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Mar 4, 2023
I've always had a thing for CLAMP art and story (when done right), but I've also held reservations with their attempts to work romanticized versions of sensitive issues into their work where aesthetics somehow eclipse their suffrage. This is a work that seems to have the issue in spades AND forgot about the CLAMP aesthetics that can salvage what soul remains in the manga.
While I liked the first monster of the week that served as a metaphor for vanity and consumerism, the second and third arcs were enough to dump this work faster than Pete Davidson's exes. In the story, to 'absolve' the female spirits
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that were suffering severe physical (suicide and rape) mutilations, all the protagonists do is to give them a generic talk-down of "but think how you're giving others and society trouble with your grieving." "You're making people who have to clean up after your corpse want to puke." (Rape perpetrators go unpunished) "Just forget about the past and snap out of it 'cause you can't do nada." NO. THAT IS NOT HOW WE TALK TO MENTAL ILLNESS VICTIMS, YOU A-HOLES. THAT WILL NOT MAKE ANY VICTIM, DEAD OR ALIVE, BE 'FREED' OR 'COME TO THEIR SENSES'. I'm shocked by this level of insensitivity. While I can excuse the gratuitous violence in RG Veda because it is not meant to correlate to real life, how am I supposed to not take a stance when dismissing a rape victim going through post-rape depression? This is not the level of misogyny that I would typically expect from a group of independent, counterculture female auteurs, but indeed, here we are! After being consecutively bombed with this BS, I've no desire to continue on to see if the rest of manga is good, so I can only leave with a very angry low rating and stay away from CLAMP for a good while.
One last thing. Knowing how old this work is and how CLAMP likely does not give a crap beyond peddling Neponroid and the likes, I can only say this for artists who are aspired by them. Write about what you're good at (shounen ai) and keep your nose outta TF else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Mar 3, 2023
While it started out promising, I've never seen a rom-com manga drop harder than Quantumania's second week box office. That's right. At its core DNA2 is a rom-com, with the potential to deliver the outlandish, sensuous, hilarious, emotional, and ultimately escapist teenage drama that rivals Ranma and Yatsura. Unfortunately I have no idea what editor thought it was somehow a good idea to turn the series' direction into a Dragon Ball knockoff second act in, and then an attempt at harem with a random incest event thrown in for no reason, and then it finishes with...social commentary? (Insert confused face) In the end this turned
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into neither a good drama nor a good comedy. It's sprinkled with simple moral messages that are made hollow by its exuberant silliness. Characters do not grow, react, or reflect on themselves, because they are dragged along the shipwreck of a plot. Most of the readers would be drawn in by the moral dilemma at the start complemented with relatively tame, comforting comedy, if not solely for the ecchi art, which starts to diminish around volume 3. They should've stuck with that instead.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 2, 2023
This will be more or less an attempt at a technical analysis of the anime from an artistic POV, but I claim no authority of the paradigms about art I discuss, ESPECIALLY professional knowledge about the art world in Japan. Keep in mind as this all comes down to merely my own experience and it will be up to the reader to decide whether this critique is valid.
So while I did enjoy the anime somewhat, I did get into it for this whole journey about art plot and at the end I'm not fully convinced it delivers. I didn't care too much about how
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the protagonist was able to go from "stick-figure art" to complex compositions in a month, some problems with the art techniques they use, or limited interpretations of artworks etc. because I'm willing to accept them as the foundations and not the focus. If I didn't know anything about art (not professional knowledge, I disclaim) I probably would've given this anime a 7.
However after viewing some of the episodes I did end up with a lot of questions I couldn't simply ignore. The most obtrusive example I could think of was the first part of the art exam. I have no idea why the protagonist turned his artwork from portrait to landscape, as it made his facial composition disproportionate and chunky. It served no purpose except to make it seem like he was trying something new. The end result is that the portrait he'd drawn looks like a stretched out jpg. It also undermines his "originality" which was using tape to segment his portrait. While this is a good idea, the technique itself is pretty basic and because his execution was pretty poor compared to previous incarnations using the same technique (bad proportions and mediocre shading) I have a hard time accepting that this is a piece that gives him any clout for a 5-hour exam. Still, I understand this is an anime and not a documentary, and moreover technical skills should be evaluated in a portfolio and not necessarily so much in an exam. The important thing is to show his thought process and that part was ok. I did like the second part of the exam more because the main character put more depth and experience into his nude painting and the theme is accentuated and cohesive with the character. I'd have give him props for the great marriage between technique, realism and great character development for this particular segment.
