Ibara no Ou

Every now and then a manga well deserving of praise is adapted into a fairly mediocre anime; unfortunately King of Thorn is one of those adaptations.

The source material is six volumes long; a fine length to adapt into a film, and for the most part the pacing is handled with care. King of Thorn sees a colourful cast of cryogenically frozen characters awaken to a future ravaged by monsters. The introduction is well executed; it grabs your attention and gets you wondering. As the film progresses, it becomes rather typical of the survival horror genre, but the film exhibits a certain freshness as it isn't ... a genre often tackled in anime. Despite certain predictable elements, it's an enjoyable venture away from the norm. The film can't keep up the momentum, however, and the plot drops in quality nearing it's final act; it becomes more tedious than exciting as the story treads mind-boggling territory. Ultimately, the plot evens out as fairly average despite a promising opening.

The animation and art is reasonably well done, but certain aspects let it down. The backgrounds and characters are drawn in a traditional anime style, but the monsters are computer generated and don't blend particularly well with the surroundings. The detail is certainly there, the monsters themselves look the part, but attempting to blend two different art styles is often going to yield fruitless results. It's something you get used to as the film progresses, but ultimately it's something that could have been handled better. The more traditionally animated elements are wonderful, however. The visuals are crisp and clear, the Scottish scenery looks beautiful and the action is well drawn and choreographed.

The sound and music is probably one of the stand-out aspects of King of Thorn. The music is used appropriately and is generally impressive, as are the sounds of the monsters; sound editing is an especially crucial aspect in a survival horror, and is utilised well in King of Thorn. The music - or lack thereof at times - builds great tension and helps create an eerie, isolated atmosphere. The more upbeat tracks used during the action segments add a sufficient amount of drama and excitement.

The characters - given the runtime - are fairly well developed, minus a few who are there to up the kill count; such is the nature of a survival horror. The leading lady, Kasumi, does at times come across as a little irritating and certain character motivations and actions are a little puzzling. The characters are an adequate aspect of the film, but they fail to defy convention and never leave their moulds. At times they feel unfortunately underutilised.

Up until the final act, King of Thorn is an enjoyable watch, with a couple of picky elements here and there. The survival horror aspect is a welcomed change from most anime productions, but the ending is very hit-or-miss. There is merit in there - certain redeeming factors - but overall King of Thorn comes across as an enjoyable, albeit satisfactory film.

When watching the trailer for this anime film I had big expectations about what I was going to see. Here you have a sci-fi/thriller with killer virus threatening society, survivors trying to stay alive and mysterious monsters inhabiting the area of the last set of people. It sounds good doesn't it? Science fiction happens to be one of my favourite genres of films and on paper his anime adaptation has the potential to be great, however this is one of those films that have a good idea but the way it is executed leaves a lot to be desired.

The first part of the film feels ... good, the characters are unique and feel likeable and the way everything unfolds again feel just right. But as the film progresses and the true nature of the story comes out one feels starts to think differently about the film and by the end you'll feel like you were robbed. My main issue with the film was the story and the art. As I stated the film starts out fine but becomes tedious because of the speed of the film and focus on unnecessary people and there will be moments where you don't know where the film is going because of the pacing. In terms of the art the characters look good and the painted background look nicely detailed and suits the locations; however there is one fatal mistake that becomes blatantly obvious in certain parts of the film and that lies in the animation. At certain points the film tends to jump into the area of 3D animation with character models that look like they are cel-shaded and the movement looks terrible. The times when it switches are easily noticeable and just look bad.

The music isn't too memorable nor is it a soundtrack worthy of brilliance, it's decent enough as it adjusts to each situation and works on a whole. The characters in the films start of okay but then feel like they just be killed off because their credibility falls over time. The little boy provides humour in some places and while Kasumi feel like a likeable lass because of her shyness and care for her sister Shizuku, but through her memories and the way she acts I found her just to be a worrywart and lost interest after quite some time. In terms of how you'll enjoy the film is entirely down to your preferences really, fans of complex sci-fi films and maybe disappointed with end result purely because the film doesn't fully give you the experience that you felt that would. The feeling of loneliness, claustrophobia, isolation and danger is done well for the most part eventually it just feels tedious then exciting and thought provoking.

Overall the film is something that can be watched but just doesn't feel like it gives out what it planned to. It had all the right ideas and feels good for the first part but progresses questionably and leaves you feeling robbed at the end like you were expecting more.

So my opinions is based on the anime only: Overall, I felt robbed of 2 hours. If you do not mind having some sort of twisted development that leads kinda away from what seems like an obvious plot, then you can watch it. I HATE HOLES in logic, even if its ANIME FANTASY LOGIC, I enjoy tightly constructed story lines.

