(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!) This is the true final episode of the 1996 Rurouni Kenshin anime series, which was so poorly handled (read my review if you wish) that they didn't even give it an actual conclusive episode. Imagine following 94 episodes of an anime without even so much as a "thank you for watching" from the production team. Anyway Kenshin and Kaoru travel a bit to pursue their favorite hobby of visiting graves except a terrible tragedy occurs when it begins raining a lot. The two stay in a hotel together and Kaoruholds Kenshin's hand, literally the extent of their relationship's evolution after nearly 100 episodes. Sanosuke and Yahiko also visit their main squeezes but none of these plot lines are resolved. Might as well be another random filler episode that teases an obvious attraction and does nothing with it. At the end Kenshin and Kaoru return home and everyone waves at them. That's it. It's the most boring ending possible but at least it ends the series by re-establishing part of what it is rather than ending on an irrelevant filler arc.

Since this was made a while after the series and is a one-episode production it looks nicer than the series. In a sense, at least. The resolution's better and it's brighter, but the colors are flat and lack the smooth detail and shading the series had. At its best, the series looked much better than this special. There's also a weird tendency to make the backdrops actual photographs or videos, so there's scenes of animated cels Kenshin and Kaoru standing on the beach of a real ocean which looks incredibly awkward. It's not even the first time I've seen this (Macross Dynamite 7). Must be a 90s thing.

Anyway, this isn't a rewarding watch but if you've sat through the entire series then you're probably used to that from its filler and might as well go all the way so you can brag to others that you got out alive.