I do not agree with the score and some of the criticism , but nice review ! I also thought this show was going to have a lot of historical content then it went into onis and shyt haha -.- .
Hakuouki Shinsengumi Kitan tv Review
Chizuru Yukimura has come to Kyoto looking for her father, a doctor who has gone missing. While there, she witnesses a fight between an oni and the Shinsengumi. Taking her into custody, the Shinsengumi debate on what to do with Chizuru when they discover that she is the daughter of the doctor they are also looking for.
Story & Characters
When I watched the trailer of Hakuouki, I thought it was going to be an interesting show wrapped with attractive historical epicness, that was my first impression. And the reasons I watched it were because the artist was behind Trinity Blood and this is about the Shinsengumi. Sadly, the whole thing turned out to be the trashiest anime of the season as well as being one of the deadliest doomsday devices.
Set in the Bakumatsu era, a young girl named Yukimura Chizuru travels to Kyoto looking for her missing father. While there, she witnesses a fight between the Shinsengumi and Oni. Having been taken in custody, Chizuru discovers the Shinsengumi also looking for her father and decides to assist them in return for her father's whereabouts, and thus, relationships of the girl and the Shinsengumi commences. The plot began with a decent start, but only after you started watching, you get to see the idea of how BAD it is.
First off, start with the presentation or the slow-paced. I have experienced in all kind of anime with major pacing problems, but this show is TOO slow. Seriously, if you think that one episode progresses about ten percent portion of the story, then in Hakuouki, each episode could only proceed approximately two, three percent, while the rests are just ... eye-candy services. Needless to say, the whole plot is awfully awful, just about a girl got caught in a struggle between some guys want to protect her when others attempt to charm her into their ranks yet it repeats every time. How pathetic!
In many respects the elements composing the story are very typical: the government secretly creating super soldiers and willingly to get rid of any interferences; a missing doctor who at the same time the creator of that very project; a girl who must regularly be rescued by heroes and who gets used to manipulate said heroes; a special drink that grants extraordinary abilities but often results in nasty side effects; Chizuru's older brother, the same old "I'm bad because I was mistreated, I hate her because she had a better life" evil twin archetype, was there like no more developments for this guy?; a damsel in distress who frequently getting offers from an extremely sticky bastard, why the hell do they have to persistently keep on insisting her to join them when she ultimately refuses and why does she have to be so weak-willed? Such worthless characters!
But that's not all, if you think carefully, another lame aspect is the Shinsengumi and how they were portrayed. In history, a Shinsengumi captain is considered to be a one-man-army yet there was a part like three of them couldn't handle some inferior samurai. JUST as expected from a typical bishounen anime, they usually don't have the intensity of hardcore actions, but still, the fight scenes are so weak that it's questionable whether these guys can last in an actual fight against someone like Himura Kenshin. However, the worst of them is gotta be Hijikata; from the renowned demonic warrior he was, they degraded him to some random incompetent pretty boy. After a major hiccup, he realized his faults and vowed to become a better leader, not a very valid excuse.
Trust me, being a Japanese, I know how important the Shinsengumi is yet their Hakuouki counterparts are like insults to history. These clowns are not the Shinsengumi, they don't have the spirits. Honestly, a collaboration between studio Deen with popular seiyuus and this was the BEST THEY CAME UP WITH.
Rating:
Art
I'm not a fan of the art.
Nothing to say here, since this part was done by Nakajima Atsuko and studio Deen, but that's all it has. When comparing the art, Hakuouki may stand out as one of the finest with pretty characters, sadly, I can't help but feel frustrated about the actions scenes.
Rating:
Sound
The voices acting was partially acceptable, after all, they managed to recruit many well-known seiyuus. Even the most annoying character has a nice tune in his/her voice.
As for the piece of music, this might sound unfair but since I don't enjoy the anime, I usually skipped all the OP and went to the real deal. If I count, there were about three times I heard them, and I don't plan on watching again but I say they have a really good selection of music. Both the OP and ED are performed well using a smoothing singing voice with traditional Japanese music.
Rating:
Presentation
Conclusion, Hakuouki is a show for those into heavily used bishounen. Some people find it enjoyable, but from a
veteran's point of view, this whole series is just an EPIC facepalm. To put it simply, it uses the artworks to
blind the audiences, making them can't "judge a book by its cover." Personally, I don't have
anything against the bishi, it's nice to see pretty people once in a while, but I can't stand this series. In
fact, the first season was so disappointing that I restrain myself from continuing and I like to finish what I started;
I don't know and certainly don't give a *censored* about what new improvements it will have. Again, this is
just my personal opinions, you like it, good for you, but if you want an in-depth story with strong character
developments, then take my advice: don't waste your time.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
Story: 1
Characters: 1
Art: 6
Animation: 5
Voice: 5
Music: 5
Overall: 1
Good:
+Bishounen (if you're into that kind of stuff).
Bad:
+Read the above.
+History accuracy.
Rating:
Final Verdict
2.3333 (very poor)
Reviewed by Weskalia, Nov 16, 2010
Comments
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NightfallSV Nov 17, 2010
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linxxx Nov 17, 2010
Good review! I agree with what you said. Its 100% eye candy, with the most banal plot. I did enjoy the eye candy though))) heh ^_^
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yeppunda Nov 17, 2010
i agree. lots of eye candy with no plot. what a sad waste of all that eye candy. if they had even managed to string the events together weakly like in la corda doro, it would still have been watchable.
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xx-ataraxia Nov 19, 2010
Well this is what happens when adaptions of otome games are allowed to exist lmao. I couldn't stomach the series either. Just... ew. I'd take Gintama's rendition of the Shinsengumi over this nonsense any day.
