2011年5月30日月曜日

Complete [J-Anime] Rurōni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Rōmantan



Title: るろうに剣心 -明治剣客浪漫譚,
Title (romaji): Rurōni Kenshin Meiji Kenkaku Rōmantan
Title (english): Samurai X: Meiji Swordsman Romantic Story
Genre: Chanbara
Episodes: 95
Broadcast period: January 10, 1996 – September 8, 1998
Broadcast network: Fuji TV, Animax

Synopsis

The story of Rurouni Kenshin takes place during the early Meiji era in Japan. It tells the story of a peaceful wanderer named Himura Kenshin, formerly known as the assassin "Hitokiri Battōsai". After participating during the Bakumatsu war, Kenshin wanders the countryside of Japan offering protection and aid to those in need as atonement for the murders he once committed as an assassin. When arriving in Tokyo in the 11th year of Meiji (1878), he meets a young woman named Kamiya Kaoru, who was in the middle of a fight with a murderer who claims to be the Hitokiri Battōsai from her swordmanship school. Kenshin decides to help her and defeats the fake Battōsai. After discovering that Kenshin is the real Battōsai, she offers him a place to stay at her dojo as she notes Kenshin is a gentle person instead. Kenshin accepts and begins to establish lifelong relationships with many people such as Sagara Sanosuke, a former Sekihō Army member; Myōjin Yahiko, an orphan from a samurai family; and a doctor named Takani Megumi. However, he also deals with his fair share of enemies, new and old, including the former leader from the Oniwabanshū, Shinomori Aoshi and his rival from the Bakumatsu Saitō Hajime.
After several months of living in the dojo, Kenshin discovers that his successor as assassin of the shadows, Shishio Makoto, plans to conquer Japan by destroying the Meiji Government, starting with Kyoto. Feeling that his friends may be attacked by Shishio's faction, Kenshin goes to meet Shishio alone in order to defeat him. However, many of his friends, including a young Oniwabanshū named Makimachi Misao, decide to help him in his fight. He decides to accept their help and defeats Shishio in a fight, who dies in the process due to the rise in body temperature caused by his burns. The anime adapts the manga until this part, later featuring new story arcs which were not featured in the manga.
When Kenshin and his friends return to Tokyo, Kenshin finds Yukishiro Enishi, who plans to take revenge by killing his friends. At this point it is revealed that, during the Bakumatsu, Kenshin used to be married to a woman called Yukishiro Tomoe, who initially wanted to avenge the death of her fiancé, whom Kenshin had killed, but instead both fell in love and got married. It is then discovered that Tomoe was part of a group of assassins that wanted to kill Kenshin, and Tomoe is betrayed by them and captured to use as bait. Kenshin rushes in to rescue her, killing both his assailant and accidentally Tomoe, who jumps in at the last minute to save Kenshin from a fatal attack. Wanting to take revenge for the death of his sister, Enishi kidnaps Kaoru and leaves behind a tortured figure bearing a stunning resemblance of Kaoru for Kenshin to find and momentarily grieve over. Once discovering that Kaoru is alive, Kenshin and his friends set to rescue her. A battle between Kenshin and Enishi follows and when Kenshin wins, he and Kaoru return home. Five years later, Kenshin has married to Kaoru and has a son named Himura Kenji.

Movie 1


Title: 追憶編, Recollection or Reminiscence,
Title (romaji): Rurouni Kenshin: Tsuiokuhen
Title (english): Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal
Genre: Chanbara
Episodes: 4
Released date: 1999

Synopsis

The story starts off with a bandit raid. A young boy named Shinta is saved from death in the bandit raid by Hiko Seijuro. Hiko tells the boy to go to the nearby village and live there. Returning to the site of the attack, he finds Shinta still there, having buried all of the dead, including the bandits. Shinta expresses his regret for not being able to protect the ones he was with, so Hiko offers to properly train him to give him the power to protect. Hiko changes the boy's name to Kenshin, a name he felt was more appropriate for a swordsman.
Years later, during his time as a Hitokiri, Kenshin kills a bodyguard named Kiyosato Akira, who is the fiancé of Yukishiro Tomoe. The encounter with Kiyosato leaves Kenshin with the first half of his cross-shaped scar. After fighting with another assassin, Kenshin meets Tomoe. Kenshin takes her to the inn where he is residing, where the owner mistakes her for a prostitute and nearly sends her away. The presence of her there brings a sort of relief to the stressed men of the Choshu clan, but raises the suspicion of the leader, Katsura Kogoro, who has her investigated covertly.
After the Ikedaya affair, when Kenshin's cover as the shadow Hitokiri is blown, Katsura arranges for Kenshin and Tomoe to hide in the village of Otsu as husband and wife, so the two would not be suspected. After a few months, Tomoe's brother Enishi comes to visit and secretly reveals to his sister that the shogunate spies assigned to track down and kill Kenshin are close by, and that her revenge will be complete. Tomoe sends Enishi off, feeling ill at ease. It is here that Tomoe realises that she has fallen in love with Kenshin. The next day, Tomoe leaves the house and tries to persuade the shogunate men to give up their pursuit of Kenshin, and attempts to kill their leader. Tomoe fails.
The morning of Tomoe's disappearance, Kenshin is visited by a comrade who tells him that the one who set the assassin on him was Tomoe and that she is meeting at that moment with her co-conspirators.
On his way toward the house where Tomoe is supposed to be, Kenshin faces three of the four shogunate agents and becomes badly injured. While Kenshin is fighting with the fourth agent, Tomoe steps in between the two and gets killed in order to save Kenshin's life. Before her death, she gives him the second part of his cross-shaped wound. Kenshin takes her death hard and blames himself, swearing to fight to bring about the age desired by Katsura, and after that to continue fighting to protect down-trodden people without taking another life.

