efore Himura Kenshin became the affable (though volatile) wanderer
of the Rurouni Kenshin television series, he was one of the most
feared figures of his era--the Hitokiri Battousai, the ruthless,
unstoppable assassin of the revolutionary group Ishin Shishi.
In episode after episode of the TV series, Kenshin struggles with
the emotional, psychological and historical legacy of having been a
14-year-old boy who murdered hundreds of people
because he believed on some level that it was the right thing to do.
This 1999 original video animation (OVA) tells the story that the earlier
TV episodes dispensed in driblets--how Kenshin's parents died,
leaving him in the hands of slave traders, who themselves died,
putting him in the care of the master swordsman who taught him
his indomitable fighting techniques.
How he abandoned his training to join the Ishin Shishi, believing
that ultimately his killings would save lives and make a new world possible.
But the story goes much further and deeper than it did in the TV series.
As a teenager, Kenshin is blank-faced and emotionless, drifting
through assassination after assassination in a somnambulistic
haze. He seems half-dead most of the time--when he isn't killing
people in impossible blurs of sword skill. Those who aren't in awe
of his talent, or simply terrified of him, suspect he won't last
much longer. "There is a hidden part of his mind that knows what
he has been doing. It will surface and then devour him," predicts
his faction's leader.
Instead, something else surfaces to alter
Kenshin's path: a beautiful young woman named Tomoe who knows
his secrets and still treats him gently and without judgment.
Kenshin the assassin suspects he should kill her, but the submerged
parts of his personality--the abandoned child and the romantic
humanist who just wants to protect the innocent--argue otherwise.
As political events speed up and the Ishin Shishi are driven underground,
Kenshin is forced to start coming to terms with who he really is and
what he's been doing with his life and his sword.
Brilliant visuals, ominous horror
It's hard to imagine what these OVAs would look like to someone
without a firm grounding in the Rurouni Kenshin universe.
This limited series (four episodes, packaged by ADV on two tapes)
came to video a year after the immensely popular TV series' three-year
run had ended. It fills in the TV show's blanks and elaborates on its
complex political history in ways that may be hard for a neophyte to grasp.
It's harder yet to imagine that neophyte watching this series and
then turning to the TV show without disappointment. The OVAs are
nothing like their predecessors, visually or stylistically. Kenshin's
mop of sunny red-gold hair has been replaced with what looks like a
river of arterial blood; his wide, friendly eyes are dull black
slits. The colors are muted, the environment dark and foreboding,
the background music sparse and melancholy, the character movement
slow and heavy or suddenly, savagely whip-fast. There are no bursts
of humor or sentimental family moments; the whole story drips
ominous horror.
The grave, consciously artistic tone is extended
into some startling visual metaphors, as a field of snow becomes
a field of flowers, a half-conscious character's confused vision
becomes a shudder of staccato, strobed gray images, a spatter of
lifeblood blends with rain in midair. The visual effects in this
astonishing piece of cinema are heartstoppingly portentous and
heartbreakingly beautiful.
Only the somewhat purple prose of the dialogue and an overall
flat callowness in the dubbed voiceovers blemish this astonishing
piece of animated art. Kenshin is barely recognizable in this
series, but the events that made him what he is take on new and
intense life.
Viewers who wait to see Samurai X after they've digested
the Rurouni Kenshin TV show will find it a more
rewarding experience, but it's hard to recommend waiting
that long before watching something this good.
