Black Heaven's most obvious theme is consciously exaggerated wish-fulfillment fantasy for an audience ready for a mid-life crisis, that would like to return to their youthful music and TV favorites and dream of a second chance at their whole future. Hard rock and 1980s anime is also still 'in' with the current teen generation, and will demonstrate to them that Dad may not be so square, after all (A Goofy Movie, anybody?). And there is enough real hard rock music (the theme song, "Cautionary Warning," by John Sykes, a rock guitarist whose group has toured Japan several times, in the original arrangement plus two new arrangements; Michael Schenker Group's "In the Arena;" and original TV rock songs to match by Hironobu Kageyama and Riyu Konaka) to please serious rock fans.

The animation quality -- okay, so it was a low-budget TV production (13 weekly episodes, July 8 - October 7, 1999). Nobody disses the Jay Ward TV cartoons for their cheap production values, do they? The two animation studios, A.I.C. (Anime International Company) and A.P.P.P. Co. (Another Push Pin Production), both do much better with larger-budget productions.

Set in 19th century Japan, Samurai X tells the story of a land torn by warfare and rebellion where small bands of soldiers seek to overthrow the tyrannical Tokugawa Shogunate. © A.D. Vision, Inc.

Samurai X: Rurouni Kenshin. V.1, Trust. V.2, Betrayal.
Original animation video (OAV) series, 1999. Director: Kazuhiro Furuhashi. 60 minutes each. Price & format: video $29.95 subtitled/$19.98 dubbed each; DVD bilingual $29.98 each. Distributor: A. D. Vision Films.

[This gets confusing: Samurai X is the title of the video dubbed edition, while Rurouni Kenshin is the title of the subtitled video and the DVD edition. Plus, there is a separate Rurouni Kenshin TV series which is getting a simultaneous U.S. video release from another company, Media Blasters.]

Japanese animation first gained a cult following in America for its giant robot battlefests and space adventure epics. But there are many viewers who prefer the historical dramas, which offer a genuine historical background in a setting so exotic and so unknown to non-Japanese that it might as well be on a planet far, far away. This story takes place during the traumatic collapse of the 250-year Shogunate period (1601-1868), which occurred between the visit of Commodore Perry's fleet in 1853 to open Japan forcibly to world trade, and 1868 when the emperor was restored.

Rurouni Kenshin began as an immensely popular comic book (manga) historical serial by Nobuhiro Watsuki from 1994 to 1999. It was quickly adapted as a 94-episode animated TV series, running from January 10, 1996 through September 8, 1998 (currently being released separately in America under Media Blasters' AnimeWorks video label); there was also an anime theatrical feature in December 1997. Set in 1879, it tells the adventures of a group of teens who gather around Kenshin, a rurouni (ronin; vagabond samurai) in his late twenties on a self-imposed pilgrimage of redemption. When he was just a young teen, Kenshin was the deadliest assassin of the reformers who fought the Shogunate. Disillusioned by all the killing on both sides in the name of noble ideals, he hopes to atone for his violent past.

Samurai X's central character, Kenshin, a young orphan trained to be a deadly assasin, with the mysterious woman named Tomoe. © A.D. Vision, Inc.

Samurai X (the title refers to the cross-shaped scar on Kenshin's cheek) is a two-hour, four episode direct-to video series released as Rurouni Kenshin: Reminiscence in 1999. It is Kenshin's origin story, showing his violent past which was hinted at in the TV series. Kenshin bursts into the shadow civil war as an idealistic 14-year-old whose lithe dexterity is taken advantage of by the reformers to use him as a murderer of their political opponents. The first half hour episode establishes this; the following three switch to somber despair as Kenshin realizes that he is no better than the "enemies of the people" he is ordered to slay. Kenshin's failed attempt to escape into a peaceful life as a farmer, and his resolution to die in battle against the Shogun's agents, move forward with a growing inevitability which portends an unalterable fate. (Yet, since this is a prequel to the TV series, viewers are supposed to know that Kenshin will, somehow, survive.) Director Furuhashi builds an emotional impact with calm, poetic imagery such as slowly dripping blood upon snow which skillfully gets the most out of limited animation. (Production by Studio Deen.)