Customer Reviews

Rurouni Kenshin Meiji Era - Premium Box 3

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

In my opinion this third season was not at all needed. It has some amazing stories in it however many of them were not needed nor to the quality of the rest of Rurouni Kenshin.

I still think that this is worth the money, and don't be fooled by the 70-80 dollar Full boxed sets on Ebay, those are illegal boot legged copies. If you're into to supporting that kind of crap then go for it. But anyone who wants the real thins will be happy with the money spent on the Real version.

This is a good buy, however if you are into season 2 and stongly feel that it is the best season then you may want to invest in the OVA's at least Trust and Betrayl, AND MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT THE DIRECTORS CUT!! They kinda botched some things up. The Widescreem implimentation means that they simply cut off some of the top and bottom of the frame, because the OVA was drawn in Pan and Scan format.

Background: Up until this season, the TV show closely followed the storylines of the Kenshin manga in Shonen. When this series was being made, the final "Revenge" arc of the Manga which was as good (or better) than the Kyoto arc was still being written. So this season of filler episodes, not written by Watsuki Nobuhiro was put out, got canceled due to lousy ratings and we NEVER get to see the true end of Ruruoni Kenshin on TV (the Samurai X OAVs Trust+Betrayal present a condensed version of Revenge arc's flashbacks and fight with Enishi).

So how is this series? Well the stand-alone filler episodes are fine and some of the mini-arcs are OK but others (esp. the Christian rebellion) are plodding, without memorable opponents or battles and very little character maturation. It's like the writers wanted to wait for Watsuki to write the character developement for his protagonists so they ended up treading water for an entire season. They also make some forays into the supernatural, which seems contrary to everything in the series thus far (Wastuki always tooks pains to show there was no magic in his characters, only skill and a few tricks).
The final episode, which was never shown on TV seems to have been animated on the cheap. It is actually sort of poignant in a weird way but you may be dissapointed if you expected some kind of resolution.

Technically speaking: The discs are fine but don't have as many features as some of the earlier ones. The subs are excellent but the dubs are pretty bad and the background audio is muted a bit on the dubbed track. WAY too expensive! For the price of all three sets you can get a plane ticket to Hong Kong and get the 'questionable' box which puts 8 episodes per disc (which the domestic version could have easily done but then no one would pay $150.00 for a season on 4 discs...)

Rurouni Kenshin - Wandering Samurai Box (5 stars)
Legend of Kyoto Box (5 stars)
Tales of the Meiji (3 stars, plus maybe a half-star because I really liked the final opening/theme song)

Whenever money is involved in things it always complicates life. Rurouni Kenshin- the wandering samurai story arc and -legend of kyoto story arcs are without a doubt masterpieces. Then they put this out only because the comic book (or manga) wasn't finished yet with the real story arc which is true and an eventful drama tale at its best. The real story is that of ...well I don't want to spoil it for those who don't know; but has to do deeply with Kenshin's past and also the story tells the fate of Kenshin's and Kaoru's Love. The producers of the show have eternally messed up the author's masterpiece of the legendary manslayer who stop's killing. The whole time I was thinking what the heck? this isn't kenshin where's the depth of the characters??? The only way now that they (the production company) can fix it and atone for there sins is to wander up some mulla and make another season and finish the real story. IF YOU ARE NOT A SUPER FAN OF RUROUNI KENSHIN DO NOT BUY THIS SEASON. The samurai x episodes does more justice than this box set(even though the voices suck and are not the same aS those in the series) but still for those who need to know kenshin's fate buy Samurai X Trust and Betrayal and then Reflection or wait for the manga to come out in the US. Thank you for your time.

This third installment of Rurouni Kenshin is all right, but not great. It has the same good ole humor, but the enemies are very different. The previous episodes tried to be somewhat realistic in their action and events, nothing very magical. In the Meiji Era, though, the events were extremely far fetch, from finding the Elixir to the flow of this huge electic wave of Chi running all over Japan. All strings to reality were chopped off.

The Legend of Kyoto had a fantastic ending with a huge, epic battle. Unfortunately, the series never reached the same amount of adrenaline in action. It didn't even come close. I also greatly missed Saitou. I never saw him again after Legend of Kyoto. He made the set of characters perfect with his awesome lack of pity.

If you want to keep a good impression of Ruruoni Kenshin, do not buy this DVD box. If you must know how it ends, then borrow it from a friend.

to get right to the point, as far as i have researched there is not a fourth season. the series is ended with the ova Reflections. in reflections it explains about enishi, and and gives a final solution to the series. i'm not going to spoil it by telling what however. i can only rate off what i have read and previewed, so sorry if you don't like it. i'm still going to get the third bowset.

This im guessing is the third of the 3 sets of rurouni kenshin. it is a very good peice of the series but the price is horrible. i got the entire perfect box set including all episodes for 75 dollars on ebay. just so your not confused where this set fits in:
OVA #1-4
Rurouni Kenshin-Wandering Samurai
Rurouni Kenshin-Legend of Kyoto
Samurai X: The Movie
Rurouni Kenshin-Meiji Era
OVA #5-6

many people say different but i have watched the entire series from start to finish and this is the correct order.

Season 3 doesn't seem like much when you heard the news of people thinking that they should've animated the arc from the manga, but they did this, and it's pretty good. I gave it a 4 because of the last arc called Feng Shui. It will make you go "uggh...." and "wha....." a lot, so that's why. The rest was pretty good. The filler episodes were VERY funny, especially the one when a paint artist falls in love with Kaoru. There are also 2 other arcs as I know of. I still have episodes 79-86 to watch so I'm pretty sure. The other arcs are the Christian and Divine Elixer arcs. The Christian arc is the best one, except the final battle sort of sucks. Anyhow, you'll see what I mean. Happy watching!!!

The Meiji Era is kind of like the first season - lots of small stories put together with a few episodes that stand alone. Christian cults, German knights, Ninja clans, more fighting styles (some even from Europe). The art work, camera style and appearance of some characters from the other seasons helps bring it all together even with the lack of a season long story. The last episode's use of real photographs and film footage mixed with the anime cells really brings it to a lovely and heart warming close.

The wandering samurai, Rurouni Kenshin, returns to the place where he started in the first season. A place he can call home.

This is awsome other people just dont like it all the way like some people. I dont care about if it was bad awful or just dont wrong. I like it because its awsome, cause Rurouni Kenshin is awsome in anyshow take that one star people.

Enishi should be in it... His part in the storyline was invaluable and very rich.