I will not go into story details, but as usual, will highlight my fave scene and chara; bear in mind that these are my opinion you might not agree. I realize I am not a film critic or professional in doing so. This is my opinion as a the fan of manga and anime I love so much. I might misunderstand some parts because there was no english subtitle here, so please, if you find it wrong, let's discuss :)
1. First of course my fave chara, a little bit depressed seeing most of aoshi's lines only around "where is battousai?" during the movie. On the bright side however, Isseya Yusuke doing a good job in depicting Shinomori Aoshi. He got some cool fighting scenes.
2. Beautiful fight scene of kenshin vs Soujiro, which also played well by Kamiko Ryunosuke.
3. I can't imagine other actor playing Kenshin than Sato Takeru just like Mizushimo Hiro for Kuroshitsuji's Sebastian. Kudos to the fight director for all of kenshin fight scenes, well arranged!
4. All of the charas are well displayed just like in anime and manga with appropriate adjustment. Hands down for actor and actress playing Misao, Ookina, Sawagejo, Houji! Well played! and kudos to the little boy Kenshin and Misao met, believable acting for such young age!
5. Eguchi Yousuke still not impresses me for Saito chara, but I am getting used to it.
6. I probably had high hope for Fujiwara playing Shishio. Somehow, I still feel he's too weak and less delusional than the original chara esp in the opening scene. But I feel he's improving near the end of this part. The opening scene felt so epic it was just a little not enough because Fujiwara's act was not believable on this particular scene.
7. The weakness of this movie I guess is how they make relation between Aoshi's obsession to meet Kenshin seems to be forced. As you know, in anime and manga, his obsession was because he can't defeat kenshin in Takeda's case. Here, because he did not appear on Takeda's case ( which is still a big question mark for me,WHY?!?), the reason was to take the blame of his subordinates deaths on kenshin who was even not there when they were killed!
My friend, watching with me and who's not a fan of the anime and manga also felt weird about this.
8. Apparently Fukuyama Masaharu will be Kenshin's teacher, Seijirou Hiko.
9. Since there was another scene of Kenshin reminiscing Tomoe, I guess there will be scene about Kenshin's past on the next part. I am not sure whether Enishi's story will be presented or not but it will be a pleasant surprise if there is.
10. A little bumped out because the saying good bye scene of Kaoru and Kenshin in the middle of the night with fireflies did not exist.
11. A credit for Miura Ryousuke who played Sawagejo because he apparently studied the chara even into details, esp on what he did with his eyes and movements.
12. My other fave scene is when Kenshin prevented the little kid from taking revenge to those who have killed his family members.
To sum it up, very recommended! As a fan of anime and or manga, I am pretty much satisfied. It's beautifully directed. 8/10. Can't wait to watch the next part on september.
here`s the link for the official trailer
