Rurouni Kenshin #1: The Legendary Swordsman Mediablasters 100 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 07/18/2000

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I didn't always have a very good history with anime. When I was young and stuff wasn't as readily available as it is now, I would latch onto pretty much anything. I suppose this explains my long festering love for anything related to Bubblegum Crisis. As I've grown up my taste has kind of matured too and I've shed off these trappings of crappy anime that I once loved or didn't totally hate anyway. Unsurprisingly, I'm not really a big proponent of Rurouni Kenshin. It might be because I'm not half the Kenshin fan that JL is, but I'm pretty sure it's more the gratuitous use of physical comedy that 'gets my goat'. I'm just at a different point in my life than one where I would've actually been somewhat amicable to this show. Though you probably know better than me what this program is all about, I'll try to run it down for you. Somewhere in the 19th century or so there was this guy Battousai the manslayer that wandered around killing people to help out Imperialism and good stuff like that. But midway through the revolution he totally wastes his "one true love" and swears to never ever kill again, as soon as he slays a few more guys on the way out. Eventually he does make good on his vow and puts a stop to the killing, this is right about the time he runs into the hot headed Kaoru, who runs a school for martial arts in some backwater town that I am 90% sure isn't Tokyo. Check back with me on that.

You can pretty much assume what happens from then on in. Kenshin accidentally looks in on Kaoru when she's in the bath and, through a series of misunderstandings, he gets all variety of pots and brooms thrown at his head. One wonders how something like this could spawn the very, very good OVAs, but it's a crazy world we live in. On the one side we've got a whole lot of action with a pretty solid narrative behind it and on the other we've got weird slapstick action the nature of whatever harem show might (or might not) suit your fancy with a large smattering of fight scenes that you'd be more likely to find in the Six Million Dollar Man than anything else. Hero jumps up into the air, all the badguys fall down. Giving credit where credit is due, Joel made that up, not me. I'm not clever enough to think up any of the funny little anime catch pharses we use and I don't think it should come as a shock to you that that's the truth. I'm more of the observational fellow and here I'll grace you with a few of those choice observations. Southern Accent for the teahouse waitress Tae? I don't know, but I have the suspicion Osaka Ben strikes again! Secondly, Sandy Fox does not do a very good job with the opening song, Freckles. That's okay though, because Freckles is a really crappy song to begin with. She didn't have a lot of room to move with it anyway.

And, in a way, Freckles highlights a lot of what's wrong with the show in general (prepare for me to never explain this). I like to think that the first episode was basically unquestionably excellent and, as long as they stay away from Kenshin getting beaned with various household objects, it maintains a pretty good pace and the fight scenes can be pretty good in their own little 'main character can never lose' way. I agree with a lot the stuff that the show hands us with, it's just unfortunate that the bad very often outweighs the good. First off, I understand the use of a woman voice actress to portray a child, but when it's an older character--the titular character even!--that's a different matter entirely (I told you I wouldn't, didn't I?). So sorry Mayo Suzukaze, but your style just ain't my style. I have a strong feeling deep in my stomach that using the opposite gender as the character portrayed should be limited to Shoujo series as it was first intended, because that what I don't have to feel bad about it when I watch stuff that contains that sort of egregious mistake. Usually I'm not the kind to fuss over the Japanese dub, seeing as how I only listen to them as a sort of novelty act anyway, but this is something that I just plain don't like. I understand that Kenshin's supposed to be soft spoken, yes, but I'm pretty sure there's at least one soft spoken man in all of Japan.

You know what's funny? I've said that before and I was going to point out my lack of journalistic creativity by providing a link to wherever I did it before, but it seems that I've used the phrase "at least" in some 60+ reviews and I ain't wading through all that just for the likes of you! Just be sure to understand that I repeat myself more than is socially acceptable and we'll leave it at that. So Kenshin seems to be as confusing as a show in this modern day and age could be. On the one hand really cool and slick, on the other totally ridiculous and almost unwatchable at times. Right in the middle? A bunch of Japanese cops who look extremely Western. And this is just the first four episodes! While lines like "I'll fight you with just one finger" are pretty inspiring, it's nowhere near enough to launch this show into good graces with me. Kenshin, if you want to win my heart you better start acting a lot more like your back story. Since it's a bit too late for that, I guess I'll just have to try and live with it. Kenshin, I don't really like you, but I'm so easily converted by peer pressure that I'll wind you out until something better comes along.