REVIEW 101: Anime Review
HAKUOUKI
A hot guy with silky long hair? Interesting. A group of hot guys all with silky long hair? Definitely something!
I was never a fan of traditional anime. To be honest, it's the first traditional anime I've seen since Samurai X. Sure, I'm not familiar with all their beliefs but I get the point of the 'fighting by the sword' life. History class tackled a bit of their shogunate, harakiri, and kamikaze and etc.
But, SERIOUSLY?
This anime just painted itself lame. D: Their synopsis was very promising! A girl, who's originally looking for her doctor of a father, gets her butt dragged into a group of samurais. They were samurais who were also looking for her father! I forgot to mention: THEY WERE HOT SAMURAIS. A bit of a twist is that the story has 'ONI' or demons, TOO. Isn't that EXCITING? Sexy looking samurais, and demons too? NOT AT ALL.
It's a complete mess.
Blah, blah. Girl -> Samurai -> Demon. It's not the typical kind of story, but somehow. . it was. It was utterly, shamefully cliched. It's not even the good kind of cliche. It's the annoying kind. I'm getting ahead of myself.
The first scene of the series was so captivating. It was one of the two reasons why I continued watching. I wanted to see the brilliance of it again.
Under the illuminating light of the moon and as the snow fell to the ground, Chizuru was running for her life, as she was chased by the rebels who wanted her blood. They called out to her, menacing and full of bloodlust. Willing herself to go faster, she managed to pull ahead. She rushed to the nearest barrel and hid behind it. Chizuru started to unsheath her sword, preparing for the worst. She could hear their footsteps, guessing that they were only two more strides away. Just when she saw the rebels, another group killed them. Cue maniacal laugh and merciless gore. The monsters (eventually known as failed experiments of her father's) eventually found her and just before she was going to get slaughtered, a man with silky long hair appeared to her rescue!
YAY.
That's the end of my interest. Everything just went downhill from then on. Chizuru ended up living with the man along with other long haired males. Why was she allowed to live with them? She was the daughter. So what if she's the daughter? I DON'T KNOW. The reasoning of the leaders were so vague that I wanted to throw a pot of boling water at them. Later on, everyone became so attached to her. Not just attached, OVERLY ATTACHED. They practically succumbed to every request she made.
One scene that greatly annoyed me is how the samurais PRAISED her swordwork, when all she did was shakily rushing forward with her sword. This led to her being able to go with the men to patrols, which THEN led to her being completely useless. She just waited for everyone to rescue her, despite her claim that she could protect herself. Oh, she faints alot too. SIGH. I probably need another pot of boiling water. All the men were simply that willing to throw their life away over her, a girl they met a year ago. WAIT! THE WRITERS HAD ANOTHER BRILLIANT IDEA. Let's dress Chizuru in male clothing because it would disrupt the order of their lives if she didn't!
The writers don't know half of what they were doing =__=
She was practically the whole plot. It revolved around her lack of competence to protect herself. It also revolved, pathetically, around her being a female. OOH. Demon men want me to make the clan's bloodline stronger. Guess what writers, there were OTHER female demons in the story. I don't see you rushing to kill everything in sight just to get her. Now, the anime decided to add an unnecessarily twist: A TWIN BROTHER! Chizuru has a twin brother who hates her guts because she's a girl! He then decided to kill everyone so that his sister suffers. After killing one samurai, twin brother disappears for the whole season. UH. AWKWARD.
Oh wait, there's one more! It also revolved around simplistic thinking: Kill now or kill never. The stupidity of the samurais morals were astounding! I was impressed by their bravado at first, but then they started to rush head on without thinking. KILL. KILL. KILL. I WANT TO BE A DEMON EXPERIMENT SO I COULD CONTINUE KILLING AND NOT DIE YET! Psh. They speak of pride as warriors. Surely, samurais of the olden days were better than that! They only wanted to be acknowledged as strong samurais, despite what the men were constantly denying. They say they want to fight, but all they did was follow orders like dogs. AND YEAH! Chizuru helped them look like real heroes. It was so feminist. She was this helpless cat that needed to be sheltered 24/7. I hate it when the girls just helplessly scream, and the hero just appears at the right time.
