Rurouni Kenshin eps 63-76

[meganbmoore]

Because my ability to binge is limited only by the constraints of space and time...

The first episode here, where Kenshin meets an older manslayer who could have easily been him had things progressed just a little bit differently, is probably the best standalone episodes of the series, maybe one of the best standalone anime eps I’ve seen. The whole thing, especially the very end, was beautiful.

The Prince Yahiko episode was quite fun, though Yahiko really should have kept in mind the fact that it was temporary and he had to live with Kaoru after...I suspect someone had 5 times as many chores for a few weeks after that. The next episode...I think I’m going to try to forget about that episode. Pretty much nothing in that episode was like what I expect from the series, aside from Sano and Yahiko’s antics. Kaoru’s characterization was pretty much the opposite of anything we’ve seen before. So...yeah...not that great, though I find great amusement in the fact that Sano suddenly needs a doctor every time Kaoru beats him up, and Yahiko and Tsubame were quite cute(though they’re always cute)

Then we get to the religious arc. The best summary is that it’s a well intentioned but ill executed attempt at addressing a part of Japanese history that doesn’t seem to be addressed much in the various pieces of Japanese fiction I’ve encountered. They meant well, and it started good, but...

The first couple of episodes were pretty good, particularly the assassinations and what qualifies as freaking out for Aoshi, and on the whole, the new characters were ok, even Sayu, but it just didn’t work. The Sano/Sayu romance in particular...I had that storyline down pretty much scene-for-scene their first scene together, it’s been done so many times. And yeah, the whole hot-headed bad boy/narrow-minded proper girl who becomes more open-minded usually works(cliches exist for a reason) but it didn’t here on any level. It’d be easier for me to see Sano with Misao or Kaoru than with Sayu, because she’s just not the kind of girl he’d go for. I’m going to chalk it up to his encountering a girl who actually acts like a well-bred young woman instead of varying stages of minx and tom boy–not to mention causes him considerably less physical damage–for the first time in months and leave it at that.

The actual history involved was interesting, as was Kenshin’s dealing with blindness. And I rather liked that it served as a bit of confirmation that now that Sano’s figured out the basic principles of varying kinds of unarmed combat, he can learn pretty much anything. It’s touched on a bit in the anime, but in the manga, he’s already started applying it in other ways by the time he and Anji meet again, and he continues to develop and vary it as the series continues(which consistently annoys Megumi more and more, as it means she has to bandage him up more and more often) Here, once he learns exactly what another fighting style does, he’s able to figure out its basic principles and use it. He acts stupid almost constantly, but he’s actually pretty smart, he just has to be able to put things in terms he understands(which, granted, usually boils down to brute strength...)

Back to the storyline, I was rather disappointed that not only did Aoshi disappear after the beginning, but Saito didn’t even make an appearance. Like most storylines that deal with religion, and more specifically, Christianity, it fell into the "they mean well, but it’s just good intentions and pretty words" frame of mind in the end. The end result of that is almost always that it becomes heavy handed and clumsy and starts losing itself. Still, while the actual execution of the story was poor, there was enough good stuff to it to make it worth watching.