Himiko-den

Synopsis:

Trailer:

Episodes:

• Episode 1: The Bokka: The Sacred Fire (Aired: 01/07/1999)
• Episode 2: The Fountain of Darkness (Aired: 01/14/1999)
• Episode 3: Jaki the Night Chasers (Aired: 01/21/1999)
• Episode 4: The Hideaway Village (Aired: 02/04/1999)
• Episode 5: Heavenly Spirit (Aired: 02/11/1999)
• ... and 7 more episodes

Characters:

• Fujina (Main) - Voice Actors: Tanaka, Atsuko, Becker, Sharon
• Himejima, Himiko (Main) - Voice Actors: Taylor, Veronica, Otomiya, Tsubasa
• Imari (Main) - Voice Actors: Mizutani, Yuuko, Conley, Shannon
• Kouran (Main) - Voice Actors: Hikami, Kyouko, Ortiz, Lisa
• Kutani, Masahiko (Main) - Voice Actors: Seki, Tomokazu, Wolfe, James
• Kyou (Main) - Voice Actors: Minami, Omi, Medlin, Michelle
• Seika (Main) - Voice Actors: Takada, Yumi, Calvello, Jessica
• Shino (Main) - Voice Actors: Hiramatsu, Akiko, Rabbai, Debora
• Tadami (Main) - Voice Actors: Kozakura, Etsuko, Sands, Tara
• Chousa (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Matsumoto, Yasunori, Green, Dan
• Enki (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Horikawa, Jin, Timoney, Bill
• Heihachirou (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Ishii, Takao, Zima, David
• Iga (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Ishii, Kouji, Rankin, David Logan
• Iyo (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Fukami, Rica
• Jakatsu (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Wakamoto, Norio
• King of Kune (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Harrington, Matthew, Shioya, Kouzou
• Kira (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Fukami, Rica, Halsted, Dana
• Kiyomizu (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Shibahara, Chiyako
• Kourai (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Hiyama, Nobuyuki, Harper, Patrick
• Shikara (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Morikawa, Toshiyuki, Olk, Dan
• Shouhi (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Nakamura, Chie
• Tenmoku (Supporting) - Voice Actors: Takashima, Gara, Shukla, Ami

Staff:

• Sakurai, Hiroshi (Producer)
• Tomobuki, Ami (Director, Storyboard)
• Tsuruoka, Youta (Sound Director)
• Inokawa, Shintarou (Episode Director)
• Kobayashi, Tomoki (Episode Director)
• Midoro, Musei (Episode Director)
• Otani, Masahito (Episode Director)
• Satou, Hidekazu (Episode Director)
• Suzuki, Kaoru (Episode Director)
• Tsuchiya, Akira (Episode Director)
• Hirayanagi, Masumi (Script, Series Composition)
• Kuramoto, Sanshirou (Script, Series Composition)
• Komura, Toshiaki (Storyboard)
• Koumoto, Shougo (Storyboard)
• Masui, Souichi (Storyboard)
• Satou, Takuya (Storyboard)
• Okudoi, Mica (Theme Song Performance, Theme Song Lyrics, Theme Song Composition)
• Sasaki, Yuko (Theme Song Performance, Theme Song Lyrics)
• Adachi, Hiroshi (Editing)
• Aoyama, Manami (Color Design)
• Ban, Yukiko (Key Animation)
• Fujiwara, Mikio (Key Animation)
• Fujiwara, Toshie (Key Animation)
• Fukunaga, Junichi (In-Between Animation)
• Fukuyo, Takaaki (Key Animation)
• Furuse, Kazuya (Planning)
• Gotou, Keiji (Animation Director)
• Gotou, Arihiro (Key Animation)
• Haishima, Kuniaki (Music)
• Hashimoto, Hideki (Key Animation)
• Hashimoto, Takayoshi (Key Animation)
• Hiroi, Ouji (Executive Producer)
• Horii, Kumi (Key Animation)
• Kadonosono, Megumi (Character Design, Animation Director)
• Kataoka, Kouji (Key Animation)
• Katou, Yoshitaka (Key Animation)
• Katou, Hiroto (Animation Director)
• Kawabata, Erkin (Key Animation, Animation Check)
• Kikuchi, Tsutomu (Key Animation)
• Kumazawa, Hideki (Key Animation)
• Maesawa, Hiromi (Key Animation)
• Maisaka, Kou (Original Creator)
• Matsuo, Hiroshi (Editing)
• Matsushita, Junko (Key Animation)
• Miyake, Yuuichirou (Key Animation)
• Miyamoto, Yukiko (Key Animation)
• Morikawa, Eiko (Sound Effects)
• Murakami, Naoki (Key Animation)
• Nakajima, Yoshiko (Key Animation)
• Notake, Hiroyuki (Key Animation)
• ... and 18 more staff

