Rurouni Kenshin 2011 - Shin Kyoto-Hen (OAV)

[totoum]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Spoiler for ep 1:

I mean, look, I'm not a purist. I'm not against adaptations and reinterpretations, hell, I even enjoy them... as long as they're not crapping all over the original. Which this episode did. It's like the writers are saying, "well, we've read the manga but we thought it wasn't serious and mature enough, so we made it darker and edgier!! look, it has sex and more angst and shit!" I already hated this attitude in Seisouhen and I hate it here. Seriously, as I said above, this is not Kenshin, it's an original project very loosely based on Kenshin.

The writing is crap, pure and simple. First it depends on the audience already knowing everything, and then it decides to throw all that out and rewrite the entire thing from scratch, leaving only some bare bones from the original. I could understand cutting and rearranging things to fit the story into the allotted time, but this is going much further than that - they're basically rewriting the story to make it fit their own purposes. And even with that aside, it's exposition after exposition after exposition, I can barely recognize some of the characters (Misao, Yumi, what have they done to you! good thing that Aoshi barely had any personality to begin with...), and the whole thing is basically just a loosely connected string of events that may converge in the future, with the writing staff hoping that someone will give a damn at that point.

The music is painful. It's by the guy who did the music to the series, but it tries to be way too epic and gets in the way of scenes, demanding attention... also it's just cheesy and melodramatic.

And to add insult to injury, they had Shishio kill Usui, robbing Saitou of one of his most awesome moments, and they left out Houji, one of my favorite characters.

So basicly Okada's crazy antics work fine when you apply them to the Aquarion franchise but are really not made for the Kenshin franchise.
Can't say I'm surprised,still wonder what the hell the producers were smoking when the asked her to get involved.

[Reckoner]

^ I think you're ignoring one simple fact besides this being Okada. This is DEEN. Have you looked at what they been doing with other franchises lately? Higurashi Kira anybody? UBW? Yep they're just that bad.

[totoum]

Originally Posted by Reckoner

^ I think you're ignoring one simple fact besides this being Okada. This is DEEN. Have you looked at what they been doing with other franchises lately? Higurashi Kira anybody? UBW? Yep they're just that bad.

I don't see why I'd take those into account because the major creative staff behind them were different from the ones involved here.
My only reaction to seeing DEEN was to not expect anything when it comes to visuals.

[Guardian Enzo]

I still don't really get why this is in the forum when there's no fansub...

It's really too bad Gallop basically ceased to function as a production house, because their two seasons were the closest thing to a faithful adaptation we've seen.

[germanturkey]

well in all fairness, the first raw to pop up of this was on the 20th, so its only been a week since subbers have had access to a good version of it.

i don't know what to expect going in this. i love it, but my god, if it ruins what i remember about it...

[Pocari_Sweat]

Lol this was to be expected. Not only is it DEEN, which is already infamous enough in their QUALITY, "but they bring in wild-party-girl do whatever the feck she wants because I'm popular" Mari Okada into their writing team. As totoum already said, for a over-the-top silly franchise like Aquarion it works well, but for a serious oriental fantasy series... no way in hell. I expect the exact same thing to happen to the Lupin III anime too. I seriously don't know what producers are smoking bringing her into such high-profile franchises.

It's ok though, I'm not raging or anything . I was already foreseeing this to happen and looks like the few people who have seen it can confirm it. Seriously anime industry, if you don't want your property destroyed then:

1. Don't give it DEEN - they tend to fuck things up
2. If it ain't a slice of life/drama or an over-the-top type series, then don't get Mari Okada on your writing team.

[Eeni]

Interesting... I had been so excited when I first heard about the this last year, but reading up on all this is making me not want to watch it. Now I have to find it for myself. Other then being released next summer, is there a date set for the 2nd episode?

[Utz]

Just a heads up, a sub is on its way shortly.

[LoveMeKags]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

>LoveMeKags
Actually, I didn't like Tsuiokuhen either. ^^;; The music was pretty but the rest was just not the Kenshin I knew and loved. It was still much better than Seisouhen (let's just not get into how I feel about that piece of... OVA).

Let me explain one thing about Tsuioku-hen to you that might've been overlooked when you watched it: think of this as a prequel to the manga and an adaption of the flashbacks. In that retrospect, looking at Kenshin's personality in chapters 165 - 179, the OVA isn't that far off. When you watch the OVA, you have to remember this comes before Kenshin changed into the person he is at the beginning of the manga.

That is the only thing about Tsuioku-hen overlooked.

