Samurai X:
Reflections
ADV
60 minutes
English/Japanese
English Subtitles
Released: 12/28/2004
Reviewed: 11/22/2005
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Samurai X:
ADV
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Samurai X, or the Rurouni Kenshin OVAs if you prefer to be all "legit", was one of the best moments in the past five years of my anime career. Those four episodes contained all the things that a growing boy would need to enjoy his new cartoon. Blood and guts, crazy ninja sword fights, governments in upheaval, pseudo-historical fact, and there's even a fair bit of whiny, angsty romance for the ladies. Samurai X, as I'll call it for convenience, wrapped everything up into a nice little two hour package that got many things done and certainly left you wanting for more. I certainly was one of those people lusting for the further exploits of Kenshin Himura, assassin extraordinaire. Watching bits and pieces of the long running TV show didn't really do it for me. The series has none of the serious tone and overwhelming sadness that the OVAs did. It was too busy bashing its title character on the head with all manner of pots and pans and bamboo swords and what have you. It has its moments, but they're so few and far between that it becomes an astoundingly arduous task to keep up with. I don't know about you guys, but I'm not watching 20 minute cartoons wherein 18 minutes are goofy slapstick crap and 2 minutes are good-but-not-great swordfighting scenes. |
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I'm told the show gets really sweet somewhere in the halfway point, around episode 40 or 50, but really... I'm not the kind of guy that can watch even a whole episode of something average without squirming in my chair and resorting to the internet to break the monotony. What's the chances of me making it through something like 800 minutes of TV show just because there maybe might be kinda-sorta something worth watching after all that? Not that much at all. I had pretty much resigned myself that my Kenshin story ended almost before it had even begun. Watching a dozen episodes about a man who disables his opponents with sound or a fish that's actually a samurai but has taught itself to walk on land in order to fight the greatest warrior in all of Japan isn't really my style.** Broken down as my psyche was, imagine how excited it made me when I found out that there was another Kenshin OVA on the spoke. Why, it was a dream come true! Finally I could experience more of what I loved to love, more of the Kenshin that I learned to call my own. |
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I wasn't worried that I wouldn't know what was going on with the OVAs. They take place well after the overly long TV show, so it's an easy guess that Kenshin and the girl that hits him with pots and pans eventually fall in love. It's pleasant to see that my guess is correct, but a little disconcerting that almost everyone in the OVA looks almost exactly the same as they did in the TV show. Over fifteen years later the only thing that's changed is that Kenshin has a baby. The 13 year old kid, especially, still looks 13 years old in this miraculous future time where medicine has cured all the effects of aging. That should've been my first warning sign. The second could've been the rampant misogyny this show encompasses. In two episodes Kaoru, Kenshin's lover, has two flashbacks both of which detail her kidnapping at the hands of nefarious evil-doers who plan to use her to drag Kenshin out. This girl, who since the first episode of the TV show, is made out to be a well experienced martial artist, can't seem to rub two sticks together when it comes to a situation where she's gotta take care of herself in a fight. But that's not all! Suffice it to say I don't have the time to describe ALL the anti-female propaganda this show spews out, but lines where Kaoru describes how it's the wife's job to absorb the pain of a husband and be a good little lady and sit on her hands for fifteen years while he's off gallivanting takes me at a bit of a loss. Also, I guess Kenshin gave her AIDS, or some other equally debilitating disease that makes no sense. What's surprising is that she seems pretty happy about the whole affair. It's ALSO the wife's job to cry like a bitch and she better be happy about it! |
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But the real kicker is the show just sucks. It's almost exclusively told in flashbacks, much of which are just rehashes of scenes from the TV show, all of which are completely boring. Even the fight scenes don't have any of the intensity that the original OVA exuded through its every pore. People doing goofy techniques to disable their opponents was what the TV show was about. I don't want to see that crap, I want to see the desperation that drew me to the show in the first place. I can't believe I wasted time and money on something like this. I mean, would it kill you to make the trained warrior woman not a damsel in distress JUST ONCE? I guess the guys in this show don't need ladies with their giant muscles and blatant homoeroticism. Samurai X (the second coming) wasn't as bad as most of the really tasteless, debasing stuff out there... but that only compounded my irritation. It shows promise the whole way through, eschewing tasteless jokes and juggly boobs for real story is a start, but the show just refuses to meet me halfway. Coming from such a great pedigree as this final OVA in the series did, it really should've done better. |
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