Sword of the Stranger

Japanese title: ストレンヂア －無皇刃譚－
Number of episodes: 1 (Movie)

Some info:
1) ANN
2) Wiki
3) Official Site (Japanese)

This is one cool movie with loads of actions, though story wise it’s very simple and ordinary. You might be guessing the 2 people in the picture featured above are the 2 main people who are gonna face off in the show. Well of course, they are, but the way they faced off isn’t exactly what I had in mind before I watched this awesome movie.

Well it’s not a surprise that these 2 men are uber powerful swordsman, well experienced in combat and pwns the average and the above average warriors in the show. The guy on the left has a past that left him hesitant to draw his sword, which he really doesn’t until much later into the show. Of course the reason behind this behaviour will be explained, and he finally decides to draw his sword once more to protect the kid he has developed a bond with. Sounds familiar? Haha.

Now for the other guy. He’s a westerner looking for a worthy opponent to fight with. Sounds familiar also right? Yeah well, he had actually sparred with the main character earlier in the show, but couldn’t finish enjoying himself before he was asked to stop and carry on with his duties. Haha. The final showdown was quite cool, though it’s a little short considering it’s something like the highlight of the show. For the reason why things ended up this way, the plot summary at ANN pretty much sums it up. Lol.

While it has kick-ass action and fighting scenes, some viewers might be put off by the explicit animated violence, although to me it’s nothing much bah. The sound effects also quite shiok, and matches the action very well to give a complete experience. Haha. The music is also very nicely composed for the movie, setting the mood, tension and atmosphere of the show. =)

If I were to find something to complain about, it’d be some of the Mandarin comments that some of the characters make. Since some of them are from China, they did speak some lines in Mandarin. Yeah, it’s not dubbed because they do put Japanese subtitles whenever those parts are being said, which is the usual practice for anime. Well, I don’t think my listening skills are that bad, but some of the lines spoken are quite bad. Not just the pacing but also the pronunciation. While some lines do sound like they were coming from ethnic Chinese speaking people, others sound like they were trying very hard to pronounce the word properly, hence making the dialogue sound rather weird. I guess it’s understandable since many of the voice actors/actresses are Japanese.

Oh well, in all I think this movie is still well worth watching. At least I enjoyed it a lot. =P