Koihime Musou - Anime Review

Koihime Musou - Anime Review

Duration: 12 Episodes + 1 OVA
Watched: Crunchyroll
Published: Sentai Filmworks
Released: January 4, 2011 Locally

I am a person who likes to know as much about things as possible in regards to lore and backstory. When I purchased the fighting games Koihime Enbu, it was mostly because I wanted to play around with the game's mechanics. However, I discovered there was actually 3 seasons worth of anime based on this series. It was basically a no-brainer to dive in and see what was the cause of a fairly unique and awesome fighting game.

In this particular adventure we follow Aisha(Kan'u), a traveling martial artist who is on an adventure throughout ancient China. Almost every episode is a new basic plot with new characters but the main themes of friendship, duty, and honor, remain the same. Aisha meets a lot of different types of people and shares quality adventures with most of them.

Aisha's traveling companions range wildly in temperament. Rin Rin is a little brat a lot of the time, while Shuri is very quiet and composed. Sei is fairly subtle but sarcastic and Bachou is loud and confident. You get a little of everything.

There are couple of nice little touches throughout the series. Rin Rin's hairpin changes based on her current demeanor, reflecting exactly how she's feeling. A running joke about Aisha. There is a Tuxedo Mask-ish thing going on with one of the characters for some reason. My favorite, though, has to be the randomly inserted chibi sections. For some reason, in every episode there is randomly a scene where the characters are all chibi. I have no idea why this is but it is surprisingly enjoyable.

There are a few nitpicks, though. The characters all have multiple names that they go by and it can be pretty difficult to remember them all. There is also a lack of action. While pointless action serves no purpose, I was expecting a bit more than what we got. What is there is entertaining enough I suppose, but it is few and far between. Fortunately, the plots are all pretty streamlined so you might not even notice it much.

One last thing. There is fan-service here. Probably less than you might think given the material and definitely at least as much as you hope. It fortunately does not beat the audience over the head with it. Although, one character is extremely freaky. Just a heads up. No, seriously, be ready.

Conclusion
While it has its flaws it was not that bad. The plots every episode were enough to keep me plenty entertained and the characters were all enjoyable as well. There is a lack of action but that might be due to animation limitations or budget or whatever. I do not know, I was not there making it. The multiple names gave me a headache, though!

Recommendation
This will not blow anyone's mind but if you can handle a little fan service and some laughs you might find something entertaining here.

P.S. The version of this I watched on Crunchyroll seemed like it was extremely suspect. I am not certain if this was supposed to look a bit squashed(like the aspect ratio was borked) but it definitely does. Also, there is a ton of interlacing issues going on. It isn't horrible or anything but if you notice these sorts of things they can definitely be hard to ignore. Just a PSA for if you ever feel like watching it there. I notified them of the issue but who knows if it will ever be rectified?

Regardless, due to these issues I went ahead and invested in physical copies. I bought all 3 seasons from Rightstuf(published by Sentai a few years ago). They should be here soon so I can see the rest in hopefully better quality.