As for Seisou-hen, it didn't live up to the previous OVA. They should've left out the death of Kenshin and referred to the manga for personality. However, that OVA was meant to focus on the sorrowful pieces of their relationship, as well as the hardships. And so, most of Kenshin's actual personality is erased, as well as Kaoru's, to help this along. One thing I liked about it was the focus on Kenshin and Kaoru, as the manga and anime mostly centers on Kenshin rather than Kaoru. They also rearranged the scenes and broke them down to the most important pieces. However, I would've preferred them to insert his fight with Saito and emphasize on his fight with Shishio. They could've then easily inserted their marriage and Kenji's childhood. The part I completely disagree with is Kenshin wandering again and coming home with that disease, leprosy. The final thing I liked about it was how they cut the gang out of the Jinchu arc altogether and focused on Kenshin, Kaoru, Enishi, and Tomoe. It made the whole piece so much more touching. I preferred that.

And so, there are some good things but there were a lot of bad things. And, like usual, the bad ones are remembered more.

I admit one thing that I loved about it: the artwork. It was absolutely flawless. They looked more realistic. I loved that.

As for the music: both OVAs had lovely music. I prefer the second one more for its sad music (my favorite tracks being "Living Sin" and "Eclipse") but the first one had quite good fighting tracks. Let me say that the instrumentals for the OVAs were better than anything in the series. In the series, it was like they couldn't determine which track of music would go where, and since Watsuki had nothing to do with the series, they just guessed. So I wasn't as attached to the series OSTs except for the OP and ED. And even some of those were horrible.

As for this... thing... that we have here... I've watched it and I'm sorry to say that LoveMeKags was right, it didn't get any better. If anything, it got worse.

Oh, I imagine those things you said were wrong will only get worse in the next OVA. How about this, when the next one is released, if there is a piece you might like, do you want me to send it to you - the clip only? I could also give a small summary. For one, I'm sure you're interested to know if they conclude with Kenshin and Kaoru, and since the manga didn't do much with them, I hope for some from the new adaption.

Spoiler for sex:

Btw, as for the sex scene, as a woman I can only say - ouch! OUCH! NO NO DO NOT WANT!! At least in the manga and the series I could pretend they were doing it in some other way, somehow. ^^;;

And all I could say at the time was... wtf. I couldn't believe I was watching an adaption of my favorite manga as a child. I wanna kill DEEN. We should go back to Studio Gallop who did episodes 1-66 of the series. DEEN did the filler episodes. No wonder they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

[kuromitsu]

I don't know, it's not necessarily the writer's fault - I mean, the choppy writing and relying on expositions is, of course, but as for the rest, the writer is following guidelines like everyone else on the staff. Okada may have quirks (I haven't seen enough of her works to judge) but ultimately she's not free to write whatever she wants however she wants. (At least she inserted a tiny bit of humor into the story so it wasn't completely as dreary as the other two OVA series)

I think the problem, like with the earlier OVAs, lies with the producers/production committee who decided on the tone and style of these adaptations. To me it seems that the producers are basically trying to create an alternate Kenshin, for those who either don't care for the manga and the TV series, or haven't even seen them. But the thing is, these are not original stories, they're adaptations that build on an existing story with existing characters, existing style and tone, etc etc etc. Viewers who haven't read/seen the original or don't care for it may not mind the huge changes, but the rest of us go into it with certain expectations regarding small things like, ah, story and characterization... only to see them not simply changed and/or discarded but gleefully trampled on, and for no good reason. :/

Originally Posted by LoveMeKags

Let me explain one thing about Tsuioku-hen to you that might've been overlooked when you watched it: think of this as a prequel to the manga and an adaption of the flashbacks. In that retrospect, looking at Kenshin's personality in chapters 165 - 179, the OVA isn't that far off. When you watch the OVA, you have to remember this comes before Kenshin changed into the person he is at the beginning of the manga.

Oh, I know that - it's just that while it's okay as an adaptation it lacks the human element that made the story really tragic in the manga. Tsuiokuhen is lightyears better than Seisouhen, but it already displays the issues that plagued Seisouhen and now this new OVA: it turns the drama up to eleven, at the expense of everything else. Tsuiokuhen lives and breathes tragedy, which is okay I suppose, if someone is into that - but to me it's cold and impersonal. In the manga you can see traces of the later Kenshin in the Battousai, you can see Tomoe slowly starting to unfrost, etc. To me, this human touch makes the story work. In the anime they're basically two emotionally dead people being emotionally dead together and it's supposedly sad.