But there are other more obvious questions which I find difficult to answer. Because we're supposed to be inside the main character's head and understand art from his perspective, the lack of explanations or thought processes became bothersome. For example, in one episode, the main character looked at his senpai's "senju" drawing and immediately went something along the lines of "the message didn't change [paraphrasing, maybe he meant it didn't get in the way?], but the way to express it did". Then he drew a painting of a furnace and everyone thought it was such a great painting and was crazed over it. I'm just sort of dumbfounded at that point and thinking "why? What is the point of reiterating this particular axiom without delving into why this is a revelation for him? And how did this painting of a furnace express his newfound knowledge?" Sure I can connect the dots, draw my own conclusions and analysis but I want to see what THEY were thinking because it's about THEIR interpretation of art, and why this specific artwork appealed to them. The fact that the anime kept it deliberately vague suggests to me at best the creators didn't want to alienate the audience by taking a stance on art and at worst they actually have no idea what they're saying and why. And I feel this lack of self-reflection actually hurt the plot because character relationships including relationships with themselves are founded on a unified interest in art, which is all about the self. Without an explanation, the foundations of relationships became more abstract. Why did MC think his senpai's paintings were good and how did he connect with it? Actually why did anyone think anyone's art is good? Why was the reclusive art student confident that the MC will pass the exam?
At the end, I'm a bit conflicted because I did see how they have passion and understanding for the composition of visual art, but ultimately I didn't get what I came for. It's ofc too much to expect for a shounen anime to sacrifice their selling point for a more niche audience, but, on the other hand...is it too much to ask for a medium that is founded on visual art to actually take visual art more seriously? Is it worth sacrificing the potentials of what could be a great anime about art?
Or maybe simply the themes of finding your identity among conformists, how self-driven passion can change your life no longer appeals to more cynical adults such as myself?
I would recommend this anime to people who might begin an interest in visual art or people who just want a spliced genre of slice-of-life and shounen, but I'm uncertain if I'd recommend it to anyone who watches for a more serious experience with art. For anyone who wants an anime about visual art, I'd probably recommend Gallery Fake instead. It does have problems as well, but treatment of art is more consistent, while Blue Period did not appeal to me because it can't decide on whether it wants to be more about the art or the hero. However, this is only my perspective because again I claim no authority for the issues I see. I could definitely have missed parts that countered to the examples given above, but I only hope to offer a different perspective on this anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 21, 2020
First things, this is not an anime about love. I mean, on some level it is, but it is really partially about Satoshi's love for movies, and partially about pursuing something with your life. These two combine to focus on one person, the main character Fujiwara Chiyako, and the movie is really about her, and the focus on her romance is just because the film is about her story and her life, not the other way around.
Second, this is not an anime for "kids", even if there's no violence, bloodshed, or adult scenes. Anyone who watches Satoshi knows he typically doesn't make films that
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are geared towards children. Sure, most kids can watch his films and enjoy it (with the exception of Perfect Blue), but his movies don't try to satiate the inner child, even more so than Ghibli. Not that his movies contain "adult" themes in the sense they contain macabre, sadistic, or preachy messages about how messed up the world is. Just geared towards ordinary, regular adults.
The story is pretty straightforward. Young Chiyako meets an artist and helps conceal him from the police as he is persecuted for spreading radical ideas. After their brief meeting, she receives a key from him and wants to meet him again. As a result, she becomes an actress in the hopes that as she travels throughout the world for her films, she will find him somewhere. And thus the story begins. It remains uncomplicated throughout, with an almost astonishing simplicity. It tells the story of Chiyako's youth, and follows her through her blooming period, her relationships with her mother, director, fellow actress, and "evil" police etc., up till her death.
