FLAME OF RECCA (1997-98)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*                                                                                                                        I've just finished a brief overview of the manga-installments of the FLAME OF RECCA series here, so I won't go into further details about the nature of this lively fighting-fantasy anime series, since there aren't any important differences between manga and anime.                           

                                                                                                                What I most liked about the FLAME anime is that, unlike most TV-shows of the 21st century, it devotes a now-staggering quantity of FORTY-TWO episodes to the series and even manages to conclude on a decent finish. Compare this expansive production outlay to the piddling twelve episodes given to Tamaki's DANCE IN THE VAMPIRE BUND by the 2010 anime adaptation. There are assorted changes in the continuity that were surely made just to save time, but the animation's good and captures Nobuyuki Anzai's character designs quite well, while providing more excitement thanks to the animation. (I frankly find the fight-scenes in the manga underwhelming by comparison.) The tournament-arc has a different ending than the manga so as to give viewers the sense that a major villain is wiped off the map, thus giving them some closure that wasn't possible in the ongoing manga. In the domain of my "fighting females" category, this is mainly represented by the "cute tomboy" character Fuko, though there are also a handful of "bad girls" sprinkled throughout the episodes.                                                         

ADDENDUM: I should mention one continuity-change from the manga that's amusing due to how it shows the anime-makers losing control of their own setup. In the first episode of the manga, after Recca befriends his classmate Yanagi and offers to become her ninja, a strange middle-aged woman, Kagero, appears to the two of them and challenges Recca to a fight. To make Recca fight, Kagero slashes his face with a knife, and once he starts to strike back, she disappears. Later, Kagero reveals that she's the mother Recca has never known, and that she attacked him to trigger his hidden powers. The first episode of the anime follows the manga's plot accurately, but the fight is longer, with Kagero hitting and kicking Recca as well as cutting him. This only becomes a continuity error later, in an episode that suddenly reveals (contrary to anything in the manga) that Kagero suffers a curse that prevents her from physically touching her son. But if she can't touch him in that episode, how in the debut episode was she able to physically hit him with hands or feet?