I personally agree with the second issue, from what I have heard and found online the real Heike Monogatari was quite the long tale, with one of the earlier translations spanning 800 pages. There was no damn way they were going to fit all of that stuff into their quaint 11 episodes, and I think this was the main cause of pretty much everybody's problems. The addition of Biwa certainly did not help with this problem in any way. I thought she was a fine character (other than her absurdly round cheeks in that one shot in the OP), but she really doesn't do much of substance in terms of the actual plot, and her individual story isn't really worth cutting out more of the main plot, which was way more interesting. I will say that her being a blind (at the end I guess that's a spoiler but don't get mad at me its in the synopsis) biwa player was a nice touch considering the most widely accepted version of the story was compiled by a blind monk from a bunch of stories passed down by other monks who chanted the tale with the accompaniment of a biwa. Other than that neat little factoid she wasn't really that necessary and was definitely a bit of a detriment to the story as a whole.
The other problem is a bit more of a subjective one. Many people said that Heike Monogatari confused them, even some who had read the original work. The thing is that I personally never got that confused, so I'm not really sure what to say about this one. I can definitely see how it could be a problem, it is a political drama after all, and does have quite a few characters that you need to keep track of, many of which happen to annoyingly have names that all end with -mori. I just personally didn't find it too confusing, but since quite a few people did, I think it is pretty important that anybody planning on watching Heike Monogatari keeps this in mind before and as they do.
Now enough about what I and other people didn't like about Heike Monogatari, what did I like about it?
Quite a bit, I think one of the strongest aspects was definitely the art. The soft color palette was really appealing and nice to look at, and gave everything a nice and natural look. The characters themselves also all had pretty distinct designs, which definitely helped me tell apart my -mori's from one another. There were also a few shots in some of the battle scenes that really reminded me of the style of traditional Japanese artwork, with sprawling scenes with multiple little things all happening at the same time. I think the visuals were fantastic, and really stood out to me.
Despite how it was confusing to many, I also really enjoyed the main plot of Heike Monogatari. I didn't know it but I guess I really like historical political dramas. It also just made me realize how much more awesome and cool history there is out there. Growing up in the US you really just learn about US history and European history, but Heike Monogatari has really strengthened my fascination with how much more history there is out there, and how much more infinitely interesting it can be than Teddy Roosevelt.
Some people knocked the characters of Heike Monogatari for not really being relatable, which yes I can agree with, but I feel that sort of misses the point. This is a historical work, and while some changes can be made in the fine details of these characters, they still are all people from almost 1000 years ago, and really can't be expected to be that relatable to us inhabitants of the 21st century. So instead I think its more fair to base them off of how memorable or interesting they are, and in that aspect I think they do just fine. While I may not remember some of their names (I still haven't got the hang of memorizing foreign names) I clearly remember and probably will remember plenty of them. Some of them were interesting people, and they all were a part of the story of the Heike.
In conclusion I think this has been one of my favorite shows of the Fall 2021 season. It's narrative really gripped me from the start and kept that grip strong the whole way through. It also gave me a deeper appreciation and fascination with traditional Japanese culture and even taught me a bit of history while it was at it. As long as you think you'll be able to keep up with the narrative without getting too confused I can definitely recommend this show, it was a great experience for me and I hope any other future viewers will feel the same.