The story is simple, but the actual movie content is far richer than it would suggest. And here is where Satoshi Kon displays his mastery and control of the art of film. We view Chiyako's life almost like a film within a film, as her life is told from an old age to an interview director (who is an avid fan of hers) and his assistant. Her life then weaves seamlessly, usually as Montages, into her films. From an ancient Japanese castle to the moon high above, from princess to astronaut, Chiyako plays many roles and, in these movies, always searches for her love, whom she never meets, which parallels her own life. Her relationships work themselves into the films. For example, the police officer that is hunting down her love works himself into the "evil" roles of the film, even though we know it's ridiculous for the guy to appear in her films. Like Satoshi's usual works, the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred. Often we are not given clear cues on whether Chiyako is actually acting in a film or actually in real life. The director also works himself into scenes as a pursuer of Chiyako that will never receive any affection in return, parallel to his role in real life as well as providing a shade for Chiyako's own unrequited love with the artist. Foreshadowing also works themselves into the films as subtle or blatant tricks, and symbols also weave themselves into the film.
It is a solid piece of work, and the best part of the film has got to be Satoshi's famous (or notorious) editing skills. You will absolutely DIE if you knew everything that was going on as a film director, how he managed to pull of the camera angels, the montages, the manipulation of foreground, background and middle ground objects...but it's not just the flashier things that absorb the audience. Movie magazines, scenery are well drawn and true to their period. THIS is the sort of stuff that I feel, were there to be a class on making anime, would make itself into course material.
That being said, I'm not arguing that this is a particularly deep film. The deepest part comes when the revelation comes and I won't spoil it, though it's not a huge twist. And Chiyako is left wondering "What do I do now that I can't pursue love anymore?" And the last third of the film is about herself resolving her innate conflict. Still with all the symbolism and emotional climax I would not argue it's a very deep film. But it does fill a niche.
Most animes are not very "humanized". There is almost always something unusual, out-of-the-world in most anime, even if it's slice-of-life. There's always just characters that we love or situations that are interesting but we never encounter them in our day-to-day life. I would not even IMAGINE, realistically, on meeting a real-life Chiyo or Osaka in my high school or a Yotsuba in my neighbourhood. Or managing to run into two of the most gorgeous high school senpais in Japan at my high school (cue roll eyes). Not to mention the mecha, life-and-death games, absurd amounts of anime fantasy worlds, and surreal situations, 3 murder mysteries a day and all that. I don't know if this is something related to anime culture itself, if they presume that if anime is too close to reality it's not really anime.
But Satoshi fills that niche. He has his fair share of unusual plots, but his characters are highly visceral that I can completely imagine Mima, Chiyako, or the three tramps of Tokyo Godfather actually living and breathing somewhere in Tokyo. Yes, there are parts of their characters that are exaggerated, but I can just completely imagine them so, the same way you feel a movie character must be alive somewhere after watching a good movie. He manages to make characters have their own interesting quirks but closer to real human beings than most anime. He also makes their stories epic and theatrical yet believable at the same time (though he gets a lil dramatic/corny sometimes). The reason for his success is Satoshi is not trying to tell you a message, be a cerebral art guru or trying to cater to kids looking for anime entertainment. He's more than happy to please the masses, but only in his own way, his own style. He's not here to preach. He's always thinking "What can you do with motion pictures? What are the limitations when you're not restricted by the boundaries of realism? What kind of story/feelings can you convey with animated actors?" In a way, his anime can be viewed as films shot with images. He prefers more realistic touches in depicting characters. His editing is amazing. Two majorly successful Hollywood films, Black Swan and Inception, are derived from his works' ideas (Perfect Blue / Paprika, respectively) for a reason. I'll forever hold a grudge that Satoshi is not properly recognized as the forerunner of the film experimentation. But it is with Sennen Joyuu that Satoshi reaches a balance between style and realism. This is his anime love letter for movies. I'm not going to argue if Satoshi is a genius or is he overrated, that is up for debate. But I'm very certain there will not be another anime director like him again, or a movie like this again.
