Brave 10 is a short (12-episode) historical fantasy series set at the end of the Warring States period in Japan, when Ieyasu Tokugawa is beginning his efforts to consolidate the various fiefdoms and daimyo into a single nation under a Tokugawa shogunate.
In the wake of a raid on a Shinto shrine, where the raiders destroy the buildings and slaughter the priest and the shrine maidens, the raid's ...
Brave 10 is a short (12-episode) historical fantasy series set at the end of the Warring States period in Japan, when Ieyasu Tokugawa is beginning his efforts to consolidate the various fiefdoms and daimyo into a single nation under a Tokugawa shogunate.
In the wake of a raid on a Shinto shrine, where the raiders destroy the buildings and slaughter the priest and the shrine maidens, the raid's sole survivor, the shrine maiden Isanami, attaches herself to Saizo, a sullen young unemployed ninja, after a chance encounter in the forest, when raiders seeking to assassinate her attack them both.
Using his preternatural ninja warrior skills, Saizo saves her life from the initial attack. When the assassins return in greater numbers, Isanami then demonstrates a very scary mystical power to suck the life from the living things around her and disintegrate them.
When Saizo, sensibly enough, refuses to get further involved with her, Isanami stalks him relentlessly until he agrees to escort her to the castle of local daimyo, an ambitious young man named Sanada Yukimura, who takes them both into his service.
Yukimura has a plan to recruit ten gifted warriors for a special purpose. He's already gathered three of them before Saizo and Isanami arrive, and many of the following episodes revolve around how the remaining warriors are encountered and recruited. The series comes to a dramatic end with the revelation of why Yukimura thinks he needs this band of warriors and exactly who Isanami is and what her power can do.
This is one of those historical series where most of the characters wear wildly anachronistic outfits and have special magical powers, and the hero has an enchanted sword that glows with mysterious runes at appropriately dramatic moments. The female characters are either emotionally immature and manipulative with a side of "endearing" clumsiness (one of my least-favorite anime stereotypes), or, if they're presented as being as powerful warriors as the men, they have huge breasts and wear bizarrely-revealing outfits (a laced corset and heels for a ninja warrior? Really?)
The biggest problem for me was most of the episodes revolved around adding warriors with special talents to the group, with a dramatic three-episode final arc in which most of the specially-picked warriors did pretty much nothing special to resolve the grand climax, leaving Saizo and Isanami to carry the weight of the dramatic resolution. And even for them, a lot of things are set up (like Saizo's mysteriously-glowing sword) and then never actually addressed.
The series felt like an extended set-up with weak payoff and only brief introductions to a group of quirky characters who then are never developed further or even have a very significant role to play. I suspect that this is probably just the initial story arc in a much longer series, but the whole thing felt oddly incomplete.
That being said, this series was a lot of fun, with lots of action and sardonic banter, and of course, nearly all the male characters (including several of the villains) were drawn as dreamy hunks. If you enjoy Naruto and Bleach, you'll probably like this series as well.
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