Reviews:

• User nashiba (Score: 5/10):
  The story is fine. The music is also fine. However, the art is not of good quality. The drawings, especially the characters, are not well proportioned. The characters have no depth. I mean the way the characters are presented, it's shallow. You can't even associate the shallowness of the characters to mystery. It's kind of a let-down. Well, you can enjoy the show a little if you are patient. Overall, the whole story is okay. Don't watch it if you are looking for a great anime. ^_^
• User Heta-rashi1 (Score: 6/10):
  This story starts out with troubled setting, much to keep the audience's interests at first, but as the story continues it falls short. The multiple characters of show, especially the women, are shown to be very beautiful, and strong, but have little to no background or give any reason why to fight for the position given within the series, and it makes one wonder why the other girl in question, Himiko is even there. Her purpose is to choose, but the villain is a side distraction, so over all the story is medium-rare at most, but enjoyable on a decent day if oneis bored.
• User Silyon (Score: 3/10):
  If you're a bit newer to anime and/or tend to exclusively watch whatever is airing in the present season you may think that in the past all anime that was made was good and there were no rush jobs made seemingly for the sole purpose of being made. Wrong! There's plenty of those and Himiko-den or The Legend of Himiko is one of them. Seemingly based on a PS1 game Himiko-den has a moderately interesting premise, being an isekai of sorts in a fantasy setting based on feudal Japan featuring the battle between the good forces of Yamatai aided by the power of a holy flamecalled the Bokka against the invading Kingdom of Kune. Magic and mysticism play a big part in the anime with the holy Bokka guiding our more or less intrepid heroes and the Fountain of Darkness aiding the opposition.nWell all that sounds like something I could get behind. It would not be a hard thing to make an interesting or at least cohesive story with those elements. It should at least be sufficient as a competent time waster. Well, it certainly wasted my time though not in the way I had hoped.nHimiko-den stumbles and fumbles around in every way possible to make a confusing and grating experience that serves well as a guide as to what not to do with your story.nnWe begin the story with the invasion of Yamatai. The guardian of the Bokka decides that the best place to hide would be with the aforementioned holy flame. Well, it would be a good place to hide if the people of this land didn't all have the innate ability to teleport wherever they pleased by using the power of editing. The main antagonist, someone who looks like he is simultaneously both a member of KISS and the pope wanders into the chambers and kills the people there and throws the guardian's baby named Himiko into the fires of the Bokka. Fast forward a few years and Himiko is in modern-day Japan and 15 years old. Nothing really happens in the modern day before she and her friend Kutani are teleported right back to Yamatai, this time not through editing but through the totally not made-up-on-the-spot powers of the Bokka.nnI can't quite get it across through text, and you shouldn't watch this anime yourself, so trust me when I say that the anime both manages to move way too fast and way too slowly at the same time. That small paragraph takes up the majority of the first couple of episodes. Throughout the entire show you get this feeling that nothing really happens, but at the same time the story wooshes by you faster than a jet-powered Formula 1 car.nEither the anime occasionally cuts out character interactions and plot developments or the anime is so boring I very frequently lost and regained consciousness for minutes at a time while watching it. As I said earlier characters teleport from place to place with editing magic, some actions…

Forum Topics:

• Himiko-Den Episode 12 Discussion
• Himiko-Den Episode 2 Discussion

External Links:

• AniDB
• ANN
• Wikipedia

Related Anime/Manga:

• Himiko-den: Renge - Gaun no Shou (manga - Adaptation)