The only people I would not recommend this to is those who want more mundane excitement. This is a film for those who want something more artistic and visceral (in epic proportions, I might add).
Fun Fact #1: This film came out in 2001, the same year as Spirited Away, and both won the Japan Media Arts Festival award.
Fun Fact #2: While Satoshi did not state to have based Chiyako on any real life person in particular, many presume that the character is based on Setsuko Hara, one of the most enigmatic actresses of the early Japanese cinema, and personally I think a great beauty.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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May 20, 2020
While critics lavished this manga with praise, at the risk of being ostracized by the anime connoisseurs, I found this manga fairly dull, machinated and repetitive.
Art hasn't really aged well. The story is its main selling point, but while the premise is interesting, the story usually plays into the oldest cliché in history -- desiring immortality because of human greed. Maybe 80% of the stories begin this way and doesn't change much in the process. There's always a character that wants to live forever because they want to become god or something similar. Worst is the Sun chapter that's basically a historical retell of
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the struggle between Emperor Tenmu / Tenji and themes of death, life and mortality is pushed into the background.
Characters are also usually quite unlikeable as they are usually reduced to personifications of greed, ambition, vindictiveness or some undesirable human trait. They have personal struggles esp. between good and evil, yes, but it is more often than not less prominent than their negative traits. They also usually fail to establish much significance since chapters are typically episodic and characters never appear again after their arc. Yes, everyone dies, but they are so unlikeable that the reader is very glad when most of them kick the bucket and fail to see the morality struggle and struggle between death and life.
The saving grace is Osamu's mastery of cinematic techniques and originality. Pacing is better than a lot of mangas today still, and stories are told with mastery of camera perspectives -- when a man despairs because they're stuck in an insurmountable hole, you'll feel the height of the rocky walls pushing down on you. The manga is also pretty refreshing for having an overarching theme, but leaves out repetitive story-telling; it is still about human greed 80% of the time but it isn't always X does this which causes Y and ends with Z every single time. The highlight of the manga for me personally is the immortal space explorer or whatever -- that he starts out as a simple human and comes to witness full evolution on earth before fading into the stars after a philosophical conversation with the Phoenix is a breathtaking experience not commonly experienced manga today, much less of its time. Mind blowing irony that he is one of the few who got immortality despite not wanting it in the first place. Just unfortunately imho, not all the chapters live up to the height of that particular story.
Don't regret reading it however to get one of the most hailed masterpieces of manga off my list.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 20, 2020
This anime is a classic and innovative for its time, but that doesn't mean it aged well with some of the modern audiences. I will judge it as such for the time it was released.
At the time this anime was quite unique that you can't categorize exactly into shoujo or shounen standards. It was too gory and dark and lacking of Deus Ex Machina (namely, characters beating their opponents by carthasis of anger).
There is still plot armour, but the main characters are far from being overpowered. Anger is not just a power fuel, it is also usually the opposite -- when Inu Yasha
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is angry, he turns into a full-blooded demon, and raw power is increased but he loses his rational thought, humanity and he is transformed into brutality itself. When Miroku uses his ultimate attack, it costs him with a step closer to death which doesn't get resolved until the end for him to have a happy ending. This culminates him into not being able to use it in the final battle and other key moments. Inu Yasha never gets to Naraku or even Sessohamaru's level despite training for 200 episodes and having beaten the latter fairly earlier on. While the main characters beat some of the youkai by sheer force, they are more often than not undone by a convenient plot device, more powerful characters, or Rumiko's preferred method, by their own malice and lacking of empathy for the weak. Kikyo is a special case because she can't be classified as a good character nor a villain, as she is driven by malice against her will but never seems to do anything that is actually inherently evil. Most importantly, this is one of the few anime where the villain actually gets what they want -- it is Naraku that pieces together the Shikon no Tama, not the protagonists -- and only cedes because of his one humane weakness -- love for Kikyo. This is somewhat mind blowing at the time.
