Review: Rurouni Kenshin - Wandering Samurai

The Rurouni Kenshin series concerns Kenshin settling down with what shortly becomes a small "family" group centred around the Kamiya school - a kendo (swordsmanship) school which concentrates on the defence of the innocent.

Later developments force him to move out into the wider world. confronting a series of increasingly vicious opponents while protecting those he has come to care for and protecting his ideals.

As the series proceeds it gets more serious, until in the Kyoto arc from episode 28 it's almost straight drama. That's not to say there is no comic relief, but it becomes strictly a minor note as Kenshin is gradually forced to confront and in many ways revisit his past. The Kyoto arc is in my opinion correctly known as the best of the series; the episodes following it feel too much like an anticlimax. The later episodes do not lack merit, but just feel a little stale after the rollercoaster of Kyoto.

Overall the move from comedy in season 1 to drama in season 2 is an improvement. Season 3, the aftermath of Kyoto and a couple of shorter plots, seems like a step back.

While I enjoy comedy as much as anyone, there was an early risk of the series becoming stale, a "fight of the week" formula that wound up not eventuating. Instead the series becomes quite varied from episode to episode, and does not shrunk from introducing new characters... some to die soon after, but others to remain for many additional episodes.

In the meantime the existing characters are not neglected, with Kenshin's past being fleshed out (including some scenes from the OVAs) and the feelings and character of the other key people more evident.

Animation is generally decent but not remarkable (barring the superdeformed faces when Kaoru is beating up Kenshin, which I find irritating). The swordfights are very sparingly animated, but they put the basic idea across, and any attempt to be "realistic" would have put a severe dent in the series' premise.

Sound is generally adequate but nothing terribly special.

The English dub is actually quite good. The speech patterns of the different characters are quite distinct, and from what I understand reflect the Japanese originals quite will. The Japanese track for Kenshin (for example) doesn't quite have the home-boy timbre of the English dub, but if the liner notes are to be believed the dub is mainly following the patterns of the original.

NOTE: volume 2 has a "phase inversion" in the Japanese track. What this does with your setup depends on your sound setup. In my case it resulted in sound primarily playing through the rear surround speakers. At time of writing, Madman have said that they will replace copies of volume 2 on request. Personally, while I found it strange, it wasn't so offputting that I'll find this necessary.

Packaging is a standard DVD case with "clip" arrangement for the DVD hub holder, which holds the DVD firmly yet makes it easy to remove. The case liner is basically advertising for future Madman releases.