I first saw Tsuiokuhen (aka Samurai X: Trust and Betrayal) on PPV maybe four years ago. The English dub was horrid. Nevertheless, the beauty of the story shines through.
It's 1864 and Japan has been in the grip of a bloody war for over a decade. Into the fray comes Himura Kenshin, a young man with great sword skills and high ideals to match them. Unfortunately, he is put into the role of assassin and quickly begins to lose his humanity as he kills and kills, but doesn't see his ideals come to fruition.
One night, he kills a bodyguard who manages to wound him on the cheek before being done in on Kenshin's sword. The wound doesn't heal up properly and bleeds whenever Kenshin kills someone.
A few months later, he meets up with a beautiful, but grief-stricken young woman named Tomoe who sees him kill a shogunate supporter. Unable to bring himself to kill her, Kenshin instead takes her to the Patriots' inn where she becomes a maid of all work.
Bit by bit, Tomoe opens Kenshin's eyes to what he is doing and the wrongness of it. In the end, he learns the hard way that every time he kills someone, he robs innocent people of their happiness.
Vastly different in tone from the Rurouni Kenshin anime series or even the manga, this is understandable as Kenshin is not the Rurouni we know and love, but an assassin on the razor's edge of madness. The sombre tone fits the time period in which this story takes place.
I would love to give this story a perfect ten, but a plot diversion from the original manga, namely the reduced role of Yukishiro Enishi to a mere bystander, forces me to give it a nine instead.
This OVA can be taken as part of the entire Rurouni Kenshin saga or as its own beautiful Japanese love tragedy. Either way, I highly recommend it.
It's 1864 and Japan has been in the grip of a bloody war for over a decade. Into the fray comes Himura Kenshin, a young man with great sword skills and high ideals to match them. Unfortunately, he is put into the role of assassin and quickly begins to lose his humanity as he kills and kills, but doesn't see his ideals come to fruition.
One night, he kills a bodyguard who manages to wound him on the cheek before being done in on Kenshin's sword. The wound doesn't heal up properly and bleeds whenever Kenshin kills someone.
A few months later, he meets up with a beautiful, but grief-stricken young woman named Tomoe who sees him kill a shogunate supporter. Unable to bring himself to kill her, Kenshin instead takes her to the Patriots' inn where she becomes a maid of all work.
Bit by bit, Tomoe opens Kenshin's eyes to what he is doing and the wrongness of it. In the end, he learns the hard way that every time he kills someone, he robs innocent people of their happiness.
Vastly different in tone from the Rurouni Kenshin anime series or even the manga, this is understandable as Kenshin is not the Rurouni we know and love, but an assassin on the razor's edge of madness. The sombre tone fits the time period in which this story takes place.
I would love to give this story a perfect ten, but a plot diversion from the original manga, namely the reduced role of Yukishiro Enishi to a mere bystander, forces me to give it a nine instead.
This OVA can be taken as part of the entire Rurouni Kenshin saga or as its own beautiful Japanese love tragedy. Either way, I highly recommend it.