Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

Episode 3: The Water Swordsman – The Fang of Revenge!!

Chapters adapted: Volume 1, Chapters 8 and 9; Volume 2, Chapters 11 and 12

Chapters skipped: Volume 2, Chapter 10

 

Here we are back in the fray again! When we last left off in Flame of Recca, episode 2 clumsily adapted 5 chapters of manga material while removing much of the fun and left us on a cliffhanger. After a poorly paced second episode we jump straight back into the action with episode three. Sure the last episode might have missed much from the manga, but how does this episode fare? It couldn’t be any worse, surely.

Right?

Well . . .

The first scene of this episode is Fuko blowing Recca away with one hit. In the manga, Recca unleashing his flames (that he is well equipped with) changed the trajectory of the fight and brought it to a quick end. In the anime, the flames barely make any difference. It continues on for literally half this episode. This does not bode well for the adaption.

Kagehoshi also informs Fuko that she and Recca are now “at the same level” despite Recca originally having years of experience in the manga. This obviously again a case of the anime raising stakes that didn’t need to be raised by making Recca incompetent for seemingly no other reason.

The fight drags on a bit longer in the anime until Recca finally puts Fuko on the ropes by cracking the gem in the middle of Fuko’s Fujin. Instead of waking her up, it makes Fuko desperate and she whips up a tornado to surround herself from attackers that cuts off the outside world from her. Her air is running low and she will probably kill herself unless she is stopped, at least, according to Kagehoshi.

Domon attempts to uselessly charge into it multiple times, unable to break through. Unlike the manga, he doesn’t declare his love of Fuko via a humorous conversation but of desperately letting out his feelings as he charges into the wall of wind over and over. It’s a bit of a pointless scene, really. Eventually Recca convinces him to stop.

They figure out the best way to get inside is to go over the top through the center and Domon launches Recca up through the air and down into it. He uses his flames to destroy the gem . . . and burn off Fuko’s clothes.

Hey, this is ’90s shonen. It was almost a requirement.

The only real difference from the manga here is Recca’s competence and experience allows him to quickly end the fight with his flame and put Fuko on the defensive as soon as he uses it. Domon also doesn’t charge into it like an idiot and the manga counts down the two minutes to Fuko’s last breath. It’s comparatively quicker in the original version and much better paced.

The group declares victory, and attempts to rub it in Kagehoshi’s face.

Kagehoshi explains that she was the one that sent Recca forward into that portal from 400 years ago then she disappears into the night. But not before stabbing herself to reveal that she cannot die. It looks like the group is up against an immortal! Not only did she nearly succeed in outright murdering Recca, Yanagi, and Fuko so far, but she apparently has something to do with that scene from the first episode!

Of course the anime is jumping the gun here. The reveal in the manga isn’t quite this expositional; in fact the only thing she reveals to Recca is the ONE thing she doesn’t reveal in the anime. But then, we already knew she was the one who put him in the portal because it was spoiled in the first few seconds of the first episode. She only hints at being Recca’s family, but says nothing about 400 years ago because it hasn’t been brought up yet. This makes the scene later when Recca asks his father about his mother make a bit more narrative sense in the original version.

A big loss in all this, in my opinion, is Yanagi’s personality. In the manga her joking around brings Fuko back down to earth and lightens the mood quite a bit with all of them. Yanagi in the anime might as well not even be there. She does nothing and says very little. Then again, no one really does much outside of the fight. The comedy is almost entirely gutted. These little character moments are cut from the anime which doesn’t bode well for future episodes.

Finally this long, drawn-out battle the anime stretched out is over and things can go back to normal, right?

Well, no. Because apparently someone was watching their battle the whole time from the shadows. Could this be who this episode is named after? We better hope so because we’ve spent half this episode still resolving the previous problem.

Here I have to take a pause to note the missing manga material.

The very first chapter of volume 2 is cut entirely from the anime adaption. Which is funny considering the image at chapter’s end is the final shot in the ending credits of the show. It was cut because it’s a pure character building chapter involving bonding between Recca, Yanagi, Fuko, and Domon, that makes them seem more like normal high schoolers and is an otherwise enjoyable chapter.

They sit around and make jokes, shoot the breeze, and have fun with each other. These character moments give the times the story goes serious more punch since you start to feel like you know these characters instead of them just being stock placements for non-stop fights. Cutting this chapter from the anime entirely was a mistake.

The end of the chapter also features the first appearance of Mikagami who was sought out by Kagehoshi to test Recca by using Yanagi’s similarity to his dead sister to provoke him. This is entirely different in the anime.

In the anime his motivation is, well, poorly written and muddled. In the manga, his motivation is protecting the one thing he has left of the only person he has ever loved. Big difference.

So after skipping much manga material we are back in line with the anime with the official reveal of popular character Tokiya Mikagami with a different hair and eye color in the second half of the episode. Yes, this episode is that jarring that it introduces a new story halfway through the episode. He introduces himself to Recca, without, uh, saying his name, out of the blue and tells him to . . . nothing, really. What Mikagami’s motivation is remains unclear because he says almost nothing at all.

