DVD Corner

Sacred Blacksmith- The Complete Series DVD Review

“Sacred Blacksmith” may not have much of a story, but it is engaging and well paced.

The plot: Cecily Campbell is a knight guard who has taken on the duty of protecting the people of the trade city of Housman. When her family sword is broken in the line of duty, she turns to a former knight/master swordsman named Luke to help her out. Luke is reluctant at first, but he decides to repair it. In exchange, Cecily has to help him out and protect a girl named Aria. From there on out, Cecily becomes caught up in an adventure filled with monsters, the villainous Siegfried, and a royal woman and her 3 demon sword wielding companions. Of course, there are plenty of revelations and twists along the way as well.

At first glance, I didn’t think “Sacred Blacksmith” would work as a series for two reasons. One, Cecily started off as an annoying whiner who kept preaching about her duties. Two, there wasn’t much of a story arc which left me wondering if there would be a lot of filler in this 12 episode series. Thankfully, my concerns turned out to be minor issues as Cecily grew as a character and the story never had any real filler. In fact, unlike most anime series, it was perfectly paced. So many anime series these days drag out a story to 24 episodes or so and it winds up being a chore to watch in some cases. In ‘Blacksmith,” the entire story is told well in 12 episodes. Granted, there is plenty of eye-rolling fan service and some weird side sories about characters becoming maids, but they never distracted from the main storyline.

The real reason to watch ‘Blacksmith,’ however, has to be for the character of Luke. He’s a funny bad-ass with attitude and he makes the show worth watching. Without his character, I doubt this series would work as well as it does.

Summary: Check out “Sacred Blacksmith”.

The widescreen picture quality is sharp as this is a good looking show. Everything from the character models to the environments (such as the water, mountain, buildings) looks fantastic.

This set contains English 5.1 and Japanese Stereo audio track. The English track bugged me a little at first, but it grows on you and is on par with the Japanese track. Honestly, you can’t go wrong with either track.

Extras:

* A booklet containing color pictures and a fold out double-sided poster.
* Trailers for “Chrome Shelled Regios,” “Sekirei,” “Chrono Crusade,” “Summer Wars,” “Dragon Ball Z Kai,” “Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood,” “Disgaea,” “Tower Of Druaga,” “Gun X Sword,” and “Sengoku Basara”.
* Textless opening and closing songs.

* 12 episode previews for “Sacred Blacksmith”.

March 8, 2011 - Posted by nicklyons1 | DVD review | Sacred Blacksmith- The Complete Series DVD Review