Shinsengumi! (2004)

The story of Shinsengumi and some of its members have been on screen various times. I think it can be said this Taiga drama summarizes the whole incidents and characters pretty good. For those who have no idea about Shinsengumi I shall mention that Shinsengumi is a so called police force made of some ronin who protect Kyoto City in the name of Shogun during the chatoic and bloody 1850-1860's when there was almost a civil war between The Shogunate (and its supporting clans) and the Imperialist Clans.(Choshu,Tosa, later Satsuma)Well the incidents and politics are a lot more complicated and full of twist and turns but the incidenst that have happened that time are a mile stone of todays modern(western) Japan.

The story of the drama is being told from Shinsengumi's perspective, and I felt like it was pretty fair. The only bad comment could be the pace and character developments,which were a little slow. There are no breath taking action scenes or tear jerker twist and turns, because the story more likely focuses on the caracters as well as the incidents. The acting is fairly executed since all the actors are pretty well experienced and well known. The music on the other hand was simply no good. I think especially the intro music is a complete failure. I do understand that they wanted to do something militar and heroic but to me it was simply annoying. Lastly,I recommend this drama not to those who want to watch a japanese version of "sageuk" but to those who want to know more about Japan's history lead by good actors and a little fiction to be more fastmoving. If you are interested, the rewatch value is higher and if not,than probably lower. Overall it was a good executed Taiga, which was a little slow and in my opinion a little sugar coated,but not boring and very educative.

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Finally done! So relieved! It wasn't bad, just inconsistent. Some characters I liked throughout, some just annoyed me. In order to follow the tradition of making the hero infallible, to me, said hero seemed ineffective as a leader. I just don't like the way he's portrayed. I only liked his portrayal in the last episode. I don't mind how they showed other characters but it also really annoyed me how Kaishu Katsu was portrayed.

The music theme, the less we talk about it, the better.

Costume designs looked so cheap! The production was really bad. Action and fight scenes also weren't well choreographed. It would've been okay for another story, but this is the Shinsengumi!

In the end, the main problem is the focus. So much time was wasted on stuff I didn't care about. Is it really that important to see every step of how Kondo gets himself a 2nd wife? And why spend so much time on a character like Sutesuke that not only didn't matter for us the Viewers, but also nobody else gave him any importance, all the way to the end. He was just used (in very stupid ways) to get some things to happen.

Anyways I don't regret watching it but I don't recommend it. If you want to know more about the Shinsengumi, watch samurai movies like Until the Last Sword is Drawn or Twilight Samurai.

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