X/1999

Be warned: this review does contain a few spoilers. However, I tried very hard to keep it light.

Also be warned that if you are planning to watch X, you should /not/ watch it as someone who has never /read/ X. You should read X first, then watch the movie. Otherwise you will not be able to understand or appreciate it at all. This review is, by the way, written with the assumption that you /have/ read X – but never fear, for there are very few actual spoilers for the manga and you may still read this review even if you haven’t read X. Now, ... let us get on to the actual review…

The majority of you are angry that X the Movie doesn’t follow X. But that’s because the majority of you are looking at the movie from the perspective of people who have read all eighteen volumes. You see, when I first started watching the movie, I went into it angry. I was ready to point out all the flaws I could possibly find.

“No! No no no no no! Seishirou, Subaru, what are you doing!”
“Subaru, you don’t walk around in shifuku! I think the animators confused you with Hokuto. Who has been dead for nearly a decade by this point so I don’t know how they could confuse you with her…actually…”
“/No. What are you doing. Stop it. You’re both idiots/.”
“No no no no no no noooo. Subaru, that is not your wish. And Seishirou, you’re just being downright rude. And stupid. Have I mentioned how stupid I think the two of you are?”
“Whoa they turned into dragons!”
~incomprehensible complaining, sobbing, raging ten minutes into the movie~
“W-where is Kakyou?! Who is this brat?”
“Whoa Yuzuriha, you’re pretty…forceful. I remember you being much bubblier and friendlier in the manga!”
“Hey, Kusanagi. /What happened to you/. When did you become such a horrid brute?”
“/What happened to your relationship with Yuzuriha/?!”
“Well Fuuma…you’re just going on a rampage, aren’t you…”

Half way through the movie, I realized something. And started laughing.

X the Movie was released in 1996; by that time, the X manga was only up to about eight volumes. CLAMP is not about to spoil all their developments in a movie. How Subaru and Seishirou’s relationship resolves is one of the reasons a majority of people read X – how do you get that out of the way? /Especially/ since we don’t learn how their relationship ends until, oh, over five years later! The sensible way is to kill them off ten minutes into the movie, of course. Can’t get your hopes up too much, can we? While my heart aches, I can’t blame the directors or CLAMP since it was a rather grandiose move in order to keep X’s sixteenth volume a complete and, I might add, devastating surprise.

Kusanagi is portrayed as a bastard, not because he is one, but because they can’t show what sort of relationship Kusanagi and Yuzuriha have later on. That would be spoiling it! As for Kakyou – I don’t think he was even introduced by the eighth volume, so they simply had to replace him with someone else. To be fair, whoever they replaced him with (I apologize, I already forgot his name, yes I know I’m horrible) looked quite similar to Kakyou. Another red herring, if I may say.

So, basically, X the Movie is one gigantic troll.

Distance yourself from X and you can see it. Even I, who loathe it when manga are taken and dissected into pieces and consequently abridged for anime format, managed to become objective and viewed X as simply…something separate from its manga counterpart. If you so desire to see it as such, you could even call X the Movie a really long trailer for X – or a “what could have been” version of X. You could even see it as a parody, if you want. A really bloody, messy parody.

That aside, X the Movie is truly breathtaking. The art is beautiful. Here are the /real/ CLAMP characters – not the stiff, and, quite blatantly, often ugly art of the television series. The animation is wonderfully done and fluid. Now if only an anime series – true to the manga – could be released with this sort of quality! The character designs are completely and utterly true to their original counterparts. Seishirou is dashing as usual, Subaru is beautiful, Arashi is utterly gorgeous, Yuzuriha is adorable, Hinoto is stunning. I’d go into the other characters but that would take too long – I’m simply mentioning the ones that struck me with awe. The soundtrack is also quite solid; I can’t remember having any complaints about it. In addition, the seiyuu were quite fitting for all their characters.

The visuals are very dark and mystical, as is fitting for X. Be warned, for there is…quite a bit of gore in X. In the television series, there was almost absolutely no blood, which was one of the major things that irritated me. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a fan of gore at all. But X is filled with blood and guts and bones and pretty darn painful deaths, and if you’re planning to censor that, why make an anime series at all? The movie, written and released before the anime series, makes up for that.

