I was looking in my archives and saw that I never explained why this series is called "Mystery Meat". So here goes: I downloaded a whole bunch of stuff from BakaBT and started seeding it. For a lot of it, when I just look at the title, I don't have the slightest idea why. I know the main reasons why I picked things: for potential bonus points, or because of fan service, or because they looked like they might be good.

The Mystery Meat series of posts consists of me going out to my now-rather-large archive of downloaded fansubs and picking one about which I can't remember a damned thing, and watching the first episode and blogging about it as I watch.

Today's Mystery Meat series was going to be "Uta Kata", except that within 30 seconds of beginning to watch it, I remembered all about it. So we're going to try Koihime Musou.

Ancient times, apparently. A girl carrying a weapon that looks like a naginata except that the blade is too large is accosted by five bandits.

She takes off her cape and reveals a major league rack.

I'm guessing right now that it was the "boing" keyword that invited this download because she just did. She announces her name as Kan'u and then challenges the five.

OP. She's the lead character. There's also a redhead girl, looks younger. There's one with blue hair, looks cool and detached. And one with brown hair. One with purple hair. Lots of women in this, evidently. A blonde haired loli. Title, and then angst scenes for some of the girls. (Ick) Then scenes of all of them picking up weapons. The red head uses a spear. The blue haired one also has a spear, except that the head on it isn't plausibly a weapon. A magic staff? The one with brown hair uses a pike. One of them has a bow, but the lighting is strange so I can't tell. (She's got an even bigger rack than Kan'u.) The blonde loli may be a magic user; she has some sort of fan which she waves which started glowing.

OK, it was the one with purple hair who has the bow. (And the rack.) And so on and so forth. There's another loli, this one with red hair. And a bunch of other women. I think we're seeing opponents and bit parts now.

Interesting: in this medieval world they appear to be able to make glasses. A couple of the women wear them.

Cast shot of the main six characters.

Well, MOVING right along... OP over. Kan'u is walking on a path through the middle of a fresh-planted rice paddy. Evidently she won against those five guys.

She enters the town, and suddenly there's a ruckus. A bunch of kids, including that red-head, are running through the town pretending to be bandits. Kan'u gets knocked on her butt.

Looks like this medieval world has also invented pantsu. 'Cause that sure ain't traditional underwear.

Turns out the redhead is the leader of the kid group. She's an orphan, and lives alone in a house outside the village that used to belong to her deceased grandfather. And she's very lonely.

Back in the village, Kan'u has worked for a woman innkeeper in exchange for a place to sleep for the nght. She sacks out, and dreams about her past, about how her village got sacked by bandits and her older brother was killed by them.

Next day, and she's working again. Walking through the village she overhears the mayor ordering some soldiers to go arrest Lin Lin, the little girl who is leader of that group of kid "bandits". Seems that the kids drew a big satirical drawing of the mayor on the side of his house and he's mad.

So Kan'u talks to the mayor. "I'm a traveling warrior. My name is Kan'u. My courtesy mame is Unchou." ORLY?

Some talk, and then she convinces the mayor to let her deal with it. A kid overhears.

Kan'u is following the path she's been told about which should lead to Lin Lin's house. The kid is up in a tree with a basket full of rocks. He starts throwing them at Kan'u, who deflects every one with her blade.

She gets mad and charges towards him, and we get a strange visual effect -- super speed? No, it was super strength of some kind. She slices right through the trunk of the tree the kid was on and it starts to fall.

She catches him, in both meanings of the word, and gives him a smack, then leaves him behind.

Four more of the kids leap out in front of her and start yelling insults. She gets mad and starts to run towards them, but notices a big pile of leaves in front of her. So she jumps over it -- and lands on their real pitfall and falls in.

And those are definitely modern pantsu we see as she falls. An anachronism, but a welcome one.

She leaps back out of the pit and starts doing inconsequential violence to the kids in revenge. Eventually the action slows down and she talks the kids into going back to town by promising them that she won't turn Lin Lin over to the authorities.

They agree, but shout insults at her one last time as they leave. Kan'U walks forward, into a clearing below the cliff where Lin Lin's house is. Lin Lin is standing on the cliff, holding her spear, in defiance.

Kan'U asks if she's Lin Lin. She responds that Lin Lin is a name she permits friends to use. So Kan'U asks her name and she says she is Chouhi, courtesy name Yokutoku.

