Seirei no Moribito

On the precipice of a cataclysmic drought, the Star Readers of the Shin Yogo Empire must devise a plan to avoid widespread famine. It is written in ancient myths that the first emperor, along with eight warriors, slew a water demon to avoid a great drought and save the land that was to become Shin Yogo. If a water demon was to appear once more, its death could bring salvation. However, the water demon manifests itself within the body of the emperor's son, Prince Chagum—by the emperor's order, Chagum is to be sacrificed to save the empire.

Meanwhile, a mysterious spear-wielding mercenary named Balsa arrives in Shin Yogo on business. After saving Chagum from a thinly veiled assassination attempt, she is tasked by Chagum's mother to protect him from the emperor and his hunters. Bound by a sacred vow she once made, Balsa accepts.

Seirei no Moribito follows Balsa as she embarks on her journey to protect Chagum, exploring the beauty of life, nature, family, and the bonds that form between strangers.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yonsa, Balsa Main

Shindo, Naomi Japanese

Chagum Main

Adachi, Naoto Japanese

Tanda Supporting

Tsujitani, Kouji Japanese

Torogai Supporting

Mayama, Ako Japanese

Musa, Jiguro Supporting

Nishi, Rintarou Japanese

Shuga Supporting

Nojima, Hirofumi Japanese

Saya Supporting

Hirohashi, Ryou Japanese

Touya Supporting

Asano, Mayumi Japanese

Sagum Supporting

Kobayashi, Ryouya Japanese

Jin Supporting

Matsukaze, Masaya Japanese

Matsuda, Akio Producer

Nanbu, Nahoko Producer

Yokoyama, Shinjirou Producer

Matsumoto, Hisako Producer, Executive Producer

Reviews

Aug 23, 2024

LuxuriousHeart

Recommended

A comment on one of the first episodes of this show was, "I expect it to a solid 7/10 anime". Initially, the show was shaping up to be just that. The plot was dragging in certain points of the show, but charm and payoff pushed this to a 9/10. The characters were great and they all felt real. This world has some serious charm, and it feels alive. That's what a lot of fantasy shows fail to do, btw. They fail to make a world feel alive and lived in. They fail to show the everyday charms of the ... world, which this series does!

The characters were all great and went through developments of their own, that also felt real. Chagum, the prince that's possessed by the water spirit, does eventually get older, but we're still reminded that he's a kid with his logic. Same with Balsa and her backstory, when she's finally a teenager. We see that they're not quite adults who have lived, so they make assumptions. Which is fine! They're just kids learning about the world. They don't get the complications and nuances of adult hood that make "easy" decisions, not so easy. They don't get how the story will end and the impact on certain decisions that were made. Yet they're not portrayed as stupid, either. They have their own wisdom and empathy, which influences some of their decisions. Wisdom that is taught, and wisdom from their natural personality.

The fantasy aspects were great, and made for some insane and funny moments. The action was nice. The backstories were nice.

Overall, I highly recommend this anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Nov 3, 2024

Evilhunger

Mixed Feelings

TL;DR - A fundamentally good series muddled by an excessive amount of (anime original) filler. Also it's pretty.

Moribito is a show that truly stands out due to two main things. Firstly, it is gorgeous. It's animation is essentially impeccable - I don't think there is a single bad frame of animation. Every scene is fluidly animated, with an impressively uniform style outside of a scant few standout scenes. The artstyle is comparatively far more standard, but nonetheless consistent and beautiful.

Secondly, Moribito is a very different kind of fantasy story, at least in comparison to what we typically see in anime. The core story of a ... warrior saving a child isn't especially unique or anything, but it has an unusually simple, genuine quality to it that makes it stand out from most anime. It is a fantasy world, but you could honestly be forgiven for forgetting that for most of the anime, as it is very light outside of the last few episodes.

The story certainly does stand out - but I would not call it good. In fact, I would say the story is the biggest issue with this series. Characters are largely okay (good enough to support a series but not to be a major draw) but unfortunately the plot they are taking part in is some real nonsense. Moribito has a strong start to the story, and an okay ending, but everything in the middle is a mess. There is a ton of nonsensical plot points that feel like they could be resolved with a small conversation and only serve to lengthen the plot, and there is a bunch of SoL stuff that, while nice, also doesn't really further the plot at all.

The reason why Moribito's plot both stands out so much and is so meandering and ridiculous is quite simple: The anime of Moribito covers volume 1 of a children's novel series (hence the simple, genuine story), and the original story of this volume only covers a fraction of the anime's story, just about 1/3rd of it. The rest is filler (which is why the plot is so messy).

It honestly baffles me that I did not see any review mentioning this fact, as it explains why so much of this show really doesn't make sense. The SoL stuff they added is nice, but all of the palace BS and other plot point they added (to attempt to justify the now much longer midsection of the story) are simply bad. They confuse the point of the story and ruin every character in the palace as they all run around like chickens with their heads cut off attempting to find Balsa and magically failing every time.

Despite all of this, I still think Moribito is good. Does all of the filler make the show boring? Yes, but I still like some of the slower moments in that midsection (especially insofar as they endear Chagum to Balsa), and the series is low-key carried by it's excellent production.

I would also recommend the manga adaptation of Seirei no Moribito, as that seems to be a far more faithful adaptation.

P.S. - The Moribito wiki claims the anime "greatly expands the midsection of the novel", which is REALLY putting it lightly.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 27, 2019

baranfiliz123

Not Recommended

I don't like to give scores, because they don't bring across what my opinion is, in an accurate way. So to the story. I didn't like it. It was way too focused on shining a good light on some characters, while making the others seem completely bad. Of course there were characters in the middle, but that didn't make such a huge change. I was extremely disappointed when i saw, how the main character, didn't kill 8 persons, but her master did, because I expected a dark edge, which would have made the character less boring.

So yeah, many boring characters, nice themes & worldbuilding, ... but boring plot.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Seirei no Moribito Episode 26 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ) Faust721 - Oct 17, 2007	220 replies	by JoexySun »» Dec 12, 2024 12:10 AM
	Poll: Seirei no Moribito Episode 25 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Faust721 - Oct 12, 2007	61 replies	by Safrichh »» Nov 17, 2024 8:27 PM
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	Poll: Seirei no Moribito Episode 21 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Faust721 - Sep 9, 2007	64 replies	by GavrocheN7 »» Nov 15, 2024 2:49 PM
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