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Action Anime Reviews: Busou Renkin
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Posted by:
TaranAndreas on May 31, 2007
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Busou Renkin I would dearly love to meet Watsuki Nobuhiro. He created the Rurouni Kenshin series, so popular with manga and anime fans everywhere. His Busou Renkin was not as well received, to his dismay, cancelled after only 10 volumes as compared to Ruroken's 28. Still, his name drew many of the fans of Ruroken to his latter work as well. He tied up the loose ends nearly as well as he did in his earlier work, leading to a happy ending.
Kenshin's story encompassed a tale of evil and redemption, of the pursuit of perfection for as many reasons as he has invented characters who pursue it, of lost love and of new love, of estrangement and reconciliation. I confess that I actually wept at certain points in the manga; Yahiko's declaration that he meant to be strong to protect everyone he could see, Kaoru's apparent death, Kenshin's return from despair. These were profound moments. A young man discovered the reason to be a genuine human being. A beautiful and innocent young woman is taken from those who love her. A broken man discovers the value of hope. Those things are worthy of being called the matter of real literature, not just of mere manga. And when this was transferred to the genre of anime, the conventions of serious film rendered the story even more touching. Who can forget the cherry blossoms falling as Kenshin and Kaoru parted?
Oh, there was some silly stuff too. No more than was needed for the story, though. Life has its silliness as well.
Kazuki, the protagonist of Busou Renkin, is a brave boy who becomes a brave man. Then, curiously enough, he becomes a boy again. This is a strong point in Watsuki-sensei's sense of story. At the end of his Kenshin manga, Kenshin and Kaoru marry and have a son. Life becomes normal, happy, for them. At the end of the Busou Renkin anime series, Kazuki returns to being a 17 year old high-schooler. Life goes on; after adventures and wars, after tragedy and loss, after victory, life goes on. Heroic struggle may shape but does not define life for his characters, and the struggle is undertaken only to set the world aright so that everyone can get back to just the usual and wonderful business of living. There is a great realism, and a great humility, in that.
There's no real comparison of Kenshin and Kazuki. The first is a famous master of the art of the sword. The second is, well, a kid. Kenshin struggles with redeeming what he has done in the past by building a future in which his art has no future. Kazuki is a kid who obtains a special ability when his heart is replaced by an alchemical device Watsuki-sensei dubbed "kakugane." Kazuki's friends aren't nearly as memorable as Kenshin's were. As of this writing, I cannot remember any of their names. Neither are Tokiko, Kazuki's comrade and eventual love-interest, and Kaoru comparable in any way. As a matter of fact, it is she who has the scarred face, and not the protagonist. Nor are we ever given the opportunity to find out how she got it.
The story was enjoyable; heroic in spots and droll in others. The incidental villains were mostly as colorful as those in Ruroken, and Papillon, the main villain, was truly memorable for his oughtright silliness. It seemed almost that he had a sort of crush on Kazuki, but that was never made explicit.
What Busou Renkin lacked was depth. The story was full of characters but none of them beyond the protagonist, his lover, and the antagonist were very well developed. I am left thinking that if Watsuki-sensei had been given the time he wanted to extend the story that the characters would have been better developed. Sadly, it just never happened. There was enough of a taste of his style to make the anime worthwhile for 26 episodes; Kazuki discovered that to be a man is to protect the ones he loves, Tokiko discovers that she can love in the face of great danger and the meaning of loss, and Victor discovered that hope was stronger than despair. Evenso, it was good that it lasted no longer.
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The views expressed on WatchAnimeOnline.com are in no way associated with the creator of Busou Renkin, its publisher or any of its subsidiaries.
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