Blood has been shed during the Bakumatsu (the Japanese Civil War) as the lords and samurai of Japan's most powerful clans fought to determine whether the Shogun or the Emperor would rule, whether Japan would peacefully open up to the west, how Japan would adapt as a newly opened society, and of course, which clans would lead the new Japan. But now a very young man who shed very much of that blood has a new life. Himura Kenshin gave up killing several years ago and now contents himself to live with his friends in Tokyo occasionally teaching kendo. His life as a killer exists only as haunting memory. Until the day he encounters Takimi Shigure.

A veteran of years of bloody war, Takimi Shigure remains devoted to the memory and the cause of his former leader and close friend Gentatsu long after most of the fighting has subsided. Gentatsu bore the feared title Hitokiri Battousai (Man-killing master swordsman) and led the Aizu clan during the Bakumatsu until one night during an attack on two other clans when he was killed in a duel by a single stroke of a silent, mysterious opponent.

Shigure and Kenshin's mutual respect as swordsmen leads to friendship, and Kenshin's friends begin to look on Shigure as a surrogate father- particularly young Yahiko whose father fought and died in the same battles that still haunt Shigure. Shigure's battles however are not all in the past. He and his aide Kajiki covertly recruit and organize a new army, drawing together the disillusioned and angry young men of Japan who resent the corrupting influence of foreign money and power in Japan's new politics, and the cravenness of Japan's new political leaders.

By the time Kenshin discovers Shigure's plans a fury of smoke and blood choke the streets of Yokohama once more.

"Requiem for the Meiji Patriots" climaxes with a life or death duel between two men who admire and respect each other. They don't duel over hatred, but over a difference in philosophy. Shigure still kills to avenge the memory of his loved ones; while Kenshin has sworn to atone for his victims by never killing again for any cause, including peace.

Shigure realizes, to his shame, that Kenshin's way is nobler; "Requiem" has two heroes, or none. Thus, although they wind up settling their differences with swords, Kenshin and Shigure's conflict represents not the struggle of good vs. evil, but the struggle of one character with blood on his hands to help a kindred spirit come to grips with the blood on his own hands.

In fact, although they fought on opposite sides in the Bakumatsu (Japanese civil War), and fight against each other again now, "Requiem" director Hatsuki Tsuji avoids portraying Kenshin or Shigure as the bad guy. Instead two supporting characters fill that role. Shigure's aide Kajiki and Baron Tomono of the Japanese army collaborate with each other from the start. Tomono steals military equipment to arm Kajiki and Shigure, and Kajiki informs on Shigure's plans so that Tomono can easily thwart the main attack. By each betraying their compatriots they hope to disgrace Tomono's superiors and maneuver Tomono into a position of real power, from which he, of course, will promote Kajiki to a high post. Each side of the armed conflict, then, has one noble character and one treacherous villain.

Indeed, although set against the backdrop of the most turbulent times and epochal changes in Japanese history, "Requiem" doesn't comment on history much at all. It is a story about the process of personal atonement and redemption. As such it makes a thoroughly appropriate bookend to the "Samurai X" OAV series that tells the story of the beginning of Kenshin's saga, depicting his descent into darkness and torment.

Mysteriously, although it's irrelevant to viewers of only "Samurai X" the motion picture, Kenshin seems to have aged backwards between the OAV, the TV series, and this film. He's drawn as being more slightly built, with brighter hair and a larger scar than ever before. His voice has also become squeakier- although in the English language dub the childishness of his voice is much less exaggerated. The whole English language cast, in fact, gives the young characters slightly more mature voices, and plays the dramatic scenes with more restraint and gravitas.

In the "Samurai X" OAV series, Kenshin falls in love with, and loses, a woman whose fiancée he had killed months ago. Now at the end of "Samurai X" the motion picture, Shigure, whom Kenshin has helped to save, winds up in the arms of another woman whose brother Kenshin killed years ago. Kenshin ends up alone and bloodied as usual, but if his kindred spirit Shigure can be saved and wind up with Toki, perhaps there's hope for Kenshin yet.