Anime Meta-Review
Hakkenden, The
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Title Info
- seen: 1-8 of 14
- type: OAV
- grade: watchable
- made: 1990
- Review created: Too long ago, revision desperately needed.
- mod: none
What a dark and dismal world this series portray's. While the basis is samurai drama there is no shortage of death due to politics, malice or the influence of evil spirits/demons. There is lots of noble suicide, futile bravery and accidental death of female characters. And this death is very graphic, lots of sloshing red liquid in this one. The plot appears to follow the slow coming together of 8 warriors who are connected by spirit to their mother and her dog (don't ask) and may have access to power through 8 beads symbolic of virtues. Sadly they are noble but violent types and seem to spend a lot of the early episodes getting themselves into trouble, often against each other. The mythology, politics and family relationships are complex and can be difficult to follow, but it does do a good job of representing a cursed world. The animation is excellent, although sometimes overly ambitious which leads to some variability in quality. The writing seems competent, although the complexity and constant tragedy may be a bit much.Still if you like samurai tragedy you may well like this. However there will be just as many people, including myself, who simply consider it over the top and generally miserable as well as pointlessly confusing...definitely try before you buy.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:19 WST 2009