|
Plutonis posted:Yeah I think the most striking part of RK is how only Kaoru, Yahiko and Sanosuke get stronger and it's on believable ways. And Aoshi, kind of.
|
#
?
Oct 11, 2017 22:15
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 13:06 |
|
|
Exercu posted:And Aoshi, kind of. Also, you know. Kenshin when he learns the succession techniques.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 00:48
|
|
|
Caros posted:Also, you know. Kenshin when he learns the succession techniques. well, sorta. its pretty heavily implied that if he were fully in Battousai mode he'd pretty much run over shishio and co i think, but he definitely gets stronger from the start of the series until the last fight with shishio, at which point he gets weaker due to his body breaking down
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 03:32
|
|
|
Battousai was believably terrifying, but in that respect trust & betrayal really helped. I agree the OVAs hosed up the tone, but I try to take what I can from them.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 04:01
|
|
|
tbp posted:well, sorta. its pretty heavily implied that if he were fully in Battousai mode he'd pretty much run over shishio and co i think, but he definitely gets stronger from the start of the series until the last fight with shishio, at which point he gets weaker due to his body breaking down Maybe. My reading was that he was pretty much burned out by the time he actually got to the Shishio fight, but that once he got back up from his nap and the visual manifestation of his Kenki kicked in, he was supposed to be at his old level, but in control. Even what you see him do once he is actually in fighting form is night and day. I don't actually agree that he was any weaker for the Jinchuu arc, howeve. Sanosuke certainly doesn't suggest it, despite having seen all three fights. Megumi doesn't bring up the whole 'your body is breaking down' until the epilogue, though it is hinted at slightly earlier. He gets help from his friends in the leadup to the finale, but that has more to do with the fact that he somehow went two weeks without eating, sleeping or getting treatment for the brutal asskicking Enishi laid down on him in the first round. tbp posted:i only read the enishi arc this time around but honestly, not a huge fan of most of it. enishi himself just isn't that compelling and is one of the weaker designs for the main villains, though it's hard to top someone as distinctly horrifying as shishio. i did like that they didn't really up the ante it terms of skill and had kenshin failing because 1) his mental block re: anything concerning tomoe and 2) his body was literally starting to fall apart. lack of power creep is a nice thing in a shonen and is one thing RK does really well throughout, hell the protag is almost never seen at his maximum strength. not much really more to say about this arc but i was always glad with how it ended, kenshin is so incredibly endearing. Gonna throw spoiler tags here on the off chance anyone hasn't read the back third of the manga, since it was never really animated well. Personally, I gotta disagree with this one. Enishi, for me at least, is a way more entertaining villain than Shishio, if only because his motivation is tied in more directly with the characters we know. Shishio runs a nebulously strong military organization that he wants to use to take over Japan. Enishi wants to specifically drive Kenshin to suicide by ennui. Likewise, you have to give Enishi some credit for a lot of the planning he did. He beats Kenshin's finisher not because of a mental block or any weakness on Kenshin's part, but in the same way Shishio tried to, by baiting it out with an underling so he knew what he was up against. I'll agree that most of the arc villains were sort of meh, save for Gein, but Enishi is probably my favorite villain in the series because of his parallels to Kenshin, both in background and in fighting style. Most of the villains in Kenshin have only one or two special moves. Izuna for Raijuta, Jin-e's Shin no Ippo, Aoshi's handful of gimmicks and so forth. Enishi was the only one who had a full anime protagonist worth of special moves, which makes him a neat foil. Admittedly, I'm probably biased since the arc contains all three of my favorite moments The Ryu Mei Sen resheathing to shut down Enishi's gimmick superpower, Kenshin beating the everloving poo poo out of Enishi with his fists after having the succession technique broken and getting nearly cut in half because he went after Karou, and the holy gently caress moment of Karou pinned to the wall with a cross shaped cut on her cheek. It also has the single best 'supporting cast fights a conveniently equal number of bad guys they can pair off neatly against' moment in any anime I've seen. The four stars get an introductory episode, pair off, and then it takes a single chapter for each of their fights, just long enough to give an entertaining 'Oh, X is on his back foot how will he... oh, he wrecked the guy, cool.' moment for each without having to draw it out for twenty chapters like... say, Bleach. quote:Finally, we find out how Kenshin gets an incurable disease that kills him in a bad movie nobody liked. The thing that bothered me most about the movie is how its ending explicitly shits on the series ending by having his scar fade when he dies. The manga isn't even coy about this, the entire point of the Jinchuu arc is that death isn't forgiveness, that living a good life honors sacrifices, but doesn't wash them out. I mean, it was a poo poo movie to begin with, but how they missed that is just baffling to me.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 04:47
|
|
|
I think that Shishio is a better foil to Kenshin, he's got power, charisma and aspirations that make him much more threatening than Enishi. What Enishi has over Shishio is that he's the manifestation of Kenshin's sins coming back to haunt him and he's a much better end boss to close off Kenshin's character development with. Comparing their fights, Shishio's is a grandiose climactic showdown where everyone has to team up and help wear him down instead of standing on the sidelines commenting like in every other series, it is like reading the platonic ideal of a battle manga climax. Enishi's battle is more nontraditional, which has its pros (insanely sick first arc) and cons (I liked the resolution of the final battle(s) but I can see why some find it disappointing). Ultimately it doesn't scratch the same itch for a good big ol' brawl with the fate of A lot of the flak that Enishi gets is probably due to his motivation. People don't like characters obsessed with vengeance. I disagree with them but, well, thinking about prominent examples in recent years, I can understand why they don't. 
