© Tsuyoshi Yasuda, KODANSHA/ “Blue Miburo” Manufacturing Committee.
For a lot of anime followers, the mere point out of the Shinsengumi will elicit a response. Awe, maybe historic reverence. However nearly all the time, there might be a tinge of nostalgia—not for the swordsmen themselves, however for the outsized function they’ve performed in manga and anime. Regardless of all their controversies and complicated place in historical past, the Shinsengumi are popular culture favorites. They’re romanticized as elite swordsmen, protectors, vigilantes, and steadfast defenders of an moral code that’s extra concept than actuality.
And now there may be one other collection:Blue warningadditionally generally often known as The Blue Wolves of Mibu. Primarily based on a manga collection by Tsuyoshi Yasuda (TO DAWN, Overdrive), the anime collection from ytv animation is scheduled to premiere later this fall on October 12. Followers prepared to rise up early for the primary day of Anime expo have been handled to the world premiere of the primary episode, adopted by a Q&A with the director Kumiko Habara and animation producer Exhausting heroes.
Blue warning additionally follows the exploits of the Shinsengumi, however begins within the early days, when the group was merely a subfaction of the masterless samurai initially employed to guard the shogun. They fashioned what turned often known as the Miburo, the ronin of Mibu, who would finally turn into the Shinsengumi. Blue warning additionally provides one other twist: as an alternative of focusing solely on the samurai, they look at the Bakumatsu period via the eyes of the least seen: the kids.
The primary episode introduces us to real-life Shinsengumi commanders Hijikata Toshizou and Okita Souji, who’re visiting Kyoto within the 1860s. There, they go to a restaurant the place they overhear rumors of a gang of kidnappers who’re abducting youngsters. As circumstances dictate, we’re additionally launched to 2 orphans, raised by the aged proprietor of the store: a younger woman and a white-haired boy named Nio. Unbeknownst to them, they’re being utilized by Souji as bait to lure within the kidnappers. Predictably, Nio is offended when he realizes he has been used: in a speech that reveals knowledge past his years, he talks concerning the vulnerability of kids, the way in which they’re handed on to serve agendas and later discarded. There may be clearly trauma behind his anger, which is able to presumably be unpacked in some unspecified time in the future within the collection, although he’s most indignant about his failure to guard his sister. Nonetheless battling ache and betrayal, he agrees to be taken in by the Miburo and skilled alongside different children.
Blue warning reveals plenty of promise, based mostly on first impressions. There’s the romanticized cool of the proto-Shinsengumi, after all. Toshizou and Souji are good-looking and fierce, with the previous being a little bit of a grump and the latter a laughing satan who hides his lethal abilities. Within the struggle with the abductors, he leaps off a constructing and gleefully tells his ambushed foe that he’s already been hit. It doesn’t take a lot effort to comprehend that he’s able to extra. It additionally reveals the steadiness between comedy and drama that the collection tries to strike – there are moments of slapstick with the shopkeeper that really feel annoyingly shoehorned in. There are additionally cases of tonal juxtaposition between Souji and Toshizou that really feel just a little extra earned.
Each Habara and Nakata agreed to think about this mixture of comedy and drama throughout the casting course of. “We needed to guarantee that whoever was forged may travel between these two settings: comedy and severe conditions,” Nakata stated. Habara agreed, including that each casting choice was made very fastidiously. “For all of the characters, even the supporting characters, I needed to guarantee that I took the time and care in selecting who would play every character.”
The identical care was given to the rating and soundtrack, which was Yuki Hayashiwho has additionally lent his skills to properties reminiscent of My Hero Academy And Haikyuu!! . “He’s from Kyoto, in order that’s one of many causes we requested him to do the music,” Nakata stated. “We needed him to make use of conventional Japanese devices, however we additionally talked about together with rap lyrics, which you’ll hear within the opening theme.” That blend of conventional and trendy is completely captured in that theme, which mixes sweeping orchestral melodies with a thumping taiko backbeat. Hovering above all of it are the graceful, laid-back vocals of Okinawan rapper OZWorld. It appears like a great encapsulation of what they’re making an attempt to do with the collection: an exploration of contrasts that blend historical past and fiction, comedy and darkish drama, heroes and antiheroes.
Throughout early manufacturing, Habara strove for accuracy, not solely with the manga’s supply materials, but in addition with the setting. She incessantly visited Kyoto to analysis, drawing inspiration from its wealthy historical past. “There are nonetheless homes the place swordsmen lived,” she advised the viewers. “They’re nonetheless preserved. I explored these areas as a lot as I may. I needed to ensure all the pieces was recreated as precisely as potential.”
When requested concerning the significance of the setting, she added: “160 years in the past, Kyoto was a spot the place youngsters could not reside freely with out fearing for his or her lives. Having these youngsters working with the Shinsengumi… one of many issues we needed to present was a mixture of reality and fiction… What if we had a toddler’s perspective?”
The irony, maybe, is that the story is advised from the recollections of an outdated man to a gaggle of babies keen to listen to a narrative. However what are recollections if not somebody’s model of the reality? If the remainder of Blue warning is like the primary episode, then this is perhaps a worthy addition to the grand pantheon of Shinsengumi tales. Anybody who wasn’t fortunate sufficient to be in that panel room should wait till the autumn to get a style.
