Shall we start with the story of Kenshin? Threw all his struggles and problems, he acts with a gentle manner unless it’s something he has to get into a situation. His speaks with a lot of experience of his years even though he has such a young face. Sometimes I even wonder how old he really is because of his ‘dual personalities’ that go between the man killer and the sweet and innocent childlike boy. I feel he was made to have that because of how young he was when he was forced to grow up fast.
Kaoru on the other hand is still rather young but took over her father’s dojo to honor his name. She has a big heart, much like Kenshin does but unfortunately her inexperience with the world tends to make her a bit too naive. It’s not that she is stupid, but just puts herself in danger without thinking. She storms into the fight with no thought of the consequences.
Myojin Yahiko is a rather prideful orphan who sometimes does not know when to put his pride aside. He grows a lot during the show as he turns from a punk like little boy into a strong young man.
Then the last one I will talk about is Sagara Sanosuke who is a former member of the Sekiho Army. He was young when he was part of the army and soon after becomes a sword for hire as he doesn’t seem to have any other reason for fighting. At least he has a good heart and a strong wish for justice though he lives in the present only.
The artwork is pretty beautiful for an old cell shaded piece. Each scene is rather well done to a point although because of being cell shaded, they did use images over and mess up once in a while. Characters proportions feel a little stretched as though they got stuck in a taffy puller but it’s not as bad as some shows like Sailor Moon’s long legs. There isn’t much else to talk about I think. If you seen Ranma ½ or other shows from around this time, then you know the style of the show artwork it is.
The voices are a bit hard to talk about when we speak about the English dub. When I first heard them, they were really well done but after a while, I wanted to watch it again so looked on a website called Crackle. When I did, I found that everything was off and had a bad ring in my ears. I don’t know what version they gave me on Crackle but it sure as hell wasn’t the right one. It was terrible; Kamiya Kaoru sounded so much like a child that it made me cringe. It sounds like she even calls Kenshin ‘Kenshi’! I loved the other version I had before and the sad thing is that I don’t know what version it was. Not only that, but the way they did the script was so badly written that it felt like they were only reading off the script then putting heart and soul into it. If someone knows the version that has the English translation of the opening and ending songs, please let me know because that was part of the good version.
