Rurouni Kenshin

This review contains some light spoilers for the story of Rurouni Kenshin.

Rurouni Kenshin is a classic that you've probably heard about, it's a story about Himura Kenshin who after slaying hundreds of samurai during the Bakumatsu revolution decides to go on a journey and try to live a normal life during the new era and atone for the lives he took. However redemption is not that easy, Kenshin is constantly forced to meet people he knew during the revolution and is constantly reminded that even though he did it for greater good he still took the lives of other people and he is constantly fighting a battle with himself, one side of him wants to stop killing people and live in peace but the other side of him knows that it isn't that easy and tries to kill people to save the ones he loves.

"A manslayer is only that until he dies... He can never be anything else. I'll see how long you can stay a wanderer..."

Most of you probably know what happened to the author of Rurouni Kenshin and refuse to watch or read the manga just because of the awful crime he committed, however this anime doesn't in any shape or form promote what the author did. This is an anime about redemption and it is hard for me to believe that someone who wrote Rurouni Kenshin doesn't feel sorry for what he has done and he is probably going to life the rest of his life in shame.

This anime taught me how important it is to forgive people no matter how many unforgivable things they did. Nobody is perfect and we all made some mistakes and regret them so all of us can relate to this, however you can't hate someone when you didn't even give them a chance to become better and learn from their mistakes. We must remember that all of us have something inside us that allows us to learn from our past choices and become better people but not everyone can do that, especially if you're not even giving them a chance to do that.

After all those praises I have to say that the beginning of Rurouni Kenshin was rather slow and boring for me. However the Kyoto arc is where anime truly reaches it's peak, It's an arc about another manslayer but this time he wishes to destroy Imperialist government that has betrayed him. This arc has a ton of exciting backstories and fights out of which I would have to mention Anji's backstory. Anji was a devoted monk but after a series of unfortunate events he has saw how evil the world is and sees that there is no point in praying to Buddha if he isn't going to do anything about it, instead Anji chooses to take the matter into his own hands and destroy this evil world to create a new one where evil and greedy people won't exist. There are much more exciting ideals and backstories in Kyoto arc which is another reason you should give Rurouni Kenshin a try.

The only problem I have with Rurouni Kenshin anime are the fillers. There are fillers in animes like Gintama that are actually enjoyable and fun but Rurouni Kenshin fillers have no purpose, they're just there to fill the time so the anime wouldn't catch up to the manga too quickly. However you can just skip fillers so it's not such a huge issue.

If you like Rurouni Kenshin I recommend you check out Vinland Saga and Trigun, they're both great shows about pacifism and forgiving people.

I would have to give Rurouni Kenshin a score of 80/100 because of the fillers that make up 50% of the show but since I skipped fillers on my rewatch I can confidently say that the anime is 100/100 if you disregard them which I highly encourage you to do.