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I’d had some interest in Hatenkou Yuugi for a while now, but I never thought I’d get this into it. I decided to download the anime about a year ago, which was surprisingly short, but amazing. You never thought you’d hear this from the person who hates horror. Children getting sacrificed for experiments, people slitting their throats, husbands killing their wives… I never thought I’d like that. But I did. OK, not the gruesome parts, but I loved the action, and the interactions between the characters. The three colorful characters, Rahzel, Alzeid, and Barouqueheat.
Hatenkou Yuugi is about three people traveling together across a land where ... magic exists. There’s Baroqueheat, a brawny guy who has a crush on Rahzel, Alzeid, an albino man looking for revenge, and of course, Rahzel, who changes Alzeid’s entire life with one sentence.
“I will turn your life upside-down, and make your boring life super exciting! Bang!” Rahzel forms a pistol with her hands and smiles at Alzeid, a stranger she meets in the ally, who’s extorting money from a man.
One of the things that was odd in the anime was that Baroqueheat just suddenly appeared. He didn’t get an entrance like Alzeid, which tells how they meet. He’s just suddenly on the roof of the inn Rahzel’s staying at, and on top of that, talking to her! Stalker~
Another bad thing about this anime is that it didn’t last long enough! There were many things left open! Who’s this guy attacking somebody with the voice of Hiro Hirono from ef: A Fairy Tale of Two? I want to know, and the manga is already licensed as Dazzle. It’s got to be translated wrong. I mean, Hatenkou Yuugi means “Descending Game”, or something like that. How the crap did they get Dazzle?!
The art. It was very, very cheap. I've seen a lot of anime, and I can tell that this coloring was thrown together at the last minute. It reminded me of old Pokemon episodes. Just by seeing the anime was 10 episodes after 11 volumes (at the time of release), starting in 1999(LOOONG), it was obviously given a very shitty budget.
Well, the music. The OST was pretty good, it went a certain way… More towards the dark side. Where the chocolate milk and cookies lie~ However, the remixes of Heartbreaking Romance and Take You as You Are were very pretty. I especially liked “Take You As You Are: Battle Version”. The opening, Heartbreaking Romance, was good, but it didn’t catch my ear like some songs. A previous song of Itou Kanako, the singer of Heartbreaking Romance, called “Kimi to Yozora to Sakamichi to”, which was the ending to the Myself; Yourself anime, was absolutely amazing, so great that I kind of wished that they put it as the opening. But it might sound too sad and not hopeful to put as the opening. Off topic~ The ending song, Te no Naka no Eien, was very beautiful, and the singer’s voice was very solid and crystal clear. I really liked it. But once again, the song didn’t catch my ear, but did catch it more than the opening.
However, the ending really ended with a “Bang!” as Rahzel would say it, which was her last line. She repeated her line to Alzeid.
“I will turn your life upside-down, and make your boring life super exciting! Bang!” This line kind of made tears come to my eyes. It really made it feel like they would be together forever, and it made me happy that Alzeid went after her. I wish my first love said those same words to me when I was forced to leave. Aw crud, so sad, oh well. An anime review is no time to be talking about this.
In the end, the music by Itou Kanako, called Take You as You Are, was very touching and brought tears to my eyes (does anything not?!). It felt like it related with unconfident girls (like my self), who are sad because they are never seen for who they are, and no one will accept them for who they are. It gave some hope in my heart, somehow. I hope a new season will be aired, and I hope to see more of Rahzel and Alzeid, maybe a romantic relationship in the next season? Please? But for now, let’s keep these three travelers in hearts.
BTW, read the manga! It's 100000000 times better!