The story told so far in The Hakkenden differs substantially from Takizawa's original story in many regards, yet this doesn't detract greatly from the flow of the series at this point. The main character of Nanso Satomi Hakkenden actually plays a relatively minor role in The Hakkenden, which, in its first volume, focuses mainly on Shino Inuzuka, a young man of the samurai class, after dwelling briefly on the curse of the Satomi clan.

The main problem with the second episode, however, was the highly variable quality of the animation. Through the course of the episode the level of detail plummeted drastically and the number of colors per frame also decreased. At certain points the animation was so bad that one could hardly tell some of the characters apart.

Again, the vocal talent assembled was fairly adequate for the job, however, some of the minor characters grated at the ears, but hopefully that will pass as they become non-factors in terms of the plot. The character design for Aboshi is also disturbing, his unhuman appearance sharply contrasting sharply with the designs of the other major characters. Like the supernatural incident in the first episode, this may be a plot device, but I doubt it.

Aside from this, the character designs for the major roles were done very well and the landscape animation was some of the best I have ever seen. I can only wonder what this episode could have been like if it had been animated with the budget of an OAV series.
- JH, 99.02.15