The art was decent, good enough action scenes, but the main character, honestly I sometimes question why almost half the anime world is made of main characters like this one. (weak, self righteous, adds nothing immediately to crew but somehow manages to survive past more capable ... characters) I also was more interested in HOW humanity would have cured the disease or WHO plotted it to be a bio terrorism weapon, not like oh let me show one character who seems to be in charge of this whole scheme, have that person monologue and then choose not to continue with life... to sum it up, if you have no idea what this is about, like me, do not expect anything because the beginning makes the story seem worth it and exciting, but it just trails into something where the end product didn't justify the time it took to watch it. The ending made me feel like the creators got tired or sick of their own story and found mediocre ways to finish it that didn't even suffice......

i gave high scores for the art, the sound, and some characters, but story and plot development and character development is most important to me, and this story lacked that... its strongest element is the suspense that later proves less than satisfying, and the action/art. With so much good anime out, this falls short of its stack.

Like buying a Popsicle or ice cream bar and after finishing it, you kinda are more angry with eating a below average food while wishing you spent the calories and money on something else.....

maybe the manga is much better as everyone else is saying, but after watching this, I don't want to spend time reading the manga even if it is better than the anime, because how much can it possibly deviate from the manga? Not enough for me to waste time to watch it -_- . Sorry King of Thorns! cool title and could have had potential.

This is an absolute abomination of the author's original work. Wow . . . I mean, just, wow. Don't get me wrong, my rating has nothing to do with the animation, or even the plot, since it is a good plot, but it's just NOT "King of Thorn." They should have either done A) justice to the original manga or B) made a totally different movie with different characters. Don't ravage such a fantastic story as "King of Thorn," just don't DO it!

It felt like, mmmm, like I started in the author's world, and then halfway through mad scriptwriters took over and threw in every ... stupid plot twist they could possibly imagine, all while stealing ideas from Studio Ghibli. The manga series has a discernible thread that actually makes sense. Fear plays a huge role in the way Medusa works, and Alice is a crucial, note CRUCIAL, character. Not to mention the actual VILLAIN, who has been totally IGNORED in the anime! I mean, seriously, half of this movie is "King of Thorn" and the other half is junk!

Oh, and the ending, how I HATE the ending! Ok, yes, I'm a romantic and I think Marco and Kasumi are cute together. He's really a great guy despite those terrifying tats and I LOVE him. I especially love, and spoilers here, that he lived through the manga! Somehow the scriptwriters thought, what, that having Marco live was too cliched? That having an actual villain for them to beat would never work? That, perhaps, doing the manga JUSTICE by having a twelve episode anime SERIES was too much to hope for. Argh, the frustration is killing me!

The only thing I like, and like is such a strong word, is having Marco and Kasumi animated. Wow, after two hours and all I like is those two characters are actually moving off the manga page, that tells me volumes of how CRAPPY this movie really IS!

Maybe someday we'll get lucky and they'll make it again, only RIGHT this time.

Encore!!

But next time in a form of 13×24 minutes long series, rather than a 90 minutes long movie.
To make it clear, how I was able to watch this movie ahead of you. Anilogue filmfestival is being held in Budapest and Vienna, and one of the premier movies was King of Thorn, and I managed to get my hands on a ticket ^^

Now back to the review.

As I mentioned first of, this was a really-really eventful movie squeezed in a very short 90 minutes.

Story:
... In 2015 a new virus called meduesa raises it's head and spreads worldwide, leaving noone alive who's caught by this epidemic.
However a pharmaceutical company, offers 160 choosen one to be put in deep sleep, to ensure their survival, until a cure is found. But something goes wrong, very wrong.
That's where the new story of The sleeping beuty begins.
And it makes you really want to know, what is different in this story, from the fairy-tale version. The princess has a lot more role (more [and maybe someone else], than you'd thought!! just wait until the last 75 minutes !!!), but the princes weren't cut out from the cast-list either...
The story would had had a lot more to tell about the circimstances, and the personalities of our "knights", "servants", "gatekeepers", but we'll have to be satisfied with the adventure and the princess' story int this short 90 minutes.

Art:
Sunrise Need I say more. Oh, yess!!! And I'm not saying this, because of my approvement.
The creatures were fit to be animated in CG, but, by some parts (mainly gunfights) are little crew went through a little CG-fication too, witch would had been acceptable, if it would have appeared only in gunfights, but somehow, they've put some of these technical solutions in simple dialogues, and running sceens, witch was a bit irritating, that they changed from one cut to the next into a blockhead, strife-haired, bottomless-pit mouthed characters. But it didn't kill the atmosphere, it was just, not unnoticable.

