Legend of Himiko has everything going for it and manages to drop the ball.  That isn’t to say it’s bad – far from it.  It has all the elements necessary to be a successful anime, but it was somehow mismanaged into obscurity.

Less importantly, I was promised brief nudity and I am disappointed that it did not deliver.  Let’s just be clear – I don’t demand nudity to enjoy something.  If that were true, Legend of Lemnear would be something I consider a true classic.  It’s just that if I see a brief nudity advisory, I expect brief nudity.

The first episode starts out with a ceremony gathered around the “bokka,” or sacred fire.  A baby born to guard the bokka is given her name: Himiko.  Then, six girls gather around the bokka, and one of them will be chosen as the first queen of the nation.  It’s apparently a pretty big deal.

Suddenly, the Magical City of Vane… or its approximate equal… invades the nation, intent on stealing the bokka for themselves!  Because pointlessly evil empires were all the rage in the 90’s.

It never used to bother me as a kid, but now that I think about it… I’m kinda REALLY tired of sudden invasions from evil empires in the beginning minutes of anything.

This empire is different from any other one though.  They have wooden tanks with giant umbrellas.

The general of Kune, Shikara, arrives and states his intentions to steal the sacred flame, balks at the potential existence of spirits (yet went out of his way to acquire a SACRED FLAME POWERFUL ENOUGH FOR HIM TO RULE THE WORLD), tries unsuccessfully to kill the queen candidates, successfully kills Himiko’s mother, and throws Himiko at the sacred flame in a failed attempt to kill her.  If nothing else, he’s an efficient villain.  Shikara’s just a trash name.

The queen candidates wake from their trances, looking down at their country from the sky and witnessing its destruction.  Seika, the one that looks most like a proper miko, scatters them to safety, hoping to one day gather again to fulfill their duty or whatever.

Meanwhile, Shikara, though unsuccessful in attaining the sacred fire, somehow accidentally brings these two guys back from the dead using something called the dark fountain.  There’s really no explanation for it.  It just sort of appeared after the sacred flame disappeared.

Suddenly, Earth!

Fast forward to modern Earth, where we’re introduced to a girl named Himiko and an incorrigible childhood friend named Kutani.  Kutani I really WANT to like, but the scriptwriter gave him some pretty terrible lines.  After Himiko unwittingly embarrasses Kutani (COMPLETELY without malice, and most likely out of naivete, mind you) he, I shit you not, says “Man, what a bitch!  But a good looking bitch, at least.”  The script has a lot of terribleness like that going for it.  A bunch of shit’s  are inserted for no reason.  Probably because the scriptwriter just really liked cursing.  This reminds me of how there were a lot of complaints about the DBZ dub not having the cursing in the original.  No, there wasn’t a lot of cursing in the original.  That was fansubbing being in the dark ages.

Anyway, the important thing here is that Himiko is voiced by Veronica Taylor, and not in one of her better outings.  Still, this is good enough to give her one of the three non-grating voices in the show.  The other two being the relatively unknown Jack Taylor as a hammy Shikara and Dan Green as it-doesn’t-matter-because-Dan-freaking-Green.

Have I mentioned exposition dumps yet?  There’s quite a bit of it littered throughout the first three episodes.  And there are four in this tape.  Notably, there’s an excavation site where an old man tells Kutani about the time Kutani found Himiko as a child at the very ruins they’re excavating.  Because he totally needed to be reminded about that important event.  What Kutani remembers and never shared with anyone was that Himiko appeared out of thin air, a bright light passed through his body, and he saw a tiny spirit enter Himiko’s pendant.

Even Himiko was left unaware of her origin story until she randomly asks Kutani about it.  In the middle of his explanation, a giant ball of light appears to spirit Himiko away.  Kutani, despite being annoyed by Himiko in their introduction, is concerned and follows her, then subsequently talks about Himiko as if she’s the most important thing in the world throughout the next few episodes. Okay, that might be a little exaggerated… but not by much, surprisingly.

Second episode!  Shikara sheds some backstory about this girl we’re seeing for the first time, and he gives the old “I’ve got all this power and shit, you will be mine!” speech.  The first twist is that she seems to have become so disfigured that the lover she pines for probably won’t take any interest in her.  The second twist is that we’re led to believe Shikara probably rapes her regularly anyway.  Bowser wishes he had that kind of subtext going on for him.

Yep, those mooks still look ridiculous.

One of the queen candidates, Imari, and one of the survivors and few important male roles, Iga, follow a lead that “something will happen” in the middle of enemy territory during the full moon.  Because… F it, what else is she gonna do?  Turns out, two things happen.  Thing 1 is that Shikara has finally mastered the art of summoning immortal undead minions for what I assume will be a zombie army to conquer the world with.  Thing 2 is the arrival of Himiko and Kutani.

Iga realizes that Himiko is THAT Himiko, then promptly forgets to make this incredibly relevant connection two episodes later.