It is not by itself shoujo, but the classic love triangle that most will take away from the show is one of the greatest highlights of the show. Rumiko was able to integrate love with the warring setting by having strength be determined partially on the desire to protect loved ones, namely with the mystical blades of the inu brothers. The most powerful are usually those who are most capable of love. Other shounen may have played with the concept but did not emphasize the idea as much as Rumiko, giving the show a more tender element than its shounen alum despite its darker undertones. This is also demonstrated throughout with other youkai-human loves coming together despite their differences -- namely, Sessohamaru and Rin, Tsukiyomi and Hoshiyomi, Yashamaru and Shiori's mother, and also unrequited loves -- Naraku (or his previous reincarnation) for Kikyo, and Kaguya's love for Sessohamaru.
It was also more complex for shounen at the time, dealing with themes of humans not always equating to good, demons not always equating to evil, yet forever at odds and paradoxical identity struggle for people who do not belong to either side. Kikyo is neither alive nor dead. Kaguya is Naraku's clone but desires autonomy. Inu Yasha himself unable to decide whether he should be human or youkai. Rumiko also tries to play this with Inu Yasha's feelings for Kikyo and Kagome not always clear-cut, and if reincarnations should be treated like the same identity. While this is a newer thing at the time, however, this doesn't play out too well by modern standards as Inu Yasha and Kagome's romance is far too ambiguous and placid for modern audiences to sympathize with. People will still root for it, but ultimately Kagome's love for Inu Yasha is at times like a comedic subplot, at times like a plot device (to get Inu Yasha fighting) and doesn't carry much actual emotional weight as much as Inu Yasha and Kikyo's story. This is a bit sad since Kagome is such a rare gem, being the typical plucky and uplifting heroine without making it seem fake at the same time. I feel that she deserved better than Inu Yasha running off for Kikyo still some 100+ episodes into the story.
Conversely, the show's power hierarchy seems a bit wobbly. Sesshomaru, one of the most powerful characters in the anime, at the beginning seems almost like a plot device to get Inu Yasha powered up. We expect him to be beaten at some point but he never even meets someone who could present a challenge by the ending. Kaguya, on the other hand, is seen to be one of the strongest foes in the beginning, only to get reduced to medium-tier after her debut. Naraku never seems to demonstrate the full capabilities of his powers. The group of seven seems very important and powerful but gets kicked to the curb after a huge and questionably pointless battle. Humans are despairingly weak with the exception of an exceptionally few bunch of miko and monks, so we wonder how humans have managed to survive with such a huge power imbalance. We see humans are capable of a sort of magic power (called Reiri, I believe) that is capable of overcoming youkai aura, but this power concept is never explored further than the birth of the Shikon no Tama, as well as a convenient laser to shoot at Naraku when the main characters fail to beat him fairly. We have also seen quite a handful of youkai who sympathizes with humans and yet they always appear for a few episodes of their arcs and then fade into obscurity. Would it not make sense to at least attempt to forge some kind of alliance with them? And also the fact that no matter how far the group travels they can always get back to the home village in a jiffy makes the journey feel a little more undermined.
The most jarring aspect would have to be the formulaic plot and the visual effects that seemed impressive at the time are a little jaded now. While not quite up to Sailor Moon level, the monster of the week thing still happens here a lot, up to a point that 100 episodes and hereafter is nearly all filler. Emotional, yes, but emotional filler is still filler. Combine that with onion shadow glitter effect (I made that up) repeatedly showing up in action sequences is less than thrilling. Tbh we would've liked to see the protagonist defeat one recurring villain by then, but shockingly they don't defeat any. Still a good show to watch, but rewatch value is not so high because of this.
The soundtrack is excellent and mostly stands the test of time, music and theme becoming classics of anime OST (esp. Feudal Love Story and others).
I enjoyed Inu Yasha as a little girl and I will forever treasure the memories and feelings the characters brought out to me. However, considerable weaknesses of the show deterred me from giving the show a full ranking and full enjoyment score.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 19, 2020
I feel compelled to write this review since though I rated it a 10, it may not be as appealing to folks who do not have an affinity for traditional Japanese culture (though since we're all anime freaks here, the expectations might be a bit higher than usual). I feel like this is the sort of movie that culminates to what 40s or 50s might dream of, with Miyazaki getting inspired by Chinese watercolour cinema such as the White Serpent, that deals with themes such as oppression (of women), supernatural chained down among the mundane, with a tragic tone.
