Stranger-Mukoh Hadan – Sword of the Stranger Review

Summary

The story is set in Japan.
A boy named Kotaro, accompanied by his dog, is being chased and hunted down by the Chinese soldiers (The Mings) and along the way he meets a samurai named Nanashi (means nameless).
Nanashi is a mysterious samurai that is constantly being haunted by dreams of the past which prevents him from drawing his sword.
After a series of events, Nanashi ends up accompanying Kotaro on his journey.
Among the Mings is a westerner named Raou.
Raou’s purpose for fighting is unlike the reasons behind the actions of the Chinese – his main purpose is to fight against the strong and he thrives on that fact.
He has been nicknamed a monster due to him being well known for his superior sword fighting skills.

[Click Image to Enlarge]

Impressions

Alright, I know that that was not a good summary.

Basically this anime contains:

– Action
– Good Animation
– A nice storyline
– Blood
– Some sort of warm and fuzzy feeling (where you go, awwwww, that is nice)
– And it is interesting
– It is done by Bones Studio

—-

While the plot may not be the most original ever, and I agree with those that say that this might seem to give you the vibe of another-one-of-those-kenshin-wannabe, I actually liked it.

It might be weird for me to say that it is a simple storyline, but I felt that the main point of this anime was pretty simple. To provide entertainment.

There is no deeper meaning or a huge moral to the story.

Actually, this anime is a very realistic animation with nothing too out of the ordinary or unbelievable happening.

While the plot could have easily walked down the road of imparting great “hidden messages” in its dialogue, it avoided that cliche path and I am pretty thankful for that.

The animation is nice and exciting, might be pretty bloody at times, but hey, that is what happens when you are fighting with a sword. None of those bloodless death things.

The Chinese’s ulterior motive(to obtain immortality) is also another one of those interesting things that make you think, but at the same time that is not the main focus of the plot.

The story might be filled with fighting but it is not filled with high speed action fighting scenes that will make you go WOW at every super move made. There are those fight-scenes, but many of them is pretty much simple sword fighting amongst the soldiers.

And when they are not fighting, they focus on the storyline and the progression of the storyline.
I know that it is a movie so they do not waste time with useless information (but some movies do).
There is nothing unimportant in this anime.

Basically, I enjoyed every moment of it.

Perhaps the most disappointing part was that I had expected a complex storyline and a complex past behind the main character. His past is pretty simple and understandable. But like I had said, it is a relatively realistic anime movie.

The only funny part of this anime would be the Chinese spoken in it! LOL, god, it was so funny!
When they spoke one or 2 lines it was fine, I thought it was a foreign language.
But when they had a conversation in Chinese, boy was that mistake sticking out like a sore thumb.
They sounded like aliens. LOL. I am NOT joking! (it was okay for most of the part, tolerable, but the worst was when Kotaro and Raou had the conversation as they were ascending the stairs towards the top where the sacrifice ceremony was held)

– It might be a bit serious of some peoples taste, if not, it might be a bit too ‘real'(?)/bloody for some people?
The blood is really not that bad (not like in Gantz).

– If the story does not appeal to you, you might want to watch it for the action. Plus it is animated by Bones, so yup!

An afterthought that you might take away with you from the anime might be to question the idea of fighting and killing. It seems that though this is set in the past where wars occurred on a regular basis, the idea of fighting has yet to change and even now it is happening. It has never stopped and many of us live our lives without even knowing about what is going on.
I mean you are not going to get a great deal of information out of this movie, but it made me just wonder about the way people die.

-ra out
(Errors edited after being pointed out by dowamaru. Thanks for the help!)