Shihali

Mononoke came to mind although there probably is a better one.

I haven't watched them, but I've heard little but good about Twelve Kingdoms, Magic Knights Rayearth, and El-Hazard.

This one was a disappointment to me, because it was a test to see if it would be just as good as the original and it wasn't.

• Pacing: needing to take up twice as much time as the '96 anime means stretching scenes out. Adding back all the scenes from the manga that were cut in the original helps, and so did making up two extra tricks for Chou to show off with that flexible blade, but the tension can't help but suffer some.

• Music: I didn't notice this on my first viewing, but after seeing people comment I went back and listened. Using heroic music for Kenshin's attack with Shakkuu's last sword instead of tense, ominous music was a major mistake. Sure, Kenshin is here to save the day, but that's less important than whether Kenshin will save the day by losing his soul.

• Positioning: I really disliked how Kenshin ends up next to Chou after giving him the elbow and how we clearly saw Chou's body after Kenshin struck it with Shakkuu's last sword. While Okina was talking, Kenshin should have been able to do something if he were that close to Chou, like disarm him or beat on him some more. The old anime pushes Chou far enough away that Kenshin plausibly couldn't get over there and do something before Chou recovered. Showing Chou's body clearly lets us see that he doesn't have any cuts on him of the sort that would be expected after having been slashed with a very sharp sword.

Sure, 80-90% as good as the original isn't a disaster, but I'd convinced myself that this remake had climbed up to par with the original and it fell short when it needed to deliver.

In other news, snow is cold and wet.

Rhinoshield lets you customize a case and has cases for a few popular anime series in stock.

American credit unions are not insured by the FDIC and won't appear there. They are insured by the NCUA.

Today I'd rather play F-Zero because its controls are more responsive, but there's more to do in Super Mario Kart.

I'm getting worried about the pacing. This was a quieter episode, but it only adapted two chapters like the previous two episodes. I can't imagine they could finish the whole arc in two cours at this rate. I'm not sure they could finish the whole arc in three cours at this rate. They might take an entire additional season for Kyoto.

The moon waning as Sano trains was some surprising attention to detail. The moon really was waning in the second half of May 1878, with last quarter on May 24.

The first conversation with Anji during training was good filler. The second one, I'm not so sure, but it worked.

There are four acts that make a monk immediately fall from the religious life and make him ineligible to ever become a monk again in this lifetime: sex, murder, grand theft, and false spiritual claims. Anji didn't fall from desire, so what did he do? (Don't answer that.)

This is the first episode so far this season that adapts only 2 chapters and adds several original scenes to fill out the runtime.

I liked the new scenes.

The much-expanded Senkaku fight was silly, but he's never not going to be silly.

It's been a long time since I thought about Tenchi Muyo.