Busou Renkin

Information of Anime

Kazuki Muto dies on the scene when he tries to help what seemed to be a girl in distress from a monster.  It turns out that the girl named Tokiko Tsumura is an Arm Alchemist who was trying to lure the monster called Homunculus.  To save him, Tokiko implants a Kakugane, the source of Arm Alchemist, in place of his heart.  However, the Kakugane inside Kazuki produces an spear-like weapon with his fighting spirit to fight the Homunculus.  Together with Tokiko, Kazuki fights these man-eating monsters to protect his friends & his sister Mahiro Muto.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

After given a Kakugane, Kazuki goes against Tokiko's advice & fights L.X.E, an organization founded by Homunculus.  It is only after he fails to save his human-turned Homunculus schoolmate, Koushaku Chouno (aka Papillion) from becoming human again.  Recruited by Captain Bravo, the leader of the Arm Alchemist team, Kauzki trains himself to fight against L.X.E.  As we progress deeper into the show, we learn Dr. Butterfly (Chouno's grandfather) is running L.X.E.  Once L.X.E.'s base is discover, the organization & its members get eliminated.  But the purpose of reviving an old third kind named Victor is complete.

Victor's power is too great for Kazuki, which results to another death for him.  But, he revives by using a black Kakugane; the same one that Victor uses.  However, the side effect of the black Kakugane is energy draining off people.  Victor runs away from the battle as it would be endless & Kazuki manages to turn back to his old self.  However, his new body catches the attention of the Alchemic Regiment.  Thus, the organization makes a new mission which is to re-kill Kazuki while searching for Victor.

Kazuki, Tokiko, & Gouta Nakamura who was part of the re-kill Kazuki team until it got called off, go to Newton Apple Girl's Academy to learn about the black Kakugane that Tokiko got from.  In the meantime, the Alchemic Regiment focus their plans on killing Victor after finding his location.  All efforts against him are fruitless as he manages to defend himself well.  At the girl's academy & Kazuki's gang along with Papillion find Victor's wife & daughter, Victoria & Alexandra.  They learned how three black Kakuganes were made & how one of them is nearly completed in becoming a white Kakugane, an item that can reverse the effect of the black Kakugane & returning to human.  Because there is only one, they must decide who to use it on: Victor or Kazuki.

Things get a little bit better as Papillion is trying to make his version of the white Kakugane.  Kazuki asks him to make a device where he can be temporary frozen to prevent further stages in his transformation.  He plans to use the white Kakugane to save Victor instead.  However, it proves provides very little help as Victor has reached the stage where it's too late.  With no chose left, Kazuki takes Victor with him to the moon as he uses all his energy to fly up there.  Here, Kazuki can fight at easy as Victor can't drain energy from a lifeless planet.

Time passes since Victor & Kazuki went to the moon.  Tokiko doesn't know what to do with her life with Kazuki gone as she wanders around the streets & practicing her fighting skills to the point of exhaustion.  Remembering something, she asks the Alchemic Regiment to give her a mission which is to kill Papillion.  With the support of her friends, they go to Papillion's lair.  She does this as this was a promise from Kazuki to Papillion that they would fight again.  She fights in his place.  Little did she know that he was producing the white Kakugane & he didn't give up on Kazuki on coming back while she did.  Suddenly, a light comes from the moon indicating that Kazuki is still alive.  As the Alchemic Regiment team are prepared to go to the moon, we see Kazuki & Victor still fighting it out with Kazuki getting weak.  Victor tells him to stop fighting & go back to Earth where his friends are.  As he prepares to send Kazuki to Earth with the remaining power he has left, Kazuki takes Victor with him & they float into outer space.  Both of them make it back to Earth & return to their human forms.  Kazuki settles his battle with Papillion as the victor & Victor, wanting to become a Homunculus, decides to take all the Homunculus with him to the moon & find a way to cure them back to humans.  The story ends with Kazuki & Tokiko going back to school together plus a manga-style strip in the credits with Kazuki chasing Tokiko to touch her scar in a lovely couple way.

My Personal Review

Busou Renkin is quite an interesting show.  If the story & action doesn't catch your attention, the jokes will.  I was a little iffy about the alchemist idea, but I was glad that I picked up this show.

Animation

The character designs gives me a hard impression for some reason.  I'm thinking it's the heavy black outlines on the faces.  It's very thick & solid.  The faces are medium length with pointy chins.  Almost a triangle-like appearance.  The eyes are quite large, possibly more than medium size, & the pupils are drawn quite detailed.  There are times where the characters have strange funny or intense faces & they are quite detailed surprisingly.  The hairstyles on the male characters are either cool or bizarre looking.

The backgrounds are pretty plain & don't offer a lot of detail.  However, they are quite effective enough to make the show visually appealing.

The 3D CGs are very fake looking.  They give off too much shine & the designs are really off when you see them with the 2D drawings.

The colours are pretty dull on the backgrounds, but bright on the characters.  Surprisingly enough, the contrast of colours don't clash & balances out very well.  But there are times that the characters stand out a bit too much.  Most of it comes from the dark backgrounds.

In terms of the animation movement, it's a mixture of real & silly.  Sometimes the movements are smooth & sometimes the movements are a bit jerky or "dragging".  When you see the characters running from behind, it looks like they only cover a small amount of distance.

Sound       

The sound effects are more on the silly side than realistic due to the number of jokes the show has.  They are a bit fuzzy at times, but okay overall.

The seiyuus here are pretty good.  They fit their characters very well with the high energy & impact they give to their characters.

The music contains a mixture of rock, ballad, & silly songs.  I don't like any of the songs from the show as they seem a bit childish.  They do give the show some energy though.

Story

Basically, the show is showing Kazuki's determination in eliminating L.X.E. to protect the people in his town.  The pace is quite fast to the point that I thought it was a 12 or 13 episode show.  However, it's actually 26.  It was moving so fast that they managed to find L.X.E.'s main base & a lot of their main members, including their leader, are gone.  It raised some concerns on how the story will fit in a 26 episode show like that, even with Victor & Kazuki changing their powers.  But the show manages to keep going with the chase of Victor & re-kill of Kazuki before he completely changes.  Despite this, the show actually gets good & the way it ends isn't too bad.

Going deeper in the show, it does get a bit better in terms of suspense drama.  Fights aren't too bad as they improve along the way & the story does has some turning points here & there.  Although it gets a bit serious at times, the humour still pops up.

For some reason, the jokes overpower the show's storyline.  There's more than I expected.  Even in the serious moments these jokes pop up.  It's great to have humour to get the audience level & attention up, but it may raise concerns on how it may sway from the seriousness of the storyline.  Speaking of the jokes, some are quite perverted & it's not on the girl side.  It's more on the male side such as Papillion Mask's outfit & how he grabs things from his crouch area.

Overall Conclusion

Busou Renkin is quite an entertaining show.  The elements of using alchemist in present time may not be interesting, but the jokes are great.  If you like action with comedy, I would suggest watching this.

Busou Renkin gets a 7.5/10.  The jokes are great & never seem to get old.  However, the amount of jokes seem to overpower the story.  Plus, the pace the show is moving on is quite fast.  This raised some concerns for me on how the show will progress in a 26 episode timeframe.  But, the show manages to stay on track pretty well with the Victor arc & gets a bit serious along the way.  Overall, the ending was satisfactory.

Last updated on December 19, 2007