(CR) Rurouni Kenshin (new TV series)

[Cloudedmind]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

You're not wrong, but...

Spoiler for Yutaro:

Yutaro is not a one-off figure here, and his relationship with the Kenshingumi changes over time.

Funny, because I remember his character the least.

[MeoTwister5]

Yutaro is arguably more important to the group, or Yahiko anyway, than Raijuta ever was.

[Frontier]

Kenshin vs Raijuta! Raijuta can seemingly cut through anything, so it's only fitting that Kenshin breaks his sword to end their fight .

Ha! They almost forgot about Yutaro there. And Kaoru straight up throws Sanosuke under the bus for tying him up .

Jeez Yutaro, it's bad enough you're a brat, do you have to challenge Yahiko in the middle of the night!? Ref Kaoru can barely stay awake enough to ref the match. Kid talks a big game but doesn't even know how to wield a sword !

But Kaoru is nothing if not a teacher, and sees another impressionable young man she can take under her wing and teach proper swordsmanship, and be a positive teaching influence on Yutaro !

Kenshin really is the quintessential househusband! Definitely not what you would expect from a former manslayer but good to have around the house !

Ah, so that's why Yutaro is so focused on becoming a true swordsman. He resents his father throwing away his pride as a samurai and selling swords as a merchant when they're literally the souls of a samurai. And Yutaro actually has the skills to back himself up as a true samurai .

Poor Tsubame. Girl just asks a question and Yahiko gets all up in her face and makes her cry. At least Yutaro knows how to treat a girl .

Yutaro is a surprisingly sincere and earnest kid. He respects Kaoru and her dojo, but he wants to believe in the strength of his master and in said masters' fair-and-square fight against Kenshin. Of course then Raijuta attacks Kenshin from behind and then fights dirty, showing he had no intention fighting fairly, let alone of being a proper master for Yutaro. In fact he deliberately staged the bandit attack because he wanted to save them and get his fathers' money. What a scumbag !

Poor Yutaro...his master was a liar who never cared about him and he gets wounded in such a way that he may never wield a sword again. As if Kenshin didn't have enough reason to take down Raijuta .

[zztop]

Stupid question, but why do some people consider the original Raijuta plot a lesser part of the Tokyo arc, to the point that even they think the 1996 anime was justified in making changes to it?

[Kanon]

Oh boy, Kenshin is pissed now. The best outcome would be to make Raijuta suffer the same fate as Yutaro and make him unable to hold a sword ever again.

[FlareKnight]

Well that guy isn't going to leave the next episode with the use of any more than one of his arms! Kenshin is going to be pissed and utterly crush this scumbag.

What an absolute piece of work. Worthless scum talks about ideals, but this is his true self. A loser that attacked Kenshin without warning to start and then ambushed in the middle of the night. Who constantly proves himself to not be anywhere near Kenshin's level and stupidly involves innocent people in an attack that still did little real damage to his actual target. Acting like Kenshin getting serious is anything more than guaranteeing that he's going to be completely destroyed once they clash next.

Sucks for Yutaro that he ended up idealizing the wrong person. Would have sucked no matter what, but it sucks all the more because he really had potential. Was proving to be a great source for Yahiko's own growth because it honestly gave him a real rival. Hard to improve when there isn't anyone in his age bracket and skill level to compete against.

And now Yutaro has no choice but to follow his father's path. Or at the very least might stop slandering him at every opportunity. I get it. His father chose to turn down a different path and is selling swords to make a living. But the world was changing and he made sure that he could provide for his family. So what if he has to play to the tastes of buyers? It's putting food on the table.

Though I could see his father changing up his business model after a sword ended up seriously injuring his son.

Originally Posted by Kanon

Oh boy, Kenshin is pissed now. The best outcome would be to make Raijuta suffer the same fate as Yutaro and make him unable to hold a sword ever again.

All I can think of is that brutal injury he would have left Jine with (if they didn't kill himself afterwards). That'd be a fitting consequence for that guy's cruelty.

[Master_Yoma]

Well Raijuuta showing how much of a dick he is by using a very harsh technique against his backer son who was in the line of fire and didnt think that the Tsukayama father would cave so easily bowing and promising a bunch of money to low life

So Yutarou showing up in the middle of the night for Yahiko challenge

[grecefar]

it was pretty obvious that raijuta was scum since the beginning, still it sucks that yutaro can't hold a sword never again. He was looking good to be yahiko's rival.

2 times they faced and 2 times kenshin kicked his ass, I doubt it will be difficult for him to defeat raijuta and more when he is angry.

[Magin]

I think I read somewhere that this arc was just something experimental (read: not really sure what to do with it before the big Kyoto arc), and it's showing.

To put it another way: Watsuki COMPLETELY squandered Yutaro. A kid that is actually a good rival to Yahiko, and reasonably skilled with the sword? Nope, too many characters already (and we're going to get even more!), so take out the one who could potentially give Yahiko more character development. Granted, I guess that technically Yahiko will get more development in other ways, but this is such a wasted development by making Yutaro unable to use the sword. At least we should get a fierce beat-down next episode.

Actually, now that I think about it: Watsuki clearly has a preference for veteran fighters as he wrote this, which is quite different from your standard shounen, especially back in the day. Yahiko could've easily been the typical Shounen Protagonist going through training and all that, but he is also the member of the group that usually has the least screen time. Which I guess eliminates most of the training arcs that are usually in shounen manga.. or more accurately, those arcs are pushed off until much later (was that the editor nagging for, 'You've GOTTA do some training arcs! This is shounen!'?)

