Anime: Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

The series takes place during the Bakumatsu era of the Edo period – and if you don’t know what that means, you are at an immediate disadvantage. Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto is an historical anime in a very literal sense of the term, having historical fact as its core and support. The plot is constantly beset with historical figures and events or battles which actually took place in the regions visited during the series. In fact, the historical references quickly multiply to the point where the setting becomes absolutely sprawling, and it is perhaps difficult to identify and absorb all introduced characters and events and their significance. This would probably not be a problem for the initial intended audience of the series in Japan, as I imagine that most of the events being referenced are part of the japanese educational curriculum. For the rest of us, having a history guide or encyclopedia handy to look up names and battles would be extremely useful at clarifying the setting. Understandably enough, this need for book keeping or knack for history greatly affects the viewers’ opinion of the series. Personally I think that finding such a nicely interconnected historic fantasy anime is very rare, so I welcomed it openly.

On the other hand, the fantasy element is much less interesting. Having a severed undying head mystically affecting people and armies into making war sounds like a plot taken out of a cheesy of a war god movie. In a series with so much attention to historical truth, having such a weak hook for the characters to follow seems like a cop-out. The writers could have instead conjured an overreaching political intrigue as a menace, or something equally secretive and foreboding; the supernaturally preserved head feels shallow in comparison.

The series follows two sets of characters, each with their own agenda. One the one hand there is a young samurai nicknamed the Eternal Assassin, who chiefly follows the mystical head and downsizes those that it has managed to subvert. On the other hand there is a theatrical group who roam the country displaying their show while on the same time plotting revenge against the death of some former members of the group. These two plot threads are not initially interrelated, but they eventually meander around each other and are tied together by common agents. What is more, Akizuki’s battles are very nicely paralleled with the kabuki performances of the troupe, which offer some much-needed variance in the environment of a mostly loyal historical adaptation. The screen time is divided in such a way that the two converging plots complement each other nicely, to the benefit of the viewer.

The kabuki troupe is also where most of the character development of the series takes place. Especially two of the staff, the leader and Sotetsu-sensei (the playwright) develop greatly throughout the series. Their advancement is not sudden or explosive; instead they gain more depth as they roam the country and gain new information and character interactions. By comparison, Akizuki remains mostly stable in terms of both character and fighting technique. The rest of the cast are more or less unnoteworthy. There is also some attempt to flesh out the characters which correspond to historical figures, but they are not given much screen time, so the result is a bit cryptic; one ought to read a biography in order to properly understand their context.

At their best, the graphics are breathtaking, with very nicely choreographed battles and very detailed backdrops. Being a series set in an era of historical transition, the character designs show great amounts of variation, from traditional feudal era garments to western three-piece suits, with some fantasy elements occasionally thrown in some characters’ designs for good measure. Unfortunately, the design quality is not consistently great, and often shows obvious signs of being a rushed job. The backdrops becomes dull and unfocused, and character designs vary according to the presence of fill-in artists. The variance is not extreme, and the animation succeeds in being sharp and vibrant whenever it needs to (i.e. during action scenes), but I think that the series could have been much better with consistent art.

The sound score, on the other hand, is at least very good, with epic riffs complementing the historical backdrop, which show great variance according to the events being depicted. The OP stands out as it is very appealing and it suits the tone of the series well (the ED is less successful but not actively bad). The character voices are consistently competent, with no great surprises even though there are some nice voice actors being involved. Personally I expected more from Namikawa Daisuke (Akizuki’s voice actor), as I was impressed by his work in Beck, but Akizuki is a bit on the stoic side so we don’t get to see his talent in parlay.

It is not easy to recommend this anime series. Much of its attraction is to (japanese) history buffs, who will thoroughly enjoy the deeply embossed historical references. For the rest of us, it is a blend of history and fantasy with some nice action scenes, some kabuki eye candy, and detailed but obscure cultural information; it remains watchable, but it loses much of what would otherwise make it memorable or unique.