Newcomers wonder what’s going on, is this a dream, yada yada yada, Himiko and Kutani get separated when a collapsing roof harmlessly divides them into two groups: Himiko and Iga, and Kutani and Imari.  Himiko and Iga manage to escape the castle via waterway while Kutani and Imari are forced to scale the castle walls (which is confounding considering if they went DOWN the walls instead of up them, they actually had a shot at rejoining the other group).

Kutani scales up the castle walls by slipping his fingers through the gaps in the bricks.  Which is ridiculous enough.  Imari, the seasoned warrior, doesn’t handle this task as easily.  Kutani is so damned good at it, he actually kept his grip in place with one hand while rescuing Kutani from a fall.  Meaning he one-handed both himself and Imari.  Without even straining himself.  Note that this has nothing to do with the sacred fire energy kept inside his body; he’s just in the rock climbing club.  That is literally the excuse we’re given in the next episode.

The next couple of episodes are pretty much Kutani and Himiko wandering about trying to get back together and dealing with the new world they’re in.  And learning about whatever the hell the sacred fire is.

By the way… Imari?  It’s totally okay if you were led to believe she was the main character.  Because she by far gets more screentime than Himiko.

At some point we’re introduced to the Four Great Lords, which I did not take a screencap of because… not any really good group shot screens.  There’s Kira, the female knight in shining armor, some peacock lady, a big guy that allegedly just bought his position, and Chosa, a vaguely metrosexual man that’s looking for his lost lover.  It takes all of two minutes to make it clear to the viewer that this is the same chick Shikara’s keeping for himself.  By the way, I forgot to mention it earlier, but she plays an ocarina.  Shikara annoyingly refers to it as a “flute.”  *bangs head*

Anyway, Chosa finds Himeko’s body washed up on a shore and saves her.  Even though his lover is always on his mind, it seems Dan Green was directed to talk flirtingly in his scenes with Himiko.  Yeah… no, that’s terrible.  Except for, y’know… it sounds like Yugi flirting with May.  I’d love to say Ash, but it’s definitely her May voice.

By the end, we’re just barely introduced to Tadami and Koran, who are cute and little else (yet).  They also spent a load of money to buy a weapon they never actually saw.  Turns out it’s a giant ballista.  Yup.

Since I couldn’t find a proper place to put it, here’s a picture of one of the queen candidates, Shino.

Shino did a dance and noticed Himiko reacted to her projection of the sacred flame.  This makes her slightly more relevant than Tadami and Koran.  I apologize for my lack of Seika pictures.

Epicness – 2
To be honest, this series really didn’t fit any of my categories.  It’s an actiony-adventurey type series, and there are some humorous parts to it, but it’s not necessarily a comedy.  Epicness was the closest I could come up with.  That said, I was fairly impressed by it, but I just couldn’t get properly invested into the story.  The characters were great, though.

Pleasure Rating: Damn Good Watch
It’s like an early-90’s RPG.  Somewhat ham-and-cheesy, but it’s got memorable characters and an easy to understand plot.  Makes sense considering it’s actually based on an (I assume) obscure strategy/dating-sim PS1 game.  One I hopefully see on PSN one day.  I don’t care if I can’t understand a lick of it.  Imari ending.

Rewatchability: 3
I haven’t seen the entire series yet, but from what I’ve seen so far, there’s good reason to go back and rewatch some scenes.  Especially in Japanese, because the dub… ha ha.  It has been quite some time since I watched a dub this bad.

Music: Catchy Theme Song
Both the opening and ending are great.  They’re just about what you expect from era, anyway.  Actual background tracks, however?  Either nonexistent or completely unmemorable.

Marketability: 4
If nothing else, this was probably made in the wrong era.  Make that Legend of Himiko game about ten years later and it might’ve been a big hit.  Then I’d have that Imari figurine.  I mean, the character designs are pretty damn good.  And it’s not just the selection of hot girls.  Gawd no.  Casts like those are a dime a dozen.  Legend of Himiko’s cast is at least a level higher than those manufactured series.  Maybe Kutani brought the cast appeal down, or maybe Hakuhodo was just a terrible publisher.

For a series (and, assumingly, game) with such great designs and a well thought-out world, this really shouldn’t be as obscure as it is.  Especially since it’s a 12-episoder, meaning it’s not one of the incomplete series or throwaway OVAs I usually watch.  People actually had a good chance to watch this.  What went wrong?  There are so many worthless popular series that came out in the last few years, and Himiko could conceivably be near that level.  Instead, it’s barely as recognizable as Nazca.  The only major fault I can find with it is that the animation quality is pretty terrible outside of the opening and ending sequences… surprisingly so considering it was produced in 1999.

Anyway, digged up the opening and ending sequences on Youtube, as well as the PS1 game intro, which looks massively different, style-wise.  It’s darker, creepier, and has what appears to be a more appealing, non-vanilla Himiko.