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 07:40
|
|
|
I really liked Shishio as a villain better than Enishi, though I don't think Shishio would have been a good final villain cause that would sorta end the series on a gloomy note, considering the whole thing about Shishio's ideals coming to fruition even after his death because the government pretty much went down the path that he intended to take it. I also just really enjoyed the conclusion of the arc, the small exchange between Yakihiko and Kenshin on the whole might = right ideology, the entire thing with the government employing (most of) the very rebels it put down, Houji's despair with how the government wouldn't even dare give him a fair trial despite the magnitude of Shishio's rebellion, etc. etc.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 08:06
|
|
|
one thing im not terribly great on, though i've done some reading now, is the historical context of RK. from what i can gather basically its kinda as follows: - the shogun is the military leader who weilds all the real power in the country but defers to the emperor in purely ceremonial fashion. shogun dominates him otherwise and is the real leader - samurai were a sort of nobility class that were loyal to the shogun, but they were decreasing in importance around the time of RK - some clans in japan decided that they needed to restore the real power to the emperor and his family, kenshin sides with these guys and they eventually win - saito was on the shoguns side a big mental thing i had to overcome was thinking that this was actually some massive civil war within japan. upon rereading, even tho im still not super clear on a lot of it, it was a big more contained than i woudl think. was kenshins side OK with western influences and the shogun not? if anyone could kinda simply explain this stuff to me i'd really appreciate it
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 17:32
|
|
|
They need an arc where Tomoe comes back as a zombie and is enraged at Kenshin's betrayal due to him shacking up with Kaori. I hope Sano gets to do stuff in this series, since he's my favorite (my second AIM handle in middle school was Zanza81). His ability is pretty cool too (futae no kiwami I think?).
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 18:37
|
|
|
Kenshin's side was anti-foreigner actually, and it was the shogunate that pro-foreigner. They backpedaled when they won, so the war was more about shogunate vs the emperor really, but I'm simplifying a lot. It was more dissatisfaction with how the shogunate was handling foreigners, and the Emperor giving orders to the Shogunate to expel foreigners, which did not obey. Eventually samurai rallied to the Emperor's side to basically fight to restore power to him, and they won.
Allarion fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Oct 12, 2017 |
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 18:39
|
|
|
Basically, the incident that kicked off the Meiji Restoration was the arrival of Perry's Black Ships, all but demanding that isolationist Japan open itself up to the rest of the world. Japan, being terribly underindustrialized, uneducated and frankly politically medieval compared to the western world, begrudgingly agreed. The cultural, political and economic backlash was part of what led to the war in Ruroken's backstory, with Kenshin on the side of the revolutionaries. Saito and Aoshi sided with the Tokugawa, the emperor that the revolutionaries fought against. Sano was a member of a peasant army that fought alongside the revolution but then were betrayed. One of the biggest things the Restoration did was the removal of the social caste-like system, in which samurai were nobility with hereditary civil administration roles. This, obviously, pissed a lot of them off and led to many of Ruroken's antagonists being bitter samurai. Someone please correct me if I'm loving up something in my gross oversimplification of historical events.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 18:44
|
|
|
Replace emperor with shogunate and you'd be mostly right. The Meiji restoration kinda worked against its own interests in the aftermath, since a lot of samurai who supported it initially ended up losing their ranking due to the abolishment of the caste system, as well as backpedaling on expelling all foreigners. This made some samurai upset, which led to the events of The Last Samurai, and probably a lot of villains in Kenshin now that I think about it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 18:53
|
|
|
GimmickMan posted:Basically, the incident that kicked off the Meiji Restoration was the arrival of Perry's Black Ships, all but demanding that isolationist Japan open itself up to the rest of the world. Japan, being terribly underindustrialized, uneducated and frankly politically medieval compared to the western world, begrudgingly agreed. The cultural, political and economic backlash was part of what led to the war in Ruroken's backstory, with Kenshin on the side of the revolutionaries. Saito and Aoshi sided with the Tokugawa, the emperor that the revolutionaries fought against. Sano was a member of a peasant army that fought alongside the revolution but then were betrayed. One of the biggest things the Restoration did was the removal of the social caste-like system, in which samurai were nobility with hereditary civil administration roles. This, obviously, pissed a lot of them off and led to many of Ruroken's antagonists being bitter samurai. Getting back to the caste system: so yes there is this element of samurai as administrators, but much of that is CAUSED by the Meiji, not abolished by it. Lower class samurai families who had slowly been bled out by Tokugawa tax policies and the lack of actual wars for them to fight and make money in hopped on board the bandwagon and would become Meiji functionaries after the war, joining the nascent middle class in dominance. Much like in many of the 19th century European revolutions, the ones who lose out here are much of the old landed nobility, who are shoved from their cushy positions by their would-be vassals and (what would become) the capitalist class. The sorts of ronin burnouts you see in Kenshin tend to be less people who are SYSTEMICALLY locked out by the new system per-se and more ideological die hards and loyalists (and giants, corpse puppeteers, and would-be assassins turned dictators of course).
