Legend of Himiko

Yamatai is governed by the Bokka, a sacred flame. During a ceremony to select a queen from a group of candidates,Yamatai is invaded by Kune, an opposing country. One of Kune's leaders throws a baby into the Bokka, causing both the flame and the baby to vanish.

In the modern day, Himiko, and her childhood Kutani, are transported back in time by some strange power.

Legend of Himiko is a dull fantasy series that doesn't have anything new to offer to the genre. The characters are one dimensional and the plot is unoriginal. Even for a twelve episode series the story is very weak, and all it really boils down to is a simple tale of good versus evil. There is hardly anything important going on in many of the episodes. The queen candidates are always talking about how the power of the Bokka can save Yamatai or wondering why Himiko and Kutani have the power of the Bokka. Both Himiko and Kutani have a connection to the Bokka's power, and the queen candidates are attempting to use that power to take back Yamatai from the hands of Kune. The ending wraps up the major plot points, but it also leaves many things unexplained.

Himiko and Kutani are bland leads. There is some hinted romance between the two, but it doesn't develop into anything. The show needed more character development, especially for the queen candidates, because we don't know anything about them. I think the problem is that there are too many queen candidates and too much of the time is spent showing other minor things happening instead of getting to know the characters. Some of the characters hardly do anything during the course of the show. In addition, the enemies' motivations are never explained.

Legend of Himiko also suffers from some poor animation which means that you shouldn't expect any good action scenes. The show uses several cheap tactics like seeing a sword slash across a black screen and watching the enemy fall or skipping the action by cutting to another scene altogether. One of the aspects I really like about fantasy series is the swords and sorcery action that usually comes with it, but there isn't anything exciting here.

The best part of the show is the absolutely beautiful opening theme, "Pure Snow," which is accompanied by some captivating animation. Unfortunately, every other aspect of the series fails to impress. Legend of Himiko is a predictable, straightforward fantasy series that doesn't deserve your attention.

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Written by Marc Frost on Mar 16, 2014