My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime IV

Posted by Neko Kyou in Personal on October 30th, 2007

You can find the previous post for this here:

It’s time to end this, at least for now. This is the final part of My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime series. The 3 series I mentioned in the previous part had turned me into an anime fan, but there were a couple more anime which were, and still are, important to me that significantly influenced my perspective on anime.

Rurouni Kenshin

Kenshin HimuraAlso known as Samurai X, I remembered this as my first “serious” anime. As with most of the other anime I’ve caught on TV, I skipped quite a few episodes here and there, especially at the beginning. It wasn’t until Shishio’s arc that got me hooked.

Probably due to the influence of Ninja Senshi Tobikage (in part 2), I’ve always viewed ninjas as being way superior to any boring old samurai. But Kenshin changed all that, and even flipped it around. Samurai were starting to make ninjas look weak.

Who knew that sword fights could be so dynamic with so many different moves, and unlike most others, the moves were adaptable and you almost never see the exact same battle twice. Doryuusen and Ryuutsuisen might have been commonly used, but you’ll never catch any recycled cells (which was a normal thing to do then) and there’s always something different about the execution of the techniques.

The battles were smooth and well choreographed, even by today’s standard. Surely a sign that it was extremely well done when it debuted in 1996. I only wished the anime stayed truer to the manga as it got a little boring from Amakusa’s arc onwards.

Rurouni Kenshin

The main cast of Rurouni Kenshin

Ranma ½

Ranma ½Besides Cardcaptor Sakura, this is my other top favourite anime of all times. The anime lasted 3 years, from 1989 to 1992, with 161 episodes in total. This is excluding the 12 episode OAV, 2 movies and a whole collection of other CD and DVDs.

Of all my anime collection, I easily spent the most on Ranma (at least more than a thousand) for the DVDs, manga, CDs, and a whole bunch of merchandise.

With the craziest bunch of characters you’ve ever seen and the whackiest of plots and twists (as well as plotholes) it’s pretty hard not to like it once you’ve started watching it.

It is also because of Ranma ½ that I started to like Rumiko Takahashi’s other works, especially Inuyasha.

Ranma ½ DoCoI was so deep into Ranma that thinking back, it almost became an unhealthy obsession. Each episode was repeated 3 times a day, and I never missed a single one. I even skipped classes (and I actually failed a couple of subjects) and shut myself up in the room just so I could watch it in peace. Thankfully, I didn’t hit a point of no return and made sure that I was never anywhere near that kind of obsession again. Sure, I still get my crazy moments, but it doesn’t happen that frequently and I always make sure that I’m fully aware of any consequences.

But Ranma ½ is still one of my favourite anime and whenever I’m bored without any new anime to watch, its one of those “oldies” that I would pull off my shelf and start an anime marathon to entertain myself.

Like Rurouni Kenshin, it’s kinda amazing when you realize that Ranma’s anime first appeared in 1989. The OAV aside (since it’s newer), the animation for Ranma ½ can really be considered top notched as I find it even superior to some anime from the late 90s and early 2000s.

Ranma ½

“Huh? What’s this? It says…”

That’s it for now!

After my obsession with Ranma a few years ago is when I started searching for new anime more actively rather than just depending on satelite TV networks and CDs/DVDs that could only be found locally. In fact, my first anime site (which is long gone) was a Ranma ½ fansite that gained quite a bit of popularity but could not be maintained due to heavy bandwidth usage *ahem*.

It was known as “SatAM Anime”, so if you’ve been there before do let me know 😀 (out of curiosity)

My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime ends here, at least for now. If I feel there’s something new that should be included in here, it would probably be done on a later date.

Related posts:

  1. My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime II
  2. My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime III
  3. My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime I
  4. CLAMP Chronicle IV – Tsubasa Chronicle & xxxHolic


2 Comments to “My Chronicle: Journey Through Anime IV”

  1. Watch Free Anime | November 2nd, 2007 at 2:32 pm

    I got hooked on the Oniwabanshu arc, with Aoshi. I love it when teams of warriors meet and faceoff against each other. I guess that’s where the Naruto love comes from.

  2. Neko Kyou | November 3rd, 2007 at 8:59 am

    Yeah Aoshi is one of the coolest character in the series. It would have been interesting to see him dishing it out with Saito. I’ve always wondered who was stronger between the two of them.


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