Kaguya is a well-known tale in
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Japan in which a bamboo cutter adopts a fairy child from the moon found in a bamboo and raises her to become a beautiful woman courted by many men of prestige, in many versions even the emperor himself. In most versions, she returns to the moon, usually by force, since she grew attached to the earth. Though the story is usually tragic, it is a tale beloved for centuries due to its brazen and independent female lead, Kaguya, who defies convention and rejects men of the top social standing of her day. Keep in mind that even today in terms of gender equality, Japan is pretty much ranked bottom of all developed countries.
This anime is loyal to a fault to the original story, but also accentuated its female lead's appealing aspects further. She transpires from a free, joyful, lively young girl and gradually becomes trapped by her own merit (beauty and gift of wealth from her home in the moon) by the greed and vanity of human society. The bamboo cutter used to live in a wood lodge and lived a simple but relatively content life, though I'm sure he was stressed without some of the luxuries of modern society, such as electric bamboo cutters and insulated homes for the winter. Once he receives an absurd amount of gold, however, he neither uses it to increase the happiness of his family nor lavish them in a spur of ecstasy. Instead, he gives in to one of the most tragic and common fallacies of human life: he uses it to provide his daughter with a "bright" future. This may be a less prevalent theme in western society, but it is an abnormally common thing in the east. I suspect this revelation, when the humble woodcutter suddenly baggages his simple family by buying expensive clothes, building a mansion, and hiring servants -- chaining himself to a complete oxymoron of what he used to be, the antonym of human vanities, bridging the anime from a simple retelling to our modern society, that which shocked me may have missed my fellow western counterparts who may see it as more of a comedic scene.
Kaguya becomes more humanized. She's not independent or brazen from the start, the perfect heroine that the novel depicts, but it started with her resentment for the liberties that was cost her of her childish days. She takes lessons for refined women, writing, etiquette etc. Forced to wear heavy makeup and dress in layers of expensive fabric, and according to tradition, not even allowed to come out to see the guests who were celebrating "her" birthday party (more of an excuse for a drunk orgy), it culminates into one of the most powerful and climatic moments of the film. She escapes the house, dashes out into the wild night fields, her clothes thrown-off and strewn behind her like extra cocoon shells, towards the moon. And then she wakes up. She's not sure if it's a dream or it really happened. But from then on she becomes a lady, who must endure the courtship of men who only want her for her beauty and wealth. Like in the story, Kaguya puts her suitors up to impossible tests to stall marriage for as long as possible, and succeeds in putting off even the emperor.
Eventually, Kaguya is going to be summoned back to the moon palace. You'd think she would be happy to leave this shoddy place, to toss out all possibilities of a forced union with a man she doesn't care for, to leave behind the earthly folk who only tied her down in the name of love -- she isn't happy. She's spends a few last moments with her childhood friend roaming the fields -- and then he wakes up as well. From a certain point, freedom is only achievable with dreams, and every time the character thinks they've reached it, it vanishes before them. Kaguya resists all attempts to bring her back to the moon, but unlike the earthly men, she has no power over her supernatural superiors. Before they take away her freedom -- for a second time -- Kaguya declares that although she suffered, she still loved the earthly life, but ultimately inevitable still happens, and Kaguya, as brazen and rebellious as she is, sinks into silence. In most versions of the tale she is sent to earth on account of committing a mistake in the moon palace, and based on her personality, she may have rebelled against some higher order and received the same punishment that some of us who tries to make progress has today.
Overall the pacing is slow, but steady, and while I would've preferred the less developed childhood character to be kept out, I understand his relevance in the film.
The art is simple at a glance being hand-drawn, but colours are soft and lush, and though the characters are incredibly cartoon like, they move very realistically. A good example is Kaguya's female instructor when she teaches Kaguya to walk with her knees -- the subtlety and grace of her movements suggests that the animators put a great effort into mimicking how ancient people would've moved. Art style also changes with mood -- for example when Kaguya rushes out into the night, the strokes are heavy, scrawled, and convey a burst of speed with a feeling of repressed anger.