As for Seisouhen, as far as I'm concerned it pretty much went against everything the manga was going for. Redemption? Only in death!! Learning to get over the past? Ridiculous!! Happiness? Overrated!! We need angst! Make them angst, dammit! Kenshin was pretty much unrecognizable, Kaoru, too. And the entire thing with the illness (I think it was syphilis, though?) and everything was... ugh. :/ UGH. That's not Kenshin, those aren't the characters I like.

Originally Posted by LoveMeKags

Oh, I imagine those things you said were wrong will only get worse in the next OVA. How about this, when the next one is released, if there is a piece you might like, do you want me to send it to you - the clip only? I could also give a small summary. For one, I'm sure you're interested to know if they conclude with Kenshin and Kaoru, and since the manga didn't do much with them, I hope for some from the new adaption.

Ah, thanks for the offer I'm actually fairly sure they'll conclude with Kenshin and Kaoru because if they're following their own story (and this OVA is supposedly set before Seisouhen) they have no choice but have them end up together. I'm more interested in poor Saitou -

Spoiler for OVA ep 1:

now that he won't get to fight Usui and show off how incredibly badass he is, I wonder what they have in store for him. :/

Frankly, the lack of Houji was the decisive blow for me - Houji wasn't a main character but he was one of my favorites, and I think his role is important and sad enough to be worth getting adapted. Alas... :/

Originally Posted by LoveMeKags

And all I could say at the time was... wtf. I couldn't believe I was watching an adaption of my favorite manga as a child. I wanna kill DEEN. We should go back to Studio Gallop who did episodes 1-66 of the series. DEEN did the filler episodes. No wonder they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Me, I was more like... ouch. ^^;; I mean, hey, Okada - that's sensitive tissue down there!

[Pocari_Sweat]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

I don't know, it's not necessarily the writer's fault - I mean, the choppy writing and relying on expositions is, of course, but as for the rest, the writer is following guidelines like everyone else on the staff. Okada may have quirks (I haven't seen enough of her works to judge) but ultimately she's not free to write whatever she wants however she wants. (At least she inserted a tiny bit of humor into the story so it wasn't completely as dreary as the other two OVA series)

And that's exactly her and the industry's problem right now. Mari Okada excels at slice of life or drama. True Tears, Ano Hana, Hanasaku Iroha, the adaptation of Toradora, the adaptation of Wandering Son, they are all excellent top tier SoLs (well maybe except Iroha for some people). However, she has ventured into sci-fi, fantasy and "non-real world settings" before and has had really mixed results - See Fractal, Gosick, Black Rock Shooter. Furthermore, the industry seems to think she is good at everything, and Okada does way more series compositions/scripts than any other writer. And to use Arabesque's words, pretty much has "Protection from Editors" and is being let loose to do what she wants most of the time. If it wasn't for director saying NO! to her, Ano Hana would have ended up a romcom

Kenshin (combined with the fact Deen is doing this) is unfortunately a victim. I feel sorry for Kenshin fans that they have to put up with Okada shenanigans but hey, what can you do. I think my avatar humorously (but somewhat truthfully) describes Okada's thought pattern lately .

EDIT: Anyways, I'll still give this Kenshin OVA a shot, but I'll make sure to keep my expectations low.

[kuromitsu]

Wait, wait, she wrote AnoHana?

Uuuuuhhh... I really, really didn't like the writing in that series. Ah well...

/off-topic

[totoum]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

I don't know, it's not necessarily the writer's fault - I mean, the choppy writing and relying on expositions is, of course, but as for the rest, the writer is following guidelines like everyone else on the staff. Okada may have quirks (I haven't seen enough of her works to judge) but ultimately she's not free to write whatever she wants however she wants.

It's just that

look, it has sex and more angst and shit!

Sounds so much like Okada on the loose

She's not free to do what she wants but if producers tell her to add angst and sex she'll gladly do it.
She barely does any straightforward adaptations so the moment her name was on this I expected major changes.

relying on expositions is

What exactly do you mean by "relying on expositions"?

Spoiler for ano hana off topic:

Uuuuuhhh... I really, really didn't like the writing in that series. Ah well...

/off-topic

Well on that one she actualy didn't get her way and the director asked for several rewrites.
The original script had no ghost and "depicted friends' awkward youthful sexual attractions to each other" which to me kind of makes it sound like what Kawamori is having her do in aquarion evol (without mechas of course)
Though of course it's still very much her work and has many of her trademarks.

