Blade of the Immortal to be animated by Bee Train this Summer

source: Anime News Network

For those who are not familiar with the series, Blade if the Immortal is an award winning manga by Hiroaki Samura about a ronin who caused the death of 100 swordsmen including his sister’s husband and is now cursed to immortality by “blood worms” that keep him alive no matter how serious the wound and can even reattach severed limbs. In order to find peace Manji now has to kill 1,000 evil men. One day he meets a young woman named Rin whose parents were killed by a doujo called the Itto-ryu (who believe that any technique is valid no matter its origins ow how devious or underhanded it is) and agrees to help her get revenge. The manga is published in North America by Dark Horse.

I would have preferred that Blade of the Immortal be adapted as an OVA instead because the manga’s main attractions are the beautiful artwork and extremely violent material and I doubt that Bee Train can pull it off technically and in a tv series format. The director and animators are the same as Noir and .Hack//Sign.. so there should be a lot of still shots and lazy animation. My expectations are pretty low for this. I just wish Madhouse or Production I.G. were doing this instead, Seirei no Moribito and Shigurui level animation would do this series justice.

edit: March 6, 2009

How disappointing, Beetrain fails yet again.  I so wanted this anime to be worthy of the manga -__-