STORY SECTION [Pseudo-realistic with a lot of pointless fuss over trivial matters]
- The story is about this cool-looking warrior, with the funky name of “The Eternal Assassin”, sent to save feudal Japan from a civil war, invoked by a cursed skull. Which is quite ridiculous as a concept, since it presents the wars of that era to be the result of a curse and not of power struggles amongst greedy merchants and feudal lords. Japanese people are presented as peaceful people that are easily mind-washed into becoming frenzied killers by a dead guy’s head… Yeah, right! Realism aside, the story is full of ideals such as fulfiling your destiny, maintaining your honor, questioning your loyalties, giving the chance to rule the world… and turning ancient ruins into Doomsday devices. It feels almost like a cheesy JRPG story.
- Sure, there are hundreds of real locations and historical events included in the series that can turn the show into an encyclopedia… But are all boring. Who gives a damn about what happened on a specific day of a specific month in a specific year amongst 20 historical figures? This is good for a documentary, not an action series. And anyway, all this approach to history goes to waste by having a cursed skull being the villain in the story. No sir, it wasn’t the greedy kings of Europe or the megalomaniac daimyo fighting over the riches of Japan. It was this cursed skull. How historically accurate does that sounds to you? Here you are, going crazy over trying to remember a thousand names and events that you think are important to the plot and then the conclusion comes along and is just a supernatural fighter taking on a supernatural gismo. ZONK! Talking about taking us for suckers.
- In all, the story tries to present itself as gran-scaled and perplex when in fact it is pretty simple and straight-forward. It clearly did not deserve 26 episodes. Wrapping it in 4 episodes would be more than enough for our poor mind having to stand all those unimportant historical events and boring battles.

CHARACTER SECTION [Like statues, they are good looking but they are also frozen in a permanent pose]
- The protagonist is raised with the sole purpose of destroying the skull, if it is ever unleashed. This means that he follows a fatalistic approach of a “can’t escape destiny” theme that I loath, as it turns characters into robots. Well, that aside, he is cool-looking and fights awesomely, thus becoming likable to all you who dig heavy-dudes like Afro from Afro Samurai or Dante from Devil May Cry. I personaly hate this kind of characters, as they are just show and no meaning. At least this guy does question his destiny from time to time, as he interacts with the leading girl in the series, a lushious actress that also has a mission to accomplish… Here we go again with the fatalistic theme. Jeez!
- As far as character development goes, aside from the leading fighter no one develops much. All secondary characters either die pretty fast or retain their initial behavior. They are just there as NPCs, aiding or stomping the hero. Again with the fatalism buisiness!
- Even the co-lead, the pretty actress, doesn’t actually manage to provide anything other than subtle fan service. Something important does happen to her in mid-series but not even that affects the story.

ART SECTION [Nice to stand, bad to appreciate]
- Animation-wise, we get the treatment of “taking the audience for suckers” method. The first episodes have wonderful animation, full of artistic scenes and approaches to culture and philosophy. A sight for sore eyes! Then, it debunks into mediocrity in the mid-episodes and catches up again in the conclusion. It definitely helps the viewers to have a good first and last impression of the series but it still is a trick to save money in animation. Do mind; there are many blunt backgrounds and badly drawn and colored shapes in the series. They are simply overlooked by most, as you are supposed to pay attention to the characters and the battles. Nice try, but not all of us are that dumb.
- Action-wise, it has very good battle choreography in most duels, complete with special attacks and eye-catchy visual effects. Unfortunatelly most battles end way too fast and rarely in a satisfing way. Half the times we get a stalemate, half the other times, some nobody fires a gun from behind and kills the bad guy or injures the good guy. Having seemingly superhuman fighters being defeated in a cowardly manner such as this leaves you frustrated. JUST TAKE A GUN AND SPARE YOURSELVES THE TROUBLE, YOU IDIOTS! Why train for decades in martial arts if a bullet can solve everything? Yes, it does make sense in reality but in the series we get these cool battles ful of Matrix acrobats that end with a gunshot. Does it sound ok to you? Add to this problem the fact that in the mid-episodes the choreography becomes scarse and consists mostly of just stale or repeating frames of slashes and punches and you get a very anti-climactic action series.

