Inten­tional or not, medi­eval fantasy series always fall under the shadow of Ber­serk. Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu doesn’t do itself any favours by fea­tur­ing an effem­in­ate, sil­ver haired leader or an desir­able, unusu­ally power­ful ally. There are cer­tainly other par­al­lels to be drawn but the first three epis­odes prove whole­heartedly that […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• 3 episode taste test,
• Anime,
• berserk,
• death,
• densetsu no yuusha no densetsu,
• fantasy,
• gore,
• heroes,
• legend legend,
• legend of the legendary heroes,
• magic,
• medieval,
• review,
• swords

First released: July 2004
Just like the taijitu that fea­tures so heav­ily in the plot, Otogi Zoshi is split into two parts with ele­ments of its twin inter­spersed through­out. The tonal and aes­thetic dif­fer­ence between the two parts is arrest­ing, the first favour­ing a poised and atmo­spheric wander through a viciously feudal Japan, the […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• ancient,
• Anime,
• bygones,
• feudal,
• hikaru,
• japan,
• magatama,
• magic,
• modern,
• mystery,
• otogi,
• otogi zoshi,
• otogizoshi,
• raiko,
• review,
• swords,
• taijitu,
• tokyo,
• tsuna,
• yin yang

In the first three epis­odes of Hak­u­ouki  —  Shin­sen­gumi Kitan, activ­it­ies are split evenly between: smoul­der­ing with mas­culin­ity while loun­ging around in a den of exposed chests, or look­ing doe eyed and get­ting saved by gen­tle­men hero­ic­ally cut­ting up other gen­tle­men. Build­ing on the romance game source, its tar­get audi­ence is plain to see, […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• 3 episode taste test,
• Anime,
• bishies,
• boys love,
• gender,
• hakuouki,
• hakuouki shinsengumi kitan,
• kyoto,
• review,
• samurai,
• shinsengumi kitan,
• swords,
• wish fulfilment

First released: July 2007
The open­ing moments of Shig­uri are divis­ive: after a mont­age of linger­ing, abstract motions, a retainer pros­trates him­self before his lord and, in slick, gory detail, fatally offers his intest­ines up to enforce the sever­ity of his request. What fol­lows in the suc­ceed­ing epis­odes is often har­row­ing, fre­quently disgusting, […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• Anime,
• antique,
• bygones,
• death,
• death frenzy,
• harm,
• injury,
• katana,
• madhouse,
• murder,
• old,
• past,
• review,
• sadism,
• samurai,
• shigurui,
• swords,
• texhnolyze

How many eyes? 11eyes. Cer­tainly more than 3×3 Eyes and The Girl with the Blue Eye, numer­ic­ally at least. A fas­cin­a­tion with eyes and in par­tic­u­lar eye­patches (see also Rental Magica, Ten­jou Tenge et. al.), this series has the stand­ard out­fit­ting of an enig­matic past and hid­den powers con­nec­ted with said eye […]

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Organised with care and attention into:

• 11eyes,
• 3 episode taste test,
• 3x3 eyes,
• Anime,
• demons,
• fantasy,
• girl with the blue eye,
• kakeru,
• monsters,
• red knight,
• review,
• school,
• swords