Blade of the Immortal

Episodes 1-4

The first episode of LIDEN FILMS' new Blade of the Immortal adaptation was a a killer introduction to the property for folks like me who are only passingly familiar with the original manga or the first anime from 2008. The story of the orphaned Rin Asano taking on the immortal swordsman Manji as her bodyguard and mentor on a gore-soaked quest for vengeance was presented with a gripping, dreamlike sensibility, like the world's most somber splatterhouse.

Unfortunately, “Act Two - Foundling” is a huge nosedive in terms of quality, almost derailing all of the goodwill the premiere built up in the process. The biggest problem is that it marries two disparate stories that barely have any connective tissue between them. The first sees Rin and Manji visiting the eccentric painter, Sori, who uses a blade to streak his canvases with gashes of bright red paint. He was an old friend of Rin's father, and also a onetime spy for the Shogunate, and Rin thinks he could make for a capable second body-guard. He believes is traitorous blade is not the tool to be helping out a genuine friend, though, and refuses. It's hardly any surprise when another agent of Kagehisha Anotsu's Itto-ryu School comes a knockin' though, along with a gaggle of eager cronies who all want to take Manji's head.

On paper, this seems like another basic recipe for success, a straightforward blending of plot and carnage similar to what we got in the premiere. In practice, “Foundling” - the first story - is a hot mess, mostly due to its piss-poor editing and presentation of it's the action scenes. The battle between Manji, Rin, and the Itto-ryu assassin's is a mangled hodge-podge of quick cuts, overactive camera pans, and nonsensical progression – it's literally impossible to tell what is actually happening most of the time. The episode tries to play this off as comedy when it shows Sori completely ignoring the fight as he puzzles over the right shade of red for his newest piece, but the joke fails to excuse the scene for completely failing as a sequence of animated storytelling. The bit also concludes with the bizarre gag of Sori going bonkers over how the blood of his enemies makes for the perfect paint; it was a predictable payoff, but played way over the top, and then the story just moves on to the next segment with little fanfare.

“Foundling” is just as unsuccessful in its second half, cramming in another villain-of-the-week with a glossed over tragic backstory that barely gets outlined while he and Manji go toe-to-toe in the middle of the muddy woods. Since Manji apparently didn't kill the guy, I'm sure he'll be back, but I can't imagine why Blade of the Immortal felt compelled to cram what had to be several chapters' worth of manga material into a single episode if it was all going to amount to bupkis in the end. I'll be honest, as excited as I was to cover Blade of the Immortal this season, “Foundling” had me worried that I'd actually gotten stuck with a real lemon of an anime.

Thankfully, “Act Three - Dream Pangs”, is leagues better than “Foundling”, and possibly my favorite of the bunch. It pulls off the neat trick of reversing perspectives and telling the story from the antagonists' point of view. In this episode, the swordswoman is a one-time prostitute named Makie, who moonlights as a geisha when she isn't pining for her master of the Itto-ryu, Kagehisha, and killing Manji is just the kind of devotional act that would secure her place as Kagehisha's paramour. It's a haunting, emotive story that takes the plight of women in feudal Japan very seriously, painting a picture of hardship and resolve that comes from living one's life as an object to be traded, abused, and used – whether it be for sex, or swordplay.

I was a little wary at first of how Rin's jealously of Makie and Manji's “connection” would be handled, but the show did an exceptionally fine job of emphasizing the two women's personal relationship with violence as the key to their understanding of one another. Manji starts the episode at his most chauvinistic worst, and though he still ends up griping about being beaten by one woman and saved by another in a single day, Blade of the Immortal is careful to frame his place in this plot as a foil to Kagehisha's toxic hold on Makie. Rin's vengeance may be cruel and immoral, but it is her own, and Manji is as much an extension of her will as he is a protector of her person. When we see Makie take her first steps toward an unknown future away from the Itto-ryu at the episode's end, it feels like a tenuous but well-earned victory.

