Hokuto no Ken – True Saviour Legend part 4 – Legend of Toki

The 4th part of True Saviour Legend is an OVA that focuses on Toki. The main focus is on the fight between Raoh and Toki, but there are also various scenes from times prior to the apocalypse and scenes of what Toki was doing after it.

It’s a little confusing how all the events of this OVA take place before Legend of Raoh II, but this OVA was released after it. Mayby it’s because they wanted every other part of True Saviour Legend to be a movie and the others to be OVAs.

While the fight between Toki and Raoh is pretty good, it’s not quite as awesome as Kenshiro’s fights against Raoh and Souther. Then again, those were movies with obviously bigger budget for animation and such. Also, it was night when Toki and Raoh fought, so a lot of details were simply ignored, because it was too dark to see them.

Since the Legend of Toki is only about 57 minutes long a lot of things have been slightly rushed or omitted completely. For example, the reunion of Hokuto brothers where Toki and Kenshiro fight Raoh was completely omitted. I would’ve liked to see it.

While Legend of Toki is a good OVA, it’s not quite as good as the previous parts of True Saviour Legend. Still, it’s worth seeing for the fight between Toki and Raoh.

The Anime Blog Awards

Go to The Anime Blog Awards and nominate your favourite anime-related blogs in various categories. It seems like you must have an anime blog of your own to nominate blogs. See the website for further infromation.

Shigurui

When the words “samurai anime” are mentioned, most people instantly think of animes like Rurouni Kenshin and various other shonen titles with lots of fiction and very little fact. While history of Japan in general and stories from the Sengoku period are popular themes in seinen manga, barely any of them ever make their way into animes. Shigurui is one of the lucky few such mangas that’ve been made into animes.

The biggest selling point of Shigurui is gore. Yes, there’s no use to deny it. The story and characters don’t have much depth, but man, the gore in Shigurui is awesome! The blood actually looks like blood and not just bright red mess. The violence is extremely detailed, and if I’m allowed to say so, truly beautiful. I also like the kenjutsu featured in Shigurui. While it’s not exactly realistic. It sure looks more convincing than the usual bullshit swordplay with all the flashy techniques that look rather silly.

The story of Shigurui is decent at the best. It had a lot of potential to turn into something better, but the ending is absolutely incomplete. As the last episode ends, you’ll probably get the feeling that you’ve just seen the first part of the story, but there is no more to see. Now I’m hoping that the manga is translated to see if there’s more to the story than this.

If you’re into gore and kenjutsu at all and you think you can deal with the incomplete end, Shigurui is a highly recommendable anime to watch. Otherwise, it’s nothing special and there’s no particular reasons to bother with it.

Kami-Kaze

Although Shiki Satoshi’s Kami-Kaze is marketed as “blood and guts” manga, I find the symbolical side of the story a lot more fascinating and that’s something I want to talk about. But before that, let’s take a look at the story itself:

Everything begins one thousand years ago when monsters known as 88 Beasts threaten humanity. The beasts were defeated by chiefs of five tribes of Kegai no Tami. However, the beasts placed a curse, which would make them to resurrect the 88 Beasts, on two of the tribes. The story begins in the present day where the tribes of fire and wind have took actions to begin the resurrection. The tribes of water and earth have chosen to prevent the resurrection and fight the Kegai no Tami from tribes of fire and wind.

The first volume begins with Kegai no Tami from tribes of fire and wind searching for Mikogami Misao, the chief of the water tribe, in Tokyo. The chief the earth tribe, Ishigami Kamuro, is also searching for Misao, but his intention is to protect her and prevent the other tribes from resurrecting the 88 Beasts.

While Kami-Kaze is an action manga with detailed and well-drawn action scenes, there’s also deeper side to the story. And I don’t use the word “deep” just because some think that calling things “deep” instantly makes them better. Perish the thought. First of all, the battle between humanity and the 88 Beasts is not just a battle between good and evil. Instead, it’s a perfectly natural conflict between two separate parts of the nature that simply cannot coexist. And as the natural selection goes, only the most fit survive. Stuff like this happens in the real nature as well.

Another thing I like a lot is how the protagonists and antagonists are virtually the same. Like I already said, there is no evil on the either side. They’re both Kegai no Tami and only their goals separate them from each other. I find it refreshing that Kami-Kaze doesn’t simply divide it’s characters into good guys and bad guys. Actually, one could say that there aren’t really protagonists and antagonists, just people with different beliefs, which causes conflicts between them. This is much like real life as well.

Kami-Kaze is obviously a work of fiction and it doesn’t even try to be realistic, but these two concepts, the survival of the fittest and the conflicts of beliefs, are stuff everyone faces in their lives. While I’d hardly call Kami-Kaze thought-invoking, saying it’s just “blood and guts” with no depth at all wouldn’t be right either. Instead it’s an action manga, with an interesting story that actually has a meaning. Such stories have become rare in the flood of all the action mangas with their meaningless stories.

If you’re interested in action manga that’s more than just “blood and guts”, Kami-Kaze is exactly what you’re looking for.