the framework for an entertaining series for the masses. A lot of these tropes, like the retired badass with a heart of gold, easily lend to mass appeal and an instantly compelling premise.

This framework by itself is fine and easily writes entertaining stories. It is up to the writer to put the meat on the bones by crafting likable characters and solid relationships that form the basis of the emotional parts. The characters are fine, but they're not used well. Everyone gets marginalized so Kenshin can shine and Kaori becomes little more than an object to cry for him and for him to save so we can see his emotional side. Kenshin is the only one that gets anything done (besides Sanosuke, a little bit, but he gets knocked out so Kenshin can step in), as the series falls prey to the battle shounen trope of only allowing one character to be the one to save the day. It wouldn't be egregious if the villains didn't constantly talk about reviving Kenshin's Battousai self and every battle his allies are spectators commenting on the genius of Kenshin's every move.

Kenshin's always right and he's always right in the same way. His nonviolent attitude gets especially grating not only because it makes no sense in context but because it's preached each battle. The no-killing rule is implausible because each second that you don't kill your opponent, you increase the chance of yourself getting killed and then your allies are in danger. In Shishio's case, Kenshin holding back from killing him puts the entire Japanese government at risk. Kenshin's only able to get away with it because the writer arbitrarily makes him win without killing.

For a series so focused on battles, the fight scenes are tedious and any excitement is instantly sucked away by a shot of a character's reaction and/or commentary on what just happened. The fights are staged like a Yugioh duel, step by step, cutting up all flow to the action. On top of that, characters are arguing over philosophy and the character that wins is always right, after all. Bringing up philosophy only works if you design your story to actually explore the ideas you talk about. The show just sets up a backstory that explains why the characters think a certain way as opposed to Kenshin's viewpoint. However, any resolution comes from one person overpowering the other rather than as a natural, logical consequence of the flaws in one viewpoint. Just shut up and fight. The fights would be much better if someone edited out all the junk because the swordplay system is actually not bad.

The OVA and live action movies are so much better despite retaining the same framework. Kenshin's nonviolent stance and the relative powerlessness of the other characters are there, but they're much more toned down because it's not shoved in your face. The movies were a great improvement with regards to a more subdued portrayal of the characters, greater realism, and spectacular fight sequences. The special abilities/attacks are done in a more realistic, tasteful manner, incorporated into well choreographed, exhilarating sword fights. Characters simply show their technique and we don't have additional commentary or reaction shots to explain how cool it is. Sanosuke's brawls are great. Instead of having Anji recount his tragic life story in the middle of a fistfight and explaining some rock exploding technique, we have Sanosuke stopping the fight to eat some chicken. He offers the chicken to his opponent, who says he's vegetarian, so he's like, well how about some wine? They drink and go back to fighting. Just perfect.

If you like the tropes of a battle shounen, then you'll love this show. If you don't, I suggest you just watch the movies and OVA instead and save yourself from watching 90 episodes.