Anime: Peace Maker Kurogane

THE STUFF
- Animated by studio GONZO, which means it’s going to suck.
- Directed by Hirata Tomohiro, maker of complete shit like Trinity Blood and Mayoi Neko Overrun.
- Based on the manga by Kurono Nanae, who is famous for her Vasslord manga. Which is basically about gay vampires, so it sucks hard.
So as you can see, there is no way for this thing to be good.

SPECIFICS
Sometimes mixing elements of completely different genres doesn’t produce an interesting twist. A fine example of this is Peacemaker Kurogane (PK), which pretty much decided to mix the easy going nature of a storyless slice of life with the brutal times of the Meiji era. To put it bluntly, PK is like watching Hitokiri Battousai (of Rurouni Kenshin) eating cake (in K-On) for 24 episodes. Does that sound ok to you? It sure doesn’t to me.

The story is about the daily lives of a group of Shinsengumi (the police force of that era) as they roam the streets to maintain public security, visit brothels, fight rebels and play cards. To make an analogy it is like Patlabor the series albeit with samurais. Unfortunately, unlike the mostly humorous and a bit realistic lives of police officers from the future, these dudes are plain boring. To make it simple, when you think of the Shinsengumi you don’t expect to see them eating ramen or flirting in brothels. You imagine them SLAYING REBEL SCUM IN THE NAME OF THE EMPEROR! And although there are a few battles in this show and really are brutal, 90% of it is aimless events that hardly seem to matter in the longrun.

Let’s just look at the main characters for a few seconds. Do these wimps remind you of super elite samurai force? They sure don’t to me and for that reason it is as if I am watching a historically inaccurate series. But wait, maybe this is a comedy series and thus such liberties are accepted. Ok then, I will try to see them as comical versions of the police force of that era… Nope, didn’t work, they really are fighting seriously a few times and they really are brutally killing or being killed. Again, I am unable to accept them for their roles. I don’t even with sympathize them, I mostly want to kill them myself for looking so goofy. I don’t like them! The show is telling you to hate the characters!

And anyways, even if the cast is irritating, what is exactly the purpose of the story? To stare at a bunch of idiots as they fool around for 24 episodes? What are they doing anyway? The jokes are definitely weak, the storyboard is random, the battles are few and far apart and the ending seems to not bring closure to anything. What motivation does this show offer to its viewers to hook them into looking further? To be honest, the closest thing I found in it was when the lead boy, this idiotic redhair boy, goes to a brothel and befriends a little girl. So there is this erotic tension in the air and I am thinking “If they are gonna do it, at least the series will be good for one thing”. And no they didn’t; there is zero sex in this series despite going there almost every other day. How lame! Then there is this look alike criminal who is paid to impersonate someone in order to cause chaos in the ranks. The resolution to that problem couldn’t be more boring and unexciting.

Not even the production values help as they are almost like a b-grade production, with simply drawn and colored characters, very little cinematics, forgettable songs and unimpressive voice acting.

I literally fail to find a purpose for this anime to exist. It has zero interesting elements in it, boring plot, passable production values, irritating characters, and above all no sex despite a big chunk of it taking place in a brothel. It’s like the whole show is a loaded gun that is left to rust on a shelf and you need to stare at the spiders making webs around it. Hey idiots, it’s a gun, use it or don’t place it there at all.

One of the worst anime I had the misfortune of watching. Don’t any of you dare to watch it. I MEAN IT, DON’T!

Animation:

I liked the most parts even its nothing special,the few fight scenes are ok some times good.But sometimes the faces looks kinda cheap and with no effort.

Sound:

The sound is quite well hittin the anime so i think its good i liked it for the most parts.

Story:

in my eyes the weakest part of the anime.First off i think i could be nice since it begins exiting but after the first 3 episodes there is a long time nothing more than an all day living at the dojo and that was realy boring in the most parts.In the last episodes it the story comes back and then it was "ok"

Characters:

hm the hero here i a litle dude who wants to take revenge for his parents and so, who wonders, he wants to become stronger and enters a group of fighters were his brother is a Bookholder.
The hero is fightin with the question should he take the sword or not...the other characters are quite ok but most of them dont have a background just the girl in love with the main char has some.Nothing special realy not.