[Eeni]

Poor Okada, getting the brunt of it all. While I haven't seen (at least I don't think I have) any of her other works, I could imagine that, yes, she is in charge and had a say on how it should go and dropped the ball, changing things that really didn't need to be changed. But she can only be blamed for so much... This OVA is suffering for the same reason most books-turned-movies do:

"How the F&^% are we supposed to fit 5+ volumes into 1 hour? And introduce every character! There's like, 20 new characters being introduced at this point in the manga! And the sub-plots!"

The easiest way is to start cutting things out. But then this leaves a void in which thing aren't explained or easy to understand... hence things are changed. The simplest and fastest explanation that gets the point across wins, ending up in the final product. You just don't have time to do expositions and explain everything that is happening.

Honestly, they really should leave series alone if all they plane to do is make a 2 OVAs. It's simply impossible for something as deep as Kenshin to be fit into 2 1-hour films. And as far as giving it the FMA Brotherhood treatment, that would be great, but then they'd just end up running through it as fast as they could. Either way it seems to be a lose-lose situation.

[Guardian Enzo]

This OVA is not a "book turned movie". There's nothing of Watsuki's manga in this except the bare skeleton (which is more than the old OVAs had, true) - this is basically an Okada-original re-imagining of Kenshin's greatest arc. WTF were you thinking, DEEN?

I think RK is a lot like Negima - which is not nearly as good a manga, but still good - in that for whatever reason, studios seem to want to do anything but adapt the manga faithfully. And in both cases, by far the best anime versions were the ones that stayed true to the source. So why must they mess with the manga and try and "reinvent"?

[Toto y Moi]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

Tsuiokuhen lives and breathes tragedy, which is okay I suppose, if someone is into that - but to me it's cold and impersonal. In the manga you can see traces of the later Kenshin in the Battousai, you can see Tomoe slowly starting to unfrost, etc. To me, this human touch makes the story work. In the anime they're basically two emotionally dead people being emotionally dead together and it's supposedly sad.

THIS. I don't mind the tone of the OVAs, but they ultimately lacked the joy in the human experience. Kenshin's flashback was entirely comprised of despair. I guess it works in the sense that two broken people can often form a bond through their mutual sadness, but... that's not how I saw their relationship.

It ultimately makes me consider Kenshin's later decisions and actions to be incredibly misguided. I don't see Kenshin in the OVAs as ever having loved Tomoe; she became someone who satiated his loneliness. It was like a Misato-Kaji romance.

To be honest, I'm not sure if it's just Okada's fault though. This realistic style is characteristic of the director, Kazuhiro Furuhashi. If you pay attention to his other works and other adaptations of manga, you'll start to notice how they're often different from what their authors conceived. This doesn't necessarily mean that he's a bad director--he does his job well. But his changes occasionally come across as a lack of respect for an author's intent.

[Guardian Enzo]

But you know Toto, Furuhashi also directed the TV adaptation, and much of the first two seasons was certainly quite faithful to Watanuki's vision.

[kuromitsu]

Originally Posted by totoum

What exactly do you mean by "relying on expositions"?

I mean getting across the plot by having the characters explain what's going on. For example, there's the scene where Kenshin & Misao meet Shishio (in the original it was Saitou and Kenshin). It's basically Shishio going "blah blah blah this is me, this is what I'm going to do, by the way I'm evil," in the most boring way possible. And before anyone mentions - yes, the manga did that, too, but 1) it then went and showed what the characters were talking about, and 2), manga being a static medium by default talking heads are not as unnatural there as in animation, and at least Watsuki tried to be a bit creative about it. (Not to mention the speech was different, gave Shishio a lot more personality that he has in this entire episode, and at one point Soujirou and Yumi started clapping and Kenshin and Saitou went "..." which was so very typical of both Shishio & Co. and this manga in general. btw it's in volume 9 if anyone wants to compare the two scenes.)

Towards the end there's a scene where Saitou interrogates Chou. It lasts for 3 minutes - that's 3 minutes of talking heads. Which is fine in something like LoGH, or if there's time for stuff like that, but here? If they had problems with fitting the story into the allotted time maybe they should've done something about these scenes first...

