Samurai 7
I just finished watching the anime series. Overall it was a really nice anime - I recommend watching it. It's 27 episodes, I think.
STORYLINE:
After the war, the samurai faded away as the merchants rose. Some samurai wandered about, looking for jobs. Others had their bodies changed into machines and became bandits, stealing rice from farmers. Kanna Village was one such village, invaded yearly by bandits.
One year, the village elder decided that the bandits needed to be killed. Every year more rice was being taken, and now the bandits were taking women too. He sent Kirara, the Mikumari-sama (Water Maiden) to the city to find and hire samurai. She posseses a special crystal that can read the flow of water underground, and it seems to be able to read the hearts of others as well. Thus she is able to locate worthy samurai. She travels along with Komachi, her little sister, and Rikichi, a village man whose wife had turned herself over to the bandits in order to protect the village.
I don't think I should say any more, because the good part of the anime is about finding the samurai and how they defend the village. The anime is sort of in two parts, the second part being where they go and try to rescue women who were taken away from the villages.
BAD PARTS (because you always say them first o:)
I think they changed artists somewhere in the first part, because the movement of the chracters suddenly got...I dunno, a lot more noodley. And the expresssions changed. It was kind weird, but I got used to it after a while. Some of the voice actors started to bug me after a while, but it was fine. I'm just strange.
And the worst part...
MY TWO FAVORITE CHARACTERS DIED!!! T____________________T Well, the whole end of the anime was kind of depressing for me. It was pretty dispiriting when I started to get bored of a few of the characters, but what was just me. Then the end was so sad, but it all ended up good. I guess anyone who wasn't particularly attached to any of the characters would have loved the anime.
GOOD PARTS
Well, unlike longer animes like Naruto and Bleach, there weren't any fillers, and therefore the animation quality stayed reasonably stable throughout all the episodes. I think we can all agree that was hardly true for Naruto and Bleach. The actions scenes were very nicely done, even though I think the explosions were a little too overboard. Character designs were pretty crafty. Each character had a distinct personality and role. The storyline was pretty cool too - that's one of the reasons why I like Samurai 7 more than Ghost in the Shell, which I stopped watching a few months ago.
EDIT: Favorite Characters:
-Kyuzo (OMG -steals twin swords-)
-Heihachi! (I'd give him a fajillion rice balls if he let me hug the ghost on the end of his sword. :D)
-Shichiroji! (MAD SPEAR OWNAGE >:D~)
-KOMACHI AND OCARA-CHAAAAAAN