Movie 2


Title: 維新志士への鎮魂歌,
Title (romaji): Ishin Shishi e no Requiem
Title (english): Requiem for the Ishin Patriots
Genre: Chanbara
Episodes: 1
Released date: August 21, 1998

Synopsis

Which tells a story where Kenshin meets a samurai who was very close to a man Battōsai murdered in the war. The samurai are trying to start a revolution to overthrow the Meiji government.

Movie 3


Title: 星霜編, Time,
Title (romaji): Rurouni Kenshin: Seisōhen
Title (english): Samurai X: Reflection
Episodes: 2
Broadcast period: December 12, 2001

Synopsis

The OVA starts out as a montage of singular events surrounding the life of Kenshin Himura, told from the point of view of Kaoru Kamiya. Then the remainder of it involves Kenshin, who becomes tortured anew by the guilt of leading a happy life after such a destructive past. He makes the decision to wander again, and Kaoru strongly supports him, promising to welcome him home with a smile and their child. For fifteen years, he wanders, returning every once in a while.
However, this leads his son, Kenji Himura to hold resentment towards Kenshin for leaving them. Now in his adolescence, he leaves for Kyoto hoping to learn Hiten Mitsurugi-Ryu from Seijuro Hiko, hoping to be as strong as his father, and create his own legend. Soon however, Yahiko Myojin tracks him down at the request of Kaoru. He wears the mark of evil on his back, too. Yahiko duels him to show him the delusions of achieving his father's greatness. Yahiko admits that he is a genius and has natural talent as a swordsman. However, he knew that neither passion, discipline, nor skill would make Kenji superior to his father. So, in a one final strike, Yahiko lets Kenji experience the full brunt of Kenshin's Sakabatou; allowing Kenji to experience the strength of his father's philosophy firsthand. Falling to his knee, Yahiko presented Kenji with the Sakabatō as a late genpuku gift, hoping that now he'd realize that Kenshin's strength lay not in his ability to kill, but in his appreciation of life, his devotion and self-sacrifice to those in need.
Meanwhile, Kenshin eventually becomes ravaged by an unknown disease that is much like leprosy (the writers have admitted there is no medical explanation for Kenshin's condition). To share his pain, Kaoru convinces Kenshin to infect her with the disease through sexual intercourse. Kenshin then leaves to go assist in the First Sino-Japanese War (primarily over control of Korea) as he had promised the Meiji Government, not fighting and killing, but instead helping people.
After the war's end, Sanosuke discovers a very ill Kenshin sometime after he had fallen overboard on a ship. Sanosuke arranges Kenshin's return to Tokyo by boat. Upon arriving, a bed-ridden Kaoru, almost on instinct, gets up to walk outside the dojo on the cherry blossom path, seeing her husband struggling with each step to meet her.
The two finally meet, and Kenshin collapses into her arms as he clutches her to him. Kenshin tells Kaoru that he returned for her, and Kaoru quietly greets him with his old name, Shinta, for he had asked it before he left the last time. Soon, they end up beneath a cherry blossom tree, where Kaoru tells him that they will invite everyone for a cherry blossom viewing, and continue to gather in the years to come. With the silence growing stronger, Kaoru realizes that Kenshin has died quietly in her arms. Upon brushing his hair off his left cheek, Kaoru notices Kenshin's scar has faded away, signifying an end to his life of pain and bloodshed and commencement to a life of peace. In the final scene before the credits, she holds his head in her arms and weeps.
After the credits finish rolling, there is a scene which shows Kenshin and Kaoru's son, Kenji, walking with a young girl, Chizuru, beneath the cherry blossoms, saying that they will live happily together.

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