WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Hayleigh Joseph This is ultimately a movie about the very bad things that can happen when we don't address our unease, when we just try to brush it off, whether that's to fit in or to preserve our self-image.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Yashua Kimbrough (jimniexperience) The Beginning Tales of Rurouni Kenshin, his Days as Battousai the Manslayer: the assassin life he lived before his retirement, the woman whom he fell in love, and the origin behind his cross-shaped cheek scar 10/10 classic ... romantic w/ bloody style

OndÃâ¢ej Kála During watching the whole Rurouni Kenshin series, I felt it is missing something. I think it was not serious enough, too over the top and childish. This movie fixes it all. It presents emotions and violence in a much better serious way, without the over the top stuff. Also the animation quality is way higher. If you had the same problems with the series as me, I guarantee that you will love this movie. If you have liked the series exactly as they are, you will probably miss all the fighting scenes with "super hero moves" - here it is mostly just brutal and efficient killing. It is a different genre than the series. I wish the whole series were like this.

bloodredx This is the best anime I have ever seen, and I will not hear any arguments otherwise. The style is different than the main series, and Kenshin's personality is also different, but this takes nothing away, since he is amazing in both.This movie pretty much takes the story told in volumes 19-21 in the manga, adds more details, changes a few details and the result of this is a fantastic movie that I feel is unrivaled.As the prologue of the Rurouni Kenshin series, naturally this is the story of Kenshin's days as the Hitokiri Battosai, before the founding of the Meiji era. This tells the story of Kenshin and his first wife, Tomoe, who was also the person who saved him from himself. (by the way, in the dubbed version they call her Tomo, but you are supposed to pronounce a long e at the end. Darn people who don't know anything about Japanese names. Makes me want to cry...)There are some points where you think the animation has paused some how, since they stay on the same shot for a long time, but this is just the story going slowly. The creators managed to balance these slow scenes with the action perfectly. It slowly eases you from the violence in the streets of Kyoto, to the slow action that takes place in other settings.But a word to the wise: This series is practically covered in blood!!!! Kenshin is a very vicious assassin, who is not afraid of how much blood falls when he kills someone, and we see many images of him brutally murdering people. The +17 rating on this is not an understatement.So, now that I have to wrap this up, I will close with the soundtrack, which is fantastic. Many of the songs make you want to cry they are so beautiful and sad, especially the song they play in the credits (called "The Sound of Falling Snow"), which is made even sadder since we just saw Kenshin mourning Tomoe.An anime that is missing nothing. A beautiful story, beautiful people, beautiful animation and beautiful music. These things make up for all of the blood, which is a part of the story, so it couldn't be removed.

episode6 I'm not easily impressed by a movie. Even worse with an animated one. But this one got me drooling. I picked this one up by recommendation, and I'll recommend it to anyone from now on. I was familiar with the story of the TV series, but that didn't excite me in the least. But at least I knew what I was looking at (and I suggest that people considering to watch this should familiarize themselves with the TV series first).Although the violence is very graphic and the dialog can be a bit of a drag if you lose track, everything else perfectly makes up for it. The animation is fluid, the art is beautiful, the pacing is impeccable and the soundtrack is gorgeous. Now combine all these elements in a single concluding scene, and you've got at least half of its viewers reduced to tears.This movie is very re-watchable. I've seen it at least 6 times already, and I'm eager to watch it again. Like most people advice; you should avoid the dub like the plague, but even the subs can be a bit misleading. I've had the pleasure to have seen 3 different subtitles on this movie, and the degree of accuracy of any of them is debatable. Although the plot doesn't suffer from this, the story and especially the details and references to factual Japanese history do.But this shouldn't stop you from watching this movie, instead, it should encourage you to set out and find out as much about this movie as you can.