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It’s stupid to judge an anime by its opening, but an opening should never deceive the viewer. The opening starts off with a bang with a badass opening by The Birthday. It seemed promising…

It most suffers from bad and inconsistent writing. In the very start zombies Chika and Shito plan to kill Michiru for discovering their secret of them being zombies, which is illogical as what threat would she pose? Shito may do it but the action does not befit Chika.

Soon they realize Michiru has a special ability of spotting zombies with her eyes. They save her after death, and then all three of ... them need to work together in order to pay off their debt. Michiru’s usefulness quickly wears off since she has no prowess in combat and 9/10 situations don’t let her use her only redeeming ability — her eyes. In fact it seems that she is the one causing tension between Shito and Chika. They keep mentioning that they’d kill her if she did not do her job, but this never does come close to happening. The show keeps establishing the fact that they are not friends, but at the same time layers gags upon gags and even puts in a vacation episode — a brazen contradiction.

The “big bad” or motivator behind Zombie-loan is the grim reaper. He kills those who are supposed to be dead or are actually going to die. When he appears, he is menacing. The later episodes, shrink him down to a chibi and has him working with Zombie-loan for some reason. It turns out he is woefully inefficient at his job, as the zombie he was supposed to have killed survived.

Another impetus is the time limit Zombie-loan imposes. If debt is not paid back in a year, the zombie will die. But if they extend it via payment, they will live forever. Such a thing is not taken seriously, except by Chika. We don’t know exactly how much debt the trio is in, nor are we given details into what bounties are worth which (although there is a further emphasis on stronger zombies being worth more). Consequently we cannot track their progress nor place any value on their actions — especially when further trivial debt is constantly added on. Only Chika has a desire to return back to a human. Shito, as it turns out, has always been a zombie and is over 100 years old. Michiru does not see an issue with extending the deal and living for forever. Regardless, they mostly screw around.

Much of the show is a bore, and a pain to get through. One character’s existence is largely just for fanservie and to assault the main character. Sentimental moments fall flat, the zombies are not scary nor are they taken seriously and rarely any action happens. There are plot twists and revelations but the poor execution makes them anticlimactic. The story is obviously incomplete, and tons of things are not explained. Considering it’s been 16 years since the first season I doubt they’d revisit it and finish it.

This season is a massive disappointment from where season one ended, and that is better (slightly) than this. Yuki yet again is a useless insufferable character that goes back and forth back and forth back and forth. The adults are more-so spineless, including headmaster Kaien, who is/was a legendary vampire hunter. Even weirder are several incest subplots woven throughout. Little progress is made, and the ending is very unsatisfactory. Kaname Kuran is a manipulative creep, and the Zero vs Kuran rivalry leads nowhere. The side characters are as deep as a kiddie-pool. Maybe them being emotionless is due to their being vampires? This anime subverts ... your hopes and expectations, from the first season and dashes them.

Rurouni Kenshin New Kyoto Arc is quite disappointing and not something I can recommend.

Cramming a 30 episode arc into 90 minutes isn’t the best idea and did not work out. They drastically rewrote key elements and set pieces, as well as omitting characters and taking severe creative liberty to condense it for time. The OVA took a darker turn which ended up contradicting many of the characters and forgoing their development. The most egregious example of which is the main protagonist himself, Kenshin. He is way more brutal in this appearance, for some reason. Nearly all the fights are inferior compared to the original ... series. They do not have the proper pacing nor emotional buildup. Sure it has better animation. If this is your first experience of the Kyoto Arc do not let it be your first. Watch the anime or read the manga instead. The way it was meant to be experienced.

This Rurouni Kenshin movie is filler, which is not always inherently bad, but worse than that a shameless rehash of multiple arcs of the anime series. Yet again are we introduced to the idea of the disgruntled samurai who fought in the Bakumatsu era of Japan who are not satisfied with the current state of the Meiji Government and the collapse of the Shogunate. We’ve seen such plot points numerous times in the anime however executed much better and with greater impacts on the characters. Multiple characters are not important to the plot but happen to be there, maybe just for fanservice and for marketing. ... Overall, the movie is very bland and at times boring, if you’ve seen the anime, this movie will feel very familiar to you, and skippable.