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(At time of writing) This is literally the least viewed show on MAL for a reason.

I've seen better quality flash animation from middle school kids.

The novelty of the Rolling Stones cover in Japanese is the one, singular partially-redeeming trait Honky Tonk Women has. That and the privilege of being able to honestly say "I watched the least popular, lowest-scoring thing on MAL.

Does Japan have jugallos? Because I'm pretty sure thats who made this anime.

(when did they start word limits for reviews? i only watched this dumpster-fire for the meme, FFS...)

... 1/10
(At time of writing) This is literally the least viewed show on MAL for a reason.

I've seen better quality flash animation from middle school kids.

The novelty of the Rolling Stones cover in Japanese is the one, singular partially-redeeming trait Honky Tonk Women has. That and the privilege of being able to honestly say "I watched the least popular, lowest-scoring thing on MAL.

Does Japan have jugallos? Because I'm pretty sure thats who made this anime.

(when did they start word limits for reviews? i only watched this dumpster-fire for the meme, FFS...)

1/10

"Sabu to Ichi Torimono Hikae", or Sabu and Ichi's Arrest Warrent" was the first anime made for an adult audience, and the first to air in a 9pm TV slot. Set in the historical Edo period, it follows young, clean-cut Shinsengumi officer Sabu, and blind, lecherous old man Ichi, who gives neck massages on the street (a traditional, low status job for blind men), but also an unlikely master-swordsman, with the blade concealed in his cane.

"Sabu and Ichi" follows a pretty standard, episodic, 'who-dunnit' format, but in a traditional Tokugawa setting. It also follows the 'buddy-cop'' formula, with naive, enthusiastic, by-the-book Sabu contrasting with the ... irreverent wisdom, unconventional approach, and street-smarts of Ichi. Each episode sees a crime commited, with the duo unravelling the clues, and catching the villain by the episodes end, in a largely self-contained format. Although there is quite a bit of character development through the course of the series, especially in the fleshing-out of the backstory of these two, complex, well-rounded characters.

I was extremely impressed with "Sabu and Ichi". It'ss early date and black and white imadery may put some people off, but I found a surprisingly mature, engaging story with beautiful art, offering a very authentic-feeling insightt into both Tokagawa Japan, and the early days of anime. "Sabu and Ichi" clearly had a limited budget, rrelying on the tricks of 'limited animation' to maximize story-telling despite those limits. But it also uses some pretty innovative, experimental techniques, using compositing, Dezaki-esque paintings, or even the odd piece of live footage, to create a truly unique, boundary-pushing approach to story-telling.

Showing influence in everything from Samurai Champloo to Cowboy Bebop to Rurouni Kenshin, "Sabu and Ichi" holds its age extremely well. Criiminally underwatchhed, its one of the most mature stories I've seen in anime.

Highly recommend. 8/10

OK so this was the first ever anime. Does that make it an automatic 10? To me, that defeats the point of rating it- *something* was going to be "the first anime", so I'm just actually going to rate it on it's merits.

(Not trying to be "the edgy guy who pans the anime that everyone rates as 10"... but I guess thats exactly what I'm going to do. Sorry.)

ART: Let's be honest- if you look the art in NG with no context, it's undoubtably the worst I've seen in anime. By a longshot. Way worse than crappy CGI, or cheap 80s pulp. I honestly feel ... generous giving the art a 2.

SOUND: No sound, no rating

CHARACTER: It's a 4min short- there was never going to be character development, but someone edited NG down to 2 minutes, lost nothing of value in terms of entertainment, and improved the film. Honestly, that 2min video could be cut to 20 or 40 seconds. Another 2.

ENJOYMENT: Hard to rate. Let's be honest- 90% of NG's entire value is it's "first" status. To a modern viewer, it has no entertainment value beyond that; it's a one-joke (barely even a "joke" tbh), completely silent film that manages to make 4 minutes seem like an unbearably long time.

But I don't want to give it straight 1s and 2s, so for the historical significance, I'll throw it a charity 8
(But for real, don't watch it if you expect to be *at all* entertained)

OVERALL: I guess that in 1917, maybe this *was* entertaining? And no doubt it was innovative. But a film-maker in 1917 had no-one to guide them on how to make a watchable film, and that *really* shows through in Namakura Gatana.

If you want to know what "The First Anime" was like, and are willing to invest 4 minutes in that, then here's your chance. It's definitely a 10/10 in the catagory of "being The First Anime".

But aside from that, even compared to b&w, silent western cartoons from the period, NG is bad story-telling, and un-entertaining. The film-maker used minutes at a time of two characters doing nothing but sitting and talking IN A SILENT FILM. No subtitles. No overdub. No dialog in any form. Just silent lip-flapping for like > 30% of the film. I guess they hadn't learnt that mouths moving, in itself, isn't really interesting? idk.

I guess it's interesting to see the very first, faltering steps of an artform, (or maybe not...) but what's most striking about NG is how insanely crude it is. It really seems like something a child made; I'm not just saying that as a cheap shot- It looks like something a bright 8yo with a super8 camera might make in the 40s or 50s; More an experiment or a quirky novelty than any real attempt at story-telling or entertainment.

Anyway, overall, I'm giving it an very generous 3.

(But with that scoring, I can't imagine what would earn a 2 or 1; The honest truth is, Namakura Gatana's ONLY value is the "first" factor. You 100% WILL NOT find a less entertaining, shittier-looking anime on MAL.)