Take A Pick: Samurai X Reflection

Take A Pick: Samurai X Reflection

 

Looking back it’s almost strange to really consider Samurai X: Reflection simply an OVA, it accomplishes much like Trust & Betrayal something truly astounding in anime and also touches on an already established mythos, filling in the things we always wondered about but maybe were too afraid to actually see. Not only does it gives us this, it gives us so much more as it is the definitive answer in both Kenshin Himura’s life and those around him.

 

     In the same vein as Trust & Betrayal, its crisp animation and serious tone set it apart from the TV show but never so that it feels like a completely different series, these are mere chapters in Kenshin’s life, to see them this way is to understand different moments have different feelings attached to them.  Having learned the bloody past of Kenshin that has molded our favorite tortured wanderer, we now look to his future and the majority of it is through the eyes of his wife Karou. Who must cope with his absence and the many times he’s had to leave and it asks the bold question who suffers the most, the sufferer or the witness to the sufferer.

 

      Karou is a weakened form of her old self as she waits and the OVA/Film, goes back and forth into her reflections of their life years before and the present, it also dives into other characters and what has happened to them since such as their son Kenji and the familiar characters Sonouske and Yahiko. Through her eyes we see a wanderer who is repeatedly haunted by his past, through figures that will not allow him to live in the present forcing him to find something in the now to stave off his past. Even so, the lengths he must go seem to be destroying him and the repeated visits keeps his mind far away, how can Karou’s offered hand hope to keep him here. It also ties into her thoughts of her father, the parallel paths he and Kenshin have walked and the yearnings she had as a child mirroring the yearnings as an adult.

 

     Interestingly enough there is no resentment or bitterness toward Kenshin not being able to fully be present as her husband, while there is sadness, there is also hope and through it even understanding. Something that Kenshin needs. This OVA is focused on relationships and the journey the characters will make more than how they cut up their enemies but it revisits certain battles in the TV series, given another glimpse in their mind during it and what it leaves them with. They are wonderfully done, flexing the amazing animator’s muscles to show these briefly as they do with the subtly of other scenes and the scenery and how it plays into character’s feelings. Because a cherry tree is just a cherry tree not a man. Something along those lines. Just one of the many things that Kenshin says to try and keep his feet parked in the present and not the past. Something that if you think about it has even greater significance later on.

    The music just like in Trust and Betrayal is extremely powerful, it has the might of any film score you might see and seems physical as it moves around the characters and the animation, understanding every moment of the film. It simply stands out as great music period, something I’ve heard many people say time and again. As hard as the first half of the reflection is, the second is rougher as we see reflections that mark even deeper into the scar of what has made Kenshin who he is and the return to the present as others that he has moved and changed now make an effort to finally bring him home, truly. There’s no denying the organic romance of it and never does it feel like something Kenshin would not say or do, it always feels like we are seeing the inside of his soul and the connections to all the ones around him. So many people need Kenshin as we see, you find you need him too, his philosophy and struggle to understand life that though he may never have asked it, we are so glad of those that reach out that he needs and the strength of Karou who he might have needed more than anything.

 

 Powerful as a statement, powerful in its closing of a beloved franchise, Reflection is a must for those that love Rurouni Kenshin, it is yet another piece to a whole of what has moved us for so long now and is a great encouragement for those that have not seen the series to watch it in order to reach this point. As sad as it is this isn’t something that can be ignored as is the hope that just will not remain defeated throughout the OVA, making it all the more important.