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Jul 1, 2017 4:18 PM

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Jan 2014
3761
I mean...it looks pretty good, but that's about it. Did not really like this 1st episode that much. Half the episode I was on my phone lol. Does not help that it's confusing AF for anime only people

I'll give it another episode, b4 I decide to drop it. Gonna be Tales and God Eater once again, looks great, but the other aspects of the show garbage

Ufotable you're on a losing streak right now, pick up your game ffs

( will be REALLY funny if the A1 pictures Fate does really good, when Ufotable could have easily picked it up. )
DoctorWasabiJul 1, 2017 4:23 PM
Jul 1, 2017 4:42 PM
#1 Hitagi Lover

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Apr 2014
3011
meh, only thing cool thing bout it was the fight scenes. also I can see people easily writing this show off as yaoi bait but they might not be wrong.
Jul 1, 2017 4:53 PM
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976
Stellar animation = as expected. Tight writing & well written script = a very good surprise. Ufotable staff really upped their game in term of writing. Honestly, after God Eater & UBW, I would've never guessed the writing could be this good. Wow. Honestly I am really excited now.


AntwanMantilla said:
meh, only thing cool thing bout it was the fight scenes.

I think the fight scenes for ufotable standard were meh. Nothing special. And personally, the fight scenes were too much inspired by UBW. I would like more slow & tactical fight like Fate/Zero.


DoctorWasabi said:
Does not help that it's confusing AF for anime only people

I do not think it's confusing at all. In fact, I appreciate that the anime does not explain every single thing to the viewers & just explain things in a tid bit along the way. Really different than any other ufotable anime recently. Really impressive writing if you ask me.


moodie said:
This is your standard ufotable production. All style no substance. Probably going to end up like Tales, pander to the worst fanbase and have a messy script.

While I agree ufotable anime usually does not have impressive writing, I have to disagree with this 1st episode. What's messy about it, if you don't mind me asking.


EDIT: Some misspelled words.
AServantJul 2, 2017 6:06 AM
Jul 1, 2017 5:07 PM

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Jun 2014
103
Meh another fujoshi anime. 1/10 dropped.
Jul 1, 2017 5:07 PM

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Mar 2017
17
Pretty solid start. Animation is nice and the premise seems somewhat interesting. Will keep watching.
Jul 1, 2017 5:10 PM

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Dec 2016
1484
Very interesting and very good.

I like the battles scenes, they are all quite exciting so far.

Looking forward to watching more of this.


Jul 1, 2017 5:20 PM

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149
Loyalty06 said:
vikki7783 said:

Lmao it's fine, and yeah I agree completely! Historically Hori is much older than Kanesan (who is actually the youngest out of everyone in the game I believe?) as well, so it's weird that they did that. Hopefully they make Hori more like he is in the game in future episodes.


sorry to intrude on your convo..
on the subject of characterization, though hori feels forced, i think this will shut up the hori haters who keep saying he's all "kane-san X3" with no personal struggles. as for izumi, he didn't come off as too cool, he was just pretty serious and acting like the historical hijikata and kinda disregard hori sometimes in the game. I even like the fact that they followed the game's strained relationship between mutsu and shinsengumi swords, which hanamaru completely ignored with mutsu and izumi. I think the rookie aura coming from hori is just him new and passionate. kane san feels like a strong figure in the citadel


hh, its interesting to hear your take on it- but to me Izuminokami doesn't feel entirely like himself. I feel like ufotable just opted to scratch the surface of his characters coolness and put in more of Hijikatas character than the traits that made him different from his master ( this is going by episode one alone and it might change in future episodes but for right now its like discount Kanesan ). And my main problem with Horikawa as stated above is that he doesn't feel like himself either. In fact, he feels like he's further off from his self which if you looked into the many adaptations in which he appears in ( not just Hanamaru, but the anthologies and such ) is not like how he is presented here. Horikawa isn't just like " kanesan XD )" all the time like haters would have you believe. He's mature and level headed and keeps his immature partner in check which was nice about his character. It feels weird to me that izuminokami thus far is taking the leading role in their relationship when in every other adaptation, its not like that. Not to mention that the insecure rookie being taken under the wing of the cool, more experienced character that's been there longer thing is nothing new and has been done before in many other animes. It won't be long before Horikawa goes through his generic confidence building character arc. i feel like is is just the beginning of ufotable taking many liberties with the characterization , all of which are just shortcuts to make them easier to write and more recognizable to anime fans that know nothing about the source material or the things connected to it. If there's anything that was good about hanamaru it was the way the characters were written! They felt like their game selves but expanded on ( Though i will admit i took issue with the way yamatonokami was written and how flanderized hasebe was ). I'll have to watch more episodes to see how ufotable will go about writing them, But I'm pretty much anxious about how tey might butcher the characterization of swords that have yet to appear.
Jul 1, 2017 5:45 PM
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Nov 2015
444
i played a bit of the game a while back so i have fairly high hopes for this.
as always though, ufotable delivers. 4/5
Jul 1, 2017 5:57 PM
SHSL Good Luck

