Review of Rurouni Kenshin: Meiji Kenkaku Romantan (2023)

I’ve seen many comparisons with the previous anime which I found a bit unfair so I thought why not write something about it? With my own take on said comparisons.

In terms of visuals, this remake follows the same idea as the new Bastard!! which was also made by LIDENFILMS. Compared to the previous adaptation, the overall artwork here is more consistent and doesn’t have the same quality drops, and of course the characters look closer to what you can find somewhere else this day, instead of the typical 90s look they had in the 1996 anime. The models are also more consistent, as another decision made with this series was to be more faithful to the source material, which means that this show has less comedy which in turn is not as exaggerated, and thus the characters don’t turn into chibis during the funny moments. Still, from what I’ve seen and read, even the manga has more comedy than this, so clearly there´s an idea of presenting an overall more serious story.
With that said, at some point even the artwork begins to suffer from quality drops and being more inconsistent and with the character models going off.

The coloring is also obviously different from how it was back then, and even the directing seems to focus more on showing the characters, with very little of the backgrounds and even less long shots. A good example of this is the scene where Kenshin closes the door of the dojo and goes towards Kaworu on the first episode. Which is also the reason why the backgrounds on this newer version are such a mixed bag, all the crowds besides the main characters talking and moving instead of just standing still is fine, but the buildings and environment look so…uninspired and unpolished, especially every time that grass and water are shown.

The special effects are overall ok in both versions but don’t really make sense in either of them, as sparks and beams come out when swords clash or just move during an attack. Well, I guess not much can be done when the action is limited to just people jumping and fighting with swords. Also, just like the older series used negative colors at points, the newer show seems to have its own version, as you can see when Kurogasa paralyzes people on the sixth episode. I don’t know, this stuff looked cool to me when I was a kid but come off as silly to me now.

As for the actual animation, the idea behind it is to present the stronger characters as being way faster than everyone else. The 90s anime did it with a few frames followed by speed lines, the newer goes for teleporting the likes of Kenshin or Kurogasa with some light beams here and there to represent the slashes of their swords while everyone else falls to the ground. Since this version is more faithful, Kenshin isn’t AS stronger as he was in the previous anime, and some of the more over the top moments have been changed, as you can notice with how he stuck a dude on the ceiling with his barely visible sword and not just his finger as he was shown doing it in 1996. Both versions have quite limited motions but the 90s version is slightly superior.

As a whole, as a kid from the 90s and someone who watched the original Rurouni Kenshin as one of his first anime at, like, 13, I am biased towards the aesthetics of the previous version. The coloring and models may be more inconsistent, and the chibi bits unnecessary and clashing in tone, but there was a certain charm and warmth in it that the newer anime simply lacks, making it a bit more soulless. With that said, the highlights of the show are still left to be adapted in this version, so visuals and directing might surprise us all once the big arcs are adapted.

What’s undeniably worse in the new version is the sound department. The original Rurouni Kenshin has one of the best and most iconic soundtrack in any fighting shounen anime, for some even in the medium as a whole. Personally I don’t rank it THAT high, but I consider it to be very very good. The remake has a serviceable music, nothing wrong with it, but it just can’t even begin to think of competing with the older one.

Something I was never fond of in the original were both of its openings. I know they are some of the most cherished of all time, but to me that has to do more with nostalgia than anything else. The music in both is…acceptable, and the visuals and songs flow together really really well, but I just can’t stand the voice of the singer, which I rank among the worst I have heard in the whole medium. And I still prefer them to whatever the new anime went for in its first intro song, which not only do I think it sucks and skip every time, it doesn’t even fit the series, though to be honest, I thought the same thing with the classic ones. The second one is much better in my opinion, even if it’s still just fine.

As I mentioned in my Ravages of Time and Oooku reviews, what pisses me off not only about the Kenshin remake but other series like Vinland Saga and Golden Kamuy is that they are historical series, yet don’t even try to mix some elements from their time periods and setting to their intros. Just look at the latest one from the third anime I mentioned, which is half rap and half English, for a series that happens during the Russian-Japanese war and a big part of it is showing the Ainu culture. But apparently none of that matters as long as the song hypes you up, even with series that are not supposed to hype you up.

To me, openings and endings are not important nor do they reflect the quality of an anime in the least, but since they exist, they shouldn’t just promote an artist or sell on the product to be considered great, they should also reflect what the shows are like. Otherwise you end with the Death Parade situation, one of the most dramatic anime of all time about dead people, where the intro has one of the most unfitting upbeat songs ever while the characters dance like idiots to one of the silliest sounding voices I have heard in my life. If they don’t, they are just like those misleading trailers for movies and stuff, and since those are criticized, I don’t see the reason why these shouldn’t be as well.

