Fuse: Teppou Musume no Torimonochou

Everybody knows that dogs are a man’s best friend, am I right?

They are cute, intelligent, affectionate, and loyal until the very end. Now what does that have to do with the movie Fuse: Memoirs of the Hunter Girl?

Fuse (pronounced “foo say”) is the story of an energetic hunter girl named Hamaji who moves from the mountains to the bustling city of Edo after the death of her grandfather. Hamaji is taken in by her older brother, who is also a hunter himself. Shortly after arriving, Hamaji is greeted with a rather gruesome site of bleeding dog’s heads put out on display for the entire town ... to see. Taken aback by the display, she lashes out in horror. The citizens tease her a bit and then explain that they are fuse; half dog and half human menaces that terrorize and murder the human residents of Edo. A hefty bounty is put on the heads of these fuse, so every third rate samurai across the city is after their heads for the money and the glory.

Well gee, so much for being man’s best friend.

Hamaji’s brother wants to hunt down the remaining two fuse. Little does he know that Hamaji had already met and befriended a fuse named Shino on her way to his humble adobe.

The thing that stands out the most in this movie is most definitely its art, animation, and sound. The movie has a highly detailed, colorful, and polished world. Backgrounds are bursting with life and vibrant color. Beautiful Edo will amaze you with its sights and sounds, from the chaotic red light district, to the elaborate feudal castles, to the beautiful foliage. The character designs themselves are also quite interesting, vaguely resembling the characters from a Ghibli film or perhaps an older anime from the 90s. The soundtrack is also given equal treatment, with a traditional flair pulsing from its chords.

The movie’s story is an interesting yet rather simplistic tale. It’s an engrossing, character driven story from beginning to end, though it is not without its flaws. Character development is rather minimal, aside from what’s given to the two main characters, and the ending to the movie felt rather abrupt. Which was a shame, because it had such an epic buildup. The pacing for most of this movie was just right, with no scene feeling like filler, nor were any of the scenes dripping with an overabundance of cheesy melodrama. And thankfully that is the case, considering the movie’s focus on romance. Now the romance of the movie could have been handled better as well. Like the ending, it is given a rather unsatisfying conclusion. Throughout the movie, it’s built up in a rather subtle way, not feeling as if it were awkwardly shoehorned in.

The relationships of the characters were the main focus of the movie, though it does have its moments of brutal and bloody actions scenes. These scenes are rather fluid and detailed, down to every drop of blood, every bullet, every swift swing of a sword.

However, the characters, not the action, are what make this movie so interesting. The main character Hamaji is a country bumpkin at heart, illiterate and quite ignorant of city life due to her upbringing that took place exclusively in the mountains. This gives the viewers a convenient window to learn about the city of Edo and its culture. Her relationship with the fuse Shino is the main focus of the movie. Shino is revealed to be somewhat of a tormented and deeply troubled character later on. They grow closer and closer as the movie progresses despite the people of their respective races being bitter enemies out for each other’s blood.

The other characters include a cast of lively and fun individuals. There is Hamaji’s older brother Dousetsu, a somewhat childish bachelor that appears to be far less responsible and much less humble than his little sister. There are also Dousetsu’s neighbors, a young man and his son, and a round heavyset man with a not so subtle crush on Hamaji. There is Dousetsu’s love interest Funamushi. There’s also Meido, a talented artist and writer. She is the grandchild of a famous author who attempted to paint the fuse as something more than the monsters they were made out to be through his revered novels.

In a way, perhaps the movie was trying to convey a message of acceptance and understanding. The humans would mercilessly hunt down fuse without a second thought, all for the sake of protecting their own people. Although it’s also clear that some were only hunting fuse simply for the money and fame. Likewise, the fuse hid amongst the humans and ate soul after soul, like animals making no effort to restrain themselves. Neither side made much of an effort to call a truce. Neither side tried to come to understand each other. Instead, a vicious cycle of killing turned without any hope of stopping. It presents an interesting “chicken or egg” argument. Did the Fuse start eating human souls because the humans were killing them? Or did the humans start killing Fuse because they started eating human souls?

Of course, that conclusion was drawn up with a generous amount of personal interpretation. There was far more room for them to convey their message a lot more cleanly.

Fuse is an interesting little feudal fantasy tale that comes together as a wonderful experience bursting with life. It has its obvious flaws, but it’s a great little lighthearted watch.

It has a very feel good vibe to it and is definitely worth your time.

For those who are impatient, my simple review would have me say that i found it a mixed bag. I really wanted to write two separate reviews for this -an unbiased one and a personal one- but that's quite tedious and im not sure MAL would allow it. Anyways, i'll try to keep this short and simple.


Going into the film, i really really wanted to like it - I really did. And that's likely why i felt a bit disappointed. The simple plot of the story sees our lone heroine move into edo to live with her brother and to help ... him hunt down the fuse (human/dog hybrids). Her search leads her to meet with Shino.

My unbiased review would have me say that the story is fairly simplistic (no major plot twist) and maybe even enjoyable. In other words, if i were to take it at face value, there's nothing really wrong with it. However, a personal review would have me say that something about it just irked me. One of the genre listed with this film is "drama" but it didn't really feel as dramatic as it could have been. I blame this on execution. I personally think they could have focused more screen time on the fuse and their situation/circumstances instead of the heroine who hunts them down.

The character development was almost none existent imo. I wont hold it strongly against the film, cause it IS a film but im suppose to feel inclined towards Hamaji and Shino when they only meet up 4 times in the movie? About the fuse, particularly Shino, I just never got around to really liking him. I cant really describe why i feel this way without spoiling so lets just say i felt he doesn't get enough screen time/explanation for a character of his importance.

As for the art, i have no real complaints per se, but i personally don't think it really matched the theme(s) of the film. The art is variant and almost colorful but that doesn't really match with the theme(s) found in the film, etc:'we're gonna hunt down these fuse, cut off their heads, and display it for the public.' This is just a personal opinion and most people are hardly going to have much issues with the art.


OVERALL

There's nothing really wrong with the film, it has decent plot and action but i found that it suffers from its inability to make me want to try and connect with the characters. I think the story would have had a much stronger impact had they choose Shino as the main lead instead of Hamaji. Anyways, as another reviewer said, it does kinda have a Princess Mononoke feel to it except that its more action orientated and slightly less developed characters.

So, do i regret watch the movie? kinda, but not really. Would i recommend it? As long as you go in not expecting anything great. It has a "meh" fell about it.

This is kind of a bittersweet review for me. Sweet because I loved the art and wanted to love the story. Bitter because this movie is is dreadful and not worth watching. With a premise similar to the likes of Tokyo Ghoul its unfortunate this lacks all the moral gray area. Newsflash: the Fuse ARE the bad guys, they kill and eat people's souls there's no way around it. There's a tiny mention against this in a single line at the very end but honestly, I'm not even sure I understood it correctly. This is the sort of thing that I feel HAS to have ... been told better in the Manga. While I understand self-defense and all that, it doesn't change that Shino's body count is over 30, and if we count what happens at the end as his fault probably several hundred. I'm not even opposed to having the bad guy be the "hero" of the story but they portray it as if what he is doing isn't wrong. Shino kills a man as he runs away, he was no longer a threat he killed him because he likes to. Anyway, even though this review isn't liable to be read by anyone I needed to say something due to all the people who seem to think mass murder is okay.