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Apr 2015
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I'll at least be getting my weekly dose of eyegasms from this anime. As for the writing itself, it's kinda iffy. As someone who has played a game a slight bit, I found some sort of enjoyment to it, but this series will probably be appealing to those who are fans of the game. No matter what, this will be better than that fujoshi-pandering series, Hanamaru XD

3/5
Jul 1, 2017 6:00 PM
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Jan 2017
1106
The animation and the fight sequences were beautiful and the music was amazing. Kunihiro and Kanesada come off as likeable and their chemistry was very well-handled for a first episode. So far, this looks like a promising series and a good addition to this summer.
Jul 1, 2017 6:11 PM
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to those who are confused with the plot, here is a gist of things:

in the future, japan is facing a major problem (it's not fully exlplained yet) and then 2 factions emerged, 1 blames the historical course that put japan where it is in the future and 1 (the govt) tries to stop them. the enemy is the historical revisionist who wants to alter the course of history. the saniwa has the power to manifests inanimate objects and bring them to life, and this show focuses on sword warriors, manifested humans from Japanese historical swords from various eras and their mission to maintain proper history

the plot of Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu is set in the bakumatsu era that spelled the end of reign of the samurais and where japan is split into 2 factions after american ships arrived in kyoto (the black ship this ep), one is the pro shogunate faction who does not want japan to accept foreign influence and keep the power of the shogun in place. their main force is called the shinsengumi, a group of swordsmen established by the shogun. incidentally, the master of the 2 mains that was presented to us this episode belongs to his faction. then there is the opposing side, the anti shogunate that wants to take down the shogun and wants japan to open up and accepts westernization.

the target of the enemy is either to save the shogunate or to eliminate sakamoto ryoma who was a key figure to this era's resulting history.,,...who is the master of one of the sword warriors.
Jul 1, 2017 6:15 PM
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MikazukiRanbu said:
vikki7783 said:
hnghhhh that was fucking great
Like the guy a few posts above, I'm not too fond of how Hori's characterised, but it's only the first ep.
OP was beautiful, song (Soma <3) and visuals alike. Jiji and Tsuru. aND BURNING YAGEN.


sorrytointrudeonyourcomment but i feel you about the characterization of Horikawa. they kinda forced the generic inexperienced guy plus experienced guy thing on Horikawa and Kanesan when in game, Horikawa is the one who keeps Izuminokami in check and it felt weird that they switched it up. Kanesans characterization was a bit off as well, but less noticable since Kanesan is canonly a " cool and strong " guy but in reality hes not as cool as he thinks he is and thats the beauty of the character.

In Katsugeki ( in the first episode at least ) they make him undoubtably cool which kinda bugged me. he's too cool and responsible and completely, as the fandom would say, not bullyable. Him being bullyable because of his personality is what made his character fun. i dunno, ufotables already taking liberties with the characters and its kinda.. eh? I guess its easier and more natural for ufotable to write the characters this way but the conflict they presented was unoriginal and uncharacteristic - especially in horikawas case. i hope they improve on that aspect of it in the future episodes.

( edit ) JUST REALIZED that you likely meant me when you said " the guy above on horikawas characterization " my bad lol



I have the same feeling as you. It is liked they got some of the insecurities from Yamanbagiri and put it into Horikawa. The Horikawa I know is more confident and mature.
Jul 1, 2017 6:21 PM
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Benio_ said:
Meh another fujoshi anime. 1/10 dropped.


How is this a fujoshi anime?
Jul 1, 2017 6:47 PM

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No idea what's going on here. They're trying to prevent history from changing, I think. Why there's some random young kid with all these badass swordsmen I just don't know.

There was a talking fox and it went awooooo, so I did like that.
Gorgeous visuals by ufotable, of course.
Jul 1, 2017 6:52 PM
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Mormegil said:
No idea what's going on here. They're trying to prevent history from changing, I think. Why there's some random young kid with all these badass swordsmen I just don't know.

There was a talking fox and it went awooooo, so I did like that.
Gorgeous visuals by ufotable, of course.


