Blue Miburo – Episodes 1-2

Content Warning: mild gore

What’s it about? The year is 1863; the place, Kyoto. Gentle orphan Chirinu Nio finds the course of his life changed when he meets two ronin named Hiijikata Toshizo and Okita Soji. Surprised by his sharp observational skills and drive to help, they offer him a place among the Miburo—a group of hardened swordsmen who would eventually become part of the Shinsengumi.

If you’ve found yourself sad ever since the revelation that Watsuki Nobuhiro was charged with possessing massive amounts of child sexual exploitation material (for which he received a financial slap on the wrist and immediate re-welcome back into the publishing fold)…well, me too. That one still kind of hurts. But I might be able to offer you another children’s show about samurai pondering the nature of justice and murder.

Blue Miburo is solidly good-looking middle-grade shounen fare. The art leans just slightly into scroll-style painted aesthetics, lots of blue to go with that “springtime of youth” aesthetic in the title, and character designs that are pleasantly rounded enough for goofs but detailed enough to sell an action scene. There’s a huge cast of burly dudes, but the first two episodes do a good job of shuffling you through them while keeping the emotional focus trained on a small core. Part of that is no doubt leaning on the historical fiction aspect of the story, but like The Heike Story the broad sweeps still come through even if you’re not especially familiar with the Shinsengumi (or the narrativization thereof).

The long conversations of Nio puzzling out his moral code are where the show most clearly shows itself to be made for adolescents (well, that and the karaoke lyrics on the opening theme), but while it’s a bit simplistic thus far it’s not badly handled. It’s also, as always nice to see women working in the industry. Series director Habara Kumiko has been toiling in the isekai mines of late, so it’s nice to see her get a little bit more to flex with (and an interesting new challenge, apparently). It’s especially heartening to hear a director talk about wanting to make an anime that stands on its own, though it raises some interesting questions about combining a story that’s implicitly a tragedy with still-ongoing source material.

As for women in the show itself, not a lot to write home about here. Nio’s grandma and little sister get left behind in the first episode prologue, and both little girls who’ve appeared are mainly there for saving purposes. It’s not condescending about it, but this is clearly a story about Manly Masculine Bonding. There’s a whole inaugural sumo session to welcome Nio into the Miburo and all. Considering the value Nio comes to is wanting to protect kids’ rights to cry—including his past self—it might not end up being toxic about what “being manly” means, but it does remain to be seen.

If historical shounen is your thing, particularly samurai stories, I’d say give this one a shot. Even if it doesn’t come out mind-blowing, it’s got solid footing to start from.