The music is mostly traditional Japanese music, and while I have no particular love for traditional Japanese singing, the song that Kaguya sings and the music at different scenes do a great job at marking the emotional state of the characters and the atmosphere of the scene.
Kaguya is a highly traditional movie and not everyone will agree with a full rating. However I view it as a masterpiece from one of the last master artists of the Japanese anime cinema.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 19, 2020
This anime is like perfection itself to me personally. Every character is so detailed, vivid, compelling, quirky, lively, and I can even recall very minor characters (cried during the match with Killua's girl butler and when the Octopus changed sides) which I can't say how rare it is to find in anime.
Music, sound and voice acting is great. Sometimes the music doesn't quite capture what the scene is trying to do, but it's passable. Art is solid. The world mirrors our own quite closely, but it works since it makes the characters a lot more relatable than typical full-fantasy settings.
Story begins as a
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very typical if well-panned and thought-out shonen work, so to be honest, this would not have received a 10/10 from me if not for the Chimera ant arc. The build-up, the battles, the villains, the down-spiralling of the looming dooming situation and the unexpected twist at the end was absolutely AMAZING, like I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU PULLED THAT OFF ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME LEVEL of amazing. The Yorkshin Arc and Chimera ant arc transformed the typical shounen story so far into a work that dealt with complex and mature themes that are virtually unseen in previous shounen works. No one is "fully evil". All the villains are given sympathetic aspects of character that you can't help but admire them as much as the protagonists despite their evil deeds (afaik, Phantom members have quite amount of fans and you'll see why).
The characters are riveting and combine that with strategized battles -- it's not just brute force that wins the rounds, but observance, analysis, and creative use of your powers can help you overcome the most seemingly unbeatable enemy -- and this will literally get you so excited and you won't be able to stop watching just to see what happens next. The Aura-system impacted Shounen manga in uncountable ways and presents unlimited possibilities of powers.
Another big plus is -- and I notice not many say this -- it's so refreshing that female characters are not heavily sexualized. Ok, so the main cast is mostly male, but there are major female characters as well, and you don't remember female characters for their sex appeal or how big their boobs/butts are, or for their sexual catering to the male leads to fulfill some sort of sexual fantasy, or even get naked at some point (even Rumiko Takahashi does this, y'know). You remember them for their personalities. For their passions. For the way they handle problems thrown at them. For their quirks. A certain blonde pink-dressed lady reads adult male magazines while training Gon and Killua. In fact, this series has one of the most adorable female character who is bald, short, fat, buck-tooth'd and you can't even tell she was female until you know her. But she is a badass in her own right and also sweet thing as a human being, and I can't say not only many shounen anime, but even movies or anything that caters to the masses that would dare to feature a deformed woman stripped of all sexual recognition. To this, I can only applaud Togashi. I can't help but feel that it works because he sees the world with a sort of childish innocence that is far beyond the perceptive capacities of the orthodox adult (would a childish person be able to write something like Yorkshin or Chimera ant?) that makes his world both simpler and more true to the essence of human lives at the same time.
Truly, it's anime like this that makes you proud to be an Otaku.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jun 3, 2014
Much as I wish to like this as I picked it up for the gorgeous cover and interesting title, it is not something I particularly enjoyed. Maybe someone who is into goth stuff (this is not a very gothic piece of work, but certainly contains enough tips to it that it may be enjoyed as such) or aesthetically pleasing works. I did enjoy it somewhat on a guilty pleasure sort of drivel, but unfortunately I'm going to be a bit of an ass critic so please be aware that I don't have many good things to say about this manga.
The key obstacle to my enjoyment
...
is the lacking of solid reasoning behind its world-building.
