Samurai Deeper Kyo

Samurai Deeper Kyo is based of the still running manga series by the same name. In the year 1600, during the battle of Sekigahara, warriors Kyoshiro Mibu and "Demon Eyes" Kyo - the legendary slayer of a thousand men - engaged in fierce combat. Both men disappeared when a meteor crashed in the battlegrounds. Four years later, Kyoshiro is spotted on a rural highway, acting as a traveling medicine salesman. He is captured by the female bounty hunter Yuya Shiina when she discovers that deep inside him is the dormant personality of "Demon Eyes" Kyo himself. Now on to all the problems I had withthe show. First there's the story stated above, which is just a jumble together of stories from the manga. Then there's the so called animation done by Studio Deen. Were they trying to make a crappy American cartoon, I don't get it. The music was also terrible it didn't add anything to the show. Finally the characters which had one or two moments of enjoyment, but overall were terrible. One more thing don't watch this show in the dub version, you'll hate it even more. Overall was this a terrible anime series...no, but it pales in comparison to the manga series.

The first review here is way too harsh. This anime is well worth a watch if your into historical/samurai stuff, it's not as dark and brooding as it sets out to be and the plot can feel a little convaluted at times but the characters are quite endearing and if you can get your head round all the different threads it's very easy to get wrapped up in the story. I really enjoyed it and found myself watching one episode after another once I'd got past the first few, but I haven't read the manga so if you have you may be in for a bitof a disappointment.

Samurai Deeper Kyo is a rather obscure (thank God) shounen anime from Studio Deen based on a long running manga which is apparently a lot better but I have not read it. Now that we have that out of the way, what did I think of it? It SUCKED! I really forced myself through it and actually considered dropping it. Why did I dislike this anime? Well, that's the purpose of this review. The story for this anime starts off rather solid albeit a bit cliched. With it's fugitive goofball setup it felt reminiscent of Kenshin and Trigun. I was actually rather enjoying watching the humorouscharacter interactions and fun setup. Then about halfway through, something happened. The show decided to stop being fun and started being repetitive. And when I say repetitive, I mean REPETITIVE. I mean seriously, when the lead character is about to reach his objective after fighting through several of the antagonist's lackeys, the writer slaps the viewer in the face and makes the antagonist move the objective to another destination, causing the lead character to have to go through the same bloody process as before. This happens roughly 3 times throughout the entire 26 episode show. It's just our protagonist fighting off supernatural henchmen to reach his goal over and over again. And when he battles against a powerful enemy he just uses his plot armor, I mean, special attack to defeat them in one blow after all else fails. We also see the same bloody stock footage for said attack used every time it happens. Fortunately this is accompanied by a badass guitar riff which I rather liked. Then after the show stops being repetitive it decides to get downright frustrating by throwing in all this exposition at you at once to the point where it becomes information overload. And don't get me started on the ending. I'm not going to spoil anything, but I'm just going to say it is possibly the most ridiculous conclusion to any anime I have witnessed. As for the characters, they were all pretty bland. They were often just archetypes prevalent in the shounen genre. We do get the backgrounds of some of the characters but little to no development. Finally I shall say something good about this show. The artwork was pretty impressive. However the same cannot be said about the animation. It is very limited and amusingly quaint. Watching a long distance shot of a character running is one of the most unintentionally amusing things I have ever seen. As for the soundtrack it was actually very good. The aforementioned badass guitar riffs really stand out and the opening is actually amazing. Seriously, go look it up. The best analogy I can come up with for my enjoyment of the show is that it's a tire rolling downhill. Starts off pretty high but gets lower and lower until it reaches the bottom.

Samurai Deeper Kyo was one of the first anime I saw (after The Guyver and Perfect Blue – an interesting selection). It is the tale of the ‘strongest samurai alive’, a bloodthirsty monster called Demon Eyes Kyo, also known as the Slayer of 1000 Men, and his search for the only thing in the world that is important to him. For the first few episodes, Samurai Deeper Kyo seems quite formulaic. Kyo establishes himself as a badass who can crush all opposition while sneering disdainfully, and combat consists largely of exchanges of flashy-looking quasi-magic power attacks. So far, so shounen. There are some un-shounen elementseven at this early stage, though – if you’re paying attention. I didn’t notice until maybe my third or fourth viewing just how short the battles tend to be. This could easily be seen as a bad thing – one or two explosive techniques from each combatant and it’s all over. But having sat through (and enjoyed, mostly) every episode of Bleach to date, I’d contend that this brevity of conflict could also be seen as efficiency. There are no episode-long power-up sequences here, or even episode-long fights. Even the best shounen tends to have unrealistic bursts of dialogue in the middle of combat and foes who wait patiently while the hero recites the name of his attack, and that’s certainly true of Samurai Deeper Kyo, but unlike so many other series the fights here get to the point. Sadly, they’re also somewhat more stationary than people raised on Bleach or Samurai Champloo might be accustomed to; there is an over-reliance on speed lines, and a lot of the bog-standard non-superpowered sword swings look clumsy and artificial. Like many other shounen series, Samurai Deeper Kyo leans towards being an ensemble piece, with an ever-expanding core group of characters who trail after the hero, or cross his path repeatedly in a variety of ways. Unlike some series, though, most of these characters are quite distinct and likeable as people. Few of them are particularly nuanced (with the notable exception of Yukimura Sanada, at least to this viewer), but they rarely blend together as some characters in this genre can tend to. As you might expect, most of the central characters have something to hide, or something to discover, or an unclear agenda – and while I doubt any of the revelations will make you gasp in abject shock, they’re not always easy to foresee. One of the strongest points of the series, for me, is the fluid nature of alliances and good/evil – something I have a fondness for in other series too, such as Gilgamesh. While shounen as a genre frequently has enemies becoming friends and the like, lamentably few actually keep you wondering just who is really the enemy. Like the proverbial onion, Samurai Deeper Kyo sheds layers of intrigue, each time shaking an assumption you thought was concrete. Similarly, the series employs the well-established technique of 'threatening the badass' – that is, if Kyo seems to be an unstoppable killing machine in the early episodes, it’s only to impress upon us the seriousness of later travails that actually challenge him. On the music front, Samurai Deeper Kyo really surprises me with its quality, though I didn’t notice at first. Some of the recurring themes really jump out at the viewer, such as ‘Awakening’ (the music that usually accompanies Kyo’s trademark Mizuchi technique), but many are quite subtle and atmospheric. I thought for a while that Kyo’s music was indelicate, almost garish, consisting of just one or two brash tunes, but when I listened to the soundtrack album I realised to my surprise that I recognised every one of the thirty tracks, and most of them were incidental themes, accompanying flashbacks or moments of tension. Curiously, much of the music, when listened to away from the visuals of the series, puts me in mind of console RPGs; some make me think Final Fantasy, others Zelda, and one even reminds me of an old NES game called Battle of Olympus. That’s not to say that the sound quality is shrill or the composition is lacking, simply that some of the tracks are more soaring or more grand than I would have expected. A particular highlight for me is ‘Begin’, an upbeat, airy, faux-string composition used for some action scenes. Overall, then, I’d recommend Samurai Deeper Kyo to anime fans who enjoy action/fighting series wherein the plot isn’t exclusively a vehicle for the fights, the characters are simple but likeable, and there are enough surprises to keep things from getting boring. If you can overlook the sometimes stilted combat animation and are willing to be patient with the monster-of-the-week nature of the first few episodes, you might find Samurai Deeper Kyo a more rewarding watch than you expect.