Monday, August 20, 2007

Koutetsu Sangokushi



Episode 01 of Koutetsu Sangokushi. (English subbed).

The Imperial Seal has been passed down through the generations since ancient times. It confers great power unto the warriors that it chooses. This is the story of those warriors.
It is a time of chaos and of civil war. It is a time when great armies clash in titanic battles and great heroes carve their names in history. It is also a time of death and destruction, when the people of the land live in constant fear of the sword. Onto this stage steps the reluctant Rikuson (Lu Xun), whose family had been the guardians of the Imperial Seal up until it was stolen by Sonsaku. At the behest of his mentor Rikuson offers his services to Sonsaku with the intention of confirming the will of the Imperial Seal. However, assassins strike down Sonsaku and the Imperial Seal is lost. So begins, Rikuson’s journey to recover the Imperial Seal and discover his destiny. (from AniDB)
So there I am desperately seeking out Heroic Age episode 18 doing my usual search of all the fan sub haunts doing my best to put off actually having to read Megatokyo book 4 (Partly because I have yet to read all of 2 and any of book 3, book 5 has sat on shelf for a year and I am still disappointed that I missed out on the first print run of book 4 so its a second edition unlike all the others which are first edition. That and the fact I don't even go to Megatokyo any more cos well I have the books now, god why is life so complicated? Did I mention the back of book 4 is covered in warn marks and looks like its been pushed around the floor? Well who cares it's only a 2nd edition? Obviously I DO!) When I stumbled across ThirteenSugars post about "The excuses I made not to watch certain spring season shows" and ended up reading her (I am guessing it's a she ether that or guy who drinks really sweat coffee) list of anime.

Obviously Heroic Age was on it, Hence why it showed up on goggle, I read down the list just because I am the sort of guy that has to read every link and open every link just in case there is something new on a page. That I would not have found if I had not been nosey and delved that little deeper, I personally find that I find all sorts of new things by just taking the time to look at the stuff that most people would just hit back on, and carry on looking for what every it was they where looking for.

Any way's at the bottom of the list was,

"Koutetsu Sangokushi: I cannot tell who’s male or female."


Well that meant I just had to watch it after if I paid any attention to comments like that I would have never watched Ouran high school social club and that's fucking brilliant! (Yes I don't normally swear on here but I don't normally type this much late a night ether or rant and meander this much I promise at some point I will actually talk about Koutetsu Sangokushi) So off I went to Stage 6 (By the way and I am sure I have said it before Stage 6 is fast becoming the replacement for youtube. That place is just to hot and the video quality is crap. where as Stage 6 is Divx can be full screened with out any extra pissing about and you can save the videos once you have watched them! and its full of anime fan subs! Thou if your a rights holder you can just ignore that last bit, please don't take away my fan subs you never realise stuff in the UK any way!) and found some English subbed fan subs (Stage 6 always seams to be full of French and Spanish fan subs) of Koutetsu Sangokushi.

Lets just say it right off the bat never mind "I cannot tell who’s male or female." every one is male! Even the poor men who have been drawn to look like girls are male, and why O why they made Romi Paku or some one that sounds so close to him it may as well be him ( The voice of Edward Elric Of Full Metal Alchemist) do the voice for Ling Tong? I don't know, In fact even I thought it was girl until he opened his mouth and I was like "hay that's the Full Metal Alchemist" and he made a oath on some cherry blossom which then fell (and we all know what falling cherry blossom means!) about being brothers with some guy he had known for less than 5 minutes I was like, he must be a guy after all you would not call your self some one's brother if you where a girl?

Any way (god are you actually still reading this drivel?) the storey is set in accent china from what I can tell and is about a boy called Hakugen Rikuson who is the last of his people and has been trained to fight by what looks like a woman with a fan who has the hots for him, but turns out to be guy (Koutetsu Sangokushi) who well manges to make every scene they have together seam well incestuous and wrong in some way, but don't worry he is only in the first ep from what I have seen, thou he may be in flash backs in the future that tends to be the way these things work.


Hakugen Rikuson (left) Koutetsu Sangokushi (right)


Any way this guy tells him to go and find the "shining light" (Imperial Seal) which is the supper power for this anime. Hakugen 's farther once protected the light but was killed in fount of him and he blocked it out cos it was such a horrid memory. The two of them sit down and watch a battle unfold where one side Gi has an army 3 times the size of that of the other army "Go", but the "Go" army is going places and their king has the "light".

Go wins OFC, and are hero Hakugen now knows where the "Imperial Seal" is Koutetsu promptly abandons him, after all it's time he ran his own life (and there was a red star in the sky, which must have been from logans run. Koutetsu is to old to be seeing little boys now and must return for it is his time for carousel) . There is only so much training one can be given. Hakugen (for no apparent reason) decides that it would be best if he went to work for the "go" army's king so he can see what sort of man he is and if he is worthy of the "light".

Sonsaku is promptly killed after interviewing Hakugen and recognising him from the day he killed his farther and took the "imperial Seal" which holds the "light". Just as your thinking Yay a fight to death surely, 3 masked men who look like JAWA from Star Wars turn up to steal the seal. In the resulting fight Sonsaku is killed and the seal in thrown upinto the AIR Hakugen gets sucked into the seal to see the light and is given new special powers with which he has to defend it, but the power is to great and he can not control it. That and his arm is on fire and he is shitting him self, but not to worry as setting his arm on fire seams to be his new power.

I am going to leave it there before I give away any more of the plot of Koutetsu Sangokushi, despite the fact that every one, even people who look like women are men, even the kings brother who I could have swan was a woman, until they started to talk about making him king and calling him lord. Its still worth watching and its nice to watch something different now and then.











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