Rurouni Kenshin Vol. #01: Legendary Swordsman

By: Joshua Carvalho
Review Date: Monday, February 18, 2002
Release Date: Tuesday, July 25, 2000



The Review!
Ratings Audio: D+ Video: B Menus: C- Extras: B+ Packaging: C- Technical: F Content: B

Rurouni Kenshin is finally here on DVD, and... and... I nearly didn't buy it. Sorry guys, I haven't seen the show before, and I nearly passed on it due to the sheer length of it (hey, buying 20+ DVDs at $30 each, even after discounts, is still a lot to invest in one series). Luckily, thanks to a coupon here and there, I was fortunate enough to come by the funds to pick up at least one disc of the series. Hence, I now offer the following review.

Audio: D+ The English audio on this disc is actually quite good. It sounds fairly clear and clean and fairly standard for a 2.0 track. However, I don't care much for the dub, hence I don't care much about the English track. It isn't that I don't like dubs; it's just that this particular dub is... well... not so hot.

The Japanese track is an entirely different story. It's hard trying to explain it. It's very soft in comparison to the English track. There seems to be some trouble in the use of the speakers, although I didn't suffer from the reversed stereo problem others did. The "echoing" description another reviewer offered is pretty accurate. I'd say, as another way of putting it, it sounds like you get some of the noise from the recording studio mixed into the track, leading to some rather ugly sounds. It's very annoying to say the least.

What does this all mean? Well... I'll leave that up to the audio experts to figure out what the hell's wrong with the audio track. Needless to say, it was rather bad.

Video: B The video for this release kind of falls into the same area that the Magic Knights Rayearth set fell into. It's cleaned up and looks superior to the VHS; however, it doesn't go much beyond that. There're a few artifacts here and there, though otherwise the video was clean. Overall, it still looks good, but it isn't anything overly impressive, much like Rayearth.

Menus: C- Well, it seems like the gorilla that worked on the Rayearth menus finally sobered up a bit. Not too much, but a bit at least. This time, the menus are at least somewhat functional! The slowness that was apparent in the Rayearth menus is no longer present, and they work rather quickly this time.

That's about the only improvement, unfortunately.

You still have the same audio-less, animation-less menus that were on the Rayearth set. You still have the scene selection stuck in the extras sub-menu for god only knows what reason. You still have the extra menus, for the picture gallery and character bios, without any sort of navigational menu options (you have to use the arrows on your remote to navigate through them), telling me that the guys at Media Blasters are still lazy about the whole thing.


The top menu is a single picture, without animations or audio, as mentioned, with options for each episode, the extras sub-menu, and the setup sub-menu. I still don't know why they refuse to put the scene selection menu available through the top menu, just like every other DVD on the face of the planet, but oh well. Maybe if the gorilla continues to sober up, we might have some audio on the menu for the next disc!

Extras: B+ The extras are the one area where Media Blasters continues to excel over the competition. Present on the disc are an image gallery, character bios, liner notes (now I hope this becomes a staple of future anime releases, as these were very interesting), a credit-less opening, and a handful of trailers for other Media Blasters products. Unfortunately, one of the trailers, the one for Magic Knights Rayearth, contains the dub version of the opening song... After bashing my head into a wall for a few minutes after hearing it, I was able to continue viewing the disc. It's definitely a nice set of extras for a series that is going to eventually have probably over twenty volumes in it, and I hope they can continue to offer as many extras in the coming volumes.

Packaging: C- How is it possible for a DVD in a nice, normal keepcase to get a rating this low? Well, there are a number of problems with the packaging for this release. The first major problem, and this one is huge, is that there's no volume listing on the disc. Now, I've seen many anime releases without volume listings before. It's a common tactic of marketing to not want to list volume numbers on the packaging, as it tends to scare off customers. However, in this case, it makes things really inconvenient. There are going to be at least twenty Kenshin discs released probably! How is anyone supposed to remember the order from simple volume titles? Would it really have killed Media Blasters to list volume numbers on the spine? Well, the only hope is to take each disc out and look at the episode listing on the back, to hope the skus are going to be in order so at least that can serve as a guide, or to simply try to keep the discs in order from the start and not mix them up. Otherwise, one will run into trouble.

The next problem is that there is no paper insert in the case. Media Blasters is one of the few companies to skimp on putting in paper inserts. I really would appreciate having an insert with chapter stop information for each episode, or something similar, and it would really bring up the quality of this release.

The cover art is rather poorly chosen. Flowers just don't suit this show. I'm serious; the cover art makes the series look like a shoujo-anime. Kenshin is definitely not shoujo, of course. Outside the flowers, the picture of Kenshin and the background mesh rather well, except they lead to a problem with the text on the case. Although it's easy to read the title on the front with the font and color the text for it is in, the title on the spine is rather difficult to read, as it blends in a bit with the background and looks squashed in the small space. It is also written in a rather small text to try to get it to fit into the space on the spine, facilitating the problem. What's worse is the text on the back cover, which is practically impossible to read unless you look at it really closely. It's in a very small font with a font/color scheme that is hard to read, and the background the text is placed upon makes it even more difficult.

Overall, Media Blasters could really use some work on their packaging design, and I hope that for the next disc they start listing volume numbers.

Technical: F This is getting absurd.