Something that I always preferred in the 90s anime where the ending songs, there were seven of them if I remember correctly, and although they didn’t fit the anime that well either, by themselves they were pretty good songs, and just like the openings, the directing in all of them was great. The new anime has a first outro so bad and unfitting I couldn’t even finish it the first time, and I proceeded to skip it every single time. The second isn’t as bad, but I still find it unfitting and nowhere near as good as the ones from the previous anime.

The sound effects are…serviceable on both versions. The 90s one had good ones for its time that are outdated by now at times and surprisingly good at others. The most iconic fighting scenes and techniques haven’t been covered yet, so maybe this will change once that happens, but so far the adaptation from this year has presented some very stock sound effects. Again, not bad, but very generic and forgettable, and inconsistent in how impactful they are in different episodes. As a whole, this aspect is the one where both series are more on par with the other than anything else.

As for the voice acting, I can’t help but think that no version is really good, and ultimately, deciding which is the best one comes down to personal preference. The 90s anime had a curious cast, where a big portion of the most important characters were voiced by people that either weren’t voice actors, or barely have had experience in the field at that moment. Yet at the same time, others were performed by people that were already veterans, or would become veterans just some years later. The end result ends up being a mixed bag by itself. The thing is, the newer one was well selected and the voices fit the characters well and their performances are good, it’s just that it has a huge legacy to face. As so-so as the original voice acting was, those people voiced the characters so many times across so many different products, they inevitably got better at it, and practically became the characters themselves for long time fans.

To speak a little about the most noticeable changes, Kaoru sounds sweeter and younger now than she did back then, not just simply because Rie Takahashi sounds like that, at least when she uses her cute tone, but also because in the 90s anime, Kaoru was a lot more violent, a trait that many female leads had around that time for comical effect, that as a far as I remember from the little I read of the manga, she wasn’t like that in the source material, thus making her newer self to be more faithful to the original. In the end, both are good and fitting for the different takes on the character.

I don’t know who voices Sanosuke now but he sounds like Yuuichi Nakamura to me, his voice sounds good and fitting to me, and frankly I prefer this voice actor to Yuji Ueda, who I never liked much. With that said, the new voice lost the raspiness of the original, again, it’s not bad, but this way the character lost a little of the aggressiveness and the idea of a “badass sounding guy” from back then.

The biggest, most notorious and most divisive change was of course Kenshin, who now is voiced by a man and not by a woman. The thing is, the casting choice back then wasn’t just because, there was an in-story and directing reason for it. As he is supposed to be based around a supposed real samurai that was rumored to be a woman or a boy for how young he looked and sounded. Also, because that voice was simply funnier during the comical moments, which were drastically changed or removed in this anime. Since the new adaptation goes for a more serious approach and tone, the male voice fits better with the new take on the character, just like Kaoru. This way, the change from the normal Kenshin to the angry Kenshin or the Hitoriki Battousai may not be as impactful and noticeable as it was before, but eh, you gain some, and lose some.

Tomokazu Sugita as Kurogasa. He is a good actor that always gives his best on every performance, but I just can’t take him completely seriously for some reason. He did very well with his character, who was remade to look and sound younger than he was in the previous version, but he is simply not in the same league as Akio Ohtsuka for me.

Satoshi Hino as Saitou. I expected Ken Narita to take over what was once a role of the late Hirotaka Suzuoki and nailing the performance once more as his perfect replacement, but whenever this actor, Hino, uses his serious voice he isn’t bad, here he did a great job.

As a whole, the sound department is overall better in the original anime, but the voice acting is on par on both versions because of the different takes on the characters and tone on each one, and if for some reason you must choose one over the other, it ends up coming down purely to personal preference.

As for the writing, the plot revolves around a samurai from the Bakumatsu era reflecting on all the killings he did for achieving peace, and defending innocent common people in the Meiji era, as he is constantly challenged and faced by his past in one way or another. The show as a whole follows a very standard classic fighting shounen formula, in the first episodes Kenshin finds what comes to be the main group of characters, while he goes around saving folks from the corrupt authorities like Zorro, basically. Then a short arc establishes said group for good as well as his main rivals during the series, and then two (or three) big arcs follow, and then the series ends.

