Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
H-Kyouma
Ahahahaha! Rejoice, for Hououin Kyouma has emerged from the chaotic expanse of the multiverse to bestow judgment upon yet another creation of mortal hands! This time, our subject of scrutiny is none other than Shigurui: Death Frenzy, a tale drenched in blood, madness, and an obsession with the grotesque that would make even the most hardened souls recoil!
At first glance, one might assume this series to be a mere spectacle of carnage, a festival of flesh and steel! And indeed, its artistic brutality is unparalleled! Every frame, every lingering shot of exposed muscle and shattered bone is rendered with an almost reverential devotion to suffering. The gore is not just gruesome, it is beautiful! A twisted paradox that only the most deranged of minds can appreciate.
And then, the delusions!…
Read at the sourceBensonas
Right, ill cut to the chase, this show isn't good at all. Its trying really hard to depict a brutal time in Japans history and trying way to hard. This anime has a lot of horrible scenes. So if you are a little sensitive to extreme violence or sexual assault, some of which is at the same time then for a start this isn't for you. Equally, if you like shows with great animation and great story telling coupled with great character development, this show also isn't for you.
Ill start with the only positive and to be fair, its still not great. The music is minimal here and attempts to provide tension and a sense of foreboding. Instead you just get bored of hearing it. It may be hindered by the fact that what is accompanying the music is mindnumbingly uninteresting, but still, its gets really b…
Read at the sourceJastereich
I recently watched a 12-part Anime series on Blu-ray, which was available in English 5.1 and the original language (2.0). The series was translated well, and its atmosphere and presentation were quite impressive. The series features good voice acting, with great ambient sounds and an artwork that is both impressive and hypnotic. While the story may seem a bit complex, it comes together in the end.
This isn't your typical Samurai-Anime series, and if you're looking for something action-packed like Ninja Scroll, you may not find it here. However, this is the perfect series for you if you're into Ghost in the Shell's more arty and trippy style and appreciate the atmosphere and animated art. The Samurai mostly duel, building up tension with dialog and great scores before bursting into short…
Read at the sourcea_regular_s3al
'𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘶𝘪' is a show that attempts to create an immersive representation of the Edo period/17th century through every aspect of the show, from its classical style soundtrack, muted colours and swordsman focused story, setting a tone which shows the hideous sides of this time. However, was '𝘚𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘳𝘶𝘪' able to effectively immerse the viewer and tell a compelling tale? In some ways yes, otherwise, mostly not.
The strongest aspects of the show as previously stated, are the artistic elements, but they are certainly not without their drawbacks. The soundtrack is solid and is reminiscent of what the Edo era would sound like, it is also applied appropriately to what is happening in a scene. However, there was one or two tracks which whilst sounded good, featured immersion breaking…
Read at the sourceMalfegor
I have no way of actually confirming, but this nigh-misantrophic anime feels a lot more accurate to what the samurai were probably actually like, compared to any more heroic depictions.
a hypermasculine cabal, high off authority, practicing nothing but worship of rigid power structures and the art of killing? yea, no way that wasn't a hotbed for corruption and depravity.
enjoy the not-so-subtle symbolism behind the school of samurai in this show being singularly devoted to a cruel elderly man, entirely succumbed to dementia, who only snaps into lucidity to commit acts of violence.
perhaps this is even the one actually great "horror" anime.
very slow paced and minimally animated, but incredibly dense on unnerving atmosphere, with occasional bursts of the grisliest, realistic violence ever…
Read at the sourceEDOSHINRATENSEI
There’s a lot of weirdness in the anime world, and this is one of them. It’s a samurai anime, but there’s a bunch of muscle flexing like Baki. However, what made the anime so disturbing was the animation and the story.
The anime looked entirely surreal. During the day, everything is dreamy and bright, while at night it was ominous. All of the samurai’ faces, except for Fujiki, creeped me out in different ways. One has ginormous eyeballs, one has a wide mouth, one has feminine lips, etc. Then, the slow music added more creepiness to the show.
The main story wasn’t that hard to follow, even though some transitions were too abrupt. However, the characters’ actions were what greatly disturbed me. Some scenes had me internally screaming and cringing. If you think samurai are cool, then this a…
Read at the sourceBeard_Of_Serpico
Be prepared, Shigurui: Death Frenzy is not for everyone. It's gruesomely violent, has very few redeemable or likeable characters, it's rapey, shockingly gory and has pretty much zero moments of humour.
I also kind of loved it.
The story takes place in the 1600's and follows a sensei who is training samurai in order to choose his eventual successor and the backstabbing, murder and betrayals going on in the background. That's the basic gist of it, i don't want to spoil anything.