The first impression is not too great. Art is delicious like the cover suggested, but the enticement quickly wears off. Volume 1, like someone else said, is all over the place and not really a great starting point. It goes from rumours of a mysterious game causing deaths in the beginning's setting of a regular city to the depiction of an angsty and violent teenager in love with his blood-related sister (......) and suddenly a bunch of characters show up and it ends on a sort of hanging note with nothing to hook the reader for the next volume (that is, unless you like violent, incest romance thwarted by the archetypal controlling "you're-a-very-bad-child" matron, which I'm surprised to say, is one of the few cases I actually root for).
The story tries to piece itself together later, and does look somewhat interesting with all the peppering of Christian allegories, strokes of inverted morality, mythological symbols and settings etc. But, choosing to focus on "hawt" forbidden romance is perhaps not the best way to bring out character / plot complexity. It is unknown why Setsuna is in love with his sister besides a shaky reasoning given by the story background that he is the reincarnation of angel Alexial, who 1) also had some kind of hots for xir sibling Rosiel and 2) doomed to endless reincarnations of misery. As a reader I can infer that if Setsuna's mother treated him horribly he may have leaned on his sister for support which spurred into love, but I don't believe their backgrounds were given much explanations for grounds of their romance. Sara herself is given even less reasoning for her feelings, being a very naive, pretty, innocent young woman, and basically not much personality, and I personally feel like she is rather akin to...well, you know what I mean. However Sara is a relatively normal and more relatable character than her male counterpart Setsuna, who keeps angst-ing about how miserable his life is despite that the reader feels his angst is rather disproportionate to his situation, as we see his supposedly abusive mother presented as mostly a douche for disliking his violent tendencies and not allowing incest (wow, shocking). I'll give it that she is kind of a dick for not giving Setsuna affection because he appears to be immune to physical damage. Overall their romance looks a lot like teenage rebellion / angst / lust rolled into one, which do not really gain much of the reader's sympathy.
Other characters are even less compelling if their sordid presence provides more amusement than the predictably triggered main character -- angels / God are mostly evil with a few exceptions (Jibriel, I suppose) and demons are usually the "jerk with a heart of gold" archetype. Perhaps the only slightly interesting character would be Lucifer, but unfortunately the manga does not shine the spotlight on him too much. The main villain, God, is a calculating machine bent on destroying the world. Yes, the archetypal villain suffering from a fair share of Disney syndrome. Well, the villain did get an upgrade from your evil mother trying to stop you from romancing your blood-sibling, I'll give it that. The characters also do not receive much development. I doubt Setsuna or Sara has changed much since the beginning (although they might be a bit more mature) and rest of the characters remain unvarying. Characters are essentially reduced to reincarnations of very monochromatic set of emotions -- Setsuna, angsty and violent-prone. Sara, innocent. Katan, loyal to a fault. Mother, cold and unloving. Alexiel, you're basically a plot-device...you get the idea, characters can be summed up in one or two sentences or even a few words.
The second most focused element of the story is violence, but like my English teacher once said, "do not use swear words, or even words, without good reason". Much of the violence is in essence rather Hollywood-like, thrown in for shock value to lure the crowd than carrying actual emotional weight. I'm not saying all of the violence is such, but too much empty violence can desensitize the reader when they are actually supposed to care.
Lastly the manga does not offer a particularly self-contained world view. For example, what is the relationship of this God with the deity in our world? If heaven is full of evil beings and hell reversely, what impact does that have on the humans? Do they believe in a parallel angel/demon view of ours, or an inverted one? How did a computer come to rule over magical creatures? Why was Sara taken to heaven instead of hell? What is the purpose of the subplot of Sandalphone gaining a body through Sara besides trying to add an obstacle to the sibling-romance reunion?
The story suffered due to the lack of reasonable characterization (I say reasonable as in within the bounds of most reader's expectations, as there are those who have different expectations of reason). It also suffers from excessive brashness and lack of coherent world-building. It could be seen as beautiful and complex at a glance but in reality leaves very little afterthought. Unless your stance is that most manga don't leave behind much afterthought (which I do not believe), this makes Angel's Sanctuary subpar of real masterpieces and falls beneath an average work of art in the process of doing so.
Of course, the above is purely my opinion. I can see why some would enjoy it -- just wasn't much of a thrill for me, for the above reasons.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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