I would like to preface my review by saying I understand a 1.5 hour OVA cannot possibly encompass the nuanced story of an entire seasonal arc of an anime. That being said, I am glad the narrative of this OVA was...different and not a beat for beat reboot.
In terms of the art: I don't think this anime looks good in this OVA--HOWEVER... I have seen the trailer for the 2023 "remastered" series and I have high hopes for it to be gorgeous. The characters at least look more on model and while (I feel) animators would never do another series where it's all about every strand of hair...I hope they still care about the hair ngl... That's probably the dumbest thing to be nitpicky about but when I think beautiful anime hair it's always Rurouni Kenshin and Basilisk that comes to mind.
In terms of the story: If you have never seen RuroKen before, I think you would still find this OVA feeling rushed. They really tried to cram ALL of it in there and it is not great.
The action: While I am not a big fan of how a lot of the fights were handled in this OVA, I did enjoy the more modern, exciting, and quickened pace of the choreography, and I have high expectations for the 2023 release, especially for the big name versus moments (Kenshin vs Saito comes to mind). I will admit I am extremely biased because the OG series holds a big place in my anime heart, and I am super let down they didn't give Chou his whip sword and that Shishio was just randomly fighting people and then letting them go like what he would NEVER LOL I just felt like there was character assassinations left and right and just... I feel bad if this is anyone's first introduction to RuroKen... Kenshin splitting Shishio's whole brain in half was pretty dope tho tbh
My personal feelings: I rated this low and I don't feel bad about it. I was not enjoying my time with this OVA and kept thinking about watching the OG anime over and over. I'm really looking forward to the 2023 remaster but... please don't let me down with some bullshit y'all.
