The "Flame of Recca" of the title refers to the power of the main character to produce flames from his hand. Recca is a young boy who lives in the present time, but his interests are in the past. For some reason, he has a great fascination with the ninja of centuries past. Recca lives with his guardian and they sell fireworks. Recca has used what his guardian has taught him about fireworks to make the various trick bombs that a ninja would use; his guardian is also apparently the one who taught Recca martial arts, because every conversation they have ends with kicks to the head!

Recca attends school and he is mocked for his love of the ninja, namely by the large, mowhawked Domon. Even though Domon thinks he's silly, Domon still wants Recca to become a bodyguard to him. They seem to be friendly with each other, but as rivals.

In this first episode, things change for Recca when a girl catches his eye. Her name is Yanagi, and when Recca endangers his own life to save her, he is bloodied and knocked unconscious, where he imagines Yanagi as a princess and he as a ninja protector.

Yanagi runs to his body, and mysteriously he awakens as if nothing has happened. The two talk to each other, and Recca realizes that the girl goes to his school, but he never noticed. This is when a mysterious woman attacks Recca and tells him that he has the power to create flames. She forces him to fight by hurting him and Yanagi. Her name is Kagehoshi and she has been searching for Recca for 400 years. She has the power to go in and out of the shadows and she has plans for Recca and his power.

Volume 1 of the "Flame of Recca" series is an introduction to some of the main players. Episodes 2 and 3 involve Recca's longtime friend Fuko, who has been rivals with him since they were young. She is given the power of a madogu named Fujin, which controls wind. Damon is part of these episodes as well. He is certainly more durable than the average student, and he goes to the physical limit to help save Fuko from herself. It is something of a love triangle between Fuko, Recca and Damon, because Recca does not have feelings for Fuko, but Fuko has feelings for Recca and Damon has hidden feelings for Fuko. Kagehoshi is once again manipulating Recca for her own reasons that will be revealed later on

The final 2 episodes deal with Tokiyama, who lost his sister to men who were looking for the Ensui, which has the power of water. Unlike Fuko or Recca, the Ensui is in the form of a handle that has the power to add water to itself to form into a sword hard enough to even fight Recca's flames.

"Flame of Recca" came out in the early 90's, but even so, the action and animation still manages to hold up. Some series that came out around the same time make you feel old just by watching, but the action is animated well enough that you won't mind spending your time with a show that doesn't benefit from current animation technology.

The characters are all interesting, and in this first volume, we learn bits and pieces about each character. For example, Yanagi works part-time taking care of toddlers, Fuko has constantly lost in her attempts at making Recca her subordinate and Kagehoshi- well, I will not wreck it, but it's not hard to figure out her secret while watching these first few episodes.

What's horrible about this volume is that the extras are worthless and the English dub is not nearly as good as the original Japanese. i guess that should be expected from an older series, but this DVD is not really worth buying if you're looking for additional content.

Still, I was very impressed with the series so far. I immediately thought of another series, Yu Yu Hakusho, which was about a boy who dies saving someone's life, then uses his ability to fight demons. These two series were released in the same year by the same studio (Studio Pierrot) so the similarity makes sense. The two series differ in that "Flame of Recca" only consists of 5 volumes or so, while "Yu Yu Hakusho" was a series lasting as long as blockbuster series like "Dragonball Z" and "Inu Yahsa," both of which easily have at least 10 volumes under their belt. I hope that the series only lasted for what amounts to two seasons worth of episodes because that's all that was needed, not because the series petered out.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older