Of Criminals and Conquest

I just watched the first two episodes of the Blade of the Immortal anime. I came away pretty impressed- the animated version of Hiroaki Samura's ultraviolent, sexy samurai revenge epic seems pretty close to the source manga. The art style is close to Samura's lovely pencilled art, and even the action approaches the stylized tableaus of violent death by various bladed weapons. There are some changes- characters like the Mugai Ryu and Habaki Kagimura, personages that figured much later into the manga, are immediately shown even in the first episode. Also, there are some discreet editing of unpleasantness from the more violent and bloody scenes in the manga- such as the death of Manji's sister, Machi. This censorship will no doubt figure more in the future episodes when the more unsavoury bits of Samura's manga are translated. That said though, the series looks like it won't be lacking in fan service, sexy ladies and bloody action in any measure... certainly looks like I'm in for the ride. I just hope this doesn't take as long as the manga to develop though...