In a scene not in the manga, Mikagami goes to a park at sunset and drains the water from the fountain into his strange artifact which sharpens into a sword of water. Why he does this at all is not explained, though Kagehoshi catches up and recognizes that the artifact (madogu) is called Ensui and it is a sword made purely of water. Unlike in the manga, these two have never met before, and it is Kagehoshi who recruits him to attack Recca by lying to him. It’s a very badly thought out lie, assuming Mikagami did not see the entire fight at the school, but a lot of things in this episode are badly thought out.

You see, Mikagami’s sister was brutally murdered seven years ago and he’s been trying to find the killer since. Even though he ignores Kagehoshi, he is determined to go and find Recca because he knows about madogu. Or is it?

No, he goes after Recca for an intensely stupid reason.

You didn’t read that wrong.

He accuses Recca of being involved in his sister’s murder from seven years ago (yes, really) and then Recca, for no particular reason, starts attacking Mikagami unprovoked. Yanagi looks kind of like Mikagami’s sister, but that really doesn’t explain anything as to what Mikagami is even doing there. The two get into a fist fight that eventually spills out into a battle between Recca’s flames and Mikagami’s water sword.

Not one bit of this scene makes coherent sense. It’s already an incredible leap to assume if Recca knows about madogu that he knows something about his sister’s murder, but this is supposed to be one of the smartest characters in the series. He thinks an eight year old was involved in his sister’s murder. This is unbelievably dumb.

Recca is soundly beaten, in case you forgot this was the Recca anime, and howls out in pain. Yanagi hears this with her Recca sense from miles away, again, for some reason, and comes running out to meet the two of them. Somehow seeing Mikagami once from a distance earlier in the morning was enough for her to know that he’s a bad guy that wants to hurt Recca and she thinks he’s after him. Again, for some reason.

Chapter 11 and 12 from the manga were horribly mangled in translation here. Yanagi is stripped of even more character as it was here in the manga that we saw her at work in a preschool showing off her stories to the kids. Recca helps out and they bond further. Mikagami approaches after Recca leaves and insults the wannabe ninja a good deal, provoking him into a fight where Mikagami’s experience overwhelms Recca and he leaves him beaten telling him to leave Yanagi alone because his recklessness is endangering her.

That’s it. No threats of death, no murder attempts, no stupid leaps of logic. Just an encounter that leaves Recca beaten in the one place it matters: his duty.

Yanagi also shows up to find Recca because she is only about two streets away and heard him yelling in pain. Interesting that she was so tuned into his voice, though it makes more sense than it did in the anime of her knowing halfway across town of what was actually occuring–here she doesn’t even know he’s been attacked. She finds Recca beaten in the parking lot and heals him back to consciousness. She does not meet Mikagami once in this encounter. Actually, she hasn’t met him at all yet. The chapter ends with Recca saying Yanagi should stay away from him because he attracts such dangerous characters and he can’t protect her.

That is not what happens in the anime.

In the anime, Mikagami cuts Recca up like a Christmas goose without mercy and readies to murder him before Yanagi arrives to tell him to stop. Good thing she has Recca-sense or else Recca would have died for no real reason. Anime Mikagami is not only a dolt, he’s a complete psychopath. Looking like Mikagami’s sister is enough to get the sword user to stop from outright murdering Recca in the middle of the park. She runs right by him to check on Recca.

And that’s where the episode ends. No explanation, no resolution, just the end of a sloppy and poorly justified fight. Actually, we don’t even know if that’s the end of it. It just stops and goes to the next episode preview. Talk about one mess of an episode.

Here’s the thing—NONE of this happens in the manga. None of it. Kagehoshi doesn’t need to manipulate Mikagami to do her work for her for a dumb reason because she already knows about his dead sister. Mikagami isn’t waiting outside the school watching this fight despite having no reason for being there. Yanagi isn’t totally pointless to the story like she is in this episode. Mikagami is also not stupid enough to believe 15 year old Recca Hanabishi could have had a hand in killing his sister 7 years ago for reasons anyone smart enough to know basic math should understand. Mikagami is also not a psycho that wantonly goes around slashing people with his sword for poorly deduced reasons.

While the rest of the changes in the anime could be forgiven up to now, this is by far the worst and most poorly thought out episode in the anime so far. It not only takes away Mikagami’s character, it makes him look like a moron in the process. Fans must have been absolutely puzzled by everything in this episode back in the day.

There’s little chance of the humorous moments involving his character remaining intact, since most of them have been gutted for everyone else. This anime is much too serious and desperate to strip the character from the series. This might change in future episodes, but so far, it is not getting any better as an adaption.

And that is it for this episode. We got very little plot progression, much altering and excising from the manga, and everything made worse from the original without question.

Here’s hoping the next episode succeeds better than this one as an adaption, because there is much to make up for here.

Until next time!