The Eternal Assassin
In the midst of a civil war, which threatens to destroy Japan's traditions and honor, a man, the Eternal Assassin, is send out to follow his destiny and destroy the Head of the Conqueror, a supernatural object thousands of years old, which has been responsible for turmoils and war in the past and has been said to grant everybody who possesses it the ability to rule over everything.
Akizuki Youjirou is the young man's name, trained for just this sole goal he lives towards the day he finally destroys the head, that is until he meets Sakamoto Ryouma and for the first time in his life begins to think about this destiny he was born with. A destiny wich seems to be intertwined with that of Yuyama Kakunojou, the lead actress of a Kabuki troupe which he meets in Yokohama.
Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto (abbreviated to BKI from now) is just another example for the current standard in the animation industry, nowadays only the first and last episode of a series have good animation. And that's pretty much the case here.
The first episode certainly had a few interesting scenes, I loved the introduction of the troupe, its unique style, the use of the colours and interesting movement, the sakura petals falling during Kakunojou's speach. It evidently managed to make everything about them interesting and captured the viewer. However, the following episodes did make a fast decrease in such interesting scenes and overall movement. While there still were a few good moments here and there and a few decent fights, once the series hits episode 13, and finally resolves its first half, it all goes down. The second half cannot even be called animation anymore, because there isn't any actual animation left. The amount of real fights can be counted on the fingers of one hand, most of the times it's nothing more than stillframes en masse without any character moving an inch and even in actually animated fights you don't get more than two repeating frames movement, hideous frames and overall sloppiness. Paired with the corny and repetitive dialogues it makes for an itching viewing pleasure.
Each episode does also feature long sequences introducing the historical events which happen in that time, mostly made up of stillframes with a few battle sounds here and there.
Another point heavily deducting from the overall score is the quality of the drawings. Many episodes have generally a really bad output with many of the frames being badly drawn, a problem BKI shares with other Sunrise series, the general outsourcement is simply too high and results in extreme quality jumps between episodes, best seen in Code Geass, which features even worse episodes.
And the other part of the animation process doesn't impress as well. The backgrounds are not very detailed mostly, some episodes have nice backgrounds but overall it's just a mishmash of colours giving off a very weak impression to the whole.
The music is in accordance to the animation, at a standstill. The variety is there, if you take a look at the OST. The biggest problem of the series is, that it simply doesn't make any use of it. If you end the series you will remember two particular tracks the most, one of them being the lullaby sung by Kakunojou, which gets repeated at least once every episode, for no reason at all, if just to play it once again and again and again. And the other is a tune which was supposed to indicate especially important scenes, perhaps. Why perhaps, would you ask now. Well, simply because it gets played in pretty much every second scene, which has after a while more or less a comedic effect.
The opening Kouya Ruten by FictionJunction YUUKA was good as expected though and the animation had a few highlights. Soundwise similar to their other works it wasn't much of a problem for it was still a good song. The ending Ai no Tsurugi by Takako&The Crazy Boys was very fitting in its style to the theme of the anime, animationwise it was just a pan of the important characters' portraits in a style as if it was drawn on a canvas, overall not very interesting especially since both, opening and ending, didn't change during the series. The insert song in episode 19, Namida by Ishikawa Chiaki, deserves special mention, even when played only for a brief time, it was beautiful and important for the scene it was played in.
The shortcomings of the presentation are already a grave matter which only few works manage to overcome with complexity and depth in other crucial parts of the process and BKI isn't one of those.
If there's anything outstanding in BKI, it's the historical background most of the series is build up. Playing during the Boshin War, one of the most interesting parts of Japan's history, the story lets itself flow alongside the happenings, alterating only a few small details here and there to the end of the series and adding the supernatural element of its background story to it.
On the one hand that is interesting for people who know about the historical facts and also for people who are interested in history and Japan's culture, which gets a great part of the scope. On the other hand people who only want action and entertainment will be pretty fast annoyed by all the historical and artistic crap.
Nevertheless the combination of the historical background and BKI's own plot offers a highlight. Not without weaknesses though, the last third of series exploits those, many of the elements and facts are being dropped here and there making the whole story rather erratic.
In the end only one thing matters, the supernatural element. The fight between good and evil, between the Eternal Assassin and the Head of the Conqueror, between a man and a thousand years old skull. Making the use of the historical background rather superficial and unneeded. In fact the flow of the story is much better in the first half, where it did have a smaller scope and concentrated more on the troupe, rather than the big scope of the second half, where the attention was solely given to the ongoing war and Akizuki following the head throughout Japan.
And that is another of its weak points. Effectively only one character gets enough attention and depth and moves on, Akizuki. Even Kakunojou, who seemed like a pretty important character, never could get lose of her damsel in distress stigma, and didn't particularly add something to the series. Most other characters had either no motivation themselves or were just there to guide Akizuki towards his eventual destiny. And most of them didn't survive for too long and fell like flies eventually. That's not to say that everything went smooth for him along the way, since most of the time everything he does is stand around, looking out to the ocean (or something similar) and being the bishi he is.
It's a somewhat entertaining watch despite the flaws but doesn't exactly have a lot of value. Its must see factor is somewhere along the lines of only watch it if you have enough time and/or are a fan of samurai stuff.
You want an anime with action, samurai, better animation and historical background? Watch Rurouni Kenshin or Peacemaker Kurogane. You want just lots of samurai action and awesome fights? Watch Samurai Champloo or Samurai 7. You are a samurai nut, watch everything with samurai in and have seen those already? Time to watch Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto then.
Oh and I got to admit the main character, Akizuki, was an awesome and cool bishi and would make every fangirl freak out. OMG OMG Akizuki-sama is so cooooooooool, I wuv him! kyaaaaa~~~~~~~~ marry me <3
