Flame of Recca is a strange anime series, one that isn't quite sure which audience it wants.

It would be confused as anime for kids, if it wasn't for the blood. It would be confused as a serious-minded action adventure, if it wasn't for the drawn out, close-up panty shots. Unnecessary panty shots at that.

This series walks a very thin line between being smart and silly, and maybe that's why it succeeds. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but keeps us on edge just enough to make us look forward to the next episode.

Our hero is Recca Hanabishi, a 16-year-old boy practicing the ninja arts during present day Japan. After saving a young girl, Yanagi, from being squashed, Recca learns he is a descendant of the Hokage ninja clan, and he's been sent to our time from 400 years in the past. The Hokage, slaughtered in a war, are masters of the flame, able to produce fire from their hands, and they sent Recca here for some mysterious purpose.

Soon Recca is confronted by a strange woman, who tests his Hokage powers by throwing both friends and enemies into battle against him.

This was where Flame of Recca became more than another little boys' anime adventure. The mystery woman - who is far more than what meets the eye, we learn later in the series - is obviously preparing Recca for something big. And the audience is only given brief, disturbing tastes of the evil forces Recca will soon have to deal with.

Flame of Recca's animation isn't special, but the battle scenes are very cool. Recca is one quick kid.....expected from a practicing ninja. One battle is a little too drawn out, over two episodes, but a mirror-room fight in the fourth episode is nothing short of outstanding. Sprinkled in the episodes are cels done in pencil only, with background color added. These are used sparingly, to great affect.

The only issue with the animation we have is with the characters: In a style we're just sick of seeing, everyone has bangs bigger than their heads, and eyes bigger than grapefruits. Great for relaying emotions, bad for coming across as remotely real. Yeah, it's common, but for some reason it rubs us the wrong way in Flame of Recca.

The story is good, minus a few convenient plot occurrences: We can buy that Recca is a Ninja-raised wunderkind with special flame powers, mystically zapped from feudal Japan to our time. We can't buy that he just happens to run into the only other kid on Earth with special powers in the first five minutes of the first episode. Oh, and she happens to have healing powers, convenient for every time Recca gets his butt whooped by a bad guy.

Every now and then Flame of Recca will get a little goofy: the characters will turn into super-deformed midgets, and the plot will deviate into a romantic zone that just doesn't fit in with everything else.

But a funny script ("All brawn, no 'nads"), a video-game feel to the action, and a surprisingly intriguing plot keeps Flame of Recca from being a silly also-ran in the selection of action-adventure anime DVDs.

Presented in 1.33: 1 aspect ratio, there's very little shimmering in the images, and minimal digital artifacts. A couple of the episodes, however, are pretty dark, and the colors are muted. It's not really foggy, just understated. Some more minor grainy areas, but hard to notice.

Both the English and Japanese audio tracks are tight, with very few missteps in matching the voices to the lip movements. The music is excellent, very hip and turned up at the right moments. If we were forced to complain, we would say the English voice for Yanagi doesn't sit right.

The menus on volume one are very cool, with flames dancing in the background and flashing up when you make a selection. But there's not much to see once you go to the extras: Sketches, and clean opening and closing animation. VIZ has several very cool anime DVDs, but almost all of them are super skimpy on the extras. It's especially upsetting when you find a series you really like, and there's nothing additional to look at once the show is over.

We liked the story more than the characters, and we liked the battle scenes more than the rest of the animation. But anime series on DVD live and die by the ability of the first volume to hook the viewer, and bring them back. Flame of Recca does this admirably, with a mix of fun, fighting, and a future promise of intrigue. We'll give volume two a spin, and see if that promise is fulfilled. Recommended.