Pretty much every character is a psychopath especially the sensei, the fight scenes are so stylish and brutal and the tone and atmosphere so thick with dread and tension that i do not blink when i watch this show.
The violence really is extreme with dismemberment, eyeballs being slashed with swords (and eaten), jaw…
Read at the sourceEyeAmTheI
Let's get this straight. This anime is not for weak stomach. If you are a sensitive soul dont even try to watch it.
I dont think the 18+ is enough for this anime. Not just because of its goreness, but because of the series as a whole. This is definitely one of those which is made for mature audience. What did I say? (*ragenoises*) What I mean by this is after a while you'll start to see the repetitive patterns in the art. The same "deep meanings" that have been processed a thousand times, and they came to the same conclusion. Nothing new just different wrapping with the same content. In reality the man is simple... So you'll start to appreciate the atmoshperic art, which does not strain to convey something very deep (and doesnt try to be "such wow, much thinking").
This is where the an…
Read at the sourcequeenhinata
Shigurui is not for the light-hearted. It's dark, violent, gore-y, rape-y and showcases the cruelty and callousness of humanity. You'll feel bad for some characters, possibly even root for them, and for others, hope for their downfall.
The plot is one of revenge, pride, and power. There's a lot of fodder characters who get slayed, but the core main characters are pretty interesting. We come to know their emotions and motives. Rather than a linear progression, the anime begins with an introduction of two handicapped samurai who are about to engage in battle, then the story follows their rivalry while meandering into backstories.
The traditional Japanese OST is excellent and totally sets the mood: amplifying the intensity of what is happening on the screen.
I enjoyed the suspense and un…
Read at the sourceweabooslayer69er
've watched a lot of anime, but this one is one of the most unique out of all of the ones that I have watched. I've never seen an anime that is this violent, explicit, and drenched in darkness and stark realism. This is probably the most realistic samurai anime that one will ever see. Fights end quickly and characters die in gruesome fashion.
The animation and framing of the scenes make it so that it invites the viewer to pay close attention to bask in gruesome ends to characters and so that they don't miss clear cases of foreshadowing and symbolism methodically placed in the anime.
This anime is clearly for mature audiences. Not only are scenes gruesome, but there is explicit sexual content. Clear shots of female nudity, sex acts, sexual assaults, etc. However, the anime doesn't show…
Read at the sourcePinkOni
Shigurui is dark, gritty, relentless, and communicates its story to the viewer fairly well. Midway through this series it was headed for my top ten. Upon completion it will not be. There are a ton of things this show gets right, most of them actually. But it has a fatal flaw and I hope to bring that flaw to light with this review.
---Story---
This story is not for the weak of heart. If you prefer dainty, lighthearted, adventure seeking, and unrealistic fights then this is not the anime for you. The story of shigurui tracks the downfall of the Kogan style of swordsmanship and intertwines a story of competition between two protagonists. It does this quite masterfully and by episode 4 I was hooked to see what would happen next. The drama in this series is extremely believable: jealousy, se…
Read at the sourceWallahSous
If you want a concise review that isn't riddled with vague pseudo-intellectual nonsense, read this one.
It's basically a tragedy where apprentices compete for being the heir of a renowned sword dojo, with a twist on the story.
The atmosphere is extremely cruel. There is a massive amount of gore and sexual messed up moments. There is not a single scene of humor. Attention to detail is insane, you feel like you're reading a novel with how everything is "audiovisually" described meticulously (face expressions, movements, sounds).
Combat is very concise and extremely precise. Key movements that showcase a certain technique. Every single movement is amplified by various cinematic and audio techniques. You see things such as toes movements, the sound of body parts moving and x-ray muscle scan…
Read at the sourceEcchi-Go
This anime is both visually stunning and has some excellent period music. The mood and tempo are serious and well paced as a Historical Drama. Some of the action sequences were very well done, others stayed in more of a story-board format and I am not sure if that was due to budgetary or time restraints. The parts of the story and plot that are told are well done.
What this anime is lacking most ...is an ending (I can only guess you need the manga for the complete story). There are many parts of this story that require thinking and close attention by the viewer to interpret, and I enjoy that. What I do NOT enjoy is when an anime "Summary" and First Episode describe an epic battle which the anime then never shows nor provides an outcome for. Similarly, the anime and summary characterize a…
Read at the sourcePushMePullYou
Oh boy, where to start with this one. I signed up to review it, so here we go. I'm currently reading the manga for this one, and while I initially enjoyed this adaptation (the first two episodes were super promising!) I found it to be quite detestable in the way it handled the plot and characters of this series overall.