The action is much better in “Dream Pangs” too. The art is more consistent overall, and while there is still too much reliance on frantic camera movements and choppy editing, there are beautiful cuts of violence and drama to balance all of it out. While I don't think Blade of the Immortal has matched the technical quality of its first episode, “Dream Pangs” had me feeling the most with every slash of the blade, and I've always been inclined to favor an episode that ends up as more than the sum of its parts.

Rin's solid character-writing is what makes the otherwise standard “ Act Four - Rin at Odds” work as well as it does. The animation is back to being pretty weak and ineffective again, and the heavy reliance on dialogue and poorly paced flashbacks kills the plot's momentum a bit, but its central conceit is absolutely solid: After getting frustrated with her own lack of progress as a fighter, even under Manji's tutelage, Rin happens upon her prized target in the middle of the woods: Kagehisha Anotsu. He's slicing apart single leaves with his obscenely heavy blade, and though Rin makes an admirable attempt to take the man out, she's no match for him, and finds herself at the villain's whims.

This is where we get a massively important plot and character dump, which effectively (if a bit inelegantly) lays out our primary conflict in full for the first time. Rin's grandfather, as it turns out, effectively stole the legacy of the Muten Ichi-ryu School of swordsmanship out from under the feet of Kagehisha's own grandfather. A driven and cruel man, the elder Anotsu swore vengeance on the elder Asano, but not before his paranoid eyes turned to his grandson, who even at ten years old was skilled enough to inspire mutiny amongst the Itto-ryu practitioners. Kagehisha's grandfather was killed by one of the young boy's earliest followers, but though his relationship with the old man was never what you would call “warm”, Kagehisha still felt honor bound to strike back against the progeny of the charlatan who defamed the Anotsu name.

Which is what has led Rin here, her body and her pride both badly bruised, having an unexpectedly calm conversation with the man that ruined her life. It's classic genre storytelling that works even when the episode's visuals aren't always up to the task. Even though Kagehisha's flashbacks felt a bit lopsided in the way they were sandwiched at either end of an otherwise Rin-focused story, his full presence in Blade of the Immortal's narrative gives the whole thing a shape and purpose it was lacking up until now. Before, the man was simply an idea that motivated our heroes forward in their quest, but here he is allowed to be nuanced, even likable - or at least as likable as a murderous workaholic bastard like him can be. It's often said that a story like this one is only as good as its villain, and in Kagehisha Anotsu, Rin and Manji have found themselves one hell of a final boss. Let's just hope the series can see things through to the end without too many more bumps in the road.

Rating: 4

Odds and Ends

• For those of you keeping score at home, I'd give the individual episodes the following scores: “Act One” – 4.5; “Act Two” – 2; “Act Three” – 4.5, “Act 4” – 3.5

• Some cursory internet browsing has reminded me that Kagehisha is based on a real swordsman that founded the Itto-ryu style, and I'm sure there are other characters plucked from the legends of the time period as well. I'm not versed enough in feudal-era Japanese history for this to affect my appreciation of the show one-way or the other, but it's nice to know.

• Eiko Ishibashi is a Japanese musician, and the Blade of the Immortal OST seems to be her first time composing for a television series. She is doing excellent work, especially with the haunting stuff we hear in “Dream Pangs”.

• The one moment of “Foundling” that worked for me was Sori's initial reaction to Manji: “You must have been abandoned on Mount Takao at birth, and then raised by some friendly monkeys.”

• Old “I'm Gonna Use Women's Severed Heads as a Fashion Statement” was apparently doing his thing way back when Kagehisha was but a wee sword boy. His special brand of weirdness hasn't even come close to being matched by anyone we've met since, and I don't even know if I want Blade of the Immortal to try.

• I'm not entirely sure who the girl that killed 52 wolves after being assaulted and left for dead was supposed to be at the beginning of Episode 4 – was it a young Makie? Either way, that was one of those dreamy images that really amplified the mood, even if the writing could have been a little clearer.

Blade of the Immortal is currently streaming on Amazon Prime.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.