Category: Blade of the Immortal

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.

Short Synopsis: Manji faces off against the masked guy.
Highlights: Those writers are… messed up…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10
I’m curious here: is there any fan of the manga who did enjoy the animated version? I don’t think I’ve seen anyone who liked both the manga and the anime. 😛 I’ve never understood why people would want to watch the same story twice anyway. I mean, take the big plot twist in this episode for example: one of the reasons why this episode was so awesome was because that plot twist where the masked guy had the heads of his loved ones sewed on his shoulders. That’s just bloody sick, but just like Death Note, it’s not going to make the same impact if you’ve already watched this plot twist.

In any case, this episode confirmed that Bee-Train’s slow pacing is perfect for Japanese styled horror. The entire episode had me on the edge of my seat. What caught my attention is that the background music is either vivid and wild, or totally gone during the quiet parts, which does make for a great contrast. The animation was simple as usual, but then again, you don’t want to watch this series just for the fight scenes (are people still watching this series for the action? Hah!).

I really liked how this episode focused both at horror and characterizations, and it did a great job of establishing Asano’s character. She didn’t do much in this episode (but after all, she stood before a screwed up old guy who put her mother’s head on one of his shoulders, of course she’d be incredibly intimidated), but I can see that she’s going to grow a lot in this series. She really wants to have her revenge, she just can’t. The other bad guys also got their share of attention (including a flashback of when the old guy replaced his first shoulder), and with Bee-Train, we can be sure of some great character-growth.

Short Synopsis: A girl whose parents were murdered asks Manji to help her with her revenge.
Highlights: If you weren’t already convinced that this was a Bee-Train series, then this episode will.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10
Okay, so I think that it was pretty obvious that I’d end up blogging this series. After years, I’m still not sure what’s so appealing about their distinctive style, and yet I absolutely love it. I haven’t read one page of the manga so far, though I might read it once this series is finished. I believe that there were some changes made here and there that made the manga-readers overall disappointed, but for now, I won’t care about that.

In any case, it turns out that the frantic pacing of the first episode was just used by means of an introduction. I should have known: Bee-Train really likes to kick off its series as mysteriously as possible, only to go for a slow pacing with episode two. We’ve seen it in El Cazador, .Hack//Sign, Tsubasa Chronicle, and probably some more that I forgot about now. Still, a slow pacing is really what fits Bee-Train the best. It really allows the story to take its time and the characters to develop properly.
I also keep getting impressed by the music, and it’s surprisingly varied. One track bears a clear reference to Tenpou Ibun Ayakashi Ayashi, while the next is a spunky modern jazzy piece of music, the next is a quiet harp song, the next gives off horror-vibes. Kou Outani really was given a lot of freedom for this series. I must say that I really like the vocals that were used. Call it wailing, but I think that whoever is singing it has a great voice.

Also, what’s up with the episode count for this series? MyAnimeList is the only site which has this series listed at 13 episodes, and yet neither AniDB nor Animenewsnetwork, which strike me as the more reliable, have anything about the total amount of episodes. And yet, there’s also talk going on about a second season. In any case, next week there’s another hiatus, but after that, the releases seem to continue weekly instead of semi-weekly.