Ronin Warriors: Message

At long last, the fighting is over.  Having given up their powers, the five young men once known as the Ronin Warriors were finally able to lead peaceful lives…that is until a mysterious woman arrives, harboring a deep resentment for the armor once held by these young men.  When each becomes a target of this heartbroken songstress, Ryo, Rowen, Cye, Kento and Sage must take up their powers one last time.  Do these men fight to save a lost soul or is this another battle preordained as part of an inescapable destiny?  The final chapter of the Ronin Warriors saga begins.

Ugh…

Just…ugh…What the hell did I just watch?  Why did it feel so long and why do I feel like this was the exact opposite of everything ive seen before? As the final note in the Ronin Warriors saga, Message is…well it’s arguably worse than Gaiden.  I sort of get what this OVA was trying to go for.  At the same time though, I got very familiar vibes of Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection, both in title and in overall final effect.

There are so many problems with Message I don’t know where to begin.  How about the fact that most of this OVA is a clips special.  Half of each episode is a collection of clips from the TV Series and Legend of the Inferno Armor, each coupled with inner monologues from Ryo, Rowen, Sage, Cye and Kento.  Footage repeats itself, nothing new is added.  Listening to the inner thoughts of our core warriors and hearing about their wills to break the cycles of violence brought about by their armors is a good sign of growth.  But this OVA boils down to nothing but long and elaborate speeches layered in pointless melodrama and missing something we all come to Ronin Warriors to see…the action.  Ryo and the guys do absolutely NOTHING in any of the new footage.  Most of it is them either talking to each other about their teammates going missing or talking with the “villain” of the special…and that latter part is arguably worse.  Oh and don’t expect Mia or Yuli to help bail the guys out of this one or save this disastrous OVA.  Yuli is 100% absent and Mia appears in an entirely pointless scene where she is about to give a speech to the UN or something…and we never see the speech…ok what?

I put “Villain” in quotations cause I don’t even know if that’s the best way to characterize Suzunagi.  Actually, I know the perfect term for her…DRAMA QUEEN!!!  Her story arc is a mess of nothing but monologues and overblown dramatic shouting that takes way too long to get to a point…actually it never reaches that point.  If I could boil it down simply, she was a kid killed in an attack that she blames the armors for cause they brought violence to her neck of the woods and now she wants revenge and rest.  Does that make sense?  No, ok I didn’t think so.  The bare basic point is…rather than seek vengeance against five guys who had nothing to do with her death, why didn’t Suzunagi just drop the Shakespeare actress schtick and as them for help laying her spirit to rest?  Nope, instead we have to listen to her whine and cry with each of the five Ronin Warriors before “capturing” them and placing them in their new armor…which were prisons?  I don’t know and ultimately I don’t care.

As novel as it is to see Ryo and the gang hashing out their feelings over the battles they fought and dealing with the idea that their whole story was preordained, Ronin Warriors: Message feels like a Psych 101 course that will bore you to tears and throw the OVA into double speed just to get through the rehashes of the TV Series and other OVAs just to get to the new stuff…and then realize theres only like 2 mins of actual new footage worth watching at best.  How cool would it have been to see Ryo, Cye, Kento, Rowen and Sage fighting one more big bad in new Endless Waltz style armor?  Instead we got an OVA that wants to be something deep but is trying to do that for Ronin Warriors, a franchise that is fun and dumb action and nothing more.  At the very least, Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection had newly animated segments of past events.  Message is a boring last gasp for the Ronin Warriors and it ends like so many other stories without proper resolution or a final goodbye.

I guess my final thoughts on these last three OVAs, just watch Legend of the Inferno Armor, aka what should’ve been Ronin Warriors: The Movie.  Cause honestly, that is the final note this series should have truly ended on, not this tiresome chore of an Anime title.  I never thought it’d come to this…but Ronin Warriors: Message is joining Gaiden in the low tier of review scores with a 0/10, ending this Extended Series Review on a zzzzz instead of a bang.

Welp…for what it’s worth Ronin Warriors the TV Series is still a worthwhile watch and the failures of 2/3 OVAs just hightlights how much better it is.  I’m glad I got to spend time with Ryo, Sage, Kento, Rowen, Cye, Mia, Yuli and White Blaze once again.  Til we meet again my dear friends.