Sound:
Nothing to complain here (or I might be the stick-eared one). It reale made the atmosphere, what it ment to be felt like. Maybe at the end it was a bit more fittable for a Disney film's summit, but it didn't break the pot.

Character:
160 -153 killed right off leaving 3 knights (a former policeman, a prisoner [lookalike], a scientist) a fool, a maid etc.
As I mentioned before, they don't really develop, only our "princess", and maybe the 3rd "knight", maybe a bit by the "maid", but it's really regrettable that the movie was cut so short. So no big progress by the crew, manly just by the "princess"

Enjoyment:
Overall, it was great, but left me there with alot of other questions in the middle of nowhere. Okay, they weren't so cruicial, but I would had been really curious about the "who?"s, the "why?"s, the "how?"s. I really was amased by the climax (no not the flying thingy, but the "truth") of the movie, I've almost sh*t bricks. However the film was so short, it didn't have the time to develop, escalate, and expand itself so, that this climax would had a really Big-Boom effect. Still this climax one of the few WTF moments of my anime history.

Really good movie, but surely would had much more pontential, in a form of a 13 episodes long series.


Ps.: Note me on my profile, if you find grammatic glitches in the review, please. Thank you!

I must admit, at the start of this movie I was very excited. The plot held mystery and intrigue in spades and I very much wanted to see where the story led. It only took about 30 minutes for all of my hopes to slowly dissipate as... everything went wrong, slowly but surely. Amid a story with so much potential, the film kept adding twists and turns and plot in the most befuddling ways possible, turning it into a jumbled mess near the end that was comparable to watching a train wreck in slow motion.

The animation was, to be fair, certainly good enough. Nothing ... jawdropping, nothing eye-wateringly bad (except for certain CG parts near the end). What was unacceptable to me, though, was the absolutely awful cast of characters. In the English dub, the small child character was grating to the point of insanity, and many other characters barely served any function at all besides to artificially add tension to a scene with throw-away lines that establish vague identities and not much else.

In summation: this movie is a fever dream that I am glad I woke up from. Do not watch.

Story: 9
Honestly, I really loved this movie. It had me immersed from the first minute to the last, and while I can understand why some people dislike it over its "lack of logic," I don't agree. For the first half, or even first 3/4 of the film, it seems rather realistic, almost as if it could be an alternate reality to our own. Undeniably, it takes an unanticipated twist at that point--and one that I felt personally bumped my overall enjoyment of the film from an 8 to a 10--there was no doubt in my mind that the change of pace was, for my taste, ... a positive. With that said, I'm going to keep this review spoiler free, so that's about as far as my review of the story itself goes--I decided on a 9 for this section, just because the very beginning starts off a bit too slow for me, despite it being the general establishing opening.
Art: 8
I am NOT a fan of CGI, and this movie depends heavily on it. However, for the most part (aside from some of the cringy monsters), I really didn't mind it when applied to the scenes and even the characters. The speed of the action blurred the 3D models almost enough to make the CGI undetectable, if you aren't an enemy of it (like me), and it was certainly better than the usual MMD standard.
Otherwise, the hand drawn artstyle was somewhat generic, but definitely not something that negatively impacted the experience.
Sound: 10
I think that the soundtrack of this movie was picked perfectly. There are times, especially in flashbacks and in the conclusion of the film, that the outside noise is nearly or entirely muted, and the beautiful music has a moment to take over. Is it something most of us would listen to all by itself? Probably not. But it fit the scenes so while that doesn't even matter to me.
Character: 9
While there isn't anything extraordinarily spectacular about the cast, I really appreciated its diversity. At first glance, one might point the seven mains out as archetypes, but as the story progresses we learn that they REALLY aren't. The development is done well, even if it turns pretty entropic towards the end, and I wasn't left feeling like any of the character were familiar cookie cutters I'd seen before. All that having been said, working with seven characters does mean that certain ones were given, if not more screen time in this case, more attention. And THAT having been said, this extra attention was done somewhat subtly and I'd say was rather acceptable given the survivability of each character in the end (lol sorry I'm not trying to sound all weirdly sophisticated, I'm just trying my hardest not to spoil those major plot points).
Enjoyment: 10 (see Story for why...sorry I got lazy and need a snack)
Overall: 10

Everyone loves a good fairy tail, and most fairy tails often have darker origins than what anyone would suspect. This movie goes dark with a fairy tail back drop that tackles some interesting ideas but doesn't have the proper time to explore them thoroughly enough.