Media Blasters please listen: I know that whoever works on your discs understands the concept of "time codes." You know why? Because there are time codes on the credit-less opening extra, that's why. Now, since I know you understand the concept, there's absolutely no excuse whatsoever for, yet again, not having time codes on the show itself. This is not a good trend at all. I ragged on the MKR set for this reason. This is now the second DVD/DVD set from Media Blasters that I have purchased that has not been time coded, and it's not acceptable at all. That, right there alone, is enough to earn that F rating. It is absolutely ludicrous for your company to continue to not time code your shows. Without time codes, you've lost one of the major advantages of the DVD format. I like to be able to skip to whatever position in the video that I choose. It's one of those great advantages over the VHS format. To make matters worse, there are only two chapter stops for each episode, yet again, and as already mentioned, no chapter stops for the opening and ending. I can live with that for the opening, given that there is a credit-less version available in the extras and that I can simply click on any episode to bring it up. However, we're not so fortunate without any immediate access to the credits being given. Please, I implore you, note this complaint this time and fix it before this trend continues to plague your future releases. And while you're at it, two chapter stops per episode is the bear minimum for discs that do actually have time codes. It's completely intolerable for a disc without them.

Content: B I tend to not get worked up over a series, even if I'm given the line "it's Kenshin!" or "it's Ranma!" or what not. Why? Because I'm sure there's enough fan-boys of whatever series to go around. Hey, I don't mean to insult your tastes, but I like to judge for myself. Well, now that I've seen it, I can't say I've seen why some absolutely adore it, but I will say it wasn't bad either.

The first set of episodes is your standard fare "introduce a bunch of characters." We meet the presumably main cast throughout the first four episodes, and delve a bit into Kenshin's past. It contains a good mix of humor, action and drama that manages to entertain, although there are already some trends forming here that are unlikable.

What do I mean by trends forming? Well, already Kaoru seems to be our typical "helpless maiden" who's going to require rescuing every few episodes. She's already gotten into several fights where she had to wait for Kenshin to save her. Now, Kaoru is supposed to be actually a pretty decent fighter, wouldn't you think? After all, she is the teacher of a fighting style that allowed her father to take down a rather powerful warrior with a simple flick of the wrist. And yet, so far, the only people who she's had any luck against are some standard fare lackeys. Everyone so far even slightly powerful has wiped the mat with her. And hence, here comes Kenshin to save the day. Now, maybe it won't continue, but I can already see a very predictable trend starting here, and I can tell already I'm not going to like where it's headed. And of course, that also leads to the "Kenshin is going to save the day with his extra crispy special sauce fighting style" plot device that seemed to come into play in the first few episodes. Again, I hope this isn't the beginning of a trend, as I can't imagine putting up with ninety-six episodes of that.

The other bad trend that is forming is that the fight seems seem to be reduced to "fighting styles." Every fight it seems someone will go "he's using style a and will defeat the user of style b." That is making things not only dull, but also rather confusing. I don't care what style that who's using personally, and I don't want to see all the major battles reduced to the debate over fighting styles.

Unfortunately, one of the things that plagues this show is... and please don't kill me... the Japanese cast. Now, I got used to Kenshin after an episode or two, despite the rather odd voice he presents, however Kaoru's seiyuu is just not putting any effort into the part at all. Scenes that should've been drop dead funny were barely stifling a laugh from me since she didn't put much emotion into her voice. It sounds like she's just reading lines off the script for the most part. If she was supposed to be angry, she sounded barely ticked. If she was supposed to be in the mood to kick some butt, she didn't sound that enthusiastic at all. I switched over to the dub, and I was surprised to learn that, despite the rather awful script and some bad voices, Kaoru's English (played by the very talented woman who also does Miz in "El Hazard" and Kris in "Battle Athletes" and "Battle Athletes Victory") voice was quite good. Still, it's hard to watch the show dubbed with the script it has, and thus it left me with quite the quandary. I think I'll end up having to watch the show both ways in the end.

Now don't think I'm just going to bash the show aimlessly. There's a lot of good in the show too. Kenshin is showing a lot of promise in being an interesting lead character. He reminds me a lot of Vash from "Trigun." The events of his past and what made him what he is today should lead to some really interesting story arcs. In addition, the other characters shown to us so far have all shown to be interesting themselves.

Kenshin also manages to maintain a nice mix of comedy, action, and drama in it. Instead of drowning the viewer in over-excessive fight scenes or tons of back history and historical data, the show takes its time and balances things out well, so not to lose the viewer or to bore them. So far, the pacing has been very good overall, although some scenes went by a little too quickly and lost some of the effect because of the speed in which they took place. Still, overall the series is enjoyable thus far and I would not mind looking at future volumes, although Media Blasters' poor discs plague the series.

Final Thoughts and Notes: Here we have another good series being plagued by Media Blasters poor production values. You know, I read the forums on this site and I sometimes get really angry over the endless bashing of ADV. You know why? Because ADV isn't the only company out there that has made a bad DVD before. I really hope Media Blasters can get their production values up on future releases, as they really have a ways to go before their DVDs are worthwhile. For now, purchases the series if you love it and simply must have it on DVD, otherwise either rent it or avoid it. Only four episodes to a disc for $30 each for a series this long with this many problems with the disc, is just not worth it unless you absolutely adore the show.

As always, send all comments on this review to cav@wpi.edu.

Review Equipment
Sony 17" monitor w/ five speakers and sub-woofer, 3d sound card. 6x Sony DVD-ROM. Power DVD 2.5.5 software drivers