Which young kid are you talking about?
Jul 1, 2017 7:26 PM

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Jul 2017
1
ufotable and its visuals

It's so weird to watch Kane-san (Sorey's VA), now being the one who is not the typical "I need to save them all" like Kunihiro and now the grown-up among the two of them. XD

Jul 1, 2017 7:27 PM

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emilyhime19 said:
Benio_ said:
Meh another fujoshi anime. 1/10 dropped.


How is this a fujoshi anime?

anytime i see Touken Ranbu i instantly think of that game that is pretty much one of those games that appeal to the Fujoshi/ Yaoi crowd or just "pretty boys" on a simpler term ya know since it's target audience is female not that hard to come to such a conclusion.


was planning to watch this because of my bias for Ufotable but it was expected just as much as when you watch a kyoani show that it would visually look very nice ,rest is debatable thought the show just didn't want to feed any info to us but it turns out it expects you to know all of this stuff already

so i'll give it a few more since all male choices so far don't inherently seem too tropey
Jul 1, 2017 7:45 PM

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emilyhime19 said:
Mormegil said:
No idea what's going on here. They're trying to prevent history from changing, I think. Why there's some random young kid with all these badass swordsmen I just don't know.

There was a talking fox and it went awooooo, so I did like that.
Gorgeous visuals by ufotable, of course.


Which young kid are you talking about?


The normal kid with the swordsman. He was there the entire episode. Didn't seem to really fit in.
Jul 1, 2017 8:45 PM

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Jun 2013
6123
I surprisingly enjoyed this quite a bit!
Jul 1, 2017 8:50 PM
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Mormegil said:
emilyhime19 said:


Which young kid are you talking about?


The normal kid with the swordsman. He was there the entire episode. Didn't seem to really fit in.


Both of them are swords that were manifested as human form. He looks younger because he is a Wakizashi but he is actually older than the other one.
Jul 1, 2017 8:51 PM

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799
Art is horribly inconsistent, fights are terrible, writing is complete trash. If you're going to put a retarded scared child on a team of elite time travelers, you have to say WHY in the first episode or people should not bother watching the second. They had a big lead up with them traveling to the site they could have used for all sorts of things, instead it was wasted and then made irrelevant by the rest of the team just teleporting in with no explanation. Not to mention no one seemed the least bit interested in a bizarre tanuki monster companion.

What can I say that is good about it? Well I guess it didn't give me HIV.
Jul 1, 2017 8:55 PM
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Jun 2016
11
i enjoyed it alot…
but probably i just can't wait to see Manba LOL
And Horikiwa is a bit annoying but idk about other characters
Jul 1, 2017 9:03 PM
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60
katsu044 said:
emilyhime19 said:


How is this a fujoshi anime?

anytime i see Touken Ranbu i instantly think of that game that is pretty much one of those games that appeal to the Fujoshi/ Yaoi crowd or just "pretty boys" on a simpler term ya know since it's target audience is female not that hard to come to such a conclusion.


was planning to watch this because of my bias for Ufotable but it was expected just as much as when you watch a kyoani show that it would visually look very nice ,rest is debatable thought the show just didn't want to feed any info to us but it turns out it expects you to know all of this stuff already

so i'll give it a few more since all male choices so far don't inherently seem too tropey



The main target of the game is female since the game could be classified as an otome game but there are male players. Fujoshi is just a small faction of the fanbase. If it was Yaoi, you won't see me playing it. One of the reason I don't watch "Yuri on ice" despite seeing all the praises it got. The game itself doesn't has any Yaoi element.
What I really enjoy from the game is the historical aspect. The swords' personality, design and dialogue were from actual history. Recently, the staff have to apologize and changed the design of a sword since the artist made a mistake in the owner of the sword since there are two people with the same name from that era.
emilyhime19Jul 1, 2017 9:06 PM
Jul 1, 2017 9:05 PM
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Dec 2016
60
Sokah said:
Art is horribly inconsistent, fights are terrible, writing is complete trash. If you're going to put a retarded scared child on a team of elite time travelers, you have to say WHY in the first episode or people should not bother watching the second. They had a big lead up with them traveling to the site they could have used for all sorts of things, instead it was wasted and then made irrelevant by the rest of the team just teleporting in with no explanation. Not to mention no one seemed the least bit interested in a bizarre tanuki monster companion.

What can I say that is good about it? Well I guess it didn't give me HIV.