>Eeni, Toto
This is what I'm trying to say - Okada may not have been the best writer to handle this OVA, but ultimately the problem lies with the directorial/producerial(? is that a word?) decision to make the story darker and more "realistic" ie. add more angst, more sex and make it more dour (I'm not saying "more gore" because the manga actually has more action and blood than what we see in this ep). They were also the ones who gave the green light to changing the story, adding original elements, etc. The first two OVA series weren't written by Okada and they were much like this one. :/

Originally Posted by Toto y Moi

THIS. I don't mind the tone of the OVAs, but they ultimately lacked the joy in the human experience. Kenshin's flashback was entirely comprised of despair. I guess it works in the sense that two broken people can often form a bond through their mutual sadness, but... that's not how I saw their relationship.

It ultimately makes me consider Kenshin's later decisions and actions to be incredibly misguided. I don't see Kenshin in the OVAs as ever having loved Tomoe; she became someone who satiated his loneliness. It was like a Misato-Kaji romance.

Yeah, same here. And it's a pity because in the manga it ties into the story and Kenshin's characterization perfectly, while in the OVA it's completely disconnected from the character. :/ Then again, I've long come to believe that the producers of the OVAs are deliberately trying to disconnect the OVAs from the manga/TV series and make a sort of "alternative Rurouni Kenshin," for whatever reason.

[Toto y Moi]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

But you know Toto, Furuhashi also directed the TV adaptation, and much of the first two seasons was certainly quite faithful to Watanuki's vision.

Don't get me wrong--I LOVE the adaptation of the Kenshin anime. I think that it's fantastic. The Kyoto arc is flawless. I own it (and the OVAs) on DVD. But it's mainly the way he altered the material for the OVAs that concerned me. While they were very good and very traditionally Japanese, they overwrite the need for a faithful adaptation of Watsuki's manga...which disappoints me. The Enishi arc is by no means perfect, but I wish that I could have seen it unaltered. I can't fully see these works as "Rurouni Kenshin"; they're very watered down.

It's also his adaptation of Getbackers that got to me. The manga and the anime are two very different works. I think that Furuhashi is a great director (probably one of the best in anime), but sometimes he deems his own vision as more important than the original author's--which I often disagree with. He did this in HxH. While it's one of my favorite shows (and I really like a lot of the changes he made), it also really altered my perception of the characters from the manga until I went back and read it.

There's also the question of what "realism" means to him in the context of his adaptations... often, he'll try to tap into a very different emotional center than what is initially presented. He'll change the actions, thoughts, and feelings of characters instead of trying to preserve the work's spirit. That youtube clip of the battle between Chou and Kenshin in this work is a good example. The tone of that fight in this movie is extremely different from the one in the manga/anime. Chou uses real swords instead of that silly whip one, but...his clothes remain the same. Cartoony as ever. The presentation is at odds with the scenario. This clash sort of takes you out of their world. I would have preferred that he went in either direction instead of this strange medium ground.

[Eeni]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

This OVA is not a "book turned movie". There's nothing of Watsuki's manga in this except the bare skeleton (which is more than the old OVAs had, true) - this is basically an Okada-original re-imagining of Kenshin's greatest arc. WTF were you thinking, DEEN?

It is a group of volumes which constitute a book series. It is a book turned movie. And it's ridiculously difficult (nay, I say, impossible) to keep EVERYTHING from a book and translate it into a movie. If Okada "re-imagined" this part of the series and used only the bare skeleton it's simply because there is a time restriction. You simply can not fit all that information into 2 1-hour films.

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

>Eeni, Toto
This is what I'm trying to say - Okada may not have been the best writer to handle this OVA, but ultimately the problem lies with the directorial/producerial(? is that a word?) decision to make the story darker and more "realistic" ie. add more angst, more sex and make it more dour (I'm not saying "more gore" because the manga actually has more action and blood than what we see in this ep). They were also the ones who gave the green light to changing the story, adding original elements, etc. The first two OVA series weren't written by Okada and they were much like this one. :/


Yeah, same here. And it's a pity because in the manga it ties into the story and Kenshin's characterization perfectly, while in the OVA it's completely disconnected from the character. :/ Then again, I've long come to believe that the producers of the OVAs are deliberately trying to disconnect the OVAs from the manga/TV series and make a sort of "alternative Rurouni Kenshin," for whatever reason.

That would be the executive producer's call... he/she has the money he/she gets the final say in the project... Not to be confused with the Production Team that gets everything done and takes orders from the Director who in tern is the bridge between the financial and creative teams.

And I totally agree! The first 2 OVAs were like this one in much the same sense that not only the style, but the story and characters for the most part were changed in order to get the story across. True, they didn't stray too far from the manga storywise, but there definitely were major changes to the characters and how they developed in those OVAs.