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To Do
Make sure you annoy a cat today.
Nudge a dead bird with your toe.
Brew the sixtieth cup of coffee half as strong.
Destroy everyone's "edit" function.
Murder your darlings.

History: I was just coming down off of Trigun and wanted more "Good Guy Won't Kill" stories. I was biased against this show because all of my fangirl friends squealed and dribbled over it... which meant, in my mind, it had to be crap. I decided to give it a shot anyway.

Art: After being bred and bled on such animes as Cowboy Bebop and Escaflowne, the art of Kenshin took some getting used to. It's rather old-school-- (those chins can kill)-- and at first I was not a fan of Kenshin's girliness. But it remains consistent throughout. There's a lot of love lavished on the backgrounds, and everything is in period, which adds an element of "Hmmm, maybe I'm not rotting my brain," to the show. And eventually, (I hate to say it), you get over Kenshin's girliness. And he gets some DAMN good looking enemies.

Characters: Hey! An anime where no one dies! Wheee! Well... lots of people die. But no one you care about. ^_^ This is another one of those shows with endearing and likeable characters. Unfortunately, there's a little too much conformity to archetype. Kenshin is the self-sacrificing good guy; Kaoru is the screaming spitfire; Sano started out as a good foil, but quickly gets mutated into the big, dumb sidekick. The problem is this show began before the manga was finished, which meant the writers had to make up quite a bit of it as they went along. Apparently, writers in Japan are lazy-- or else they didn't want to do any development that would come into disagreement with the manga later.

Plot: Sigh. Like I said, the anime was begun before the manga was completed in its entirety. This lead to a great deal of filler. I would say that approximately half the series is stupid, plotless, pointless filler. I don't mind funny, WAFF-y filler at all-- but when Kenshin gets into stupid battles with stupid enemies just to put a show on the air, I see signs of creative fatigue on the part of the writers. Also, in my opinion, the show ended when Kenshin defeated Shishio. That was when he finally laid his Hitokiri to rest, and that was the driving conflict of the show. No other conflict (cough: Kaoru!) arose to fill the gap left by that one's resolution. So I would agree with the people who say to stop watching after the Kyoto arc, even though there's some really cute filler on the later disks ("To My Angel Misao," "The Engagement," etc).

Music: All I have to say about this is da hell? This is Meiji era Japan! Electric guitars weren't even invented yet! So what's with the rock'n'roll all over the place? Okay, now that that's off my chest... there are quite a few good instrumental pieces in this show. "Jungle Massacre," "Kenshin's Theme," and "Kenshin Vs. Aoshi" are good examples.

Dub or Sub?: Sub. Oh holy Jesus, watch this subbed. The dubbed voices are painfully out of character, and the dialogue is massacred in translation. The only good thing about the dub is the voice of Shishio Makoto, who is (guess who?) the voice of Spike Speigel! My DVDs have an "outtakes" section which is hilarious-- it's the English actors tripping all over the Japanese lines. You should hear poor Kenshin try to sputter out the name of his ultimate attack!

The Kenshin OVAs
Just set aside whatever notions you got from the series and pretend you're dealing with different characters entirely. Believe me, it's worth it.

History: As soon as I finished the show, I needed these movies. "Betrayal" is Kenshin's backstory-- Battousai=good-- and "Memories" is the OVA that completes the rurouni's journeys. Closure=good. (Or so I thought).

Art: Say goodbye to the pretty, girly Kenshin. This is serious animation, reminiscent of Serial Experiments Lain. The character designs are made more realistic. Ad forget about seeing Kenshin smile. It doesn't happen. The color palette is muted, almost muddy, in keeping with the mood. There's some incongruous CG, especially in Memories.

Plot: ::screams:: What in the HELL is wrong with Japan? Do they have something against their characters being happy?! I thought I had seen an angst-fest in Eva, but I was wrong. At least the angst in this OVA made sense. I never felt that I was being jerked around (cough:EVA!/cough)or asked to laugh at things that were morally reprehensible. Both of these OVAs are angst-fests. There is joy here, but it is so subdued and imbedded in the characters that finding it becomes a cathartic experience on the part of the viewer. I can't stress enough how good these OVAs are. I used to be a rabid Keshin/Kaoru supporter, but after Betrayal, I changed my mind... and then I saw Memories and changed it back... it's that good.

Music: There was music? ::sweatdrops::

Reactions: You must see these OVAs. I've seen them reviewed as being devoid of humor, which is not true. The only problem I can think that some people would have with them is that they do not stick with the characterizations presented in the series. My answer to this is: these OVAs present the characterizations that SHOULD have been in the series. This is what Kenshin is capable of. This is the standard to which it should have been held.