Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto

[Apraxhren]

Summary:
End of Edo Era - It was the last time a man lived as a samurai and fought entrusting his life and briefs to a sword.

It was the time when long peaceful Tokugawa Dynasty began to be overshadowed triggered by the arrival of Westerners. During the upheaval, when youths were seeking for new age, there was an existence that brought turmoil and chaos. It was called Hasha no Kubi, or the Head of Conqueror. It was said that the person who could obtain the head awoke in revolution time could rule over the whole country. On the other hand, there was another shadow existence called Eternal Assassin. They have been destined to fight Hasha no Kubi in order to seal. Both had been fighting each other behind the history. Their fights have affected the history involving those who wanted the power.

Someone wanted it for themselves, someone wanted it for avenges, and someone wanted it for their ideal.

Their thoughts cross each other over the Hasha no Kubi. Their thoughts put tougher as if they were complicated gear wheels. Then, it began to move the history as if it became an engine that moved to the future.
[Source: Animenfo]

Releases:
Shinsen/Pino no Usagi - Episode 01
Shinsen/Pino no Usagi - Episode 02

Oyasumi - Episode 01
Oyasumi - Episode 02

The encode quality is low because it's a web-only broadcast show. The DVDs come out in January. EdwardK, our skilled encoder, was able to make it look much prettier than the original, but only so much can be done.

More Info:
http://anidb.info/perl-bin/animedb.p...anime&aid=4570
http://www.irohanihoheto.jp/

[Lucifus]

Definatly interesting. I'm sticking with it. The Intros pretty decent too.

Check out the first ep.

[Zati]

The first episode was confusing for me but I will watch another episode and see how it goes.

[Yukimura]

It seemed interesting, though I feel more at a loss as to what's going on then most other first episodes. However the font of the subtitles was absolutely terrible. Both the color and the style made it extremely hard to read what was going on. I hope other people agree with me and it changes b/c I don't think I could watch 26 more episodes of that.

[Zati]

I agree didn't like the subtitles myself and I share the same thought as you about the first episode.

[Apraxhren]

Well it seems it was assumed the audience would have knowledge of the late Tokugawa shogunate and Meiji revolution; foreign audiences most likely were not on their minds. Many of the figures that were named early on don't seem all that significant mainly samurai and naval commanders. The one interesting figure that isn't named on the screen is Sakamoto Ryoma, who is the feature of the play that is shown in the middle and also the final scene. The play depicted two scenes from his life and then at the end his death. Here is a nice biography of his life in which paragraphs 14 and 15 help explain the two scenes of the play they features in the show.
The other named people:
Prince Arisugawa Takahito
Saigo Takamori
Katsu Kaishu
Yamaoka Tesshu
Kyuunosuke Masumitsu (never found any info on him.)

[Zati]

Oyasumi just released this.

Episode 1 - Oyasumi

[Apraxhren]

Hah, both posted at the same time.

It seems they are taking the time to explain the historical references and I bet their subtitles are easier to read.

Like most of our recent projects, Irohanihoheto will be encoded in the XviD/Vorbis format in a Matroska container. The dialogue will be hardsubbed onto the video, but the additional notes are softsubbed (and off by default). These additional notes aren’t required, but the show relies heavily on Japanese history; the notes will most likely enhance your enjoyment and comprehension of the occurrences that take place throughout the episode. You will need VSfilter to view the additional notes properly; if you’re using VLC, good luck with that. Mplayer users, you may want to consider upgrading to the 1.0 RC1 build and use the new -ass option (see the manual page for details).
Source: Oyasumi

[Apraxhren]

Episode 02 by Shinsen

[Bucket]

Summary:
...entrusting his life and briefs to a sword.

Man... can we get a proofreader in here?

[Kraco]

The second episode was also pretty interesting. I still don't quite get what exactly is the bigger plot in practice, but as long as the action and character interaction continues at this level, I certainly won't be complaining.

[Apraxhren]

Episode 02 from Oyasumi

[Zati]

Episode 3 - Shinsen

[yallo]

Finally, another samurai series set in the bakumatsu era that looks promising!

*runs off to download it*

Summary:
...entrusting his life and briefs to a sword.

Man... can we get a proofreader in here?

Haha I believe that sentence was supposed to be "beliefs" instead of "briefs".

[Kraco]

The third episode continued the intriguing trend this series seems to follow. There are surely lots of characters around and at least for me it's quite impossible to try to figure out and remember who belong to which faction, if they belong to any. Nevertheless, it isn't really confusing and holds together somewhat because the main characters still are kept steadily enough in the middle creating a nicer and simpler focus.

[Zati]

New episode!

Episode 4 - Shinsen

[kAi]

Just finished watching episode 4 and still I don't have much to say on it, but I'm liking it so far, there seems to be alot going on, but we haven't been showed enough to say to much on it.

I'm liking the theatre thing they have going on, it looks mad, I liked how they made the ending for episode 4, it was nicely done.

[Kraco]

The theater is indeed a nice detail and setting they are using. The voice and tone they use when they advertise the plays and also in the plays itself nicely remind me of those repeating announcements of the salesmen using cars to drive around neighborhoods selling this or that in many modern anime series (and I suppose maybe also in the reality in Japan).

But the play in this episode ended indeed interestingly. Realistic acting! And the audience of course never realised it wasn't quite normal acting...

[Kraco]

During Bakumatsu swords were always hungry; swordsmen even hungrier:

Episode 5 - Shinsen

Edit: A very interesting and also quite funny episode. Warcraft style bloodlust was also finely depicted... And that British honour guard... What was it even doing there? Part of the appeal of this show is certainly how it mixes realism and fantasy together so effortlessly, yet still they clash just enough to be interesting and funny, yet never disturbing.

[?igma]

Which subber would you recommend, Shinsen or Oyasumi ?

Im currently looking for another anime and this one seems interesting enough.