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 19:48
|
|
|
Basically, imagine what would happen to our society if aliens with invincible technology showed up and told the United States to institute Full Communism Now or watch the entire eastern seaboard be burned to the ground. BTW, they'll be back in a year to see how we're doing. That's roughly analogous to the situation Perry's Black Ships put Japan in that kicked off this whole era.
|
|
#
?
Oct 12, 2017 20:09
|
|
|
SgtMongoose posted:Basically, imagine what would happen to our society if aliens with invincible technology showed up and told the United States to institute Full Communism Now or watch the entire eastern seaboard be burned to the ground. BTW, they'll be back in a year to see how we're doing. When does this book go on sale?
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 00:38
|
|
|
My favorite thing about the Enishi arc was actually the moment when Yahiko is like "I don't care if I'm ten, I'm gonna go fight the weird giant with the gun hand" and acts really badass. The moment the leaf blows up because he's going for it is my favorite moment in that arc. It feels really nice to see him going from weak pickpocket at the beginning of the series to what he becomes. Hope we see more of Yahiko being great in the new series now that he's grown up.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 01:31
|
|
|
Yahiko......is good.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 02:34
|
|
|
tbp posted:one thing im not terribly great on, though i've done some reading now, is the historical context of RK. from what i can gather basically its kinda as follows: Play Completely Historical Game "Way of the Samurai 4" to find out more
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 02:43
|
|
|
My favorite Kenshin move is the one when he's doing that chain against Shishio and one of his attacks involves flipping. The most impractical looking sword technique.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 03:34
|
|
|
Hopeford posted:My favorite thing about the Enishi arc was actually the moment when Yahiko is like "I don't care if I'm ten, I'm gonna go fight the weird giant with the gun hand" and acts really badass. The moment the leaf blows up because he's going for it is my favorite moment in that arc. It feels really nice to see him going from weak pickpocket at the beginning of the series to what he becomes. Hope we see more of Yahiko being great in the new series now that he's grown up. I'm actually looking forward to the next chapter since this one teased an actual match between the two of them. It should be an interesting way to gauge how far one has come and the other has fallen. Ytlaya posted:My favorite Kenshin move is the one when he's doing that chain against Shishio and one of his attacks involves flipping. The most impractical looking sword technique. Only vaguely related, but one of the most fun things they tease throughout the jinchuu arc is that we are missing out on about 1/3rd of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu techniques on account of Kenshin being unable to thrust with the sakabatou. The flashback gave us Ryu Tsui Sen - Zan with the point down (brutal as hell) and the Gein fight showed a comparatively normal thrust. Fingers crossed that Hiko stumbles by to teach clown a fool and/or give kenshin something to help hold together for the arc.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 03:59
|
|
|
I would rather an adaption of the Enishi arc into anime than more manga, though without Satou's original voice actor it might not be the same. Still, Kenshin was my favorite series for a while so I'll give this a shot.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 04:05
|
|
|
Ccs posted:I would rather an adaption of the Enishi arc into anime than more manga, though without Satou's original voice actor it might not be the same. Why not both? Honestly, I would be completely shocked if the manga revival doesn't result in a Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood style revival where they summarize the early series, then take on the two arcs that have never been properly animated. The series has had two new animated movies and three live action adaptations in the last half decade, wouldn't be a real surprise to see them finish up a popular work.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 04:40
|
|
|
I'd be super down for that, HxH 2011 and FMA: Brotherhood were great remakes. Though I liked FMA: Brotherhood a bit less on a rewatch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 13, 2017 04:51
|
|
|
i haven't fully watched the live actions, just some clips on youtube that got suggested when i was rewatching the series, but it actually looks pretty good. the final melee vs shishio in particular is choreographed really well
|
|
#
?
