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It's like they remade Code Geass and turned it relentlessly boring. It had a ton of elements I normally like: a futuristic, intricate, and vaguely dystopic setting; cool main character; unique scifi elements; decent animation. But the whole time I felt like I was waiting for the plot to start. And it never did.

I listened to hours of explanations of magic, and watched countless scenes demonstrating the main character's power. The whole time, I was optimistic that it had to be building to some kickass storyline where all the intricacies of the magical system come together in some sort of catastrophe. ... The main character's ridiculously hyped powers would finally not be enough, and the audience would be left in awe of this new challenge that can take down the great protagonist. But it didn't happen. There were some cool looking fight scenes, but no one ever seemed to be in danger and no character development occurred.

All in all, it was a huge disappointment.

I should start off by saying that this anime is great. It has involved characters, a solid plot, and wonderful art. But watching this show would be a horrible mistake. The manga surpasses it in every way, and watching Blade of the Immortal will do nothing but spoil the plot.

It's evident that a lot of time and effort was put into doing the manga justice. However, the nuances and subtleties which make Samura's work so great are simply not suited for anime. The mangaka himself was originally against animating Blade of the Immortal. I can't imagine why ... he changed his mind; it was clearly a mistake.

In many ways, this anime felt like a slideshow of the manga with music thrown in at the last minute. As can be expected when over 20 volumes are compressed into 13 episodes, the plotline was rushed, and character development was mostly left out. I'd write more about the high points of the anime (because there are plenty), but frankly, they can all be found in the original.

Though a lot of long-time BotI fans are insulted by this adaptation, personally, I enjoy it. I plan to watch it again before I get the next volume of the manga, as a quick recap of the story. It's nice as a summary, but in no way can it take the place of the original.