Manji is a samurai cursed with immortality for murdering 100 men. To atone for his sins and have the curse lifted, he pledges to use his sword to kill 1000 evil men.

Episode Summary

Manji, searching for a way to atone for his murderous deeds, goes to a Western priest. This turns out to be a poor idea since the priest turns on him and tries to shoot him in the head. Of course Manji, being immortal, comes back to kill the priest. Returning to meet his mentally-damaged sister, Machi, Manji meets the old woman who contributed to his immortality, and she tells him that he needs to earnestly repent for his sins.

There’s a flashback (via Machi’s dream) to the circumstances behind Machi’s mental breakdown, which involve Manji murdering her husband right in front of her. During the night, she wakes up from this nightmare and runs off, getting taken by a group of bandits. The bandits did this to lure Manji, and just before they duel, the head bandit kills Machi and stabs Manji in the back. Of course, his cursed body expels the weapon and heals his wound. He slaughters the band of thugs, and upon returning decides what the nature of his repentance will be – he’ll work to kill 1000 evil men.

Thoughts

I don’t often like to talk about other people’s opinions in my reviews because I think mine speak for themselves, but I’ve been watching information leak out about this series since it was announced earlier in the year. I think that this is a perfect case of individuals going in to the series already hating it. In case you’re not familiar with the manga on which this show is based, the art style is very unique and distinctive since the artist uses media like pastels and charcoal rather than just ink and screen tones like your average manga. The anime was picked up by a studio called Bee Train which is probably most famous for animating shows like Noir and Madlax and doing a lot of in-between animation in various other productions. Not necessarily the studio people were expecting to take on such a project. So when the first episode aired and the animation wasn’t a perfect copy of the manga’s exceptional art, I found that there was a lot of instant and unfounded hatred for it. Never mind the fact that, to replicate the manga’s look the budget for the show would have to be sky-high; not exactly likely for a show aimed at a very adult audience.

For the record I would like to say that I enjoyed the first episode and thought that things were introduced quite well, albeit at a rather quick pace. The show certainly wasn’t what I would call complicated – judging by my own summary, there were long scenes of things playing out that didn’t warrant a whole lot of explanation. Considering that there were already a few battles jammed into the first episode, this wasn’t surprising. For what it’s worth, I certainly didn’t see many corners cut even in the battle scenes.

The animation was actually pretty decent. The only examples of weirdness I can recall off the top of my head were a couple of repeated frames in the opening scene with the priest laughing insanely. Considering that this wasn’t an especially important scene, I can forgive it. The battles, as I stated, didn’t cut corners (though Manji pretty much cut everything else, amirite?). When I think of poor animation quality, what comes to mind are cheap background wipes and a lot of still frames, and I truly didn’t see any of that here. I certainly can’t speculate how things will hold up over the life of the show, but so far I don’t see any reason for concern. The only other thing I can really mention at this point is that this whole episode was extremely dark. Most of it took place at night, but I had to make sure the shades were drawn in the room to see all of what was happening.

The music is certainly an acquired taste, I’ll admit. The opening song is sung by a singer with a very nasally voice, and a lot of the incidental music seems kind of overpowering at times. Like Claymore, however, I feel like it’s something to get used to rather than a truly misguided choice.

Overall I enjoyed the first episode, and I’m definitely in for a couple more at least. Really, this is my kind of show – lots of violence but with a good hook to back it up.

Pros

• Story is fast-paced
• Battles are fully-animated

Cons

• Music takes some getting used-to
• Very violent (not exactly a con, but I know it puts some people off)

By Jessi – 08/30/08