Tsukikage Ran

[KarateCowboy]

Anyone else watched any at all? You can find it on Hulu.com for North American audiences.

I have watched four or five episodes and I like it so far.

Good:
- Fairly clean. Little blood or mature themes. No creepy psycho characters
- Art : I like the style of animation. It is a classical style that uses very organic and natural colors, and the characters and and backgrounds aren't glossy looking like in many animations. The glossiness in others is not terrible, but it is nice to have different styles.
- Story: The episodes so far have been fairly interesting stories and have focused on characters that behave in realistic ways and seem human

Bad:
- Slow: I'm only a few episodes in, but have not seen much in regards to a penetrating, cohesive story arc.
- Some tropes: I have seen some archetypical, cookie-cutter scenes and characterization. EG one character is a sometimes inept, sometimes competent girly-girl who will do things like put up a tough front, only for it to pop at the slightest poking from a comrade, whereupon she does some "Uwaaaaah!" whiny complaining thing "Why you so hidoiiiiiiii? Don't make fun of meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!"

 

[muichimotsu]

Full name is Kazemakase: Tsukikage Ran (Wind Borne Moon Lit Ran). Seems like an interesting premise, though a bit simple. With 13 episodes, it probably had difficulty convincing animators to work on it or such. I'm reminded a bit of Rurouni Kenshin or other samurai setting series. It's by Madhouse, so that's something already, and it was 15 years ago, so I'm not sure if there'd be any way to get files legitimately without torrenting.

 

[KarateCowboy]

You can watch Tsukikage Ran on hulu.com for free.

Like Ruroni Kenshin, or Samurai Champloo, it does use the wandering samurai theme. A lot of manga & animations use that. But, IMO, that does not wear it out. It's similar to the wandering cowboy in old Westerns. It's really flexible and allows for a lot of different stories you could develop.

 

[muichimotsu]

Cowboy has become worn out in American fiction, the samurai is somewhat suffering a similar decline, though it's still around, like with Gintama and related series. I'd say the new popular creature/vocation nowadays in anime/manga is psychics or vampires or something general like that. There was supposedly a big peak of psychic themed anime and manga in the 80s, but it dwindled around the late 90s