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 looking for a number of well-coordinated fights and engaging characters, then you’re at the right address.

The series basically follows an immortal samurai (Manji), helping a weak but determined young girl (Rin) in exacting revenge on the death of her parents. What makes this series especially worth watching is the growth of Rin, as she questions what it means to take revenge, and whether it’s going to be worth it, and what her purpose is if she just keeps going to be rescued by Manji. In only 13 episodes, she grows into a strong character, despite her weak physique. Manji himself doesn’t exactly grow too much, but instead the creators manage to flesh him out really well in a relatively short amount of time, and he becomes a fun and interesting character to watch.

Fights also form a large part in this series, and for those who were afraid that Bee-Train has lost the ability to create good action-scenes, this series is there to prove them wrong. It’s daring, but the creators decided to go for an experimental animation style for the battles. The characters look fairly normal, and the animation budget isn’t particularly high either, but the series is full of interesting and creative camera-angles and poses. Overall, it’s a really nicely choreographed series.

But the biggest experimental feature of this series is the music. Bee-Train was already know as the studio with awesome music, but they carry that even further with this series: the soundtrack is unlike anything ever heard in an anime series. Kou Otani managed to produce an incredibly varied piece of work that feels incredibly random, yet somehow works. It’s a soundtrack you’ll either love or hate.

The biggest weakness of this series? It’s too damn short! The series ends just at the point where the series is done warming up, and there’s so much potential left in it that it would be a huge shame not to have some sort of second season. Blade of the Immortal is an excellent horror-series that may not be really faithful to the original manga, but nevertheless managed to create an excellent atmosphere.

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 end of the Blade of the Immortal anime? I most definitely hope not!

The most important event of this episode was the death of Taito’s sister, through the hands of Shira. It seems that he is indeed working together with Hyakurin and Giichi to get rid of the Ittou-Ryuu. The question now remains whether we’re ever going to see that one animated. This episode also shows how Rin comes to accept that she’s weak, and that she wishes to improve (hence the sparring match between her and Manji at the end).

But what I loved most about this episode is that the music really went all out on this episode. The soundtrack of this series is truly original, even though many people will dislike it. The wide variety of instruments and mood changes felt awesome.

Akikan

Short Synopsis: Our lead character turns a can in a cute girl (no, really).
Chance of me Blogging: 0% (No way in Hell)
So, this is an early start to the upcoming Winter-season, and I hope that this isn’t some sort of premonition, because oh my god. The creators of harem anime are getting desperate here. To what kinds of depths do you have to sink to create an anime about cans that turn into girls, for goodness’ sake?! Out of all the uninspired premises I have seen this year, this has got to be one of the worst ones. On top of that, the dialogues are very poorly pasted together. Still, I admit that it made me chuckle one or twice. Still, the comedy is one thing, but the drama in this episode was downright abysmal. It was forced, non-sensical and way too cheesy for its own good. I can really see that lesbian in love with the lead character by the end of the series…

Maria Holic

Short Synopsis: Our lead character enters a prestigious high school.
Chance of me Blogging: 10% (Very slim)
If you’re wondering about the “Chance of Blogging”-bits, it was requested, and I personally think it as appropriate as well, rather than those ambiguous episode ratings that were quite inaccurate the last time I used them. In any case, Maria Holic started out incredibly dull: the character-designs are bland and uninspired, the maid feels out of place, and the concept of a girl entering a prestigious high school has been done many times before. Then, however a nice twist in the second half made the show a bit more interesting, and at least the second half enjoyable. My fear is just that I’m not sure whether the premise is large enough to fill 12 episodes. The cast still feels most like stereotypes. Also, even though this seems to be a Shinbo-series, it feels like the blandest thing that he’s managed to produce since Tsukuyomi Moon Phase. What this series needs to do is develop the characters beyond their stereotypes, but we already know that Shinbo is simply not good at that.

Kurokami The Animation

Short Synopsis: Our lead character lives in a city where trucks like to hit people.
Chance of me Blogging: 20% (Only if the rest of the season is baaad)
With a title as “Kurokami”, I pretty much guessed that it would involve somehow around a female character with black hair, and indeed: that was spot-on. What we have here is again a seemingly random guy who meets a mysterious girl and gets involved with a huge plot. What’s interesting about it is the concepts of doppelgangers. I’m not sure about everyone with a doppelganger being hit by a truck, but there’s nevertheless a lot of potential with such a concept. The show also featured a number of pretty and varied background arts, so that’s all good. What wasn’t so interesting was that female lead… The male lead is actually pretty decent: he has a lot on his mind with the death of his mother, but he doesn’t seem like an idiot and instead is curious. The female lead was very annoying, however. The main villain also seemed too much like a “Muahaha, look at me: I’m evil because I’m evil!”-villain, which also could cause lots of problems for this series in the future.