Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

Sacred Blacksmith
 
The Sacred Blacksmith is based on a light novel written by Isao Miura in 2007 and published by Media Factory, which was followed by a manga series in early 2009 also by Miura and Media Factory. Later in 2009, a 12 episode anime adaptation written by Masashi Suzuki was aired on AT-X in Japan. The anime was published by Manglobe Studios, who are also responsible for Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy.
 
Funimation licensed the series and started to stream episodes in June of 2010, and then finally in January of 2011 the English edition DVD was released. Each episode is approximately 24 minutes, and the 2-disc DVD set contains all 12 episodes of the series displayed in widescreen format with 5.1 channel Dolby Digital sound.
 
Story

The Sacred Blacksmith follows the exploits of Cecily Campbell, a Knight Guard who protects the Independent Trade City of Housman as her father and grandfather had done before her. She is proud of her heritage and tries hard to protect the citizens, but she's inexperienced and ends up being the damsel in distress more often than the day-saving heroine - especially early in the series. Early on she breaks her heirloom family sword and goes searching for a blacksmith to repair it for her, and that's where she meets Luke Ainsworth and his assistant Lisa.
 
Lisa is a little girl who also happens to be a demon. She has the unique talent of making a magical forging circle appear out of her eye by using her demonic powers, and Luke makes use of this forge to create powerful katana swords to aid him in battle. These magical swords are very strong, but don't last very long before they break and disappear in a cloud of sparkles. Luke is also a master blacksmith, who forges real katana swords the hard way. In fact, he is the Sacred Blacksmith and is tasked with making a sacred sword that will seal away a great evil.
 
Cecily also gets charged with protecting a woman named Aria, who in fact is not a woman at all. Aria is the demon sword of wind, one of a few such swords who can take the form of a human as well as that of a sword. These four characters make up the main protagonists of the series.

The Sacred Blacksmith takes place in a generic medieval fantasy setting, complete with knights, swords, castles and demons. Not that I'm complaining - I happen to like medieval fantasy settings. There's a couple things in the series that haven't been done to death (like the demon swords, and reading words off of people's hearts to make a demon contract), but most of it's cliche and overused. Again though, I have no problem with cliche if it's something I like.

There is some action in the series, mostly involving fighting various demons with Luke's katanas, but not as much as you would expect in a show about slaying demons with swords. There's also a little bit of monologue (mostly from Cecily) that takes place mid-action. In some shows this works fine, but in The Sacred Blacksmith the action seems to come to a stand-still while waiting for the monologue to end. At least in Inuyasha for example, he would keep fighting while talking. At least this doesn't happen during every scene; some of the action scenes with demons are savage and bloody and I really enjoyed them.

Since there are only 12 episodes, the pacing is a little off. Cecily is portrayed as rather clumsy and inept for the first few episodes, and Luke ends up coming to her aid constantly and saving her life. She apparently managed to get some training in between episodes though, as she improves dramatically for no reason and is able to hold her own against multiple strong opponents later on.

The series could have really benefited from another season to even it out and plug some holes. I mean, one of the main antagonists is a man named Siegfried. He is simply referred to as "the man in black" and there's almost no interaction with him at all until the final couple of episodes. I found this a bit disappointing, and it really detracted from the story a little.

Like a number of anime series, The Sacred Blacksmith is probably best watched by older kids and adults. There are countless references to Cecily's breasts, in fact they are at least mentioned in nearly every episode. Along with the constant remarks about her boobs by other characters (most of which are female), there are also countless panty shots throughout the series, as well as a couple full on naked breast shots of Cecily. At one point in episode 7 you see Cecily and four other girls bathing nude. Like in some other anime I've watched, when Luke sees Cecily's breasts he starts gushing blood from his nose uncontrollably. If The Sacred Blacksmith is trying not to take itself too seriously... mission accomplished.

Animation & Sound
 
The show is drawn well and the attention to detail really shows, even in the backgrounds. Characters are all varied and unique, and there are multiple locations (town, castle, buildings, grassy field, caves, etc.) with varied enough designs to make everything not feel stale. I've not watched The Sacred Blacksmith with the original Japanese voice actors, but the English dubs were great. Cecily is voiced by the beautiful Cherami Leigh, who has worked on a lot of other anime from Funimation (ie: she voiced Patty Thompson in Soul Eater). She really breathed life into the character and made Cecily sound like a real person. The character Lisa was wonderfully portrayed by Monica Rial, and that cutesy little voice couldn't have been more fitting the character.

Most of the designs were spot-on, but a couple made me roll my eyes in disdain. One of the first major demons we see, for example, looked like a bloated one-eyed spider made out of crystal. It was ugly and pretentious to begin with, and then it grew wings. My lord, what was the designer thinking, that thing was ugly as sin - and not in an evil-demonic-rip-your-head-off kind of way. Overall though, the visual style and setting reminded me a lot of Inuyasha, and that's never a bad thing since that's one of my favorite anime series of all time.

Character - English voice actor, Japanese voice actor

Cecily Cambell - Cherami Leigh, Ayumi Fujimura
Luke Ainsworth - Blake Shepard, Nobuhiko Okamoto
Lisa - Monica Rial, Aki Toyosaki
Aria - Anastasia Munoz, Megumi Toyoguchi
Siegfried - J. Michael Tatum, Ryotaro Okiayu
 
Episode List
 
Episode 1 - Knight
Episode 2 - Devil's Contract
Episode 3 - Demon Sword
Episode 4 - Pledge
Episode 5 - Ties
Episode 6 - Princess
Episode 7 - Family
Episode 8 - Departure
Episode 9 - Remnants
Episode 10 - Victim of Love
Episode 11 - Truth
Episode 12 - Blacksmith

Final Thoughts

Definitely worth watching through once, especially if you liked Inuyasha, Sekirei, Soul Eater or Full Metal Alchemist. While it could have certainly used another season to help flesh it out, it's slightly above average as-is and I enjoyed it for the most part. It is fairly short though, being only 12 episodes, and it's not really worth replaying right away. I've watched it twice now, but I waited a good 9 months in between viewings. It's one of those that will sit on my shelf and get taken out and watched every year or two for something to do.

It's available on Netflix for viewing if you don't want to spend the $30 for the boxed set on eBay. It looks like it's also available in it's entirety on YouTube straight from Funimation, and that would be a terrific place to check it out further.

Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age