Hakuouki

In 1864 Japan, a young woman named Chizuru Yukimura is searching for her missing father, Koudou, a doctor by trade whose work often takes him far from home. But with no word from him in months, Chizuru disguises herself as a man and heads to Kyoto in search of him. Attracting the attention of ronin, she tries to hide and ends up witnessing a horrifying sight: the ronin being brutally murdered by crazed white-haired men. In a startling turn of events, members of the Shinsengumi arrive to dispatch the creatures. But Chizuru's safety doesn't last long, as this group of men tie her up and take her back to their headquarters, unsure of whether to let her live or silence her permanently.

However, once she reveals the name of her father, the Shinsengumi decide to keep her safe, as they too have been searching for him. But Koudou is more connected to the Shinsengumi than they let on, and soon Chizuru finds herself embroiled in a conflict between the Shinsengumi and their enemies, as well as political tension in Kyoto.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Okita, Souji Main

Morikubo, Shoutarou Japanese

Saitou, Hajime Main

Toriumi, Kousuke Japanese

Hijikata, Toshizou Main

Miki, Shinichiro Japanese

Harada, Sanosuke Main

Yusa, Kouji Japanese

Toudou, Heisuke Main

Yoshino, Hiroyuki Japanese

Yukimura, Chizuru Main

Kuwashima, Houko Japanese

Nagakura, Shinpachi Main

Tsuboi, Tomohiro Japanese

Sannan, Keisuke Main

Tobita, Nobuo Japanese

Kazama, Chikage Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Yamazaki, Susumu Supporting

Suzuki, Takayuki Japanese

Ogura, Mitsutoshi Producer

Yamazaki, Asuka Producer

Urasaki, Nobumitsu Producer

Hasegawa, Kazuhiko Producer

Reviews

Nov 6, 2023

vanelya10

Recommended

I think people will have mixed feelings about this one.

For me, coming back with a review in 2023, I still love this one. Not because of the all male cast or reverse harem but mostly because it kept me going on at the time I saw it, when a lot of animes were low story based.
Reporting today, it may seem cringe for you and lack of character development (Chizuru's case).
My favorite out of the entire series will be my one and only Hijikata Toshizou and an entire cast of great animation scenes, fighting and action packed episodes. I love the fact that there is a ... lot of history base in the story even tough we cant say this is a very accurate hisctorical based anime. I think its a good anime to try it if you are into long haired male guys and not cringe love aproach.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Sep 3, 2025

Teramol

Mixed Feelings

As a Shinsengumi fan, Hakuouki had always been somewhere down low on my radar. Despite not having seen or read any otome/reverse harem stuff before, this was a good show to get some kind of experience from that front.

The show features an ensemble cast of mostly the known Shinsengumi members but not all of them as it takes place later in the depicted history of their story. And regarding the historical aspect of the show, it keeps major events fairly intact but takes a lot of liberties including adding supernatural elements and of course, our female lead who I'll briefly talk about next.

Chizuru is a ... pretty straightforward case. She gets rescued by our heroes at the start and gets a job working for them so she gets closer to everyone as the story progresses. Sadly a lot of the times she feels like a typical damsel in distress, being unable to fend for herself in dangerous situations and personality wise she's a fairly standard stand-in for the player, although I do wanna say she does get some development luckily in that department.

Oh and I said player since this is an adaptation of a visual novel. That brings me to the main issue of the story; it's too disconnected. Right from the start it feels like watching something that expects you having already experienced the source material. It also jumps around a lot with timeskips and many things, including big events getting off-screened to keep the plot more focused around Chizuru. And instead of committing to a route, they try to focus on everyone which leaves many relationships unsatisfying.

From an otome adaptation I was also hoping to see more romance mixed in. We basically have zero of that outside of the usual tropes of blushing at topless dudes teasing the female lead.

On the positive side the alt history is done fairly well without disrespecting real life history too much. The camaraderie between the Shinsengumi members feels organic and natural and I like that the show gets surprisingly gorey with no noticeable censorship taking away from the darker tones. Also features a lot of high profile VAs who do a good job here.

While the show left many things to be desired, I think Shinsengumi fans like myself can at least get some enjoyment out of it among the plethora of stories featuring them. Season 1 ends in a big climax, leaving me some desire to keep watching.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 19, 2019

Small-Sailor

Not Recommended

A poor adaption of one of the most well written visual novel's out there.

Watching this before I played the VN, I did feel it was "alright" if not a little frustrating a times. But even back then I could see charm and decent plot shining back through, so I got the game and found out myself. Even the old first version of the game that was released on psp (and has been vastly improved upon in a PC version released more recently) was leagues better than this pathetic excuse.

Chizuru as a character does lack a lot personality (she's not quite a card board ... cut out like many VN protags, and I'd say her passive personality is more reflective of the attitude of women at the time) but thats kind of the point. In game, you made up for that with your own feelings and choices. However, the anime really should have taken more time to expand upon her, and give her more of a personality. The game can get away with a bland personality, but the anime cannot because it lacks the player autonomy the game has.
Arguably however, the anime did expand on her personality and even added some! Specifically the traits of; weak, dependant, sulky, selfish and generally around being unlikeable! Hooray!

The route the anime appears to take is the Hijikata route, yet it does it in ways that purposefully damages other routes (making the MC look annoying, stupid, and useless at best). Admittedly the game's first version shares this problem, but it wasn't so much a story thing as it was a mechanic thing, simply an option there if you didn't want to raise the other character's affections (the new game fixes this, by pretty much giving you chance every time to raise your desired characters affection without really lowering others, so its much more bearable).

The only things I can really compliment the anime on is the art and historical accuracy; though even then these are both things the game did BETTER. The only thing good to come out of this adaption is the possibility of interesting people enough for them to look up and play the game its based on.

I know I'm comparing this anime to the game a lot, but as a wise man named Dom once said, "If you want the huge boost in audience interest you get by taking on the name of a popular piece of work you have to accept that you will be compared to that piece of work".

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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