Miyamoto Musashi: Souken ni Haseru Yume

Purged from the fiery embers of hell by Lucifer himself, one man descends upon the earth with no contrition for his ill-deeds. Piercing his sword through the entrails of his foes, as if he were preparing a buffet of human tripe for the consumption of blood-thirsty Ronin, this barbarous legend carves his tales with the blood of victory. Originator of the seven sword technique, and known throughout the land for shish kebab-ing twelve men with a single sword, his mere presence is enough to petrify a whole army of gun-wielding soldiers. And now, in his cinematic debut, he will bring his murderous ... ferocity to the big screen, where no man, no woman, no living creature will be secure from his savage zeal.

In the summer of 2019, Miyamoto Musashi is…..Tom Cruise, in the Last Samurai 2: F—k the guns, taste my sword b—tch!

Rated PG-47, for extreme ultra-violence.


With an assortment of exaggerated stories to his name (enough to make even Bruce Lee blush), Miyamoto Musashi has become a folklore legend, not to mention a source of great intrigue and inspiration. Mamoru Oshii, creator of Ghost in the Shell, understood the level of controversy surrounding the enigmatic samurai; thus, encouraging him to shed a light on the exploits that have been talked about for numerous generations. It is refreshing to see a director more willingly to acknowledge the truth (at least, the truth that can be verified through historical records), rather than acquiesce to a plethora of falsehoods, simply for the appeasement of the masses.

That all being said, however, the presentation of said material is utterly bizarre. The juxtaposition between gritty, hand-drawn animation and shoddy, three dimensional block figures is quite off-putting. It’s akin to putting a three-year-old’s scribbles next to Van Gogh’s, The Starry Night, it just doesn’t look eye-pleasing. This problem is exacerbated further by the shenanigans of the narrator and his mute assistant; which is a damn shame, because the mystery surrounding Musashi is captivating enough on its own merit, making the superfluous antics of the narrator look comically asinine.

Documentaries themselves, are usually tedious affairs, or, to put it bluntly: it’s the lazy man’s “reading” material. So why utilize a prosaic method of chronicling Musashi’s life, when the medium itself demands an artistic flourish. Look. If I’m going to watch a documentary about Musashi, then I'll watch a documentary about Musashi — not an anime with classical music to feign sophistication.

I haven't seen a worse anime movie so far, I don't mean that in a bad way, but the way it's done I mean the narration that there's an old guy animated telling someone else's story I really don't like that, I really like anime where there's a samurai story etc but with this one I turned it off after about 30 min or I would have fallen asleep, I would prefer if it was in the style of the character who lives it to tell the story, if we understand each other, and not that someone else tells it:(

nothing for me unfortunately