SOUND SECTION [Sounds nice; but gets over with fast]
- The dialogues… Well, they are as corny as the main theme in the series. Unrealistic one-liners during fights and uninteresting talking about honor and destiny in peacefull moments. Plus, a lot of blah, blah about politics that have no overal effect on the story.
- The music themes… Very nice but not great or memorable in any way. They do tend to repeat too often but you still don’t get to memorize them. Tough luck!

VALUE & ENJOYMENT
Heck, I didn’t like it. It was boring, with uninteresting characters and with a lame story. Why would I give it a second view? So ok, some battles were indeed cool but with all the Naruto and Bleach and Dragonball Z fuss I have watched, these paled in comparison. History and cursed skulls make a bad fusion.

SUGGESTION LIST
Sword of the Stranger, Samurai Champloo, Rurouni Kenshin.

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

When I watched the first ep of BKI, I was drawn in first by the beautiful and evocative OP, the hawt angsty bishie protagonist Akizuki and good animation in what I felt was to be a compelling and interesting story. However, after about halfway into the series, the beginnings of a sense of dread grew that such high expectations were not to be met. By the end, I was disappointed and annoyed that what could have been an awesome anime was horribly butchered.

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Animation:
A mixed bag - some eps with very good animation, others were outsourced and much more badly done. The way the characters, especially Akizuki, were drawn was not consistent - in some episodes he'd look 25ish while in others he'd look like a chubby-faced teenager.

Sound:
Where everything else was lacking, the music really stood out for me as being the highlight of this series, especially the beautiful OP. Voices seemed well done and fitting; Not a lot to complain about here.

Story:
Not a great deal of it in the end. What little there was was interspersed with episodes of Akizuki knows this or that famous person who was alive during the Bakumatsu well and is very friendly with them and various other scenes that would make a fangirl scream with joy but don't really contribute to the plot. The the whole baka-rangers thing certainly didn't help, especially as a reason for the existence of the other so very pretty bishie in this series.

Character:
Design is very good, but very little character development.

Value:
As everything but the music seemed to be lacking in the end, I wouldn't really want to buy and rewatch it. However, I may consider getting the OST.

Enjoyment:
Plenty of scenes to moon over for a fangirl but overall a sense of disappointment and disgust over how the story turned out.

Some of my acquiantances may say that fangirls are mindless and won't bitch and whine when a series they like turns out to be crap - and that fanboys aren't mindless and will complain but from my experience, this is BS. Yes there are scenes which may make you melt but prepare to be disappointed if you're looking for a great story.

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Overall, the way the series turned out left a sour taste in my mouth but I won't be forgetting the music nor Akizuki anytime soon :)

Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto takes place in the Meiji-era, where supernatural events can occur. It follows Akizuki Youjiro, a very talented swordsman who has been tasked to seal an item called “the Lord’s Head”. This item is able to fully control others, and has to be sealed no matter what. A theatre-troupe, meanwhile is out on revenge.

One thing that immediately strikes with this series: its awesome production-values. Seriously, this series showcases some of the highest-quality art and animation for a tv-series. Characters move extremely fluid, the CG is terrific, and especially the background art is extremely detailed. The graphics just ooze with realism like no other series has managed to do before. And if that wasn’t good enough, this anime comes with an absolutely smashing soundtrack, which doesn’t lose focus for even an episode.

On top of that, it comes with a very detailed storyline, featuring both historical as fictional characters, based around Enomoto Takeaki’s mission to found the republic of Ezo, on what is now known as Hokkaido. Be warned, though, as the storyline does require some afford in order to actually understand it. A lot of references are made to the Meiji-period of Japan, and without sufficient knowledge, you’ll need to look up things a lot in order to get all the references.

Still, as the anime moves on, the story will become clearer and clearer, and it results in one of the more solid storylines I’ve seen in anime. Still, with that, perhaps one of the few problems with this anime lies. Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto may be a really solid story, it also lacks plot-twists. Most of the series is pretty straightforward, and only episodes 13 and 18 provide a number of very juicy plot twists (which, in the end, turned out to be the best episodes of the anime).

Overall, though, it may be a bit too straightforward, but it’s one hell of an entertaining series. The solid plot and great production-values more than make up for this flaw, and Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto has been one great watch.