[Meta context: First published on September 5th 2017, this post is an SEO-optimised version of a deeper response to Karandi’s Katsugeki Touken Ranbu posts (one is linked in the post itself, the other is this one). Note Aria has played the Touken Ranbu game before. You can find the first version on Tumblr here and the first WordPress version here.]
What makes Touken Ranbu, of all the things that could be adapted into a great anime, fall flat on its face and what makes it great?
(Discusses the online game, Katsugeki and Hanamaru, but it’s spoiler-free.)
(I’d originally planned to do a post on Katsugeki from a player’s perspective of the game, but that kept falling through. However, once I responded to this post by Karandi, I realised I had lots to say – I was just approaching it wrong.)
Touken Ranbu. One of the bigger crazes the fujoshi fanbase of the late 2010s has lapped up. Regardless of whether you think any of its anime are any good, what’s so good about it and what’s so bad about it?
Table of Contents
The Good
Touken Ranbu’s a browser-based game, so people know what their favourite bishies look like on a screen. There was a starting movie introduced in 2016 which played out like a 2.5D manga or a vomic, and the only step after that was…an anime.
Touken Ranbu also has an extremely huge fanbase who can dish out lots of money for their favourite bishie. There’s enough precedent on the Touken Ranbu wiki to support this, including stage plays, sword restoration fundraising efforts and even youkan (a sweet jelly-like block).
The Bad
The characterisation becomes scarce the more you watch of Katsugeki. Why? It could be the staff is trying to squeeze the most out of battle scenes (which could also be argued to contribute to the somewhat rocky pacing, but I digress). It could be that they’re trying to give each of the Katsugeki teams enough spotlight to please fans of each of the 12 swords. However, I have two potential reasons why this could be the case:
Furthermore, Touken Ranbu’s centred around fighting an enemy. Due to the fact the enemies don’t require any characterisation at all, this could be argued to be one of the easiest genres to get right storytelling-wise – just present new enemies and problems all the time, make sure you’ve got enough suspense and characterisation. Voila!
1) The inherent problem with Touken Ranbu is that the game is a journey unique to every player, particularly as players get better at knowing what needs to be done and/or gather some of the rarer swords, so naturally people get attached to their favourite and strongest swords. This leads me to my next reason…
2) The staff are pandering to the fans and their delicate characterisation of the swords.
The Fans
Fan characterisations tend to differ slightly from the actual characterisation – compare, say, the worried and cautious Horikawa of Katsugeki to the one in Hanamaru that follows his “Kane-san” around like a lost puppy.
Even in medium-sized media fandoms, side characters can get an awful amount of love, and the path of Touken Ranbu means that all swords introduced must get some base level of characterisation. However, trying to build on too many characters in one anime can make things seem somewhat crowded, as seen in Hanamaru. (The first season of Hanamaru doesn’t have every sword in Touken Ranbu, mind you, although it has most of the ones that were introduced at the time of season 1.)
Both Hanamaru and Katsugeki are made for fans, who are expected to be familiar with the history, terminology and so on found in the game and in the swords’ backstories. This creates its own set of problems for the prospective Western fans, since there is a large entry barrier for those who want to be involved but don’t live in Japan and/or comprehend Japanese and/or like Japanese history.
Well, Hanamaru had another season in winter 2018 because the higher-ups declared it to be so, but Touken Ranbu fans can rest easy knowing they don’t have one anime to talk about, but two. That’s a privilege not every media franchise gets.