Art and Sound Design - 9/10
These were, in my opinion, the main strong points of the show. You have high quality Studio Madhouse animations and art, which lovingly render a blend of 2D art with select moments of 3D (usually for gore) that lend an edge of uncanny valley to the gory scenes often portrayed in this show. Of which there were a lot. It paints a brutal takedown of the idea of the 'noble samurai in service of his lord', and almost everything shown here is in serv…
Read at the sourcedarkzuko26
One of the best samurai anime i've ever watched, but unfortunately, if you want to fully understand the story you have to read the manga, because the serie was made before the manga end. It is full of nonsense flashbacks that make you get lost in the story so you cannot focus on the plot.
The animation is very shiny at the day and very dark at night (maybe because the 1600's years and shogunate period ambience that reflect the fact of having no electric power and roads made with rocks that reflect too much the light of the sun).
I don't like specially samurai anime but i have curiosity, if you are truly in love with the history of the shogunate and samurai era watch it without hesitation and read the manga, if is not the case you better watch some shoujo or shonen
Read at the sourceVivavideoUser2x
Yes, this show is very graphic and gorey, but besides that its just a very artsy as hell samurai story, with some of the slowest story pacing i have seen in an anime so far to date.I feel like hipsters and cinephiles will get a nice kick out of it, but I don't know if they can handle this artsy fartsy direction for over three hours, There some crazy moments like disembowelment,nipples getting cut off here and there, and some just straight up freaky and weird moments. But besides that, its lifeless characters, minimalist soundtrack, and numerous shots of the sun and trees and insects that last for like over a minute constantly, almost drove me up a wall.The one thing that did not wear me out was its SPECTACULAR character design that was so good that it was freaky.But yeah ,you can check it…
Read at the sourceAkhlys
Shigurui
Now, it has been a while since I have written one of these, so I hope you’ll forgive me for being a little rusty. I was scouring the interwebs for shows comparable to Texhnolyze and Ergo Proxy and came upon Shigurui: Death Frenzy which boasted a gritty atmosphere, blood and gore, and all-around awesomeness, and while Shigurui is not as complex in and of itself, it does present the plot in very interesting ways, which has catapulted it to the heights of one of my favorite shows.
[Story: 7/10] The plot of Shigurui is not a tremendously complicated plot in and of itself; it's a story of revenge, a story of a deadly rivalry and a story of brutality. What does fascinate me about the story is the way in which it is presented. The first episode alone could be subject to an analysis o…
Read at the sourceThorNN-heim7
Shigurui starts of with a duel that seems important, but you never get to see it, other than the begining where they walk in and take their stances. The show just jumps into the past in a disconnected way that scrambles what little story it actually had. In the past we're shown what, presumably led to the duel, but we never get answers, and the ending doesn't say anything about the outcome.
At times I found myself wondering what would happen next, but usually I was disappointed.
The story was quite poorly written and unnecessarily gory, which the art style supplemented. I don't mind gore, but this was just gore for the sake of making it disturbing and edgy. The art itself was passable, but I wouldn't write home about it.
Most of the characters had little to no personality or backstory, an…
Read at the sourcePiraHxCx
After watching the first five minutes of the first episode of Shigurui (or, as I would call, "Tits and Bowels") I thought "damn it, it is directed by the same guy from Texhnolyze", and I was right.
It looks like Hamasaki's specialty and main goal is to make you drop his series at the first episode. The torturous slow pace and cryptic direction, how he goes on and on barely developing anything, can only be endured because of the truly astonishing art and music that accompanies his work - and for knowing him, I knew I'd also be greatly rewarded with the story development once enough pieces of it were presented, if I could just endure this beginning. So be wary of that if you pick it to watch.
Shiguriu takes place in the Edo period and feels like a classic novel, it's not an adventure, nor i…
Read at the sourceParadoxDelta
This is a pretty bloody ronin show with surpringsingly little action. While there is so much gore, it hardly happens in swordfights but all kind of violent situations along the way. The show focuses mostly on establishing on this calm, unsettling atmosphere like in Seriel Experiments Lain or Kurozuka, wich is quite to my liking. Most of the sword fights consist of the characters meditating / starring at each other and are suddenly over in one blow.
Unfortunately this super slow story telling really eats on the enjoyment in the long run. The more episodes you watch, the more it becomes a drag. The story from these 12 episodes could have been told in 4 to 5 episodes and we are also faced with some major plotholes. So if you enjoy the atmosphere in the shows of Yasuyuki Ueda and Hiroshi Ham…
Read at the source
