ryansemail

All the bad reviews I've seen seem to say the same basic thing, "it's a rip off of this and/or that". I can't comment from an unbiased point of view about what it reminds me of because I read these books when they were published as I was growing up. I can say I am a faithful fan of the literature, and though I may have a couple complaints, I found this to be an enjoyable and relatively faithful iteration of the source material.

If you're looking for a Netflix style rewrite then this isn't it. From what I recall the characters all look and act the same as they did in the books, and there are no wild deviations from the original plot or storyline. Obviously it isn't 100% screenplay of the books, but I give everyone who worked on this project 10/10 for bringing a familiar literary universe to life.

I don't get all the raving reviews or the brutal criticisms. This is literally the same story over and over again. We had the manga. We had the anime. We had the anime movie. We had the live action movies. This unabashedly draws direct elements from all of them and is in no way original or necessary, in my personal opinion. It's like a high school kid read/watched all the Kenshin media, then decided to make their own amalgamated version of it all. I don't think it's terrible by any means. Especially if you've never seen any Kenshin/Samurai X media, it may be rather entertaining. But why was it made? It adds nothing of value to the franchise that I can see. It's just retelling the same story in a style that's already been done. Go watch the original anime, or the live action movies. This just comes off as another pointless reiteration, on par with all the dumpster Disney live action remakes. Certainly not as bad as that recycled Disney garbage I've seen, but equally as pointless and worthless. Maybe I'm missing something, this is all just my humble and admittedly ignorant opinion.