Glad I didn't make a thread - nearly missed this when glancing through the first 10 pages of the anime sub-forum to check.
Blade of the Immortal:
In episode one, Manji's sister gets slashed, instead of cut into three pieces, for censorship reasons (...which made no sense when limbs are removed, later). And in episode three, Manji gets slashed instead of being cut in half (...).
There were also some BAD music choices in the first half of the series (there weren't many/any in the last half), too. Another issue worth noting is that the fight with Kuroi was ruined by lifeless filler designed to make it fit. But there aren't any other flaws of note, aside from it ending in a 'GO READ THE MANGA!' kind of way. In fact, it followed the manga so faithfully that, when reading it after the anime got me interested, I felt like I was re-reading it.
Before I'd read the manga, I thought the anime was in the 7-8/10 range. I lowered my rating to 7/10 because of the ending. However, after reading the manga, seeing how the anime NAILED most of the content, starting with Maki's introduction arc, made me raise my rating to 8/10. Ignoring Samura's sketchy, pencil shaded style, the characters looked as attractive as they do in the manga; the animators doing a wonderful job of copying. And, as an adaptation, it didn't miss a beat after some early scares.
The issues people have with the action lie with Samura: his action not being easy to follow and often stopping for chit-chat. It looks good when frozen and worth double-page finishing move spreads but doesn't last as long, or have the same feel, away from the pages it was created on. I wasn't fussed because BotI is more of a character-driven drama where the fights are exciting because of what's at stake, rather than it being thrilling purely because of the fights. (And Maki's fight was good, anyhow.)
It's deserving of a higher average than 7/10; the limit for 'good' titles, by MAL's standards. Even the music, which is often bashed, isn't bad--there are many good tracks included. It's just, some tracks don't fit and the selection was off. |