He didn't scared but it is his first battle so of course he is inexperience. They are also not elite time travelers, they are swords, not human.
The problem I have is they changed his personality.
Jul 1, 2017 9:23 PM

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50
Djengo said:
. Pretty good start now hopefully it doesn't meet the same fate as Tales of Zestiria.


^ exactly this !!!

Jul 1, 2017 9:33 PM
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Sep 2013
192
Animation - Dope
Soundtrack - Dope
Story - idk its the first episode

To be honest, I feel like the minority here because I actually liked the opening/ending that we've seen. The song has this sorta...historical/fantasy vibe to it. And the scenes in the opening /ending looked pretty cool. I think the opening was the only thing that caught my eyes and ears throughout the whole episode.

I'll keep watching though. There are several things that the writers could work with in Touken Ranbu and I'd like to see how they'd do it. :P
Jul 1, 2017 9:44 PM
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Sep 2016
135
Didn't quite understand the plot but the animation was stunning as expected.
Jul 1, 2017 9:48 PM

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8123
emilyhime19 said:
Mormegil said:


The normal kid with the swordsman. He was there the entire episode. Didn't seem to really fit in.


Both of them are swords that were manifested as human form. He looks younger because he is a Wakizashi but he is actually older than the other one.


Thank you for the explanation.
Jul 1, 2017 10:39 PM

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Nov 2012
15463
i was a bit confused to what was going on, but i'm sure the next episodes will clear that up. animation looks good as expected of ufotable and the guys are looking πŸ‘Œ
Jul 1, 2017 10:41 PM

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Jun 2017
532
The animation (minus that CG) was goood but the story was ehhh ok.
Jul 1, 2017 10:57 PM

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2790
The animation is top-notch as expected of ufotable. But it gives me the same vibes as Tales of Zestria, in japanese-style.

The setting and the mix of these weird monsters with the old-era dont really suit imo..


γ€Œ I was nothing until the moment I met you. 」

Jul 1, 2017 11:33 PM

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Apr 2016
127
Positives:

- unlimited budget works strikes again. Everything but the character faces were drawn and animated beautifully.
- story and pacing seems decent enough. Much better than Hanamaru.

Negatives:
- 5 mins in and I'm ready to drop kick that kitsune character to Mars. Seems just out of place and his voice grates on me.
- I see ufotable still doesn't know how to animate facial expressions. Just like Tales, everyone seems to have that flat frozen look, and way too bright compared to the background. Just jarring considering how awesome the rest of the show looks. Heck, the background characters in town appear to have more life in them.

All in all, an ok show so far. Hopefully it's more Fate than Tales...

Jul 1, 2017 11:38 PM
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Jan 2016
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I dont know how to feel about how horikawa is kinda stupid and oblivious and i wasnt expecting saniwa to be a character lol

but yagen-sensei appeared so im happy /////

hype for tsuru and jiji aaaaaaaaa
Jul 2, 2017 12:24 AM

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15143
I'm going in blind on this and I gotta say that it sounds and very promising. It's basically 2 factions, the time guardians that protect history, and the other one that wants to change it. I won't speak about the animation anything cause eyegasms are already expected from every ufotable anime.

I really liked the episode, and I'm glad that this time it won't be fujo-bait *cough* Hanamaru *cough*. Looking forward to the next episode!!
"At some point, I stopped hoping."
Jul 2, 2017 12:47 AM
ε­”ηœŸγƒ»γ‚³γ‚¦γƒžγ‚³γƒˆ

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Jun 2017
7869
Decent episode first up with astonishing yet typical Ufotable animation, steady pacing and an average Opening. Good work to bring in all the characters of the crew and provide a brief explanation of the storyline. My highlight of the episode was when the Master brought in his whole crew in order to fend off the pawns. 7/10 for me..
#Anime4Life be my Life Motto! #PrayForKyoAni


Jul 2, 2017 1:24 AM

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May 2017
1039
quite impressed tbh the ending was great and also the scene where kane said "you want to change history just by saving a few people?" gave me goosebumps

this is already better than tales of zestiria

Jul 2, 2017 1:33 AM
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Apr 2017
28
Standart Quality, but either the Sub was wrong or its the Story.

First they were "summoned" then they were "sent".

This whole "am i really good enough for this" makes the first Episode look like it wants to be dropped right away. Either they didnt had any other ppl in 22xx avaiable and so they send in a kid with poor combat experience or this was the thing they wanted to go with.

"We can only send 2" But yet you were able to send 2 1/2 with the pet carrying a whole database ?
10min later.. oh look its 3 1/2.

