Saturday, November 3, 2018

Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection

Kenshin Himura has vanished.  While on a mission overseas, the legendary warrior was swept into the ocean during a storm.  Some search for him but many believe the man once known as the Hitokiri Battosai might actually be gone forever.  Back in Tokyo, those closest to Kenshin deal with his absence in their own way.  His son, Kenji, seeks out his fathers old master to understand his fathers strength.  His protegee, Yahiko, tries to uphold Kenshin’s ideals in his own way.  And his beloved wife, Kaoru, reminisces about the trials that brought Kenshin into her heart, all the while patiently waiting for the man she loves to come home.
 
God this was a depressing train wreck of a film to watch.  I know I should start this review a bit more…professionally.  But I cant help it.  As a fan of the Rurouni Kenshin Anime (and more so the Manga), RuroKen: Reflection feels like the ultimate insult.  As a Anime watcher, I feel like my time has been wasted.  As a fan, I feel a rage that will forever be associated with this film.  It’s uneseccary, it’s depressing, it’s the “finale” Rurouni Kenshin doesn’t deserve.
 
Basically, Reflection is an exercise in “how can you take a story about a man who is trying to make up for terrible deeds from his past and actually finds happiness and just destroy any and all progress he’s made even after he’s found that happiness?”.  To shorten that up a bit, the feel good ending of the Kenshin Manga is given a dark epilogue that says all of Kenshins hard work as a Rurouni has been for not and all of his misery in life has been heading in one direction towards an inevitable conclusion.  Come on, it’s like watching the beginning of Alien 3 and getting that gut punch that all the caring you came to have for Ripley and her crew didn’t mean squat because Hicks and Newt are unceremoniously killed off before the opening credits even end (despite that I actually don’t mind Alien 3 like most people but that’s neither here nor there).  Kenshin is a lot like the Elric Brothers of Fullmetal Alchemist.  After all the crap they both went through in their separate stories, you wanted them to get their happy ending.  In the Manga at least, Kenshin got that ending, why couldn’t it be left at that?
 
The answer to that last question might lie with the success of Trust and Betrayal, which was great, hands down, never disputing that.  However, the fault lies in thinking that what made Trust and Betrayal work would also succeed by bringing that same mature artstyle and darker storytelling to an already established timeline of events (the main Kenshin series).  It doesn’t and it hurts to watch such an uplifting story made grim and devoid of any of the warmth and heart that everyone loves about Rurouni Kenshin.  The optimistic and bumbling Rurouni is replaced with a somber, uninspired shamble of his former self and he just looks more and more tired as the movie goes on, even in the action scenes.  Karou’s spunk and spark is made equally as dull as the man she loves.  What makes this mess complete: Most of the movie has both of these lifeless soulmates onscreen together sharing the same conversation multiple times.  No “oro”, no “KENSHIN!!!!” angry cries, no nothing.  In the Manga Kenshin and Kaoru were a couple to root for, even if they never kissed.  Here, God you just want to wish this travesty of an Anime didn’t exist.
 
To what little credit I wish to give, Studio Deen is trying to make this OVA look pretty and it is…but not as good as Trust and Betrayal.  As I said above, the more real life and mature look Kenshin worked for TnB because it was Kenshin of the past, a darker and deadlier man than the one we knew in the main story and it set the perfect environment that would’ve crafted such a warrior.  Here, the backgrounds and settings and the sunsets look pretty damn good but the characters don’t feel like themselves because they don’t look like themselves.  It sucks to say but as bad as it was, at least Requiem for the Meiji Restoration Patroits still kept the characters looking like their Anime/Manga counterparts.  Even some callbacks to Trust and Betrayal itself cant mask that this artstyle just isn’t working here.  Though we do get to see Yukishiro Enishi in Anime form though…does that count for something? 
 
Man, I feel like ive given this one more time and attention than it deserves, so ill wrap things up with the biggest crime of the OVA…besides the God awful ending that is a giant middle finger to fans of Kenshin finding true happiness.  Reflection is, as of right now, the only attempt to bring some of the Manga’s third and final arc, the Jinchu Arc, into Anime form.  That should be exciting.  As much as I like the Kyoto Arc like everyone else, I think the Jinchu Arc is a very solid follow up and a great closing epic for the Rurouni Kenshin story…and it only takes up about 20 minutes of this OVA’s runtime.  And we don’t even get the full scope of the arc either (which features a lot of spotlighting Kenshins support team and family and some of the best fights of the series).  We get to see Enishi interact with Kaoru a little before jumping right to him fighting Kenshin to quickly resolving that for more introspective romance with the main couple of the film.  Something tells me Reflection is more or less meant to be a sequel to Trust and Betrayal but in that regard it fails.  If you’re going to tell the story of the Jinchu Arc, DO THE WHOLE THING.  Don’t just make it part of some poorly conceived cliffnotes of Kenshins greatest hits.  God, if anything watching how poorly this all unfolds does make me want to go back and reread the Manga so I can see it all done right.
 
Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection is right in title only.  It is a Reflection of the life of Kenshin Himura, wandering swordsman who seeks atonement…except it’s done by people who clearly don’t know a thing about Kenshin and just decide to trample all over his legacy.  Reflection is boring.  Reflection is lifeless.  Reflection lacks any heart, soul or passion that made fans fall in love with Rurouni Kenshin in the first place.  And no amount of pretty pictures or decent music or high energy fight scenes can mask its stink on Kenshin’s name. This OVA makes me angry.  And if you love Rurouni Kenshin like I do…it would make you angry too.
 
1/10

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