Oct 17, 2017 22:44
|
|
|
Shinjobi posted:Yahiko......is good. I remember not really liking him when I was a kid, but he really grew on me when I went through the series again(especially when I read the manga).
|
|
#
?
Oct 18, 2017 06:31
|
|
|
http://readms.net/r/rurouni_kenshin_hokkaido_arc/002/4636/1
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 05:08
|
|
|
Shinjobi posted:Yahiko......is good. This still applies.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 18:37
|
|
|
My favorite thing about Kenshin is that a reversed blade sword would still kill/maim the gently caress out of people. It's like hitting someone with a steel bar.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 19:19
|
|
|
anime people are made of sterner stuff
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 19:21
|
|
|
Also Kenshin holds back
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 19:22
|
|
|
Never watched the anime, haven't read the original manga run in nearly 15 years now. While reading this thread I had to look up who Megumi was. Super happy for new Kenshin though, it's really nostalgic for me and reminds me of good times when I used to read it.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 19:25
|
|
|
Enishi gets poo poo on because his orange and purple outfit is ugly as sin. Good villain otherwise. My main complaint about the arc is that only Apokolips and the corpse puppeteer have any presence. The others felt phoned in.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 19:51
|
|
|
Rangpur posted:Enishi gets poo poo on because his orange and purple outfit is ugly as sin. You take that back before I declare earthly motherfucking justice on you.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 21:50
|
|
|
Oh man I forgot how silly the villains are in Kenshin. Then again the Kyoto arc had a guy as big as a house so I guess these new ones aren't too much of a stretch.
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 22:20
|
|
|
I like the part where Saitou almost defeats Shishio and just gets really unlucky and happens to hit him where he had a metal band. If he had just aimed somewhere else the fight would have suddenly ended in a really anticlimactic way. (Or at least IIRC Shishio was actually caught off guard and didn't purposely move his headband thing in the way of Saitou's sword.)
|
|
#
?
Oct 19, 2017 23:30
|
|
|
Ccs posted:Oh man I forgot how silly the villains are in Kenshin. Then again the Kyoto arc had a guy as big as a house so I guess these new ones aren't too much of a stretch. i had this same reaction, its pretty jarring when your most recent exposure is Trust and Betrayal lol Ytlaya posted:I like the part where Saitou almost defeats Shishio and just gets really unlucky and happens to hit him where he had a metal band. If he had just aimed somewhere else the fight would have suddenly ended in a really anticlimactic way. nah its like the ONE time shishio can't see something coming, every other attack (even the amekekaru ryo no hirameki) he's able to fully comprehend and react to. he fuckin catches kenshins one attack at one point with two fingers lol.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2017 00:55
|
|
|
I thought Kenshin manages to get him with the ama kakeru ryuu no hirameki's black hole suction thing and it just doesn't manage to finish Shishio off.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2017 07:38
|
|
|
I wish I had a better look to the re-designed (re-imagined?) Rurouni Kenshin characters.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2017 07:53
|
|
|
Ytlaya posted:I thought Kenshin manages to get him with the ama kakeru ryuu no hirameki's black hole suction thing and it just doesn't manage to finish Shishio off. Yeah, Shishio learns about the Ama Kakeru Ryuu no Hirameki from Sojiro and is therefore prepared to block it...but Sojiro has only seen the first part of the attack (because it beat him), so Shishio is completely unprepared for the second half and he gets hurt pretty badly. The fight is practically over at that point though.
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2017 08:20
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 2, 2024 13:06 |
|
|
Rangpur posted:Enishi gets poo poo on because his orange and purple outfit is ugly as sin. Good villain otherwise. My main complaint about the arc is that only Apokolips and the corpse puppeteer have any presence. The others felt phoned in. TBH other than Venom mole dude the other two really are just there to fight and didn't gave a poo poo about the people that Kenshin killed
|
|
#
?
Oct 20, 2017 13:45
|
|