Cinnamon Ass

Seirei no Moribito should by rights be causing me to go into complete ecstasy every time I watch it. All the elements are in place for the show to be my absolute dream anime, and it’s very difficult to actually pinpoint any actual fault with the way the show has been constructed. I’ve seen very few shows that pay such attention to consistent world building, for instance - we’ve barely visited anywhere other than the capital city and some random mountain scenes, and haven’t been anywhere near Kanbal yet (Barsa’s homeland), and yet we already know so much about the way the countries view each other, the way they eat, their customs etc.

Yet I’m still not sure why I find it just hasn’t quite clicked with me yet. In places where I’ve mentioned this it’s been surmised that it’s because of the lack of action - aside from the astonishing episode 3 and a few more “escape” sequences after that, there has been very little overt excitement in the series so far, it’s true. It’s also true that I would have liked Tanda to be an ass-kicking shaman like Torogai, but he’s a pretty decent character as he is I suppose so I think I’m being a little unrealistic on that front.

I don’t think it’s the lack of action, however, that isn’t engaging me in the show, and I’m not sure if it’s even the pacing either. I think any change in the way the story has unfolded so far would be for the worse - the very strong serial nature of Seirei no Moribito is something that really sets it apart from a lot of other series, and it gives the writing all the time it needs to really flesh out Yogo and the characters.

With that said, however, it doesn’t stop me being extremely impatient with the series. I have no idea whether this is an actual correlation, but the series works like it’s a straight adaptation of the book - each episode has a structure that would work well as a “chapter”. Take episode 8, for instance - it dribbles enough information about Barsa’s past to keep the audience interested but is a self-contained episode from which Barsa and Chagum will move on. However, a chapter of a book doesn’t take me twenty-odd minutes to read with this much content - five, ten minutes tops, is how long it would have taken for me to get the same effect as said episode. I don’t know about anyone else, but I imagine the scene in my head as I read; I can’t comment on Uehashi’s powers of description, but if the quality of her writing is the same as the script for the anime I’m sure it’s really pretty good. As the show stands, therefore, the pacing doesn’t really work for me that well - as I HOPE I’ve managed to get across, I think the pacing is fine but it doesn’t suit me very well. I don’t think marathoning the show would work for me either as it would just be longer stints of not much happening, but I think it’s something I’m just going to have to try and accept.

I DO think that Seirei no Moribito is a good show. I am genuinely invested in finding out more about the backdrop to the story (sure, I’d love to know more about the Nayugu and the supernatural side of the story as I’m a fantasy junkie and there’s only so much sword-smithing and pottering around I can take) and it is exquisitely crafted. It’s just not totally grabbed me yet, and I think I’m just going to have to be at peace with the fact that it’s going to challenge me a little bit to keep watching it. Hopefully it’ll be the worth the extra effort.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Seirei no Moribito. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.