Touken Ranbu aka Sword Boys

Originally a browser game, where a sage or "Saniwa" goes back in time and uses magic powers to turn swords into handsome young men to fight evil forces that attempt to rewrite history. Basically the male version of Kancolle although it does seem to have more of a plot than kancolle ever did

An anime was announced to be in the works by ufotable

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare

Will they give the Saniwa a personality though? That's a huge concern here. XD

I have never seen anyone talk about the plot. It's all just "damn these boys are cute". They are pretty cute.

Also, didn't fans of this thing like, save ancient Japanese swords or something? Never underestimate the power of fujoshi.

Not really, though it DID increase the visibility of "named" swords that aren't the Masamune or Murasame to contemporary pop culture. A lot of these weapons, after all, are only of interest to history majors.

Here's hoping they learned from kancolle's mistake Well, compared to kancolle's shipgirls fight abyssals with references to ww2, there's definitely more plot in tourabu but yeah not much to talk about

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare

Apparently this is getting two anime

Unless I'm misunderstanding this, apparently there will be TWO tourabu anime. The first one will be by Dogakobo and has Junichiro Taniguchi of Madoka fame for character designs. The second one is the ufotable one and its website looks pretty cool

by 2 mins

edited 25th Mar '16 7:06:48 PM by MarquisDev

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare

PV for the anime by Dogakobo. Seems to be about the shinsengumi swords who are unfortunately forgettable imo

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare

That it's by Dogakobo reassures me. Their Yuru Yuri has an energy, inventiveness and self-awareness that would suit something like this, over the very safe and conventional Kancolle. I hope they make the Saniwa into the protagonist, and maybe give a hint that she's a fujoshi around the boys.

Compared to the "Whatever you do don't mention the war" approach of Kancolle, this could travel to different troubled times in the country's history and the influence it left on the sword guy, with the Saniwa there to help resolve it.

Though for me Kancolle's biggest mistake was the tone; it kept jumping from light comedy (which made me laugh) to heavy war drama (which made me laugh more). Again, Dogakobo's normal style should work.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

To be honest, I'm really not too interested in the Touken: Hanamaru Anime [ The one that's coming out this year ] because I have a feeling that it's not going to be anything that could be taken seriously. Plus, they're most likely going to make the Shinsengumi swords, Kashuu and Yamato [ With Yamato most likely being the main character ] the main focuses of the show as if the Japanese media isn't already over saturated with Shinsengumi lore.

As much as I adore Yamato and Kashuu, I was honestly growing increasing upset with the idea of them getting more focus than the other characters. If Kashuu and Yamato were only being used for the PROMOTIONAL material, they'd include the other Swords as well in the art. But they didn't. This isn't Shinsengumi Ranbu. It's Touken Ranbu and I really want all the characters to get an appropriate amount of screentime.

That being said, I'm also afraid that it will only be getting 12 episodes, turning the show into a rushed, genderflipped version of the Kancolle ANIME. The Ufotable Anime looks far more promising. It has the games most talked about Mascot on the cover of the promotional art which draws the Fandom's eye, It's by a well-known and liked studio that's produced great Anime, AND the Anime Staff will be supervised by Nitro+, so you know it's going to be good.

It's already been confirmed that Touken: Hanamaru is going to have comedic elements to it. I also have a feeling that if Saniwa does appear- they'll a clumsy  moeblob ill-suited for an Anime about war. Or that they'll have the personality of a generic shoujo protagonist. I don't know what's worse but I hope Touken: Hanamaru changes my mind. The Anthology and Touken Ranbu Gakuen already have lighter and softer comedic elements to them. I don't want an Anime that imitates the format.

That's exactly why they're mking two animes. One for cute boys doing cute things, and one for the action-oriented. So you can choose which one to watch ad ignore the other.

Wasn't the Shinsengumi swords among the most popular in the Japanese fandom? I'm not a fan of them either, but it makes sense they would be featured in the first PV.

Now I'm just hoping best sword Moetanuki is going to make it in.

The anime decided to follow kancolle's example. The saniwa is invisible. The tone is more lighthearted so it might still work in this case but I am disappointed

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare

It has certainly learnt from Kancolle, but does misteps of its own. There isn't the whiplash between cutesy comedy and (trying-to-be) gritty war drama, but it is still rather more serious than it should be with such a premise. The fighting was better (on a much smaller budget). However the castle setting had less atmosphere, with a lot of bland, static talking heads scenes. And it has probably the worst exposition I've ever seen anywhere, with line after line of As You Know. The conflict is at least a little defined and may actually affect the characters, which was badly lacking in Kancolle.

I was hoping for a fujoshi saniwa, too bad. And there had better be an equivalent to Kitakami and Ooi because that is what is missing most in the world.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

Watching episode 2, and I am starting to get bothered more with Saniwa's lack of presence than I was with Kantai Collection's lack of Admiral. Because with Admiral, they kept them rather nondescript in terms of character aside of their dream about Fubuki. Here, it's like they want to give Saniwa character, but it doesn't really matter if we don't see them.

Continue the bloodline, Fujimaru!

Episode 3 was really boring. I knew the first half was going to be a straw millionaire story the moment I saw the four leaf clover. Then second half hinted at introducing a new sword which I thought would lead to rescuing him from battle representing sword drops from the game. It turns out to just be about a magical tree and wishes. Maybe they're saving it for a future episode

"If music be the food of love, PLAY ON" - William Shakespeare