Back to Sipi's Profile Sipi's Profile

After 14 years of watching anime my this is still my definite #1 anime. Usually OVAs don't offer anything special but in this case the OVA tells an important story from the manga that wasn't in the original anime because of it's early cancellation. I have been interested about history for years now and Japanese culture and history especially have been appealing to me (big surprise). So it's no wonder that the whole rurouni kenshin series was very interesting to me. The main series happens 10 years after the bakumatsu (japanese revolution), but this OVA tells about the series main character Kenshins history when he ... was still a child and how he ended up being Hitokiri Battousai during bakumatsu. Now my biggest problem with the main series was Kenshins vow to never kill again. In Tsuiokuhen there isn't that problem and...ah, Tomoe. There is Tomoe in Tsuiokuhen! I won't go into details if someone hasn't seen this yet. If that's the case, Go watch it! Only 4 episodes ;)

Now why is this 10/10 series? Question should be why wouldn't it be. I can't find anything negative to say about this OVA no matter how hard I try. For me the setting is spot on. When you take into consideration that it was made at the end of 1990s the animation is simply amazing! And it's great even if you don't take it into consideration. They have made it dark intentionally to fit the mood of the OVA. The soundtrack is great too, nothing to complain there either. The characters are well executed and they have clear development during the short time they had in 4 episodes. And the story...well I don't dare to say anything with fear of spoiling it. There is action and great emotions and the series also remembers to ponder about the question how killing affects people. Anyways, WATCH THIS! I watched this OVA before the actual series which might have been the right thing or not, since the plot happens before the main series but in the manga this arc was actually after the Kyoto arc. that was the last actual arc in the main series. But now I've rambled way more than I was supposed to. WATCH THIS! Grading 10/10 since 11/10 isn't possible.

This anime was... good. Nothing more and nothing less. It doesn't have anything that surprising in characters or plot but it was entertaining. especially considering that I tried reading the source novel some time ago as I am a massive fantasy novel fan. This anime adaptation actually was more entertaining.

Now...slight spoilers ahead.

What I personally liked about this was that even though the MC is an OP character he still finds comrades that can fight together with him and at least in this season there was relatively little amount of situations where the MC was the sole main focus. Also there was actual romantic ... development that is not guaranteed in japanese anime/novel plotlines (and I find it frustrating when nothing happens after loooong time).

CONCLUSION:
If you are looking for the isekai anime that will blow your mind after lots of mediocre ones...well you won't find it here. This is mediocre in almost all the ways possible and I think there would be other isekai novels out there that would be better source material. However among other things I personally enjoyed the lighthearted comedy of this anime and the animation was decent including the fight scenes. So if you want some shounen fantasy anime to watch that you can just watch without thinking too much into it then I would recommend this for you.

First of all I wan't to say that this show was not in anyway a masterpiece but I still found this anime to be enjoyable. I saw a lot of disappointment related to this series before and almost didn't watch it at all. So thinking there might be other people like me out there who might consider not even trying this because they only see the bad stuff written about this in the internet I felt it was needed of me to write this review.

For me the biggest problem was the start. It was prolonged a bit too far just to set up the basis ... for the 'student council work' that in the end was not all that essential for this anime. However it did give chance to get to know the characters better and around episode 6 I felt like they had finished "laying the foundation" and the plot started to really progress. I was hooked and just had to see it all the way 'til the end.

I was thinking that I'm not going to focus on every aspect (art, sounds, characters etc.) separately but just try to express my feelings in words for the series as a whole. Though maybe I should mention few pointers that I noticed.

Art: if you've seen Aniplex shows before you pretty much know what to expect. Nothing all that amazing but solid animation all the way.

Sound: I liked both OP and ED but in some of the background music sometimes had these weird sounds on regular intervals that at least for me disrupted the feeling of the situation and got me annoyed. Still just a minor annoyance that didn't happen more than few times.

Generally speaking: Though having some cliché elements I found the way this story was told to be to my liking. I have always enjoyed this "situation based" humor that is typical to anime and what the first half of this anime offers a lot. Staring glowing eyes under a dark cloud from other guys who feel jealous, people rambling about their target of admiration and then getting treated accordingly for this overly stupid behavior are some of the small things I enjoy seeing in so called school-anime. This show delivered that but if you are expecting only school anime that has, synopsis quote: "The student council of the school, led by Nao, is tasked with secretly tracking down adolescents who abuse their powers." you should brace yourself because this show will turn a bit more drama focused around the halfway point.
The second half of the show focused on dealing with the problems that the characters have mostly because of these abilities and how they are trying to deal with the situation. There was also more than one plot twist that I did not see coming and they made this show more interesting.

I don't want to ramble for too long and accidentally write spoilers so for short conclusion: Despite a bit slow start that had some wasted screen time I think this story was well told in 13 episodes. The main reason why this anime got 7/10 from me instead of better score was that there could have been more focus on character development and that there some rushing in telling the story which was even more evident flaw after slow start. Despite these problems I still found the overall enjoyment to be 'good' hence 7/10

My first ever review. I hope it will be helpful to somebody