Jouran may not be the talk of the season, it definitely was an underappreciated anime. But usually, original story-based anime's are hit or misses, but I would put this anime right in the middle.

But before we go somewhat deep into the story, let's talk about the animation. The style is unique, adding an atmospheric vibe that really catches the historical aspect of the anime, plus I love just how robust and beautiful the animation is during the fight scenes with the neon blue capturing the supernatural element at play.

The main character "Sawa" is an elite executioner for "Nue" whose main purpose is to eliminate rebels that are a threat to the Shogun. While secretly trying to find the person who slaughtered her family and clan. I do like "Sawa" character development throughout the anime, in the beginning, her sole purpose in life is avenging her family's deaths. Her cold-blooded attitude eventually begins to change when she begins to value the life of a girl she spared "Asahi" who mirrors her own life that she wishes to protect from others. If I had to sum up her character overall she is very strong physically due to her blue blood powers but due to her tragic upbringing and certain events in the storyline she can be mentally weak when affected emotionally. For instance, there is one scene where she was so distraught over the death of a certain character that she begged to be killed by her boss " Jin".

If I had to point out the biggest issue with the anime is how it suffered from the lack of direction in the story, not many scenes were memorable and the over usage of plot twists, some cliche but others you may not see coming, one episode you think someone is dead but then they end up surviving, some characters are not what they seem to be they are good then bad and vice versa and the one you think is the main villain is just a puppet of an even greater dynasty. It just ends up being very disheartening to watch and some plot twists end up being used for cheap drama like causing emotional outbursts for "Sawa".

Honestly, I continued to watch this show for the main reason that I wanted to see whether our protagonist would end up getting the happy ending she deserved after the countless tragedies she had to face. I still don't understand why the director thought it was a good idea to disappoint the many fans of the show with the horrendous ending. What a freaking disappointment it was.

But overall besides the last episode, I did thoroughly enjoy and did look forward to each episode that was to come.

If you enjoy historical/supernatural animes then give this a chance you may even like the tragic ending if that is a fetish of yours like it is for a certain mermaid from "Monster Musume".