In the end, they don't find her father and decided to continue the war in Edo. The hot male numbers were diminished. I think the writers just wanted to make her father an excuse for her to stay with them. She basically had none. They wanted to make sure that she was the heroin who brought to them the freaking light of common sense.
Not minding the cliches, feministic approach, dragging pace and unnecessary dialogues and twists: The plot is around 4.5/10 at most. It had potential, but they were going at it the wroooonng way.
Speaking of Chizuru, I want to talk about characters.
There were none.
They were all nothing but PRETTY faces.They were not developed enough to seem real to me. I couldn't even distinguish the samurais from each other, despite the artist's efforts to make each one of them stand out. They each had little side stories, but they weren't enough to fill the emptiness of the characters. They were dull, and ONE DIMENSIONAL. Yes. Not two dimensional, ONE. They were that dry. They just slackened the pace, and their actions contributed none to their personalities.
Chizuru had the most exposure, and all she managed to be was an astounding MARY SUE. Another Bella Swan from Twilight. Whenever she was gets almost killed, I root for the killer. Her character just needs to die. I kept giving her a chance, and waited for a redeeming scene where she fights for herself. IT NEVER CAME.
The villains weren't even explained right. They seemed to be hastily thrown to the story to give it some more spice. The only personality I got from them was: WE WANT CHIZURU BECAUSE SHE IS A FEMALE DEMON. WANT HER BAAAAD. NO OTHER BEING STRONGER THAN USSS. FEAARR US! What a waste of ink. It's not even funny.
You might be wondering why I'm not mentioning names. It's because they're that insignificant characters. I don't even have a crush on any one of them no matter how delicious they looked. I couldn't establish a connection between me, the viewer and them, the characters. Score for the characters: 3/10 is the fairest one I could give. Why three? I don't know. Just feeling a bit generous.
The production itself has a score of 7/10. I shall explain:
The art style was amazing, but there were times when the characters were oddly placed. Like in the battle at the bridge, Chizuru was barely a feet away from the intense slashing of swords. I was like: WHAT THE HELL IS SHE STANDING OVER THERE FOR? She should've been slashed up minutes ago! Another flaw was that the characters just suddenly appear OUT OF NO WHERE. It almost gave me a heart attack when a good samurai dude suddenly appeared behind Chizuru's back. He wasn't even in the scene earlier! However, the samurais' good looks were enough to keep me happy throughout the anime. They made the main cast look so good and made the others look like old grandfathers. It was annoying, but I dealt with it.
The gore was very entertaining, since I like that kind of things. At least that's a plus. They weren't afraid to take another step up, while keeping it decent enough. When they thrust a sword, they thrust them all the way through! The slashing was the only major gore, and a bit of splashing blood. All fine, and reasonably done. The animation was superb! Flawless! It was fast, and well drawn. They paid attention to every detail of the actions, and really took time to make it as believable as possible. They didn't make the mistakes of Naruto's animation.
I didn't enjoy their OP and EP songs, as well. They were dry, and unable to capture the essence of the story. I didn't give it much of a chance.
That's why it's a 7/10 for me!
So the over-all score is DUN DUN DUN 5/10. Not a good anime, but not bad enough to shun it forever. I don't recommend it at all. It's just good when you're bored out of your mind or when you're up for an action packed, but witless show! You'll probably make it out alive if you're either of the two! OOOR. You're an absolute fan of twilight. That's the only way you'll love this show. Blood, boys and girls who are made more special than they deserve. There were even 'vampires' there, and a hint of werewolf =________=
This review is purely subjective.
OOOPS
After a little research, I found out that Hakuouki was originally some kind of dating game. One girl, and you make decisions. In the end, she has to end up with one guy after interacting with the other males as well. I guess that explains her Mary Sue-like appeal to men.
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