This essentially means that at the beginning, the anime is rather slow moving, even more so if you only watch this version and are used to the pacing of newer action shounen. Still, in terms of writing and pacing, things that I consider are most important, the new anime beats the original as far as I’m concerned. This season decided to adapt a short prequel manga which wasn’t all that good, even if it served to explained a major aspect of the main character, before stopping at the beginning of a big arc, one of the most highly acclaimed in the whole medium, so its quality is affected because of that compared to the previous adaptation, but in its favor it removed all the filler present in that version.

Not to say that fillers are bad by themselves, sometimes they can add more build up for a better pay off (Dragon Ball), rearrange events for the better (Hokuto no Ken), or show more fights that are completely skipped in the source material (Yu Yu Hakusho), but in the case of 90s Rurouni Kenshin, they were mostly used to stretch the duration with minor fights in between against clearly outclassed enemies, and then finishing the series with 32 episodes of original material that, before the so called big three, were considered to range from average to the worst filler arcs in all anime, before ending incomplete, with a sequel that was half recap and half rushed storylines, with a divisive original ending, which I personally found good and fitting. As good as the Kyoto arc may be, it can’t make up for so much inferior content.

Even when taking differences from both anime aside, I still don’t consider the writing in any of them to be that good. Sure, the characters talk about the new and the old eras, there are clashing ideological and political views, which in turn serve to flesh out the cast and what not, but the dialogues themselves are quite simple and come down to preachy monologues, as you would expect from a politician during a speech, basically. Plus, on a series where Kenshin is faced and challenged about his ideas and past actions, and what they led to, it’s a bit of a flaw when he is clearly right all the time since, besides Hajime Saito and Aoshi Shinomori, every other guy he fights is presented as a psycho, while he is the only one that makes a real point, and has grown and matured over time.
The exposition is awkward in both versions, since information and backdrops for the characters are presented in quite random ways and moments.

Speaking of characters, since the anime is all about fleshing out Kenshin, he is hands down among the best protagonists in all fighting shounen and the medium in general, while everyone else fills their role just fine. Kaoru is an ok love interest, and despite her naivety, she brings him the peace he so much longed for, and serves as the representation of his ideal new era. Yahiko is an ok student of both, he begins as weak and very rude but grows consistently in later arcs, and Sanosuke goes from a brute that fights against everyone just because, to the biggest bro that ever broed as the series goes on, way before Roronoa Zoro. His backdrop story was changed a little in the original anime, but both are good on their own.

Since the new adaptation took away all the filler of the previous one, that also means that the main cast no longer interacts with some recurring minor characters from the 90s anime, they added nothing on their own to be honest, but served to flavor the main ones during the relaxing moments and give the previous version that certain charm and warmth that the newer series lacks for the sake of plot progression, gain some, lose some.
Aoshi and Saito like I said are the only decent rivals Kenshin has in the early episodes and arcs. The former for his code of honor, the latter for being the strongest not psycho opposition to the protagonist in both strength and ideals.

As for what’s in for the future, the highly acclaimed Kyoto arc will present a whole new decent set of antagonists with strong backdrop stories and even different dynamics amongst them, while keeping all the themes from the series. If the remake adapts that arc with the same seriousness as this season, it will increase its overall quality by a lot. With that said, said arc will still have typical fighting shounen issues, such as characters fighting one against one while calling out their attacks and fighting styles as they already did so far, in unrealistic fights, especially for an historical series and setting, but at least all of that will lead to an epic and bittersweet finale.

When comparing the value of both series, the new one is clearly at a disadvantage, as the 90s anime was one of the most famous and beloved from its era, with some of the most praised arcs and soundtracks in the medium that made it super memorable, and it didn’t have much competition out there, while the newer one, while I’d bet it was big in Japan, didn’t have nearly the same impact in the west, partly because of nostalgic bias in favor of the previous version, but also because of all the competition it has right now, as well as many refusing to watch a series made by a pedophile author.

As for what is the version that I personally enjoyed the most, it’s the prequel ovas followed by the live action movies, but limiting it to these two, I have to go with the newer one by a little. As much as I prefer the aesthetics and the 90s feel of the previous anime, keeping the core story without all that inferior filler made it a more pleasing experience altogether for me.

In the end, I give the edge to the original anime only by a little thanks to its aesthetics and legacy, and only compared with this particular season. If the following ones do a job as decent as this one, or even better improve it with more polished dressing, I will rate those ones higher, and place the remake altogether as better as the older series.

Remake 6/10 for now
Original 6.5/10