Keeper of the sacred I’m surprised by this fact, but I was completely excited about this series, which I didn’t expect from it at all. I advise everyone.
Pros:
- Plot. Barsu is asked to protect a prince in danger of assassinating the emperor, and they embark on a perilous journey through fantasy medieval Japan. What surprised me, there are not so many fights, and the series does not need this in principle, since there is a lot of attention paid to the disclosure of the world and the development of relationships between the characters. To describe briefly, half of the series is all sorts of fights and chases and half is a common daily occurrence in the Middle Ages. This is very interesting to watch, because the characters are quite colorful and realistic, and the series often throws up intrigues, and in general the fantasy Middle Ages is a rather interesting setting.
- Characters. The main feature of this series is that the characters are adequate. There are no typical anime archittypes, the dialogues of the characters are logical and understandable, there is no hyperbolization of emotions. It is very easy to believe in heroes and simply empathize with them. The main character, the prince, the members of the imperial family, the people on the side of the main characters, all have pleasant characters, logical behavior, there are no emotional outbursts or excessive malice or vice versa naivety. I understood the motivation of both the emperor and the main character, even children like the prince or his brother are adequate and not annoying at all. Even the killers sent for the main characters, the writer makes you respect. There is no obvious absolute evil in the series, all the characters have clear motivations. The characters are perfectly spelled out, you rarely find this in anime.
- Animation. Studio Production IG has always been famous for expensive and well-developed animation, their Ghost in the Shell of 2002 looks better than most modern anime, and many of their modern works look great, take the same spacing. And here is far from the exception, the series looks great. What made a lasting impression on me was that there was a crowd in the background. For anime, this is a big problem, if it is not mastodons like KyoAni or old Madhouse, in the anime series, the crowd is drawn in the background very poorly, and there is no problem with this at all. Fights look great, the drawing of frames does not cause any complaints, the backgrounds are beautiful, the world is worked out, the number of frames is always sufficient.
- Peace. Like I said, we have fantasy medieval Japan, which is great. Disclosure of the world is given a lot of time, there are many spirits, otherworldly worlds and other things, which creates a great atmosphere and intriguing. And the plot as a whole is very much tied to the otherworldly, as after all, the prince is exposed to the spirit, because of which the fuss began. What is also very impressive, the world is very well revealed through everyday moments, where the main characters just walk and communicate with ordinary residents. All anime is missing that.
Cons:
- Character design. I didn’t like the way many characters look, not that the charm design is quite disgusting, but everything in this series is so beautiful that I felt like changing the appearance of the characters and it would be 10 out of 10. And so, many characters face too pale, and I don't like the way the lips are painted. And some heroes are just freaks, like that guy with crooked teeth. Here give them a charm design from Dororo, and I will have no complaints at all.
9 out of 10