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Synopsis
- Juubei Chan
In medieval Japan, there lived a master of swordsmanship named Yagyu Juubei.
As the successor to the Yagyu Shinkage Ryu, a famed school of tactics and
sword technique, he carried on a feud with the rival Ryujoji school, until the
day when, as an old man, he felled the final heir to the Ryujoji school.
However, that final opponent gave Juubei a mortal wound in turn, and Juubei
entrusts his retainer Koinosuke with a relic intended to pass on his spirit
and skills to a worthy successor - a relic known as the *Lovely Eyepatch*.
Fast-forward three hundred years to the same remote backcountry hills of
Japan, which are now dotted with farms, houses, and junior high schools. Enter
Nanohana Jiyuu, a pert, well-endowed, and more than slightly clueless junior
high transfer from Tokyo who has moved in with her embarrassingly slick
short-story-writing father, who affectionately calls her (guess what?) Juubei.
And, naturally, she is exactly who Koinosuke has been waiting three hundred
years to bestow the *Lovely Eyepatch* upon. Can Jiyuu overcome her misgivings,
and as the reincarnation of Yagyu Juubei, successfully fend off the
resurrected Ryujoji school and preserve the legacy of the Yagyu dojo?
Review
This is goofy. Only in Japan could you take Ninja Scroll, add in Sailor
Moon transformation sequences, and make it genuinely work. Juubei-chan is a
one-of-a-kind series, with the seriousness during the swordfights to pull off
the blinding action scenes, and the gentle wackiness in every other scene to
work as a laugh-out-loud comedy. Juubei-chan herself is endearingly cute, and
though a touch clueless, she nevers seems to be genuinely stupid, just
bewildered by the oddity of the events around her. Then again, when some hick
straight from a samurai epic runs up to you in the middle of a bamboo grove
and implores you to put on a pink heart-shaped *Lovely Eyepatch* (emphasizing
each syllable in the name each and every time!) and become the reincarnation
of a famous swordsman, I'd bet you'd be bewildered too, especially if you've
just moved in from modern-day Tokyo.
Juubei-chan, of course, is complemented by a suitably strange cast of
characters. There's the handsome, awkward kendo artist (and love interest)
Ryujoji Shiro. (Note the family name.) Then there's local gang tough Bantarou
(his gang consists of himself and two lackeys) who resolves to protect his
lady fair with his strong arm and his shirt of ever-changing kanji. There's
hapless Koinosuke himself, who's been searching for centuries for a person who
fits Yagyu Juubei's decidedly odd criteria for a successor. All of which, and
more, are portrayed with tongue firmly in cheek. And naturally, Juubei-chan's
opponents are odd, especially considering the whole lot of them are, in fact,
Juubei's teachers at the local junior high. (One of them's named Tenchi
Muyonosuke. C'mon, this can't be a serious series.) The silliest character,
naturally, is Juubei's dapper fop of a father, a writer who not coincidentally
happens to look exactly like Daichi Akitarou. (I've met the guy, I can vouch
for it.)
Considering how seriously the characters take everything (Juubei-chan
certainly doesn't!), the animation is top-notch, coming from the same studios
(Madhouse) that brought us Ninja Scroll. The swordfights themselves are
well-choreographed, slick, and fun to watch. They are also, as befitting the
show, very short. Juubei's ninja alter-ego rarely wastes time toying with an
enemy. Find an opening, go for the win. Slash. Of course, Juubei doesn't
actually kill anyone (at least not the modern-day Juubei) but instead gives
her erstwhile adversary a change of heart. (The one-liner said by the opponent
after the first swordfight is simply priceless.) There are, however, a few
absolutely strange visuals during the course of the series, not the least of
which are the character-introducing octopi, and the crudely drawn samurai at
the end of the credits (at least in the version I saw), whose significance I
haven't the slightest clue of. Hmmm…
So far, this has been quite an enjoyable, quirky series, and we'd like to
see more of it. Though I can't say much for the English dub (it's not exactly
the greatest voicing job ever, though it isn't as overtly annoying as others),
Juubei-chan is certainly worth a purchase, as it's worth quite a few good
laughs at any club anime showing.
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