*WARNING, this review is from the perspective of someone who has not read the original manga.*

STORY: Mass disease is a damn frightening thought, no doubts about that. But one that turns you to stone? Oh shit! Talk about being "stoned to death."

..................................................................................

Ahem, anyways King of Thorns is a 110 minute movie made by Sunrise based on a manga series of the ... same name. And I'll go ahead and be honest and say that I really enjoyed myself with this movie, or rather I enjoyed thinking about what ideas this movie offered.
It begins with a mass media coverage of a virus called Medusa causing people to turn to stone in a mere 12 days, easily setting in a sense of dread for just about everyone in the world. While others will die eventually, a select group of people will be put into a cryogenic sleep at a castle like structure with the hope of a world cured of Medusa. Unfortunately they wake up prematurely to a new nightmare.
King of Thorns mostly works as a B-grade horror survival flick with some sci-fi properties. Many horrific beasts kill and slaughter the vast majority of the people that were asleep, leaving only a select few to fend against the monsters and escape from the castle.

The people among the survivors are as followed; Kasumi Ishiki, the main character of this movie and a shy and timid bespectacled young girl who lost her parents to Medusa leaving her and her twin sister to care for their selves. Marco Owen, your action super star and a criminal who won his way in through chance to be among those who will be in cryogenic sleep and knows more about what's going on than he's letting on. Ron Portman, an american police officer who also will be constantly bickering with his opposite on the justice system. Timothy Laisenbach, a young boy who can't help but to compare their dangerous situation to a video game he played. Katherine Turner, a woman who treats Timothy as her own child as he reminds her of her own child while providing the fairy tail back drop for this dark tale and several others that die soon after the massacre. Each of these characters have their own reasons for surviving, some more so than others, but each has their own compelling story behind them. Or at least I would think so...

The major problem with King of Thorns is a simple one: The lack of sufficient time. The lack of time to thoroughly explain certain plot points. The lack of time to put more development into the main group of characters, save for Kasumi and Marco, they get the bulk of the character development and screen time. And the lack of time put into details about certain plot points that will be left hanging. Surely what time it has is used as well as it could have been used, with the plot never derailing from it's focus or never stopping the pace to show decent action scenes, but this movie would have benefited more by being adapted into a 12 episode series instead.
Which leads into my second biggest grip about this movie, certain scenes were made in a way to prepare for the story's strongest point, a plot twist. Said plot twist makes this movies plot points tie into something unexpected but at the same time not something that was pulled out of no where making it plausible within the context of the film and not wasting any of the setups. Mainly because this movie makes sure you will see where all of it's scenes lead to, by practicably bashing your head in with hints and information. You will still need to pay attention without a doubt, but the lead up works like a double edged sword, making you anxious for what's to come and irritating you by making sure you see it coming and reminding you constantly.

There are some other nit picks I have with this movie (Like how Marco is a pro at doing the impossible), but the ideas and the plot twist at the end makes this a movie one I'd recommend, for at least the interesting ideas it comes up with.

ANIMATION: With Sunrise in charge of production, you can expect some nicely done and consistent animation with some really bad forced in 3D animation as well. The 3D parts are completely unneeded and will only take you out of the movie if it annoys you as much as it did me. The character design are good and well diverse, as diverse the world's population (Fortunately with a male teenager absent, we have more than enough of those in anime anyway).

SOUND: The background music is used effectively, and works wonders with the fairy tail back drop the story uses. While I didn't listen to the Japanese audio, I watched the new english dub by Funimation and they did solid job for the most part. While Brina Palencia does wonders for role as Kasumi with Patrick Seitz not falling behind her as Marco, Bob Carter is probably the weakest link in a dub that is filled with some awkward accents.

OVERALL:
The Mixed:
+/- Interesting ideas within. / Doesn't spend much time with needed explanations on certain plot details.
+/- Decent cast of characters. / Only the main leads get the most attention.
+/- Great plot twist at the end. / Practicably holds your hand and guides you to it by constantly remaining you how it gets there in the first place.
+/- Good english dub. / Dub is filled with accents that aren't particularly great.
+/- Good animation. / 3D animation that is obviously used to save on production.


The Bad:
- Marco performs the impossible on a regular basis.

I'd honestly would rather have a zombie apocalypse than face a crisis that can wipe out the human race, because at least we're ready for that since we get remained of how to act in a situation like that with all of the movies remaining us how not to act. Sorta how this movie shows you what to expect at the end...

I come into King of Thorn not having read the manga and had primarily been intrigued because of the animation studio behind the production.

