Blade of the Immortal Volume 1   Starring (voice): Rina Satou, Tomokazu Seki, Daisuke Namikawa and Hirofumi Nojima MVM RRP: £15.99 MVD2312 Certificate: 15 Available 04 October 2010

When Manji, a samurai, discovers that his master is dishonourably immoral he kills him, but fails to kill himself, being cursed by a witch for his past deeds. In his master's service he has killed and in his last act of defiance he kills one hundred of his former master’s retainers, many of them innocent of any crime. To atone for his sin Manji must balance his past behaviour by killing a thousand evil men, but Manji is unsure to determine the real evil in men’s hearts...

Blade of the Immortal: Volume 1 (2008) is the first release in this thirteen part anime series directed by Koichi Mashimo and produced by Bee Train. The series was based on a manga created by Hiroaki Samura. Volume one contains the first five episodes – Sinner, Conquest, Love Song, Genius and Prisoner.

The show is set in 18th Century Japan and we are introduced to Manji as he is recounting his sins to a priest, which allows the show to tell the back-story in flashback. Not only did Manji kill his lord, but one of the hundred retainers is the husband of his sister, Manchi, who goes mad having been witness to the event. In his grief he welcomes death but a wizened nun, Yaobikuni, places magical bloodworms in his body, essentially making him invulnerable and immortal.

His fame does his sister no good, when she is captured by brigands who mean to revenge themselves on Manji. Although he inevitably wins, it costs his sister her life. Now a wandering Samurai, Manji meets Rin who is trying to avenge her parents death. Convincing Manji of her cause he vows to help her. The story of Rin and Manji’s journey start properly in episode two and carries on throughout the rest of the series.

I’m not really sure why I couldn’t get into this series, the animation is high quality, but there is a sense of déjà vu about the whole thing. With so many shows out there, there are bound to be similarities, but I was hard pressed to find something which uniquely belonged to this show, certainly in the first five episodes it fails to find its own unique voice.

The 1.78:1 anamorphic NTSC-PAL transfer does justice to the show, with a pretty good conversion of the high quality animation. Character design is well handled, with each of the character having distinct characteristics.

You get the choice of either an English 2.0, with signs or 2.0 Japanese, with subtitles, audio tracks. The extras are minimal, comprising of textless opening and closing sequences and trailers for a number of other shows.

The show looks good and has a decent script; I’m just waiting for that certain something to break through to make the show stand out from the competition.

6

Charles Packer