Busou Renkin

Review date: 04/26/2008
Reviewed by: imnotchinese, aka Ray Hidalgo



Kazuki Mouto suddenly woke up from a horrible nightmare. He had dreamt that he saw a cobra-like monster about to impale an unaware, innocent-looking schoolgirl with its tail. Upon instinct he pushed the girl out of the way only to get impaled though the heart himself.

He goes to school like any normal day but one of his teachers demands he stay after school and remove weeds for a seemingly meaningless reason. The day passes by and Kazuki pulls the weeds but when he meets up with his teacher, he suddenly realizes that his nightmare wasn’t all that unreal. The teacher transforms into the cobra monster he saw in his dream and starts to chase him, desiring human flesh and something else. Thinking it can’t get worse, Kazuki suddenly sees his sister, Mahiro, and in desperation tells her to run. The monster suddenly appears from under her and eats her whole. All appears lost for Kazuki until the “innocent” schoolgirl appears with attached spider-like limbs fixed with blades that she can control at will. To Kazuki’s relief, she slashes the beast to bits and saves Mahiro. When the debris clears, the girl introduces herself as Tokiko.

She is an alchemic warrior, a user of one of many Kakuganes, stones that possess various offensive and defensive capabilities used by a force known as the Arms Alchemy against one enemy: the homunculi. The homunculi are monsters that don’t have many other purposes in life than to live off of human flesh. Of course there are more intelligent homunculi with more specific and nefarious plans for the human world. Tokiko explains to Kazuki that after he was impaled to death, she used a Kakugane to give him new life and use it as a replacement heart, but with it, he also holds the power to fight. Whether Kazuki fights for good with the Arms Alchemy to save humans from the homunculi or not is up to him.

Who am I kidding, of course he decides to fight. Busou Renkin is the stereotypical shounen anime. Kid fighting for good (but surprisingly unwavering beliefs this time) gets powers, gets more power, fights monsters, wins (for the sake of spoilers let’s say to an extent), and the day is saved. Sound like Bleach or Elemental Gelade anyone? And yes, unfortunately, the annoying move shouting is used (a la HADOKEN or FLAMING SPAM ATTACK). The Japanese kids need to shout out something else besides WOOSH and BOOOHHHKKKK when playing with their action figures I guess. Superficial judgment aside, Busou Renkin’s premise is plausible albeit hackneyed. Naturally, it does have the good sides of the average shounen. The humor in it is pretty hilarious. Tense situations are really…never tense in Busou Renkin, although the humor doesn’t compromise the drama or action inappropriately. The action is well animated and entertaining to watch although some of the Kakugane transformations are really goofy-looking. The mystery behind alchemy and the Kakugane themselves is also exposed gradually as the series progresses in a way that complements the episodic battles and dilemmas to the fullest…that is until the last few episodes. I won’t spoil anything, but towards the end of the series, Busou Renkin loses control of its plot pacing and seems to rush everything. Hopefully, you will have been entertained enough by the previous episodes to be compelled to ignore this flaw. And oh yeah, there’s romance. It may or may not be between the two you think it will be between just so you’re left in the dark. Overall, I liked Busou Renkin. I’ve dragged myself through horrible series like Maburaho, so it’s obvious that I have a high tolerance level, but honestly, I was entertained. I think this is definitely something to look into.