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Even though the storyline deviated from the manga a little, it was still well done. Of course, the artwork in this OVA was superb. However, I had a hard time deciding whether the subbed or the dubbed version was better. In my opinion, the voice actors in the dubbed version sounded a whole lot better, but the quality of the dubbed version was hampered by the actors’ mispronunciation of Japanese words, and in some cases, mistranslations. The good news though is that the mistranslations didn't change the overall storyline. The mispronunciation of Japanese words occurred frequently, especially with “key-words” ... within the storyline. For example, everyone consistently mispronounced “Tokugawa” (and other Japanese words) so frequently, it became an irritation. Now, if your knowledge of proper Japanese pronunciation is limited or non-existent, then you probably won’t be bothered by this issue. The subbed version was good; however, I was really turned off by the female voice actress doing the part of Kenshin. To be honest, this really was the only real issue I had with the subbed version. If you can get past the Kenshin female voice actress, then the subbed version wins over the dubbed version, hands down. Overall, I liked the OVA and it flows fairly decently with the Ruro-Ken story line in the anime..

As a Ruro-ken manga purist, all I can say is that this OVA is crap. Basically, the Kenshin in this OVA has to be from an alternate universe because the personality and the actions of Kenshin, and even Kaoru are totally different from how they are portrayed in the manga and in the anime. Naturally, the story line in the manga flows much better, as well.
[spoiler] As many other manga purists have already pointed out, the real Kenshin would have never agreed to have gone to China to aid in the Sino-Japanese war, even as an advisor, and leave Kaoru to ... raise Kenji by herself. And of course, you have the case where Megumi gave Kaoru a wake-up call by chewing her out about how she initially chose to cry and feel sorry for herself, rather than go after Kenshin, when he left without her for Kyoto to face Makoto Shishio. In this OVA, Kaoru uncharacteristically continues with this display of weakness and cries and runs away from Kenshin after finding out the truth about the meaning of Jinchuu and the fact that he himself was the one that killed Tomoe. Of course Kaoru never did this in the manga and never made the same mistake after being chewed-out by Megumi. [/spoiler]