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SchRita Dec 23, 2010
Oh, it's rare to see something rated this low...
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Warpten29 Jan 11, 2011
Great anime!
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kuryuki Apr 23, 2011
I actually agree with you quite a lot. because of the game art I was looking forward to the anime so much. but it really disappointed me ):
the art was, not doing the game any justice at all, and frankly i think it doesn't suit the type of show it is ):
and the story.....just happened to be one of those that i hated most: every guy love that one plain girl -.-
I didn't even want to bother finishing the series ): -
lupinchan Apr 27, 2011
the scans for the game was something to die for, the anime however was something that you died because of.
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xxBo0kn3rdxx May 06, 2011
Tiiime to play devil's advocate! XD
Okay, I can see where you're coming from. The thing that annoyed me the most about Hakuouki was that Chizuru has a kodachi and like...never friking uses it. And the one time she does (Kaoru battle), someone has to step in and save her. Or whatever happened then. Other than that, for an anime completely based off of an otome visual novel (of all things), it was pretty good. If it were not based off of an otome game I think it would have turned out quite differently (as in, more action-based and 10x more badass).
Even so, it was a reverse harem historical anime without a romance plot tumor. I thought that was pretty awesome in it of itself; none of the guys wasted time fighting over Chizuru and we barely saw her worrying over whether any of the guys liked her or not. Instead of a "reverse harem" feeling I got the impression that Chizuru was like a little sister figure to all the Shinsengumi until, well, Hijikata starts warming up to her and all that. And this was after everyone got killed off, so it's kind of understandable that he started to open up.
Also understandable is why everyone doted on her so much (other than that the anime tried to include stuff from everyone's routes); she's the only chick in the WHOLE compound. Moreover, Harada, Heisuke, and Shinpachi always make visits to Shimabara, so they're more inclined to hit on her and stuff, which is pretty much what ended up happening (I'm thinking about times like when Harada offers to warm up her hands by holding them in his). If you look closely, no one actually falls for Chizuru except for Hijikata at the waaaaay end.
As for Kaoru...yeah, I would have liked to see more happen with him. But I loved that he was a yandere. I feel that he could have been made into like...the super ultimate yandere if he had gotten more screen time, but whatever, he's Okita's main enemy, not Hijikata's. My main problem with him was that he looked EXACTLY like Chizuru. They're fraternal twins. Fraternal twins are not identical.
I liked the little details as far as history goes. Harada really was accused for the murder of Sakamoto Ryouma, Heisuke really did get a wound on the forehead during the Ikedaya incident, Okita did have tuberculosis, etc. etc. As a Korean taking a Japanese language class, I enjoyed seeing at least an overview of the Shinsengumi (post-Serizawa, that is). I got pretty attached to the characters as well (mostly because I had played the original game before watching the anime >.>;; ), so the second season was like one long cathartic trip. IMHO, the second season's OST >>>>>>> first season's OST.
The introduction of ochimizu and rasetsu were actually quite necessary. How else would Chizuru be able to enter the Shinsengumi? She's a female whose only talents seem to be making tea and doing chores. And screaming everyone's names when they get injured during a fight. *facepalms* Making her the daughter of the mad scientist...er...doctor that everyone is looking for gives her an excellent reason to stay. Well, and she can treat wounds too, but that's still not a good enough reason to let a woman stay in Shinsengumi quarters. The whole oni thing was necessary.
Kazama's motivation behind kidnapping Chizuru was kind of a wall-banger in my opinion as well. Well, I guess it was a little understandable. Oni mating with another oni = stronger oni = revenge against humankind? Well, I suppose. He wouldn't even exist if it weren't a staple in otome games to have the option of falling in love with the enemy. XD But damn, he is made of sexy. His voice, too. My goodness.
Anime aside (and I know we're only supposed to be talking about the anime here), the games and drama CDs did a much better job of characterization, in my opinion. The prequel, Reimeiroku, is probably the best for character development and really goes into the characters' histories and motivations for joining the Shinsengumi. Not to mention that Reimeiroku's original character is a dude (Chizuru only shows up in epilogues). And his overly impolite attitude is awesome. The Shinsengumi executives' "one-man army" qualities are better shown in Reimeiroku, too.
All in all, for an anime based off of a game clearly marketed toward females, it ended up being much better than it could have been. I mean, the plot was totally created with the intent to make a fantasy for teenaged girls. Imagine how much worse it could have ended up...and yet it surprisingly averted a lot of cliches seen in reverse harem anime, which I can appreciate. If you were to compare this to shonen anime, then yes, it's horrible and totally deserves that rating of 2.33. But as far as anime based off of otome games go, it's one of the better ones. Better than it could have been.
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Schmuck13 Sep 11, 2012
I think this is review is biased toward Bishis! Sure the characters are Bishi's, but you know what?! At least they have put some actual effort into these characters to make them more human than most people I know! and they're actually allot less stereotypical then allot of shounen stories i know of too!
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Weskalia Sep 11, 2012
Quote by Schmuck13I think this is review is biased toward Bishis! Sure the characters are Bishi's, but you know what?! At least they have put some actual effort into these characters to make them more human than most people I know! and they're actually allot less stereotypical then allot of shounen stories i know of too!
What part about this review is biased toward Bishis, didn't you see that I actually complained about them? What effort? I don't see any, they're still just a bunch of cool guys wannabe, and they never tried to improve the effort. It's still the same no matter where they go. A lot of shounen stories are actually better written than this, because they have more emotion than the stereotypical type who jumps into saving an awful damsel in distress.
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