Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan

Absolutely horrible. I don't know what can make a series so unwatchable while its OVA and movies were fantastic. The lame excuses of jokes that this anime try to come up with makes you want to hop off a cliff. Kenshin totally does not possess the aura of a fighter but rather a klutz and fails at being funny. Even during the fights, it is just ridiculously stupid. E.g. forgot the name but there was this one villain who has a blade that reeks of the fats of the victims that he slaughtered in the past that when he fights his blade becomes coated ... with fire. I don't even know what to say to that, it's beyond retarded.

I tried to give this series a chance. Over the course of two years I started the anime over and over, to try and find something worth watching. Each time I would restart and after a few episodes, I would lose interest. Today, I made it to five episodes deep and it is the final nail in the coffin. With all the fan fair and reviews, I thought that it would be an epic anime. This just is not the case. In the end the plot and the story were not entertaining for what I expected. The story had potential, but there was very little ... to hook and draw in the audience. The dialogue is probably what shut this down for me.

Rurouni Kenshin

This work has undoubtedly a deserved cult status for its performance at the time. Many still see her as a heavyweight of her time and would call this shounen even today one of the best.

Note, I only watched the anime adaptation and not read the manga. The manga is supposed to be better and also have a different ending, I don't know about this.

At the time, he was definitely one of the more individual anime among the anime. The portrayal of the old Japanese era in which there was a lot of cruelty has given the series a certain atmosphere.

Apart from that, the ... series has some nice portrayals of sword fights and techniques, even if the adaptation at the time couldn't raise enough funds to give the fights the right dynamic.


What unfortunately prevents "Rurouni Kenshin" from passing through as a good work today are its actual qualities apart from the setting and topic.

As expected, this series had a pretty weak plot with a subtle ending fight, but practically nothing happened along the way. Most of the fights had little real impact except for the 2-3 important ones. This series made many mistakes that you would also find in "Inuyasha".

The build-up of tension was practically impossible, most of the various arcs are enormously Shounen-typical and clichéd with the corresponding plot armor. It took a lot of stamina to get to episode 90 at all.

One of the biggest problems with this Anime was clearly the characters. The protagonist has a very popular Japanese approach with the passive swordsman that you hear a lot about from the old Japanese films. The warrior has laid down his sword and no longer wants to kill. You see this approach more often than you might think, but it always depends on the implementation. Not much was made of it here, even if you at least understand the protagonist's motives. Otherwise, his personality is quite off-putting, uninteresting, and anything but personable. Especially with his usual boring running gag, which is just as bad as Naruto's "Datebayo".
The antagonist of the anime was subtle, he had a background, ambition but he was more the "cool" type of villain than the interesting and fascinating.

Most of the other supporting characters have been literal sidekicks. Without her, the anime could have been pretty much the same. In particular, these were neither personable, interesting, nor profound. The female protagonist was also only a decoration. It's a shame, especially with such an unstable protagonist, you could have built very nice relationships with other characters. This was definitely not the case.

The animations were pretty impressive for the time, especially when it came to the shounen aspects. The backgrounds are satisfactory. I found the sword duels particularly positive, they lacked an enormous amount of dynamism, but they were visually beautiful.

Musically speaking, this work only has average intros and outros, but some very appropriate Osts that underline the theme and the old days well.

In general, at least the anime adaptation is mostly a disappointment. By and large, this work has hardly any strengths and, due to its excessive number of episodes, has too much-unused space. Apart from the final arc, which "apparently" should be a filler and even an enormously bad one.
You can look at it, especially if you like such topics and have few demands.

Story 4
Art 6
Sound 6
Character 4
Enjoyment 4
Overall 4