The plot or storyline is focused on a samurai named Akitsu Masanosuke, a skilled and loyal swordsman who has no master under him and once again, he was been fired by his lords and start to look for bodyguard jobs and he find one working for a guy named Yaichi, the leader of the gang “Five Leaves”. As he is delve inside the world of the Five Leaves, the more he finds himself fascinated and involved with the people he associates himself with, especially some with many questionable past lives.
You may wonder if there is going to be any action, thrills, or anything that expect from a samurai anime, well, you might want to keep on looking because it does not fulfill that need that you wanted.
This is a samurai anime that is character and story driven and whiles the pace of the series does get numbingly slow in the beginning and it still gets that way towards the end and the amount of character development is adequate and well-needed but as for the story development, I never quite understand most of it halfway through the series’ runtime yet in some parts, I could make out some details of it.
The atmosphere in the series including the main character design of Akitsu comes off as depressing and unenthusiastic, especially the latter. He really just looks like he doesn’t want to be here or just has the same emotionless, expression-less, Keanu Reeves look. However, he isn’t that bad of a character. I’m fine with him not being an all-mighty samurai. Not every character in every form of entertainment (especially Anime) needs to be this powerful character. All the other characters (especially Yaichi) are well-developed and practically carries the show.
The animation done by Manglobe is non-traditional in character designs and backgrounds and while it looks fascinating to the eyes, it isn’t actually up to par and it can get very tiresome and I sort of gotten sick of that look during the 10th episode. The upbeat opening and ending songs really does contrast from the rest of the show’s bleak and bland tones.
FINAL VERDICT: The show does manage to get story and character development spot-on, it is different than the other anime that is close to this but it is enjoyable to watch? Well, at a time, you can but it has an unbelievably slow pace that can turn off most viewers but a bad show this is not. An underwhelming show it is but would I suggest this? Uhhhhh………I don’t know. This is something you need to figure out for yourself but I can’t help you on this one.
