Loved this show (SPOILERS)

I had to slow myself down to stop from jamming this whole show in a couple of days and costing myself the joy of the show over a longer period. Each episode seems packed with great stuff.

All characters have flaws. I'll lead with that. It's so common these days to make a main character who is just misunderstood and needs to have everybody else just understand how great they are. In BES, we get characters who are flawed. As a result, it's far more interesting watching them interact and have their goals set at odds with one another.

I went through loving and hating Taigen and Akime, for instance. But my favourite was watching Misu be a superhuman killing machine, but a stunted person on an emotional level. This was great. Misu's character arc is truly great.

The writing is also filled with great moments, subtle machinations and politics, and beautiful character moments that build in each episode and throughout the show.

The art is beautiful. They style of the show is more unique than the generic CGI we usually get, and on top of that, the way the camera moves to show off fight scenes or the scenery is sublime. One of my favourite shots is from the final episode; I can't describe it without some serious spoilers, so... I guess I can reveal it below if you want.

I was only disappointed twice throughout the show. The first was in Episode 1. There's a montage set to Battle Without Honour or Humanity, and it was a little too "Kill Bill" reminiscent. Tarantino claimed that song generally, but the effect was compounded by the fact that we were dealing with samurai sword action... The second was one character's fate at the end of the show, so again... no big spoilers.

I'll be watching this again and I'm looking forward to season two. If you love samurai movies, political drama, and/or terrific animation, give it a try.