Chouhi (that's what I'll call her from now on, because I think that's what she's called through the rest of the series) jumps down and challenges Kan'u, and action begins. Turns out that Chouhi is pretty good with her spear; Kan'u doesn't have an easy time of it. One of her blows is strong enough so that even though Kan'U blocks it with the haft of her weapon, it knocks her flying.

Camera moves away and we see the sky turn red. Come back and they're still fighting. Looks like it's been a while.

More time passes. Now the full moon is up, and they're still fighting. Eventually they hit a corps-a-corps and action stops for a moment. Kan'U says, "It's a pity. Even though you have such strength, you're just using it to play a bandits' game." And then tries to convince Chouhi to help her fight bandits.

Kan'u tells Chouhi that like her, Kan'u also lost her family as a child. We get an angsty scene and Chouhi starts crying. Kan'u is surprised, and then tries to comfort her.

Later, in Chouhi's house.

Yay! Bath scene! Turns out that Kan'U decided to spend the night with Chouhi, to Chouhi's delight. Obviously we have a partnership developing here.

And Chouhi decides to join Kan'U in the bath. Totsugeki!

Stating the obvious.

Later, there's only one futon, so they'll share it. Some more talk, and Chouhi decides she'll call Kan'u onee-chan. Kan'u asks her to come along on a quest to change the world.

Next day, in town, the two of them talk to the mayor, and Chouhi says good bye to the villagers. And then they leave together.

Voiceover: "At the end of the second chentury AD, this world is in disarray. That is, there are some who are amassing power as preparation to serve their ambitions. There are some who are working hard at the literary and military arts in order to test their own strength. There are some who fight because they have someone to protect. People with various desires in their hearts are entangled by the colored threads of fate, and are connected together. Please watch the future of the unique princesses who dance at the end of the century."

They have pantsu like that in the second century AD? ORLY?

ED is chibis! Yay!

FORENSICS: Obviously I picked this one because of keywords like ecchi and boing and pantsu. (Not exactly; I just took a look and it was ecchi and uncensored.)

JUDGEMENT: Not very good. The story concept is fundamentally stupid, and there hasn't been enough fan service to redeem it. I might scan some other episodes just to see what they look like but I seriously doubt I'll want to watch any more of it.

I do have to admit that the fight between Chouhi and Kan'U was animated pretty well.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Mystery Meat at 08:43 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
Post contains 1091 words, total size 9 kb.

1 Coincidentally I watched part of the first episode of this last night. I think it is yet another anime adaptation of Romance of the Three Kingdoms. My take on it agrees with yours- not very good. I might finish watching the first episode sometime, but then again, I might not.

Posted by: tds at October 03, 2009 08:55 PM (zjX5u)

2 The coincidence of names was the most interesting thing for me: Kan'U Unchou? Long black hair? Polearm? Big boobs? Sounds familiar, don't it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 03, 2009 09:13 PM (+rSRq)

3 I took a look at your seedlist. FtN? Genki Senki Leda? Where do you even find all that

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at October 03, 2009 09:51 PM (/ppBw)

4

Different ways. Some of the low-seed-count stuff I found by resorting the "browse" listing by seed count (you can do that) and then moving to the last page and reading forward.

Sometimes when I see a user listed in one of the TOP lists, I'll look at their seed list (or used-to-seed list) and occasionally I've spotted something in there I thought was interesting.

It also turns out that you can click on a keyword and it'll show you all the seeds which use that keyword. That's particularly handy for keywords like pantsu. (heh)

As to Leda, I honestly don't remember just how I stumbled on that one.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 03, 2009 10:13 PM (+rSRq)

5  What coincidence? They're both drawing from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Koihime Musou is a gender-swapped retelling; Ikkitousen is a modern "reincarnation" story.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at October 03, 2009 11:00 PM (vGfoR)

6 I found a cast pic from the game with the character names cross-referenced from the original novel (Chinese-type names, so it matches the Dynasty Warriors games, not Ikkitousen). It's here. Be warned - terrifying cross-gender Diao Chan at the bottom.

Also, a chart showing various depictions of a few of the characters, including Ikkitousen and Koihime Musou. Much smaller chance of horrific eyeball burn with this one.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at October 03, 2009 11:08 PM (vGfoR)

7 I remember watching the first two episodes of this when it was airing.  I think I made it to the eyecatch of the second before saying "this is too stupid, even for me."

Posted by: Wonderduck at October 04, 2009 12:18 AM (/O6qY)

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