Alchemist in Busou Renkin

Time to another anime review. And this time: Busou Renkin. It’s a manga created by Nobuhiro Watsuki, the creator of the famous Rurouni Kenshin. But I must say that I like this story better because finally Nobuhiro make the female heroine as strong as the male hero and make her fight a decent fight. I still remember how I (as a worshiper of strong heroine) was upset at the fact that Kaoru Kamiya didn’t fight much despite she was a dojo owner. I mean, come on… how can that little kid (who was her pupil) got more fight than her?? She is the freakin teacher there!!

Okay, that’s enough of my rant. Anyway, the story started when a highschool boy named Mutou Kazuki saw a freaking monster (who was called Homonculus) in an abandoned building. While he was hiding, suddenly he saw a highschool girl, who later on we knew as Tsumura Tokiko, who seemed didn’t notice the monster and would be attacked. He jump from his hiding, and pushed her away, but his heart got pierced by the mosnter instead. Thus he died (typical shonen isn’t it?). But, it’s not the end of the story ^_^ Touched by Kazuki’s action, Tokiko decided to save him by replacing his heart using a Kakugane (kind of metal that could be activated as a weapon).

The next day, Kazuki who didn’t remembered what has happened thought all that as a dream. But, it weren’t a dream, as the mosnter again attacked him, and this time Tokiko apeared before him and killed the homonculus. Later she told Kazuki that she actually could killed the homonculus easily, that the other day was just her act to lure the homonculus out. ^_^; And since Kazuki already seen the homonculus, that mean he got involved in the war between alechemy warior (Tokiko was one of them)and the homonculus. There were two choices actually, fight or forget it all. Tokiko assured Kazuki to returned to his ordinary live, come back to his sister and friends. But as he is the main hero, he wouldn’t do that, instead he took the 3rd option (he made it himself)that he will fight and come back to his sister and friends.

Later on, we will see a plot that actually quite twisted. We couldn’t make a clear line between black and white. Typical Nobuhiro. We will see that the vilain actually not an exactly vilain. There’s a reason behind their act, that if we were in their position, we could also act the same. But of course there’s always options that we could choose.

Overall I quite enjoy this anime, as I already said before, Tokiko is strong and she had decent fights. Eventhough later on Kazuki is still the strongest (hey… It’s shonen afterall ^_^) The romance between Kazuki and Tokiko is already expected, but it’s still amussing to saw how their relationship grew ^_^. Other thing that make me like this story better than Kenshin is the ending. Even though, the second and third last episode make you think you’ll have the not good ending feeling, I’m glad it’s just a twist. Busou Renkin does have a happy ending, with happy-people-live happily-ever-after feel. Ah, how I really like those kind of story. ^_^

I think as Rurouni Kenshin is one of Nobuhiro’s best story, this Busou Renkin couldn’t avoid but has a ‘Kenshin scent’ here and there. For example, the theme is still want to become stronger so Kazuki could protect the people he loved especially Tokiko, and he wouldn’t sacrified anyone. Then if you see Tokiko’s character design, you could tell that she is female version of Kenshin. She even has a scar, only her scar is single and it’s across her face, her personality is different though. Other example is in one episode where Tokiko was hurt, Kazuki’s sister Mahiro bandaged her whole body, that make her looks exactly like Shisio Makoto ^o^ I couldn’t help but chuckled when I saw that. One more is that there was a Busou Renkin that looked like a katana named Sword Samurai X. ^_^

There’s thing that dissapointed me though. The OP and ED songs isn’t as great as Kenshin's. I don’t even want to hear those songs. And sometimes the Busou Renkin names just ough… disturbing. Such as Near death Happiness and Alice in Wonderland. What the H***??!! It could be named better than that >_< but then again it’s just minors. Overall it’s an enjoyable anime.