Those of you who, despite my warnings, will be going on to watch X the Movie (and have made it this far into my review) without reading X the manga must be warned – the characterization in the manga is different. The character development is different. The events displayed in the movie either did not occur or are not in chronological order. As I stated earlier – it is best if you read X before you watch the movie. Distance yourself. Know the characters. Know who they are. Watch, watch without getting angry – watch it the “right way”, and you will enjoy it.

I know I did. I watched it and I don’t regret it in the slightest. I might even watch it again, if only for that beautiful art.

It's a classic. My love for CLAMP began with this movie. I saw it in 1997, in the manga con. I was overwhelmed. It's the best start of familiarizing oneself with X. Those who already read manga probably won't be delighted. It certainly lacks depths of characters and between characters - or, does it really? For me, the depth of Kamui-Fuuma relation was obvious from the very start, as well as of some other people, even if it was only slightly pointed at. Apart from this...

It's epic. Art. Psychology. Emotions. Despair, choices, fate, love, desire... Shattered glass, sakura petals, feathers, fire and water, holy swords ... and chosen ones. Dreams, above all. Struggling for a future.

Design is fantastic, much better than intv series. Music is... Well, I've never heard so psychedelic sound in any movie. It stays in your mind forever. The plot is so minimalist and so rich at the same time. And the end crushes you and leaves you unable to think or feel anything.

For me, X The Movie is a masterpiece and the best you can get from anime.

You know that maligned Rintaro adaptation of Clamp’s never-ending manga? The one that condenses the entire story in 90 minutes, and thus makes less sense than America’s gun regulations? I really love the thing. The anime. Not the fact that America has bad standards in terms of gun control.

You guys might say that the main reason for me loving this trash is related to how I love the type of post-apocalyptic story that makes up X, but I’ve shown in the past to be really harsh on premises that I like but don’t deliver – insert rant about how White Fox shows suck here. You ... could say that I know the characters and how things play out in actual story due to my love for the TV show – which I saw prior to seeing this – but I couldn’t get through the Diebuster movie despite loving the original OVAs, so that’s not a good answer either. I’m sure it helped though.

No, the main reason I love this movie is how it pulls off its badness with so much style. I compare the film to Guilty Crown in the title above because it does many of the same things that made the show work for its fans – irony or not be damned. It’s well-animated, has characterization so rushed that it feels like the plot was made up as it went, and goes to really dumb territory that you can’t help but become entertained by it, even if it’s just to laugh at it. Basically, everything that made that show loved by its fans condensed into a more tolerable 90 minutes. Does that paint enough of a clear picture for you?

If you’re one of those who’ve never seen Guilty Crown, let me elaborate further: I love the movie because it’s an epic mess treated with such seriousness to the point it’s hilarious, and has a beautiful visual style to please me as a fan of animation and make me overlook said plot deficiencies. In order to make the “epic war between those who want to save the Earth despite its imperfections and those who to destroy the Earth and build a new one” fit in such a short length, it kills off its characters quickly before you even get the chance to know them and doesn’t really look back on ‘em afterwards. The fights themselves are very well done, and the deaths involve a ton of blood and sometimes occur through beheadings. Hilarious beheadings. Try watching a character get their head chopped off and not laugh at the ridiculousness. The stuff in-between that cool stuff is full of your usual Clamp dialogue. I know some people aren’t a fan of that “Unmei! Kaihen!” stuff that the movie partakes in, but I personally thought the dialogue was enough to give you an idea of what was happening without really establishing anything. And really, a movie that relies mostly on stylistic action for its appeal doesn’t need that sort of establishment. If anything, that’d just make the film harder to sit through.

I’ve seen the movie three times and I think my affection for it increased each time. Still prefer the TV show despite the fact that it has the opposite problem of being too long, but god this thing was equal parts awesome and comedy gold. Decapitations usually are. Especially when the movie ends with a whiny douche crying at how his happiness is gone whilst cradling his best friend’s head. School Days has nothing on this shit.

To me, X the movie was far more enjoyable than the series, contrary to the belief of many viewers who will criticize on first thought what I just said

But this is true partly due to the f act that the (Shoujo) flair that was so prominent -and in my humble opinion- needlessly abundant in the variety of scenes in the series, was nearly diminished in the movie.

