Sword of the Stranger

As the name implies this animated film entails the story of a boy being protected by a kind warrior. Throughout most of his fights up until the end scene, the warrior doesn't draw his own sword in combat due to bad things he has done in the past with the sword that he can't undo. this causes him to have traumatic nightmares. He is basically caring his "burden" and it's why he ties the sword together with its' sheath. This is one of the most well animated sword fighting anime film I have seen, which I expect no less from a studio such as Studio Bones who made the animated series for Fullmetal Alchemist  Brotherhood (one of my favourite animated series). This film is set in the Ming Dynasty.

We are told of the kind warrior's name to be "Nanashi" which means nameless in Japanese because his origins are unknown as it is obvious he isn't of Japanese descent as his hair turns out to be naturally red implying he must be of western decent (he was also known as "Red Demon" for his hair colour). As shown in the above image the main villain is also not of eastern descent as he is blond haired and blue eyed to make this obvious (even though he was raised in china). It also makes him appear abnormal to the eastern people as well as being a skilled deadly warrior causing him to be called a demon for these two reasons. I like how it's distinguishes different races with things such as hair and eye colour as usual animes show Japanese people to have a multitude of different hair colours (it's being realistic). Even the characters who are of Chinese descent/raised speak Chinese and those of Japanese descent/raised speak Japanese (in the original Japanese voice acting). Plus the character designs are great with correct proportions especially facial features as some anime usually have over sized eyes. However, this is because realistic design works more for this mature story so it wouldn't be as effective if there were characters within this film who had oversized and brightly exaggerated eyes. I also like to interpret the title for different meanings, since there are characters within this film who are not of eastern descent Sword of the Stranger could also imply that the main warrior character, Nanashi, is a stranger to the country of Japan.

One fight sequence at the start of the film:

 Last fight sequence of the film: