Blade of the Immortal – 04

Short Synopsis: Rin visits an old teacher of her to request assistance.
Highlights: Bee-Train hasn’t forgotten how to make great action-scenes at all, despite this series’ limited budget.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
Well, so it really seems that this series is going to air every two weeks, instead of the weekly schedule of 99% of all other anime. Ah well, it may take a long time to wait for the next consecutive episode, but this does allow the creators to take their time, and produce a very solid series, rather than trying to rush it. Blade of the Immortal has been consistently awesome for me so far, so I don’t mind waiting an extra week for each episode. It’s much better than those random unexpected hiatuses that come from nowhere that plagued gems as Kaiba, Saiunkoku Monogatari and Dennou Coil.

I just love the style of this series, and this episode was the most enjoyable so far. It may not catch the specific style of the manga, but the creators nevertheless have enough ideas to make the action-scenes more than just a few slashes of blades. Sure, the budget is very limited in this series, but to make up for it the fight coordination is really enjoyable, and it almost turns the fight scenes here into a work of art. The fight in this series made excellent use of the characters’ various traits and personalities. It’s really something I kept missing at Soul Eater: the fights were there, but they never were anything special. But then again, this comes from the guy who loved the fight scenes in Gunslinger Girl – Il Teatrino, so it may just be my strange taste. ^^;

The flashback of Rin’s parents getting killed is also typical Bee-Train: every episode so far has seen that shot, and you see the same technique in many of their best series: Noir, .Hack//Sign and El Cazador. At first sight, it doesn’t make any sense: repetition in storytelling can very easily get annoying. At first sight, it seems rather uninspired. However, it does make sense: Rin’s parents were killed in front of her eyes. Of course this made a huge impact on her, and she’ll very often recall that moment. Those flashbacks merely try to mimic what’s happening in Rin’s mind. They don’t seem to add anything to the story, but they’re excellent for fleshing out characters.

It’s strange, but Blade of the Immortal is shaping up to be my favourite series of the season, along with Natsume Yuujin-chou. It definitely doesn’t shine in terms of realism, but it’s so much fun to watch the series and characters, and this is just after episode 4, with a second season already in the works.