Media Blasters is back in action by licensing the Blade of the Immortal anime. Right now Amazon lists a September 29th release date for the first volume of the anime. Another good thing to know is that Media Blasters plan on dubbing the anime, but hasn’t quite decided on which studio to use. This is great because Media Blasters usually has pretty good dubs. As many of you know, this anime is based off of the original manga by Hiroaki Samura, and is about the practically immortal Manji, with his trillions of swords, and trillions of kills. The manga itself is a classic, though the same can’t be said about the anime. I’m sorry, but the anime can’t emulate the amazing art quality of the manga; I wish it wasn’t this way, but it’s the truth. And I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate that opening song. I’m sure there are many people out there who are happy about this announcement, but I can’t be one of them.[Via ANN]   <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KWeui3aJ7hY&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KWeui3aJ7hY&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&amp;" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></param></object>
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Blade of the Immortal is Bee-Train’s latest series, based on the rumoured excellent manga of the same name. It’s a series that’s definitely not for everyone, especially fans of the manga who are hoping to see a faithful adaptation, neither is it for those who have a very slim taste in music. However, if you’re [...]
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Short Synopsis: Rin tells Manji about who she met last episode. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent) Okay, so this felt absolutely nothing like an ending. The final battle? A sparring match between Rin and Manji. This episode was much more about the side-characters, and actually introduced much more than that it wrapped up. Is this really the [...]
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Short Synopsis: While away from Manji, Rin runs into a certain someone. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent) You know, this wasn’t exactly the episode you’d expect as a semi-final one of a series. Even though it involved the main villain, it was just a standalone episode. If the creators plan to wrap up the series in the [...]
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Short Synopsis: Rin vs. Kawakami part II Highlights: Excellent fight. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent) It’s episodes like this one that convince me that Bee-Train can still make good fights when they want to; especially when backed up by such an excellent manga as this one. I’m beginning to see why they chose such a strange manga-series to [...]
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Short Synopsis: At a local festival, Rin finally finds her next target. Highlights: Obviously an episode meant to save a bit of budget, but nonetheless an excellent prelude. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good) Despite this episode being a step down from the last arc, I’m beginning to love this series more and more. Even during the quiet parts [...]
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Short Synopsis: The re-match between Manji and Makie. Highlights: The huge psychological warfare that went on during the battle. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent) With episodes like this, where one fight basically takes up the entire episode, I just can’t help but wonder why it felt so awesome here, and yet when series as Soul Eater stretch a [...]
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Short Synopsis: The Ittou-Ryuu now starts sending women after Manji. Highlights: This show can both be funny and romantic if it wants to. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent) Quite a unique episode for Blade of the Immortal. Manji and Rin are purposefully kept in the background, in order to focus on some of the other characters: Kagehisa Anotsu [...]
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Short Synopsis: Shizuma asks the help of a familiar character to get rid of Manji. Highlights: Rin. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 Ah, I’m really beginning to see where Bee-Train plans to go with the first 13 episodes of this series (who knows how long it will be in the end?). Its general rule of thumb is “don’t introduce [...]
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Short Synopsis: This episode fleshes out some of the members of the Ittou-Ryuu Highlights: The ending. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 So, the Ittou-Ryuu has its own enemies too, and this episode shows them as they get rid of those who are in their way. The first seems to be some sort of ronin, the second one looks to [...]
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Short Synopsis: Next up: the swordsman who walks around with Rin’s parents’ sword. Highlights: This series quite possibly has the fastest-paced start of any Bee-Train series so far. Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 Ah, screw the manga that this series ruined. I might end up reading it as soon as the series is over, but for now I’m really [...]
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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 [...]
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Will Rin get her revenge? Will she die? Epic battle? Read more to find out! Ok, admittedly it was an underwhelming episode. It continues the revenge story of Asano Rin, who’s parents were killed when she was a child. So the big guy with the chips on his shoulders from the last episode meets Rin at the [...]
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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. :P I’ve never understood why people would want to [...]
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Of course the main chick didn’t just get killed in the first episode! In the first episode we saw the death of Manji’s sister, which I admittedly didn’t want to see happening that soon. In any case, it’s good to see in this episode that she wasn’t the main girl in the storyline. Episode 2 introduces [...]
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When the hell was it subbed? Frankly, this episode just got worse, mostly because not only did it lack both action and blood, but the background music sounded as if it was intended for a classical Italian movie rather than a samurai show set in … well, history, I suppose. Manji’s question [...]
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UN-believable. In one episode, I find myself liking the OP. Weird. Thank God, episode two is much better to watch than the crap we had to put up with last week. There is hope for my continuing to blog this show. I apologize for the lack of quality these pictures hold; the episode was in mp4 format [...]
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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 [...]
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One man, one thousand to kill. Ten seconds into the intro I came to the conclusion that this anime is sexy. Or at the very least the intro is - swords, check, blood, check, tied up naked chick… priceless. Obviously one shouldn’t judge anything by its cover but this one really sets the tone of the [...]
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“…I think I forgot to turn off the oven.” I always liked Samurai anime and manga. Feudal Japan was always a great source for good stories, and they helped to the internationalization of the media with works like Ninja Scroll, Lone Wolf and Cub,Rurouni Kenshin (Samurai X) or Samurai Deeper Kyo (Funny to notice these [...]
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