There was once a tragic war, which was involved the power of demons. After the war, the power of demons was banned and world peace returned. Cecily Campbell is a "gentleman" who has been looking for a blacksmith to repair the old sword given by his father. One day he sees a man who fights against a type that uses the power of the devil prohibited. Man defeats him with a sword in strange ways. The man turned out to be a blacksmith named Luke. The fateful meeting was the beginning of the adventure ...
Credit: Roy-Cheke
The Sacred Blacksmith/Seiken no Blacksmith is an anime produced by manglobe (Samurai Champloo, Ergo Proxy) which was based off of the manga, written by Isao Miura with illustrations provided by K?tar? Yamada. The manga itself was an adaptation of the light novels produced by the same author, with illustrations from Luna.
The Sacred Blacksmith is a fantasy-based, 12 episode story that follows two protagonist. The first of which is is
red-haired young woman named Cecily Cambell. Miss Cambell comes from three generations of knights and during the start
of the story she has only been with The Knight Guards of Housman, which is part of the Third City of the Independent
Trade Cities, for only a month. The second,Luke Ainsworth, is as talented of a swordsman as he is a blacksmith, living
only with a young girl named Lisa as his assistant. The cast is joined with a unique companion named Aria, who has a
bit of an interesting secret about her. The story itself is fairly cliché in terms of fantasy-styled anime stories go.
Boy and girl work to overcome the greater evil that is striving to take over the town and along the way some
interesting characters are introduced. We are also introduced to a great deal of character growth, discovery, and an
overall bond is formed during the twelve-episode journey taken. However, The Sacred Blacksmith suffers from severe
pacing problems, most of which occur midway through the story. While normally not a problem, this causes things to come
to a screeching halt and don't pick up until three episodes have pass. Unfortunately, the series never properly
recovers and what were originally a few plot holes within the series now become immense. Aspects of the greater evil
that threatened the city, the history of the demon swords, why the main villain chose to attack the town in the first
place. These are some of the major points that never get proper coverage and for some that can be unforgiving.
However, with some enjoyable characters and interesting episodes, The Sacred Blacksmith does the best it can to keep you
entertained and for the most, it does a good job of doing that.
Rating:
The Sacred Blacksmith takes on more of a look that I've seen common with other manglobe anime series. While this isn't a bad thing, it certainly differs from the look the manga developed. It also brings over a great amount of quality too, as the majority of fights are fast paced and well animated. I especially enjoyed watching Luke's magical forge creation of a katana in battle with Lisa. Environments are well drawn and given very lush treatment and the characters flow rather well. I noticed a few blips here and there throughout my viewing, but overall the quality is rather nice.
Rating:
I've watched both the English and Japanese dub of The Sacred Blacksmith and I have to give a bit more of a hand to the Japanese version. While I enjoyed the English vocals, Nobuhiko Okamoto and Ayumi Fujimura ((Japanese VA for Luke Ainsworth and Cecily Cambell) were a much better fit for each character. This isn't to discredit FUNimation on their translation, or Blake Shepard and Cherami Leigh (English VA for Luke and Cecily), it's just the Japanese cast overall gave the series that extra depth that helped me get attached to the characters. The overall music score is fairly standard fair for medieval styled animes, but was more than exceptional for the series. While not memorable, it certainly added depth to the emotional scenes and really got you into the battles
Rating:
Unfortunately, The Sacred Blacksmith is a mess when it comes to presentation. Having not read the manga or novels, I cannot say if the story is done the same as it was in the anime. However, I can definitely say the anime is almost unwatchable if you absolutely hate plot holes and useless filler. While the first act of the series is brilliantly constructed, it does run somewhat slow. Despite this, there is no lack of depth or plot progression. Sadly, during episodes 6-9, we are introduced to Charlotte E. Firobisher and her three servants/bodyguards; Doris, Margot and Penelope. These episodes would best be described as filler at its absolute worst. What's worse is in the 9th episode, there is a scene that the viewer is forced to view that left me completely boggled and dumbfounded. Not since the Knight Hunters (Weiß Kreuz) ending have I ever been so frustrated by a scene in an anime series before. While the series picks up steam once again for the remainder, a lot of critical plot elements are left out and the show is left on a cliff-hanger. This is especially noticed during the final two episodes, as certain events that happen will have you scratching your head wondering, "Why is this happening?". Since there is no future plans, at the moment, to do a second season, we are left feeling betrayed.
Overall, I'm torn. The Sacred Blacksmith is a show I've been waiting for some time to come out on DVD. I love the characters, and thankfully the jokes towards Cecily being well-endowed (as well as the frontal nudity) are few and far between. This helped me really enjoyed what The Sacred Blacksmith had to offer. However, because of some seriously major shortcomings and a completely useless section in the series really hurt the overall fluidity of the show. What should of been a wonderful anime only ends up being simply mediocre and that is truly a shame. If you enjoy fantasy stories and don't mind any of the short comings I listed, I highly recommend looking into The Sacred Blacksmith.
Rating:
6.1667 (average)
Reviewed by CyanideBlizzard, Jan 22, 2011
Congratulation on your first review Cy!
I remember this series and I thought it was promising, then like what you said, it descended to extreme facepalm and crap. Heh heh!
Siriusly, last episodes occasionally felt like a rush, lack character developments, plot became dull. Overall, it looked like it had potential then ruined by the weak logic and oversiriusness.
Thank you!
I think I ended up being more disappointed by the shortcomings of this series because I had a chance to watch a few episodes before it was dubbed over and I absolutely loved it. Getting a chance to see it fully through only severed to be more disappointing than anything else, which is really too bad.
But really Luke one scene how he looks at her with a thumbs up could be the possible best moment in anime history.
Forgotten the episode, but overall yeah... It didn't give a great impression as others.
Nice job Blizzard-kun.
Thanks, it's really well done. I think I could understand somethins I couldn't while I watched that.
I'm grateful for this review because I was planning on watching this anime.
Since I have seen this show myself, I totally agree with you Blizzard. The three filler episodes killed the show for me and I could tell the ending was rushed. I really wanted to enjoy this, and in the beginning I did, but by the end I was left feeling disappointed and confused.
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