Truth is, I lamented -after seeing the movie- that the series was no so portrayed, but nothing is perfect, had the series been so much as close to the movie, the whole thing would have differed.

To me, it was ... unfathomable why people favored the series, and not the movie adaptation.

That being said,

Story:
The story represented a big part of the series, the tragedy of one's struggle against his destiny, which comprised two counterparts, the choice of raging against destiny, and the choice of accepting destiny as it is, and the conclusion in the end which is left to the viewer's sense of interpretation.

Art:
the art was so much entertaining, and (in my opinion) was much more enjoyable than the series, it felt explosive and unique to that era of artwork, considering the action scenes and the magical abilities and powers illustrated in the beautiful sprites portrayed on the screen.

Sound:
the audio was somewhat weird, not like the series which presented a wider variety of soundtracks in the intro and the scenes in the episodes themselves,
but it was that kind of weird that befits an eerily tragic atmosphere, being a middle-eastern man myself, I found it totally similar to an old Arabic movie which comprised tragedy as its major component.
so magical and strange in impact especially when the content was so much in tune.

Character:
just like the series, the characters were very much interesting, and though there were new characters introduced or missing from the series, the fact remains the same, which is that the plot takes place, and the tragedy circles all the characters in a twisted fashion appropriate to the main theme and main dilemma the series AND the movie approaches.


Enjoyment:
I truly enjoyed the movie, wish I could say the same about the series, which had it been away from the guy x guy heavy references, would have in my opinion a more literal impact on the world of anime show less
Read more at http://myanimelist.net/anime/595/X_OVA#QM7prWHMFOmRitOy.99

Yep, another wellknown classic anime movie that gets low ratings from kids that DON´T know about true art dammit! i get sick of it!. This movie was for me the 1st time very unexcpected and twisty by storyline, bought it on tape back in 1998. Clamp´s animation style kicked off with this movie worldwide and was moderatly praised, Good animation style nice 3/d scenes, very interesting charachter development. The internal struggle of some persons and supernatural fights involved are some of the best i´ve seen ever! and the dark turnaround of good and evil. just classic

The movie is a much better adaptation than the series. It has excellent storytelling, huge proportions, and one of the best endings of its time. The entire point of the movie is that human actions are ultimately pointless. Keep in mind that I saw the movie before the horrible anime series that was a complete betrayal. The movie is very dark and fatalistic, it is about the future being inevitable and human actions being insufficient to prevent it from coming about. Everyone who is pulled into this cycle of death and destruction in the never ending war between the Dragons of Heaven and the Dragons ... of Earth is killed, and they are killed simply so that their deaths can have no meaning. The only ones who ever know that some people died to save mankind from the people who died to try ending mankind are the ones who kill each other. For everyone else, life moves on as if nothing happened. All the loss is encapsulated and known only to Kamui. Kamui himself has only two goals, to protect his childhood friend Fuma and his childhood love Kotari. His choice to become a Dragon of Heavens is based on his desire to protect the only two things he cares about, his childhood friend Fuma and his childhood love Kotari and yet this very choice also dooms those two to die. Kamui must kill his best friend in order to protect his best friend. If he refused to kill his best friend then he would doom his best friend to death.

Or looked at another way, Kamui must choose to kill the only two people he cares about in order to protect the billions of people living in the world he doesn't care about. He must lose everything and everyone he has ever known in order for everything to stay the same. In that sense the story is as much about fatalism as it is about a misinterpreted prophecy. The actual eternal war between the Dragons of Heaven and Earth becomes merely the fever dream of a false prophet, a false prophet who sends out people to die simply so that everything can remain the same as it would had they not died. There is no eternal war, just 7 people who kill each other because they believed that a little girl could see the future. And the future she saw was simply them dying. Thus the locations she believes are the lynchpin they need to protect in order to protect Tokyo are actually the places were the two sides will kill each other. The prophecy is self fulfilling, but it wasn't a prophecy about dragons and some eternal war, it was just a prophecy about 14 people dying because of a prophecy about them dying.

The movie has many many levels to it. The tv series is mostly all surface.