Rurouni Kenshin: The Motion Picture

The close of the Bakumatsu brought about a new age for Japan.  Ten years later, there are still those who are unhappy with this and seek to change the world again.  One such man is Shigure Takimi, a man who watched his closest friend get cut down by the Bakumatsu’s greatest warrior, The Hitokiri Battosai, the Manslayer, during the war.  As he begins to ignite a new rebellion, Takimi crosses paths with Kenshin Himura and his friends.  When Kenshin’s identity as Battosai becomes known to Takimi, the battle becomes more personal.  Once again, the Rurouni who wishes only for peace must draw his sword to defend the new era.

This is just sad.  This whole movie was underwhelming and just…bad.  It hurts all the more because Rurouni Kenshin has always been a personal favorite of mine and Kenshin himself is one of my favorite heroes in all of Anime.  He deserved far better than this snoozefest.

 

Watching the RuroKen Movie makes me a tad greatful I never watched the series after its second season.  For whatever reason, after adapting the first two arcs of the manga into the first two seasons, the third opted for several really bad stand alone tales that ranged from ridiculous to just plain bad.  Requiem for Meiji Restoration Patriots not only feels like it belongs in that season long graveyard but it also feels like a film announcing to the fandom “we’ve run out of good ideas…and will probably never adapt the Jinchu Arc from the manga so youre stuck with this”. 

 

It’s just lazy and uninspired all around.  Once again, Kenshin must fight someone from his past who wants to start another revolution, blah, blah, blah seen it already.  Not everything has to be a threat to Kenshin because of his past as Battosai.  But no, the easy route is taken and it doesn’t help that Takimi is so standard, along with the forgettable Toki.  You don’t care about their motives or plot and not once did I buy that Takimi was a guy who could take on Kenshin and win.  Was Kenshin humoring him by getting hurt…im gonna say yes.  Even more criminal, Kenshin and his team look bored out of their minds as well.  Hell, Yahiko goes and does something so out of character to try and spice things up that it makes no sense whatsoever.  Did anyone working on this movie read the manga or watch the first two seasons of the show to understand what makes a good Kenshin story?  Obviously that’s a no.

 

The story and characters fail, no question.  As for everything else, well the bulk of the animation budget seems to have gone to the barely decent intro battle…which the movie keeps consistently cutting back to.  Seriously, maybe one more time after it was shown was enough.  But the movie seems determined to pad out its runtime by cutting back to this flashback every twenty minutes or so.  Is that intro the best part of the movie?  Sadly so but it still looks a tad more presentable than the rest of the garbage that this movie looks like.  Even the battles seem to be lifeless and without the heart and soul that every Kenshin battle should have.  As I said above, it doesn’t help that Takimi doesn’t seem like a good match for Kenshin.  It’s like the legendary Battosai had to dial it down just to humor the poor guy…that’s sad.

 

Sad, that sums up Rurouni Kenshin: The Motion Picture nicely…along with lazy and easy.  The story is lifeless and a mix of “Been there, done that” Kenshin tropes.  The animation is worse than the show.  The action moves at a snails pace along with the story as a whole.  And the movie keeps constantly relying on a dramatic moment that has no real emotional weight to it.  Ugh, why didn’t they just adapt the Jinchu Arc into a movie instead of pulling out some storyline that got omitted from Season Three?  Kenshin deserves a lot better than this.  But I would never ask him to turn his blade around to strike down this film…clearly even Kenshin in the film itself knows this mess isn’t worth his time.

1/10

Let’s hope the OVA features are better than this.  Our next Rurouni Kenshin feature takes us back in time to Kenshin’s days as a Manslayer…and really this is the event The Motion Picture should have been.  See ya tomorrow for Rurouni Kenshin: Trust and Betrayal.