Ranked #3499

Lady Death

Anime has a far-reach, and it is influencing the way Western animation develops. This is very ironic, since anime tried to adopt more westernised styles back in the 1940s-60s (you ever wondered where the giant eyes came from? Walt Disney influence, if you wouldn't believe). It seems things are coming back round in the circle of influence.

Hence you will now find movies like Lady Death being listed as an anime. I myself remain sceptical as what to call it; my mind screams that it is a cartoon, but technically the style insists that it is not. But I am rambling, so I'll go on to the review. I merely brought this up because if you are an anime purist, who likes their anime from Japan and Japan only, then this may not be for you.

Unfortunately, I don't think Lady Death is for anyone at all.

We have a young woman who has her lover snatched away from her, learns her father is the Devil and becomes a Queen of an underworld army to defeat him. That's about it. There isn't anything fantastic about it. The premise is fairly interesting: how often have we seen an anime about the Devil's daughter trying to kill him? Sadly, the execution is mercilessly flawed, the plot is sloppy, and everything seems very loose and unprofessional in the writing.

The art is where I was turned off a lot. While we have the anime-styled protagonists, the backgrounds were very cartoon-like. The drawings are very unpolished, and the animation is lazy; fight scenes lack lustre, movements aren't fluid, and it seems they took the cheaper route by animating less and have more panning shots of the environment (which weren't even detailed). The whole movie looks like a brown mess, as most of the scenes were shot in Hell, and Hell apparently is a brown, rocky wasteland.

The sound was unspectacular. I truly have nothing to say about it.

Now, they attempted to make Lady Death a deep character, but they only succeeded in making her ambition melodramatic and over-the-top. Again, it all appears very comic book-y, so I wonder if these characters would work better in panels than in animation. The Devil is as is: evil and pointless. It would have been interesting if they explored the father/daughter dynamic, but unfortunately they did not. It all boiled down to basically 'You are my daughter--join me or DIE!!' So characterisation was left very superficially.

I did not have a good time watching Lady Death. Most of the time I was bored or irritated or gaping incredulously at the badness I saw. Honestly, the depiction of the Devil? A large red monster with masturbating lesbians at his feet. I don't know if that sort of thing would offend anyone, but I found it laughably ridiculous. They might as well have given him a fork, twirly moustache and a cape. Wait, did he have a cape in this movie...?

Anyway, please think twice--no, five times--before watching this. I certainly did not enjoy it and I am a comic book and cartoon fan as well. The story is weak, the characters are bland and one-dimensional, the art is a joke and you definitely will be looking at your watch, waiting for it to end because it drags on for a solid two hours (that is, of course, if you haven't pitched away the DVD or turned off your computer by then). read more

Not as good as I was hoping. Kinda boring thru most of it and action is generic. Violence isn't graphic and animation itself seemed cheap compared to the cover or still frames. It just wasn't very good. The part I saw was probably the best part so I bought it and was quite disappointed. I sold it for about what I paid so not too bad. You can find it cheap on dvd, but try and view it first so you don't get fooled like me. Download for free and stash it in a file with other animes that are for a REALLY BORING day.