Value:

when you cant find an other Anime take this one...

Enjoyment:

even it started realy fine it begans to get on my nerves since the main char has allways the same question "should i take the sword and become a Deamon?" I wish the litle brat has done it...but this whole sword thing is goin ca.15 episodes out of 24.Ok i admit that sometimes a few other thing going to happen once in a while but it was not enough in my eye to keep the exitement on a high level.

sorry i think this anime is overrated

i watch this show cause im a samurai lover and this is the perfect samurai show, including its bonus with ninjas, this show is one of my favourite show of all time cause of the emotion in this show and the action and blood i just love bloody animes and this is the perfect example especialy the ending parts of this anime is one of the best i have seen, the action is very well choreographed and very pro like, the story in this show is ok i dont really care for the main characters in this show he is ok but i got to say okita and the commander and the 3 comedic guys are the best they just own in fighting, im really hoping for a sequel for this show cause the manga is ongoing still which most likely have a sequel hopefully, i hope they do animat the sequel, the story in this show was kind of slow but they did have to introduce all the characters and then they developed the characters more and after episode 16 the show got supremely well done the character even matured more in the show espcealy the main character he was awsome near the end of the show the music in this show is great espcialy some of the rock music really go well with some of the scenes, so yah really enjoyed this show this is my favourite samurai anime and favourite anime of all time.

As Edo changes to Meiji, the Peacekeepers in Kyoto is a group of soldiers named the Shinsengumi. Ichimura Tetsunosuke, Iron Boy, and Ichimura Tatsunosuke, Dragon Boy join the Shinsengumi after their parents are brutally slained by a mysterious wandering samurai.

That's the basic premise of Peace Maker Kurogane, through a somewhat confusing set of stories you learn about the Shinsengumi, Kyoto at the time, and how a young man deals with the life of the samurai around him. The anime focuses more on the story then the action of the Shinsengumi.

The animation of the series is excellent. While the first 20 episodes are somewhat normal for what you would suspect for comedic, the fight scenes are rarely beautiful. Almost every fight is instantanious, there's a quick slash and then one person falls. When there's a spectral beast there's a little more action but it tries to remain very realistic. The final episodes has shcokingly amazing fights which involve numerous groups. Unfortunatly most of the anime is only average or slighty better. There's are however some very beautiful shots.

The music of the series is average. I tend not to notice music. I will say that most of the music is non descript and the final song while confusing is pretty catchy. The opening song how ever is only moderate and I tended to skip it more then I needed to.

The story of the show as I meantioned is the center of the show, not the action. The story is excellent. The life of the main character, Ichimura Tatsunosuke, is strange but interesting. With the death of his mother he came to the Shinsengumi to learn how to become a killer and he finds out what it really means by the end of the show. Because of his age he is only a servant for the show but this allows him to meet almost every major member of the Shinsengumi. The one fault of the series is the final episode is confusing and loses a bit of it's power.

The characters in the series are amazing. There's almost every famous member of the Shinsengumi from the leader of group, Kondo Isao, the leader of the squads Hijikata Touzou, Okita Souji, and Saitou Hitotsu (better know as Saitou Hajime in Ruroni Kenshin) to lesser known heroes such as Harada Sanosuke. There's also a large contingent of ninjas and other soldiers, as well as a patriot version of the main character.

With the exception of a overly gay Okita Souji, which illustrates what happened with some young boys in these groups though I doubt Okita Souji was one, many of these characters are truely brilliant, from the scary Hijikata to the spooky Saitou, to the three friends of Tatsunosuke there is a great variety of characters and the viewer feels a bond with these men. The evil characters once one distinguishes them from the heroes of the series, (Hijikata is shockingly similar to main bad character)are vibrant. It is very enjoyable to watch.

The value and enjoyment of this series is only diminished if you watch it for action instead of drama. There is a decent amount of action but it's intertwined with drama. The final episode lowers the value a bit as it's a poor episode, but the series as a whole is very good and quite enjoyable. The final episodes gives a large action ending showing the series really does lend more realism to itself then expected.