Brave 10 follows Saizo, a ronin who likes things simple. Stay out of his business and he’ll stay out of yours. His "simple" life is complicated when he comes across Isanami, a priest on the run from assassins. Saizo easily dispatches the gang, only to accompany her to her home kingdom. Once there, Saizo is coerced into becoming one of the Lord’s ten chosen warriors.
The initial setup has all the potential in the world, yet the series flounders around in search of a core voice and story. The overarcing plotline involves Saizo and Isanami’s travels as they search of the other 10 warriors, but with only 12 episodes in the series, there isn’t enough time to properly introduce everyone and pack in a lot of action. Some are just rushed into the show without a lot of introduction and are basically the fourth Avenger on the panel behind Cap, Iron Man, and Thor. They don’t have much to do, nor do you know much about them.
On top of packing in characters left and right, Brave 10 doesn’t know where it wants to go. The main plot is important through the first two or three episodes, but is quickly ignored in favor of other plotlines. Some episodes are little more than extended fight sequences. These are easily some of the series’ best moments, but they add little to the overall story. The fights are just there because they’re expected. This wouldn’t be a big deal were Brave 10 a longer series, but again, with only a dozen episodes, some things need to be dropped.
About halfway through the series, there are attempts to build on certain characters, but once again, time becomes a factor, leading to the main story being dropped and little resolution by the end of the series.
Even with its problems, Brave 10 is worth watching, if only for the fight sequences and the beautiful artwork. Though not exactly a showpiece title, Brave 10 is something you want to watch on a big HD screen.
Brave 10 ships with all of the usual trappings of an NIS release. You get clean openings and closings, alongside commercials for the series. The on-disc extras are joined by the full color art book, which includes artwork from the series, as well as a synopsis of each episode. Creator interviews and character model sheets are also included.
Brave 10 isn’t a terrible series, nor is it a really good one either. The overall premise lends itself to a great series, yet it tries to do way too much with not a lot of time. Had this been part of a longer series, I have a feeling things would have turned out much better than they did. As it stands, Brave 10 is a pretty series with cool fight sequences and not much else.
