"Rurouni Kenshin" is the story of Himura Kenshin, a wandering Samurai with a dark past. One of my strongest first impressions of this series is how similar it is to "Trigun", a show I'd already watched. In particular, there are strong parallels between Kenshin and Vash, the main protagonists from their respective shows (no prizes for guessing which is from which). They're both insanely strong vagabonds who refuse to kill, and who like to hide their strength under an air of goofy incompetence. There are stylistic similarities too, like the heavy use of electric guitar in the sound track (although "Trigun" took this further). But since "Trigun" came after "Rurouni Kenshin", if there's any ripping off going on, it certainly isn't "Rurouni Kenshin" that's doing the ripping.
But enough about "Trigun", lets talk about "Rurouni Kenshin" instead. "Rurouni Kenshin" is split into three parts. The first part, subtitled "Wandering Samurai", sets up the show as a promising one; "Legend of Kyoto" sees it rocketing into a terrific and stupidly addictive show... only to have it come crashing back down earth in "Tales of the Meiji". In many ways, its rise and fall is quite characteristic of long running shounens.
"Wandering Samurai" gives the show a good starting point, introducing a cast filled with interesting, infectiously likeable characters. I did however, find one aspect of it to be particularly irksome - its goofy humour. I know that Kenshin is trying to hide his true strength, but still, his whole act of going goggle eyed and uttering "Oro?" every couple of minutes wears thin rapidly. It gives the series a silly feel it could have done without.
In addition, the action for the first few episodes are boring. They generally involve Kenshin jumping high into the air, followed by a flash of light, and then a scene showing his opponent(s) lying on the floor knocked out cold. But after a while, they improve, as more skilful opponents appear and the fights become more than just a matter of Kenshin one hit KOing cannonfodder. The mini arcs that span several episodes are especially good, as they generally have the strongest adversaries for Kenshin, and also longer and more complex plot, usually involving a couple of exciting cliff hanger moments.
As the series progressed, "Rurouni Kenshin" becomes more and more like something that's not too distant from a show of the superpower fighting genre. But it seems reluctant to join this genre completely, and tries to find middle ground between over the top special moves and pseudo-logical explanations behind them, and I'm not too keen on the result. I mean, some of the explanations behind the techniques on display are bordering on absurd. For example, there's one guy who swings his sword so fast he creates a vaccum with which he can cut people without actually touching them.
But anyway, by the time the "Legend of Kyoto" arc started, I've gotten used most of those minor irritations. With the start of this second part of the series, "Rurouni Kenshin" kicks into a much higher gear. Triggering it all off is a showdown between Kenshin and Hajime Saito, an old adversary from the shadows of Kenshin's dark past. Hajime Saito is one of the most badass characters ever, and that explosive encounter is one of the best choreographed fights ever, certainly the best in the series.
The "Legend of Kyoto" comprises a single, long story about Kenshin being sent after Shishio, a man who is linked to Kenshin's past despite them never having met. This arc is a prime example of a fighting shounen at its very best: the story is full of twists and turns, the build up of tension before the fights are incredible, and the fights themselves are seat gripping stuff. The whole arc is ferociously addictive, and I found myself going through perhaps the highest number of episodes of anime I'd ever watched in a day (while procrastinating on the thesis I was supposed to be doing for my MSc).
Perhaps it was because I watched too much in too short a period, but I found my enthusiasm starting to wane ever so slightly towards the end of "Legend of Kyoto", and its end nearly came as a relief. Part of this is probably due to the fights - they'd started to become repetitive and formulaic at that point. Fortunately, the arc ends without it becoming too much of a problem. UNfortunately, it wasn't the end of the problem, more like the beginning of the end, the beginning of the crumbling of (what was up to that point) an awesome show.
And so we come to the final part of "Rurouni Kenshin", "Tales of the Meiji". For me, along with like 99% of the shows fans, this part single handedly killed the series. But "Tales of the Meiji" actually made a good start, throwing out some quietly entertaining, episodic stories that brought about a refreshing change of pace from the long, exhausting intensity of the previous arc. The main problem is with the multi-parters - they were just poor re-hashes of the last section of "Legend of Kyoto"; it's almost the opposite of "Wandering Samurai", where the longer stories outshone the single episode ones. The worst problems with these long stories are the dull stories (they're more like set ups rather than proper stories) and even duller battles. Since towards the end of "Legend of Kyoto", Kenshin has been incessantly abusing this one overpowered attack of his; one that seems to work in pretty much all situations. Good for him, but bad for viewers. It's akin to some guy playing a fighting game and spamming a single broken move over and over again while his opponent is yelling "cheap!" at him repeatedly.
So why did everything go so horribly wrong? Apparently, it's because the anime followed the manga up to the end of "Legend of Kyoto" only. It's a classic case of the anime catching up with the with the manga, then, having run out of material and unwilling to let go of such a popular hit, started making up stories of its own. You can tell something is different about "Tales of the Meiji", and it's not just that it's sh*te: most of the stories in this part of the series involve people from foreign lands; Kenshin's opponents went from a bunch of swordsmen/ninjas to a bizarre mixture of knights, feng shui masters and God knows what else. There's also a glaring inconsistency when it comes to the battles themselves. The anime started introducing increasingly imaginative special attacks for the villains in order to make the fights more difficult for Kenshin. As a result, the attempt to retain a tenuous link with reality by way of some flimsy explanations on how the attacks works is often abandoned, especially since the nature of the new attacks don't lend themselves well to explanations, even absurd ones. Everyone just start pulling off exotic attacks because they CAN, and this doesn't fit very well with how the show worked previously.
With all the inconsistencies and staleness creeping in, "Tales of the Meiji" was a struggle to get through, especially the last few episodes. The final episode is confusing, as it comes out of no where, and goes nowhere as well; it's a rather random episode that just pulls out some flashbacks and highlights from the series. On a good note, it brought back memories of old skool "Rurouni Kenshin", and reminded me just why I loved it so much at one point. But apart from nostalgic value, the last episode seems kinda pointless and anti-climatic.
On the art and animation side of things, the style of "Rurouni Kenshin" can be a bit goofy and overuse the super deformity style at times, but it's great when it gets serious. Kenshin's transformation into "battousai mode" is very cool, as is the character design for Saito, who comes off as cold and deadly, especially when he gets into his various combat stances.
The opening and ending themes of "Rurouni Kenshin", although mostly catchy (I especially loved "It's Gonna Rain"), all feel out of place. The one exception is the ending track "Heart of Sword" which, in addition to being catchy, also energetically captures what the show is all about. The background tracks are not only easy on the ear, but also adds tremendously to the mood. The exquisite accoustic instrumentation combines surprisingly well with the electric guitar sounds, and the combinations give the OST quite a unique flavour.
At its best, "Rurouni Kenshin" is a great anime. It has a memorable, colourful cast, some awesome storylines and intense battles. But ultimately, it became a victim of its own success. It's sad to see the series suffer the slow and painful fate of "death by being overly milked as a cash cow". Adaptations where anime studios stray from the source material and comes up with good original material of their own do exist (the original "Full Metal Alchemist" comes to mind), but they're few and far in between. "Rurouni Kenshin" is a much more typical case of what happens. If you've seen this series, I'm sure you'll agree that the result isn't pretty. For those who haven't seen it, I strongly advise you to just watch up to the end of "Legend of Kyoto" arc, then stop and pretend that "Tales of the Meiji" never existed. Trust me, you won't be missing much, and this way, you won't be wasting away hours of your life just to look back on "Rurouni Kenshin" with a sour aftertaste in your mouth.
