Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit is one of those shows that gives you something very different from what you're expecting. Based on what little I'd read before I put the first disc in, I was expecting something of an action series, with Balsa and Chagum out-running pursuit at every turn. Colour me pleasantly surprised when that wasn't what I got...
What They Say
At a time when the balance of nature still held the civilizations of mankind in thrall, a single drought could spell the end of a society and doom its inhabitants to piteous deaths. Prince Chagum has been imbued with the power to stave off the drought and bring new life to his empire. However, this is a suspicious time, and he is accused of possession by an evil spirit.
Court advisors only see one solution. Chagum must be put to death by his own father's hand. His salvation is in the form of Balsa, a spear woman and mercenary from Kanbal, the kingdom across the mountains. Her skills are legendary, and although reluctant, she is held by a mysterious vow to save eight souls before she dies. Can she fend off an entire empire and make Chagum her eighth soul?
The Review!
Audio:
Audio is provided in Japanese 2.0 stereo and English 5.1 surround tracks. I listened to the Japanese track for this review. It's a competent stereo mix, with good placement of voices and effects on the soundstage to add some depth to proceedings. There's not much opportunity with what happens in these episodes to really show off, though. There were no obvious encoding issues.
Video:
Video is provided in its original 1.78:1 format, enhanced for anamorphic playback. There's heavy use of dark colours in many scenes in the set, which can often be a recipe for problems, but the transfer is good with no obvious signs for banding. There's also a good amount of detail used in the animation, and that also comes across well. Overall, it's a fairly impressive-looking series.
Packaging:
No packaging was provided with our review copy.
Menu:
As usual these days, the main screen is a simple static affair, with an image of Balsa and Chagum on the right set against a mountainous background, while options are provided along the bottom for Play All, Setup and Episodes (and Trailers on Disc Two only). There are no sub-menus as such - choosing Setup or Extras simply opens a small window on the left of the screen with the relevant options. It all very simple and quick to use.
Extras:
Nothing to see here, move along...
Content: (please note that content portions of a review will contain spoilers)
Female warrior Balsa has just returned to the land of Yogo when she gets caught up in a possible disaster for the kingdom - a prince of the royal family is forced off a bridge into the fast-flowing river below, and it's only her quick thinking that saves him from drowning. Not that she gets much thanks for it - maintaining the taboo that commoners shouldn't look upon the faces of the royal family seems to be far more important, at least to some. The boy's mother, the second queen, has other ideas though: superstition has placed the live of her son in far more danger than the river ever posed and, having heard of Balsa's skill, she wants her to ensure her son's safety.
And so, Balsa finds herself the guardian of an ex-prince - for what, under the circumstances, is very little payment. Under cover of a fire set in the prince's bedchamber, the pair leave the palace and head for the countryside. At this point, we're still very much in spearwoman-against-the-world mode, as pursuit inevitably comes and is equally inevitably quickly dealt with by Balsa, who out-performs her male pursuers (the elite of the elite amongst the palace guards) in both fighting skills and tactics. Once the Hunters and a manhunt by the kingdom's regular troops are behind them, though, the series does something I wasn't expecting, and puts the fighting behind it (mostly) in favour of becoming what is almost a slice-of-life show.
Taking the idea of 'hiding in plain sight' to heart, Balsa and Chagum return to the capital, rent a watermill in the countryside nearby, and settle down to as normal a life as they can manage, under the circumstances. There are two things that ad a little spice to their life, though: the constant need to protect against being seen by anyone who would recognised them, and the small detail that the reason the prince's life was in danger - the belief that he's possessed by a water demon who will eventually bring a disastrous drought upon the land - may actually be true, as inside Chagum grows an egg from the world of Nayug, the "other side", that could well grow to be a threat.
With magic-weaver Torogai looking for a solution to the problem of the egg, old friend & herbalist Tanda and street-kids Toya and Saya helping out with more everyday concerns, and the royal star readers, mainly represented by Chagum's former tutor Shuga, unconvinced that Chagum really is dead, the stage is set for what turns out to be an engaging story.
What it isn't, though, is action-packed. The opening escape arc provides some good battle scenes, while the last episode in the set pits Balsa against one of the Hunter's she'd evaded earlier - but past that, this is really the story of a boy from a privileged background having to come to terms with being knocked down to commoner (and Chagum is a smart enough kid to handle the chug fairly well), and of Balsa, essentially now his adoptive mother, for whom protecting Chagum is her final task in absolving herself for past sins. By rights, it should be as boring as hell, but the series is well-enough written and the characters intriguing enough that it's instead engaging and compelling. There's one episode in particular that's an example of this effect in miniature - it consists almost entirely of an old wordsmith speaking first to Balsa and then to two Hunters about his ethics and his dream of creating the ultimate blade for the ultimate warrior - there's not an awful lot there to fill 23 minutes, you'd think, but the time just flies by as he tells his story. It's really quite impressively done.
The pacing is quite slow, which may be an issue for some. Past that, though, I'm having a hard time coming up with any real problems with the series, which has turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
In summary:
On paper, Moribito is a show that I would normally say wasn't "my kinda show". Once i'd watched a few episodes, though, it became thoroughly engaging and enjoyable - it goes in a rather different direction than you may expect, but that's a large part of the charm. Well worth watching.
Features
Japanese 2.0 Language, English 5.1 Language, English Subtitles
Review Equipment
Toshiba 37X3030DB 37" widescreen HDTV; Sony PS3 Blu-ray player (via HDMI, upscaled to 1080p); Acoustic Solutions DS-222 5.1 speaker system.
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