Decent Quality, Bad Story and Bad first Episode
Jul 2, 2017 1:54 AM

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Jul 2007
23708
Ufotable is officially Michael Bay of anime - multiple works that look exactly the same use exactly the same tricks and share exactly same action scene storyboards with each other.

You watch this and there's no real difference from God Eater, Zestiria or UBW - the character designs, the storyboarding, the amount of special effects to obfuscate lack of substance.

OP seems great tho, but alas I already have summer popcorn show with Apocrypha so IDK if this is owrth continuing.
Jul 2, 2017 2:21 AM

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5111
Mediocre first episode, I will wait 2-3 more episodes before deciding if dropping it, but I'm already mentally prepared for ufotable animating quite awesomely another terrible story as usual.
Jul 2, 2017 2:39 AM

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Oct 2012
1098
I'm watching this because of Kanesada so this episode was good enough.
Didn't expect anything from the story tbh.
Jul 2, 2017 2:57 AM
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Jul 2017
1
The first episode was fine, I guess. As per usual, ufotable's animation is fantastic. Good op, pretty backgrounds, and not to mention some good fight scenes. I think they could do better with the introduction though, it felt kinda rushed, which might confuse some people who's on this show knowing nothing lol.

Really looking forward for the next episode. I don't expect an A-tier story, but still curious to see how ufo will deal with the game's setting and plot (considering it kinda has none in the original source material, with exception maybe some character interactions). I can see that they're going all-out with it, like featuring a Saniwa (who's the player avatar in-game btw) which is quite risky for some fans. I really hope with this direction, the show would be able to stand on its own, without relying too much on fans' hype.
Jul 2, 2017 3:08 AM
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Dec 2016
60
WarriorOfTimes said:
Standart Quality, but either the Sub was wrong or its the Story.

First they were "summoned" then they were "sent".

This whole "am i really good enough for this" makes the first Episode look like it wants to be dropped right away. Either they didnt had any other ppl in 22xx avaiable and so they send in a kid with poor combat experience or this was the thing they wanted to go with.

"We can only send 2" But yet you were able to send 2 1/2 with the pet carrying a whole database ?
10min later.. oh look its 3 1/2.

Decent Quality, Bad Story and Bad first Episode



For your information, that "kid" is 500 years old and is older than Kane-san. And the fox is not a pet, he is a shikigami.
Jul 2, 2017 3:11 AM

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May 2017
1039
amber-meido said:
The first episode was fine, I guess. As per usual, ufotable's animation is fantastic. Good op, pretty backgrounds, and not to mention some good fight scenes. I think they could do better with the introduction though, it felt kinda rushed, which might confuse some people who's on this show knowing nothing lol.

Really looking forward for the next episode. I don't expect an A-tier story, but still curious to see how ufo will deal with the game's setting and plot (considering it kinda has none in the original source material, with exception maybe some character interactions). I can see that they're going all-out with it, like featuring a Saniwa (who's the player avatar in-game btw) which is quite risky for some fans. I really hope with this direction, the show would be able to stand on its own, without relying too much on fans' hype.
what do you mean with op ? opening?
Jul 2, 2017 3:17 AM

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Aug 2015
1837
A high quality animation that always impresses me when I watch a series produced by Ufotable. However the plot is not very interesting and I feel we will still have generic characters (like most animes from video games) with predictable interactions.

I wait until episode 4 if there is an improvement for the story, otherwise I drop.

3/5
Jul 2, 2017 3:26 AM

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Nov 2010
1690
10 Minutes in, nothing is happening. hmm, but the animation is gorgeous. just for that i might watch till the third episode.
Jul 2, 2017 3:57 AM

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Sep 2015
2153
the animation and fights are good, but the rest isn't very interesting. well it's just the first episode.


Jul 2, 2017 4:05 AM

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Oct 2013
1478
So it's like Touken Ranbu: Hanamaru but it's by ufotable so it's beautiful and x times better! (Hanamaru was a shit and I don't even know how I watched it till the end, and it have a 2nd season MYGOSH) at least here that's pretty
TitadouJul 2, 2017 4:24 AM
Jul 2, 2017 5:31 AM

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Dec 2013
15075
The animation and art was great which was exoected. Character designs looked decent. I hope next episode explains more about what is going on.
Jul 2, 2017 6:02 AM

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Dec 2014
12524
animation was superb...but can't seem to get into it....
Jul 2, 2017 6:05 AM

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Feb 2016
136
the animation looks reaaaaally pretty
i might be biased cause it's touken ranbu after all but im really excited to see the next episode
ufotable is doing a great job
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