[Guardian Enzo]

Originally Posted by zztop

Stupid question, but why do some people consider the original Raijuta plot a lesser part of the Tokyo arc, to the point that even they think the 1996 anime was justified in making changes to it?

These are mostly the same people who wouldn't brook any criticism of the 1999 H X H (also Furuhashi) anime when the 2011 was retelling the story much more faithfully. I think for a lot of people who experienced the anime before the manga that's their true canon, whether they admit it or not.

There's nothing wrong with the Raijuuta arc as Watsuki wrote it whatsoever. It's a solid complement to the themes he was setting up with the series. It probably doesn't help that it was sandwiched roughly in-between the two flashiest arcs in the Tokyo section.

[Mad Pierrot]

They downright removed all of Raijuta's underlings and already made Kenshin defeat the guy already once with a single strike. Guess the director wants this arc to be only 3 episodes. The fact that Kenshin freaking scared another guy by staring at him just sells it though. It'd say this Kenshin is kinda more badass than Furuhashi's version from 1997 considering they try to put him in comedy situations that much.

Still, I gotta praise the staff for removing more slapstick from the manga and make Yutaro's a bit rushed appearance nicer. They did something similar with Yahiko in his debut.

[Wandering Soul]

It didn't take long for Raijuta to show his true colors and what he's actually like under all talk about being a true swordsman.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

These are mostly the same people who wouldn't brook any criticism of the 1999 H X H (also Furuhashi) anime when the 2011 was retelling the story much more faithfully. I think for a lot of people who experienced the anime before the manga that's their true canon, whether they admit it or not.

There's nothing wrong with the Raijuuta arc as Watsuki wrote it whatsoever. It's a solid complement to the themes he was setting up with the series. It probably doesn't help that it was sandwiched roughly in-between the two flashiest arcs in the Tokyo section.

You don't need to be a blind fanatic to justifiably think & say that the raijuta arc is lesser compared to other big arcs with prominent antagonists.

Some perfectly reasonable audience can easily see Raijuta being a lesser character compared to Jine, Aoshi or even Han'nya (add more spoiler future antagonists here). There's also how the story in this arc squandered Yutaro's potential to become more than he is. And Raijuta's techniques that resemble kamaitachi is dowright fantastical at times. Hence why some people think this arc is lesser. No need to badmouth them for thinking so.

Also, why do you even bring out HxH 1999 fans again? A good number of HxH 1999 fans aren't even RK 1996 fans in the first place.

[Guardian Enzo]

Because a lot of this is history repeating itself.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Because a lot of this is history repeating itself.

The "history" of you being passive-aggressive towards HxH 99 fans perhaps 🤷

I mean, there's no direct connection between "people who think Raijuta arc is lesser" & "HxH 99 fans" and yet you force that connection as if people who think lesser of Raijuta arc are those very same HxH 99 fans and only them. Do I need to remind you that tons of RK manga fans are also not big fans of Raijuta arc? Do I need to tell you that even Watsuki himself doesn't think highly of Raijuta arc? If the mangaka himself thinks less of Raijuta arc, who are you to act snide towards people who think the same as Watsuki about his own manga?

If anything, "Raijuta being a lesser arc" is actually an opinion that plenty of RK fans from different media can mostly agree on. Watsuki doesn't think of it highly, as well as Furuhashi & his 96 anime team, as well as plenty of manga readers, as well as 96 fans, as well as RK live-action movie producers, writers & director who didn't even care enough to put big elements of it somewhere within their 5 movies.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

You don't need to be a blind fanatic to justifiably think & say that the raijuta arc is lesser compared to other big arcs with prominent antagonists.

Some perfectly reasonable audience can easily see Raijuta being a lesser character compared to Jine, Aoshi or even Han'nya (add more spoiler future antagonists here). There's also how the story in this arc squandered Yutaro's potential to become more than he is. And Raijuta's techniques that resemble kamaitachi is dowright fantastical at times. Hence why some people think this arc is lesser. No need to badmouth them for thinking so.

Also, why do you even bring out HxH 1999 fans again? A good number of HxH 1999 fans aren't even RK 1996 fans in the first place.

Well, yeah, that's kind of the tragedy of the whole arc, deliberately so .

[AP24]

Looks like Ep 17 will be the end of Raijuta arc and Ep 18 should be about Sano’s friend. So that leaves 6 episodes in the season for the parts starting from Saito’s first appearance.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Well, yeah, that's kind of the tragedy of the whole arc, deliberately so .

Still doesn't change how some people think Yutaro could've been used much more to push Yahiko's character even further considering Yahiko's role in the grand scheme of the story (or lack thereof).

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Obelisk ze Tormentor

Still doesn't change how some people think Yutaro could've been used much more to push Yahiko's character even further considering Yahiko's role in the grand scheme of the story (or lack thereof).

Conceptually, yeah, but what happens to him here serves a point too.

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Conceptually, yeah, but what happens to him here serves a point too.

I don't argue that Yutaro's injury served a purpose. I'm just saying that people who think Yutaro could've been used better have valid reason to think that too. Unlike Enzo who randomly labeled them as "HxH 99 fans" in a disparaging manner.