English Dub Season Review: The Heike Story Season One

Overview:

The Taira clan, also known as the Heike, holds immense authority over Japan. When a young girl, gifted with an odd eye that allows her to see the future, foolishly disrespects the clan, her father pays the price of her crime with his life. Soon after, as fate would have it, Taira no Shigemori—the eldest son of the clan leader—stumbles upon the same unfortunate girl, who now calls herself “Biwa.” Biwa informs him that the downfall of the Heike is imminent. After learning of the great injustice Biwa suffered at the Heike’s hands, Shigemori vows to take her in and care for her rather than let her be killed.

Our Take:

Honestly, your enjoyment of this all depends on how you feel about history. Personally, history is one of my favorite things and I really don’t know as much as I would like about Japanese history so this show was a treat for me. What wasn’t a treat was googling the Heike family and essentially spoiling some things. So if you already know the story but still want to see this version of it then go ahead you will still enjoy it. If you’re like me and didn’t know then just go in blind and binge the story before your curiosity can take over.

The voice director for this one was Mike McFarland and I am slowly learning that he always puts out solid work. The voice cast in this is excellent and really gives off the historical drama vibes you would go for in something like this. Xanthe Huynh plays the main character Biwa and I always love Huynh’s roles. This is no exception.

From an animation standpoint, it’s impressive as always from Science SARU. They’re the studio that gave us Devilman Crybaby after all. Every episode oozes with watercolor aesthetics. It feels like a Japanese painting come to life and every single brushstroke was handled with care.

For the opening song we have “Hikaru Toki” by Hitsuji Bangaku. What I love about this one is that the way it’s mixed with the visuals of the show really fits the anime well. For the ending, we have “unified perspective” by agraph featuring ANI. This one is hard to judge because I really like it and when the beat drops it’s amazing. But it doesn’t really fit the show well, though seeing the future-telling version of Biwa in it is pretty cool. Still, both are great songs that made their way to my playlist.

In the end, I think The Heike Story is a great anime. It is definitely better if history is one of your passions but I think pretty much anyone can find something to enjoy here.