Quick background, Tetsunosuke joines the Shinsengumi to avenge his dead parents. This starts as your typical serious revenge story. So far so good, he is eventually let in after an emotional scene. Then there is a mix between extremely lighthearted moments and absurdly dark moments.
This is my first complaint. It does have some excellent moments (the scene with Susumu and Tetsunosuke on the roof is one of the better tragic anime scenes I've seen) but the blend between silly and insanely dark is just distracting. I feel like the anime lacks direction.
This leads to my second complaint: a ton of things happen that I don't understand. There is black magic type stuff, there are scenes where I can't tell if they are imagination or they actually happen, there are things that happen which don't seem to flow logically to the next scene. All of these serve to confuse me about what is real and what is a metaphor or something.
This of course leads to my next complaint: why were there so many dropped plot points. I think the anime had lots fo awesome moments but there were a lot of things brought up that weren't completed. I'll give it slack because there was definitely a play for a second season that never happened but I still thought tons of things that came up weren't explained and I was left wondering what they were all about (some were major and truly left me frustrated).
My final gripe is that I don't know where thr story goes next. Most anime that have a "proper" ending at least give you the impression of the next steps. I guess this one just didn't really feel the need because I had no idea what would be next in store.
All of this aside, if you can forgive these story points the anime is good. The characters are all done well, there is a TON of emotional moments and enough silly moments to break up the tension. For those of you who don't mind an anime lacking a clear direction you may greatly enjoy this!
Story 6 / Art 7 / Sound 6 / Character 8 / Enjoyment 7 / Overall 7
