Seirei no Moribito

aka Guardian of the (Sacred) Spirit

Number of episodes: 26

What Wikipedia Rightstuf (via My Anime List) says: "At a time when the balance of nature still held the civilizations of mankind in thrall, a single drought could spell the end of a society and doom its inhabitants to piteous deaths. Prince Chagum has been imbued with the power to stave off the drought and bring new life to his empire. However, this is a suspicious time, and he is accused of possession by an evil spirit.

Court advisors only see one solution. Chagum must be put to death by his own father's hand. His salvation is in the form of Balsa, a spear woman and mercenary from Kanbal, the kingdom across the mountains. Her skills are legendary, and although reluctant, she is held by a mysterious vow to save eight souls before she dies. Can she fend off an entire empire and make Chagum her eighth soul?"

What tTPO says: Serei no Moribito is a polished fantasy story. It starts with a bang, goes a little bit slice-of-lifey in the middle and then picks itself up for the last eight episodes in a well paced run to the pretty satisfying end. The pacing initially was a little confusing for me but made perfect sense when I subsequently found the series was based on novels and that the middle section of the series was mainly anime original episodes. The transition between the two is clean, and the inclusion of several expanded 'big picture' plot points in these otherwise stand-alone episodes helps maintain the story's focus.

The characters are well developed and, by and large, low on annoyance (with one slight exception). We slowly find out Balsa's backstory and motivations, and Chagum matures well over the season. The other interesting aspect of the characters is that there are not just two camps of people who are clearly 'good guys' and 'bad guys'. Instead we have two main groups of people each with their own motivations and believe themselves doing the right thing. In contrast with Shiki, this lack of moral clarity results in more empathy (rather than less) with all the characters and allows for some interesting interactions towards the end.

Another thing I appreciated was the depth of historical, political and geographic detail in the world(s) where the story plays out. In some situations this could be distracting from the main plot but here it just worked, and after a while you just take it all for granted. 

Lastly, the animation is well detailed and easy on the eye, though still not quite as good as the benchmark of Hanusaka Iroha.
 
How about the music?: The OP ("Shine" by L'Arc-en-Ciel) is easily recognisable and catchy, though strangly I did not actually like it that all that much. The ED ("Itoshii Hito e by Sachi Tainaka) was pleasant and appropriate but somehow just a bit generic and not so memorable to me. 
 
So how does it end? (Spoiler Free):  The main story is wrapped up well with a couple of character arcs left open. Which makes sense since there are more novels that follow this story.

Overall Grade:  Grade B. A well told fantasy tale. For tTPO it was a bit too linear and too long for the top grade.