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18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome, incredible, legendary, priceless, amazing, December 21, 2003
This review is from: Rurouni Kenshin Wandering Samurai - Premium Box 1 (DVD)
This is the first of three box sets (one season in each) of Rurouni Kenshin, THE best anime I know of. This box sets serves as a good introduction for the REAL Rurouni Kenshin, which is on the second season The Legend of Kyoto. This is the greatest series, featuring amazing animation, good plots, interesting characters, and a perfect mix between comedy and action, UNLIKE Trigun. The action is very, very well done, and never bores you like in DBZ (in which they spend an episode looking at each others' faces). Oh, and the soundtrack is breathtaking. I have seen this box set three times now, and it never fails to entertain me. You should watch it subbed, because altough the dubbing is pretty good, the original is MUCH better, giving it more emotional impact. The characters are very cool and interesting, some you'll love (Ayame and Suzume), others you'll hate (Hiruma Gohei)and others will make you cry (Seta Soujiro). This series is about Himura Kenshin, as he tries to atone for killing a lot of people during the Bakumatsu (Revolution). Back then he was known as Hitokkiri Battousai and was an assasin beleiving he could help build a better world. After the Bakumatsu ended, he swore never to kill again and got a Sakabatou (reverse-edged katana) to protect and save people. Eleven years later he meets with Kamiya Kaoru and thus begins this amazing and unforgettable adventure. Whoever sees this series will never forget it, and I guarrantee you'll enjoy it. Its a long series, but every DVD is worth it, altough I prefer the box set for collectible reasons. The best part is the second season Kyoto Arc, but get this one as well, and also the ending (if you got as far as 2/3, why not finish? plus, altough the last season is not as cool as the second, its worth seeing if you liked the first two) Also get the OVAs Trust & Betrayal and Seisouhen (Reflection) to understand better and also you can get The Motion Picture for those who can't wait for the next box set (like me!). The only complain I have is of the packaging of the DVDs. The cardboard sleeves can scratch the disks and are easy to fall off them, but you can always just put them on jewel cases. Other than that, this is a perfect product, and is worth buying. I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE LEGEND OF KYOTO BOX SET!!!!!!!!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
great series terrible packaging, November 26, 2003
This review is from: Rurouni Kenshin Wandering Samurai - Premium Box 1 (DVD)
The Rurouni Kenshin wandering samurai -premium box set is a great addition to anyones anime collection, but its mared by poor disk packaging (the disks come in cardboard sleeves). The Content of the show is excellent and is a great mix of of humor and action. What saddens and fustrates me is the decision by Media Blasters to package the individual disks in loose cardboard sleeves,the disks fall out of the sleeves during shipping and cause really large scratchs on the actual disks, which in turn leads to some of them being unplayable if the box set has been man handled enough. Take my box set for example disk one was basically ruined with deep scratchs along the outer edge of the disks and a large scar on the centerline of the disk. So please for the next kenshin box set ask media blasters to include either traditional/ double Amaray type cases or atleast slim CD-ROM/CD cases to prevent shipping damage. Great series tho just be happy that amazon.com has a great return policy.
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26 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Greatest Animated Series Ever, Box set not so much, November 11, 2005
This review is from: Rurouni Kenshin Wandering Samurai - Premium Box 1 (DVD)
It is an uncontestable fact that Rurouni Kenshin is a great, great series; and I will say up front that this box set is worth buying despite its faults. The show has everything; silly comedy, political intrigue, real, complex emotion; fascinating character development and conflicting purposes; and of course crazy-beautiful over the top, landscape-destroying, bouncing-off-the-ceiling swordfights.
But: there were several issues with the box set that buyers should know.
One: the DVD encoding quality is not great; it doesn't get in the way too often, but you can see it.
I preface Problem Two by saying that it is not worth buying this OR ANY ANIME (only exceptions being Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and Kiki's Delivery Service) if you are only going to watch the dubbed version. The American voice actors are all completely atrocious; please disregard anything you have heard to the contrary, and imagine a bad porno movie with no sex. The American voice actors have apparently never heard of Japan, or listened to the Japanese dialogue they are dubbing over; the DVD's "outtakes" consist of the voice actors demonstrating their inability to pronounce japanese words, and these outtakes are not much worse than the takes that made it into the presentation. Regardless, none of the characters in Rurouni Kenshin can be separated from their original voice actors except for an occasional generic villian; the show makes no sense when Kenshin is played by a gravelly-voiced caucasian punk trying to sound badass and not succeeding. I'm sure Richard Hayworth has his talents, but he has no business trying to be Himura Kenshin when he can't pronounce his own name.
On to Problem 2: Only 95% of the dialogue is translated into subtitles. This is irritating. Someone will be saying something and you read the line underneath and understand. Then they will follow with a setence that inexplicably lacks a subtitle. This seems to happen at least once almost every episode. Definitely not worth switching to English for. But sometimes you can just tell that what that guy just said was pretty important.
Problem 3: Partly my fault for not researching a little better, but this box set cuts off before the end of the major story arc, the Kyoto Arc (Shishio). It stops after Sanosuke fights with Anji in Shishio's fortress, which those who know the series know is a painful place to have to stop.
Problem 4: If you buy from a customer "used and new" because you don't have 145$ to burn, expect to get the bootlegged version (like I did). Bootlegged anime is very common and the quality is still good; I hear it is somehow legal in Hong Kong and Korea where this happens, but whatever, lower prices, woohoo! This is the version shown in the "customer photos" above; it has all the episodes, but not all of the extras that the legitimate version has. It has a sort of crappy photo gallery/character bios feature (only Aoshi and Megumi have bios and the gallery is really pathetic) and the aforementioned outtakes: essentially nothing worth checking out. No character greetings, no attack list and no liner notes. To me, that's worth the difference of 80$, though.
And one last thing: the second half of the first disk and the first few episodes of the second disk are filler episodes in the series. While hardcore fans might make themselves endure these, they are not canon, they are not in the manga, and they are really terrible. The animation in these is the worst you will see in the series and you will skip them if you value your time. :) Knowing the quality of the series overall makes it painful for a fan of "good Kenshin" to watch Kenshin foiling a band of train robbers on horseback, or teaming up with circus sideshow actors.
All that said, the Kenshin box set is still 5 stars because the quality of the show--much like _true love_--conquers all.
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