Seirei no Moribito

[Brainpiercing]

Good times have come again for Anime watchers.

This show rocks, and it rocks hard. There is some serious production value involved. The animation is awesome, especially the fights. These are not your typical anime fights. There are no cuts in the middle of a move, no bright lines to substitute sword swings. Fights are shown in full, both participants, every move is clearly visible. Even though they are fast and furious the animation is good enough that you can see every action that happens.

The sound is awesome, get the Kraze release, they have wonderful surround sound with some great dynamic. The fight sounds will rock your house.

Then there's an intriguing story - so far, with four eps released.

There's a heroine who is not a teenager. And to me, that's a major selling point.

There's beautiful scenery, wonderfully designed cities. It looks like old Japan, but of course, it's not really a historical show, there's fantasy, too.

I won't promise it'll be a classic like, for instance, Twelve Kingdoms, but it has the potential. There are bags of potential, I just hope it won't be one of those cut short shows that start out great then meet a hasty end.

[Facade19]

Good times have come again for Anime watchers.

This show rocks, and it rocks hard. There is some serious production value involved. The animation is awesome, especially the fights. These are not your typical anime fights. There are no cuts in the middle of a move, no bright lines to substitute sword swings. Fights are shown in full, both participants, every move is clearly visible. Even though they are fast and furious the animation is good enough that you can see every action that happens.

The sound is awesome, get the Kraze release, they have wonderful surround sound with some great dynamic. The fight sounds will rock your house.

Then there's an intriguing story - so far, with four eps released.

There's a heroine who is not a teenager. And to me, that's a major selling point.

There's beautiful scenery, wonderfully designed cities. It looks like old Japan, but of course, it's not really a historical show, there's fantasy, too.

I won't promise it'll be a classic like, for instance, Twelve Kingdoms, but it has the potential. There are bags of potential, I just hope it won't be one of those cut short shows that start out great then meet a hasty end.

Brainpiercing, can you please direct me to downloads for Seirei no Moribito? I have been looking for downloads for a while now, and I am unable to find any. OF course if you are not unable to do so, I appreciate the thread anyway. Thx.

[Eldo]

Yeah, just check http://baka-updates.com/, and search it in the search form. It should have them as BT downloads, Anime-Kraze and Moonshine are the two groups that are doing it right now. I'm not aware of any sites that offer direct downloads, but you could try their IRC channels.

[Facade19]

Thank you very much Eldo.

[Brainpiercing]

Seriously any anime lover who is not watching this show yet is seriously missing something. Hell, you don't need to be an anime lover to like this show.

It could well become another 12 Kingdoms, and that is saying a lot.

[Starnum]

Hm, you've piqued my interest. I'll have to go check this out. Twelve Kingdoms you say? I never finished that series, maybe I should check out the rest of that too. I take it that it gets really good as it continues then? I mean, I liked what I saw, just never finished it. Thanks for the heads up Brain, I'll check it out and let you know what I think.

[Brainpiercing]

Personally I can only find one fault with 12 Kingdoms, and that is that the production company stopped it prematurely.

With Seirei no Moribito there are some very minor details I can criticize, but everything else so far has been top notch. Except, well, the opening song. But since I rarely watch those, anyway, I couldn't care less.

[Libaax]

That you stopped watching Twelve Kingdoms almost made my eyes pop out !



You selled this anime good brain not that it was needed for me, im a fanboy of fantasy specially in animes where they arent many good fantasy animes.

[Starnum]

Heh, well my friend showed me some 12 Kingdoms, and I just never DL'ed it for myself. I intend to do so now though.

Hey, I DL'ed the first episode of Moribito, but I can't get it to play, even though I have .MKV codecs. I'm confused, can anyone help? I tried to play it on VLC as well, btw, and still no go.

Yeah, I watched the opening on Youtube. It wasn't terrible intriguing. Though, I also watched part of one of the fight scenes, and that was pretty intriguing.

[Brainpiercing]

The difference between shows like 12 Kingdoms, Seirei no Moribito or even Crest/Banner of the Stars and "usual" anime shows is the richness of the background world. Most fantasy anime begin on a fairly simple background, and then expand, usually at the pace the original manga author, or the scriptwriters in the case of original anime, expanded the background to support an unfolding plot. Shows that are based on books, or even series of books, already HAVE a rich background, so they don't need to be expanded along the way, just exposed. So basically from episode one you get the feeling that the surroundings are very detailed, that there are many more things going on than just the protagonist fighting some monsters.
There is an almost instant difference when you watch the expostions of literature anime to a "normal" anime shows. Compare the beginning of Seirei, with the quiet hints at much, much more, and Claymore, for instance. Claymore begins like a typical manga, on a small perspective, with little information on the world the story is taking place in.

Even top notch manga like Berserk doesn't quite compare to the detail of a literary world. For instance, there doesn't seem to be a world map. Or at least I'm not aware of one. In the beginning of Berserk, while the protagonists' story is incredibly detailed, the world it takes place in is not. Of course Miura expands it over time, but the first real indications we get on the world happen at the begining of the Golden Age, and after that it takes until the Vatican story to expand further. This is a typical phenomenon of serialized publication, as opposed to selling a complete novel at once.

However, what we also see is the different approaches between the anime makers and, for instance, hollywood, in putting a literary work, even a fantasy novel, to the screen. A top notch anime instantly impresses, while most hollywood productions disappoint. Even gigantic projects like LOTR can disappoint me on so many levels. Then again, maybe if I had read the books for 12 Kingdoms or Seirei, maybe I would have been disappointed, too....

[EnglishJim]

Hey, I DL'ed the first episode of Moribito, but I can't get it to play, even though I have .MKV codecs. I'm confused, can anyone help? I tried to play it on VLC as well, btw, and still no go.

Starnum, I used to use VLC, that is, until I found Media Player Classic. Try this: K-Lite Codec Pack. Since installing, I've never had a problem loading video/audio/subtitles, and MPC comes included.

Seirei no Moribito is great, btw. I haven't seen a series with such a high standard of animation in quite a while. It ain't all about the pretty pictures though, like Brain said, there's a real sense of hidden depth to the show. I'm also really glad they managed to avoid some of the common clichés we tend to see in anime, the obvious point being the heroine herself, with her age and unrevealing costume. Hmm... maybe I like clichés.

[Brainpiercing]

If you want to use a Codec Pack, there is no better than CCCP (http://www.cccp-project.net or .org, I forgot). K-Lite is NOT up the same standard. I have not had a single problem after installing CCCP, and with K-Lite X264 would not play properly. Also, CCCP is pretty much hassle free, you don't need to configure anything, just associate the file-types.

[Starnum]

Thanks for the help guys. It definitely looks like great stuff so far.

[Brainpiercing]

SnM has been slowing down a bit, lately. The exposition was so great that by now the progress seems a bit lacklustre. The gambling ep had a nice feel to it, but it's definitely not in a league with 12 Kingdoms anymore.

I hope it will pick up soon.