Rurouni Kenshin: Reflection OVA Review

This review does not divulge any direct spoilers but if you can read in-between the lines you'll probably be able to figure things out. Beware.

The people who hate on this are babies who cannot handle a sad ending. Never before have I seen such a cut and dry example of that than with this OVA. Even Watsuki's "criticism" which the haters of Reflection love to mention boils down to his own personal preference. I mean seriously, read the quote; it is largely just him saying that he prefered a happy ending to a sad one, which is of course subjective.

The Rurouni Kenshin anime is an extremely rare case of one of these big name shounen titles actually having the cast suffer consequences and end in a somewhat bittersweet fashion. This is in stark contrast to the majority of Shounen long runners, where every character is conveniently saved at the last second from any sort of adverse effects resulting from their own actions. With how much Shounen fans complain about "stakes" in shows they do sure seem to hate when negative things actually happen to the characters, huh? But heck, even if you despise this to your very core; you can always just read the manga and ignore this continunity. Or watch one of the other hundreds of Shounen anime out there that end on a generic happy note devoid of any message or meaning. There's room for a handful of darker endings out there in a medium so vast, don't you think?

Now don't get me wrong, it's cool if you don't like depressing endings. I get it, I really do; you are well within your rights to have that preference! But where I take issue with it is when people conflate their personal taste with the objective quality of what they are analyzing. This is one of the worst examples of this that I can think of. If you don't like sad endings, it is intellectually dishonest to act as if this was some horrific way to end the series just because of your own taste. This is an incredibly high budget production showcasing a quite frankly realistic turn of events that works exceedingly well as a finale.

Emotions running high over the nature of the ending are compounded by the fact that this is an anime original production, which opens it up to further unfair criticism due to the stigma around anime original content. Particularly thanks to the outdated mindset in which people act as though anything which isn't manga canon is worthless and should be discarded as if it is garbage. By nobody is this made clearer than by the opponents of Reflection themselves.

With that out of the way, allow me to discuss the strengths of this OVA and why I love it. Firstly, in terms of production quality this is pretty much equal to Trust and Betrayal. The background art, the art style, and the animation are all among the best, if not the best that the medium has to offer. That alone wins it many points in it's favor, but it would all be for naught if Reflection did not deliever a touching and heartfelt story. Fortunately it does just this in spades!

Though much of the flashback portion of this is spent giving a recap of things covered by the anime, it also serves as a sort of remaster of many iconic scenes in the incredible T&B art style. Furthermore the flashback portion also includes original, touching scenes such as the one involving Kaoru's father. As well as other welcome character interactions that I had definitely been left to wonder about after completing the 1996 anime. Particularly if Kenshin had divulged the information about Tomoe to Kaoru or not and what her reaction would be. I enjoyed the flashback portion, but it had also been a few months since I originally watched the anime. If I were to watch this immediately after finishing the show I could imagine myself finding it somewhat redunant. This is amplified because the flashbacks take some time away from Enishi, the main antagonist of this special.

In short, Reflection attempts to partially adapt the unadapted Jinchuu arc from the manga. It is clear to me as someone who has never read the manga that much detail was omitted. Despite this I still found it to be a great side-story; given the runtime, they handled it in about the best way they could. You see many heartfelt character moments such as Kaoru preparing breakfast for Enishi and what occurs at the climax of the battle. Enishi also has realistic motivations and these motivations will induce sympathy from even the most hardened of viewers.

My absolute biggest issue with this OVA is the events where Kaoru catches the disease from Kenshin. This sequence alone nearly deducts an entire point to me; not because of Kaoru's actions, but because of Kenshin's. Some criticize Kaoru for being out of character here, but I quite disagree.

Kaoru is being forced to watch her beloved suffer from disease. This on it's own painful enough to realistically make someone want to share the pain in any way that they can, even if that means stooping to irrational methods. Furthermore, throughout the OVA it is shown that Kaoru feels something of an inferiority complex towards Tomoe; she does not know if she will ever mean as much to Kenshin as Tomoe did. In her quest to make him happy, where she pretty much infers that's her life purpose on a few occasions, I think her actions make sense.

What does not make sense is the fact that Kenshin allows it. In no galaxy would Kenshin who went so far out of his way to avoid causing any trouble in the canon material willingly pass this on to Kaoru. I'd almost go as far to say as that Kenshin would probably run away from home before he let that happen given his departure in the show. It is supremely out of character; the only possible explanation I can think of is that he was too weakened to resist her advances but I highly doubt that interpretation. While I generally like most of the creative liberties these OVAs took, this is not one of them and prevents me from ranking this among my all-time favorites.

An interpretation of mine is that the disease in this show is not to meant be literal but rather metaphorical. The disease is the toll of all of the scars Kenshin has accumulated throughout the years, both mental and physical. After all this time, they've finally burned the embers of him away despite his best efforts. A major message of Kenshin as a series is his attempt at atoning for the things he did in his past. I find this to be an incredibly fitting conclusion as such.

In my opinion, this is pretty much Kenshin's equivalent of End of Evangelion. A high budget titan of technical marvel which delivers a compelling narrative and further character development to many characters after the cliff hanger of an ending in the original show. It is a fantastic finale to the series and I loved it to the end. Reflection presents its message of mortality in a conscious, down to earth manner. There are no tricks, no loopholes, there's no cheap emotional manipulation. It serves this message up to you bluntly, and in doing so delivers a right hook of feels to the viewer.