
When I talk with older anime fans, the biggest complaint I hear is that everything has become nothing but moĂŠ, angsty, high school, love-harems. They claim they want exciting action shows with an adult cast and grown-up stories. To those people, I say this: âBlade & Soul is the anime for you.â
Good â A Grown-Up Tale Filled with Action

Blade & Soul is the story of Alka, the last living assassin of the Clan of the Sword. Her mission? Vengeance against the dark, magic-wielding warrior Jin Varel and her companionsâthe ones responsible for the death of her master.
Nearly every episode of Blade & Soul has some sort of action climax. As a wandering assassin, Alka finds herself as everything from hired thug to bodyguard as she continues her quest to hunt Jin Varel. Jin Varel and her companions, on the other hand, are also hunting Alka; so when the two forces clash, youâre always guaranteed an awesomeâand often brutalâfight.
Good â Free of Modern Anime ClichĂŠs

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Not to put too fine a point on it, but Blade & Soul is blessedly free of modern animeâs most common clichĂŠs. There is no high school setting. No teenage heroes. No endless will-they-wonât-they romance. No moĂŠ-invoking characters. No harems. No tsundere, dandere, kuudere, or yandere. If you have been searching for an anime that avoids these common tropes, Blade & Soul is the anime for you.
Good â Thematic and Episodic

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Almost every episode of Blade & Soul is a self-contained story with its own characters and conflicts. Sometimes itâs about a small village on the verge of being conquered by soldiers. Sometimes itâs about a couple of street children trying to survive. Sometimes itâs about a group of refugees who have come together to build their own community and army. And sometimes itâs about people so blinded by their pain or self-righteousness that they canât see the evil right in front of them.
Simply put, each episode in the series is built around exploring an aspect of the seriesâ major theme: vengeance. Thus this anime looks at the victims of vengeance, causes of vengeance, the cycle of vengeance, the losses caused by vengeance, and brutal ways to attain vengeanceâjust to name a few sub-themes. And as youâll learn rather quickly from watching, vengeance never works out for the betterânot for anyone involved. Because of this, Blade & Soul is often a quite dark anime.
Good â A Journey from Empty Shell to Human Being

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As she is rarely the focus of the episode, Alka often seems like a supporting role in her own story. However, what is important is how these various self-contained stories affect and change Alka. At the start, Alka is an empty, emotionless shell. She knows how to kill and has the assassinsâ code to live by. Sheâs not even after vengeance against her masterâs killer for any other reason than the code demands itâshe has no emotional stake in the whole endeavor.
Thus, the anime as a whole is Alkaâs journey from walking tool of death into a thinking, feeling personâfrom âbladeâ to âsoulâ if you will. The tragedies and rare successes she witnesses change her, prompting her to contemplate and grow. Of course, while opening up to your emotions can be a powerful, wonderful thing, Alka also discovers the crippling emotional pain that comes as the flip side of the emotional coin.
Good â A Living Breathing World

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As Blade & Soul is based on the Korean MMORPG of the same name, it comes packed to the brim with its own history, lore, and detailed setting. It is clear that what we are seeing is only a small part of a much bigger, world-spanning story. Not even Alka or Jin Varel are particularly important in the overall scheme of things. But because the world is so well constructed, there are numerous details in every scene that make the world come to life. All in all, it becomes a living, breathing world.
Mixed â Big Boobs and Skimpy Outfits

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Except for the final episode (which we'll get into later) Blade & Soul is not an anime that highlights its fanserviceâi.e., the camera does not exploit every possible opportunity to zoom in on the female cast's T&A. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that several of the main female characters wear outfits that leave little to the imagination. The series is not without the occasional boob bounce either. But when it comes down to it, if you are used to typical âfemale fantasy armor,â this probably wonât bother you much.
Mixed â You've Seen a Lot of This Before

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While Blade & Soul steers clear of the most common current anime clichĂŠs, that doesnât mean the story is completely originalâfar from it. How many times have you seen the âstudent must avenge the masterâs deathâ plot, after all? Moreover, each of the self-contained episodes have a story that is at least somewhat familiar.
The world of Blade & Soul is basically that of your average samurai/western workâi.e., a wandering main character travels across the frontier, getting involved in complex situations where there is no concrete good or evil to be found. If you have ever watched the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone or the samurai films of Akira Kurosawa, you probably know what kind of tone and plot to expect in Blade & Soul.
Of course, just because you have seen much of it before doesnât mean itâs bad. Rather, this familiarity allows the series to tell complete, complex stories in just 22 minutesâand still manage to develop Alka and the other reoccurring characters on top of that.
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Random Thoughts â The âFanservice Episodeâ

Almost every anime has the âfanservice episodeââyou know, the one where they go to the beach, pool, or hot spring, or perhaps the females wear some sort of festish-tastic outfit like a playboy bunny costume. And as they are so prevalent in anime, I wasn't surprised to see one in Blade & Soul. What did surprise me was where in the series it was placed.
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Often, fanservice episodes happen midway through the series. They tend to be a way to give a lighthearted break after some major climax. Of course, in a show as serious and dark as Blade & Soul, having a fanservice episode midway through the series would destroy the tone and interrupt the carefully crafted thematic exploration. Fortunately, the series' creators realized this and thus put the fanservice episode at the end of the series. So you get the whole serious tale uninterrupted and then finish it all off with a silly epilogue. If we have to have an episode like this, I'm glad to see it put after the end where it can do no harm.
Final Thoughts

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In the world of modern anime, Blade & Soul is a welcome palate cleanser, free from all the common tropes that permeate the medium. It is a series for adults, by adults and is interested in exciting action and deep explorations of the concept of vengeance and the themes surrounding it. If this sounds like your cup of tea, then you should definitely give Blade & Soul a watch.
Blade & Soul aired on TBS in Japan. It can be viewed for free with English subtitles in the US at Crunchyroll and Hulu.
For a second opinion on this series, check out the review on TAY, Kotaku's own user-run blog.
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To contact the author of this post, write to BiggestinJapan@gmail.com or find him on Twitter @BiggestinJapan.