The 1996 Kenshin anime

Ninety-five episodes that carried Kenshin around the world, and stopped one arc short.

The first Kenshin anime ran on Fuji TV from January 10, 1996 to September 8, 1998, 95 episodes under director Kazuhiro Furuhashi. Animation began at Studio Gallop (episodes 1–66) and passed to Studio Deen for the remainder; the music was Noriyuki Asakura’s, a shamisen-and-rock score that became the sound of the era for a generation. The series adapted the manga’s first eighteen volumes, the Tokyo and Kyoto arcs, and in the West it aired on Cartoon Network’s Toonami from 2003 under the name Samurai X. Its final episode never aired in Japan at all, released instead as a home-video bonus.

Why no Jinchū arc? The manga’s final movement was still being published as the anime caught up, and the production filled its third season with original stories. Audiences drifted, the series ended, and the most serious arc of the manga was left to the OVAs and, a quarter-century later, to a full remake that began in 2023.

Japanese DVD cover art for the 1996 Rurouni Kenshin anime, Kaoru Kenshin and Yahiko — **THE FIRST ANIME**Japanese DVD cover art for the 1996 television series: Kaoru, Kenshin and Yahiko in the era's designs — the Gallop and Deen production that carried the story around the world.

THE PRODUCTION

Gallop to Deen

Two studios

Gallop animated the bright first two-thirds; Deen inherited the darker Kyoto endgame and then the whole afterlife of the franchise: every Kenshin OVA since is Deen’s.

The Furuhashi line

One director across the TV series, the OVAs of 1999 and 2001, and the New Kyoto Arc of 2011: the 90s Kenshin has a single visual author to an unusual degree.

The film between

A theatrical film, Requiem for the Patriots (Ishin Shishi no Requiem), directed by Hatsuki Tsuji at Gallop, opened December 20, 1997, an original story from the anime’s own continuity.

THE UNADAPTED ARC

What television skipped

Remembrance, by OVA

The flashback at the Jinchū arc’s heart was adapted separately and magnificently in Trust & Betrayal (1999), which has its own page in this archive.

The ending, by remake

A second television adaptation by Liden Films premiered in July 2023, starting the story over with the whole manga finally available to adapt.

The 1996 Kenshin anime

THE PRODUCTION

THE UNADAPTED ARC

THE FIRST WORD