Spirit Blade Mountain - Hošikuzutači no utage

Reikenzan: Hoshikuzu-tachi no Utage was quite a well-produced affair, and from the very first scene onward, which turns from a serious situation and interpretation of a certain prophecy into a supposedly funny skit, well, I had no idea what to think. Then came the main male protagonist, and I did not find him believable most of the time either. The boy is quite interesting, and he is pretty much anything but a classic hero. The main protagonist's behavior and mindset reminded me of a boy named Gokudo or a girl named Lina Inverse. However, this show's "hero" is not actually stealing, more like he is just cheating, taking advantage of every situation, and showing he has real balls. However, unlike Slayers or even Gokudo, the jokes are not as good. Sure the punchlines are quite strange at times. However, I did not laugh very much. The dirty blue humor is also quite hilarious at times. However, I am not a teenager anymore who can be amused by every double entendre and sexual innuendo. On the other hand, it is a nice change of pace once again, and once you get used to the pacing and sense of humor, it is quite watchable. The only shame is that the English subtitles were apparently created by a troll. They clearly used google translator, occasionally throwing in some witty observations and sometimes changing the subtitles to Spanish. The poor quality of the subtitles, unfortunately, reflects on the overall impression of this anime series. If the subtitles were synced properly and not created by a "troll" I might have even been able to get on the right wavelength, and it could have been a decent above-average anime series. However, since the syncing is so bad, I have to think about how it relates to and fits the narrative every second sentence and figure out many other things. In my opinion, it makes this anime series only slightly better than average. 6/10. (18/01/2016)