King of Thorn is one of the rare movies that manages to pace itself very well, neither boring the audience or giving them too much of adrenaline rush. It's a film that unravels it's mysteries bit by bit without giving it all away.

Story: This is an unabashed survival horror title, it's got the genre's tropes down to a fine art, a facility over-run with thorns and weird creatures that attack survivors. But what's really great about the story of this movie is ... that they keep unraveling mysteries as time goes on, the revealing of these mysteries are done perfectly and they mix these well with the action sequences so that your not sitting around listening to someone explain everything and boring you to death. The only real problem with the story is that near the end it becomes incredibly confusing and you have no idea what is real and what is not.

Art: I want to make it clear the reason this gets a low grade is not because of the absolutely beautiful 2D animation and backgrounds, it gets it because of some really really shitty 3D Animation, There is no reason to have the human beings become 3D out of nowhere and then suddenly shift to 2D, it looks jarring and out of place. This is what really brings down the movie in my opinion, if they kept it to completely 2D, this would probably be a near masterpiece, instead it really harms the movie.

Sound: I watched this on English Dub, there are accents for all the characters except for Kasumi, Shizuka, Peter and Ron. The accents are perfect and are not out of place or take away from the story. Though at times I felt R Bruce Elliott's Italian accent slipped a little into Russian, however that's not as much of a big concern if you've watched the movie. The music on the other hand for this title is incredible, anytime a title makes you want to look up who did the scoring for it, you know you have good music. Toshihiko Sahashi did an incredible job with this soundtrack and payed great attention to detail with it, he included a little scottish flair paying homage to the locale of the Story.

Character: I really love the Characters in this story, when you have a film that makes you care about the characters and what happens to them, You generally want to see these characters survive the hell they have found themselves in. I really would like to go in depth on this but I'm not very eloquent when it comes to talking about other people. I think what I really like about this film is the character development regarding Marco, when you first see him you honestly think this man is an complete asshole but over time you really start to learn he is a flesh and blood human being like the rest of us and that he too carries around wounds of the heart.

Enjoyment: I absolutely loved this movie, I think I could definitely watch it again, if the animation could have just been fixed as well the ending just a tiny bit this may be one of the best Anime Films to have ever been made, I know I won't forget this movie.

Overall: King of Thorn has it's flaws, but it has some of the most beautiful 2D Animation and Music you will experience in your life.

When i first saw this i was frozen in awe. Then i realized that out of all the movies/television shows that i have seen this has got to be one of the greatest i have ever seen!

While there's some strong overlap here, the difference is that King of Thorn strikes me as a lot smarter. Or maybe it isn't really, and that's just my perception. Maybe I'm just overly impressed with the references to classical mythology and the psychological import of fairy tales ("Sleeping Beauty" plays a key part in the plot and imagery). More likely, I can't help noticing that while Pandorum starts ... sharp and gets more conventional on its way to its twist ending, King of Thorn gets decidedly brainier as it progresses to its impressive twist-upon-twist ending. (much like that of the movie inception)

Better still, nothing from the early parts of the film is ultimately meaningless, which helps redeem passages that at the time might seem random or precious. The weird yet intense relationship between a pair of twins, the usual assortment of character types thrown together (cute child, hunky bad boy, ext.), the overall trippiness of the setting/mood when they first wake up--all of it signifies something, and the end result is a conclusion which is strangely satisfying.

The survival horror genre is a mess these days. A lot of game and film companies try to have unique ideas for a survivor horror tale and most of them are hit and miss. The original manga King Of Thorn was a surprise hit and while it didn't perfect the genre, it did leave an impression to manga readers with it's compelling characters, crazy storyline and moments of true tension. Now the animators at Sunrise (Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass, Freedom and Steamboy) release their film adaptation to King Of Thorn. Now before I go on, I never read the manga (I'm not really a huge ... fan of mangas) but I will try my best with details that were changed in the movie.

The premise and ideas of King Of Thorn are incredibly unique but the problem is that the movie took a lot liberties with the material of the manga. They scrapped the backstories of the characters, the main antagonist Zeus did not appear in the movie and the ending was completely changed from the original story. For example in the manga, one survivor named Tim is a little boy who is mature and quite usable for the team but in the anime, he's a video game JRPG addict and HE'S COMPLETELY USELESS! These changes were just awful and really ruined the characters for me (minus the sisters though). We're talking about 7 people who must risk their own life to survive a place where thorns, a non-curable killer virus and monsters take over the place and what the writer did is scrap the emotional backstories of ALL characters. Also, important characters like Alice and Zeus were never used in the film since they did provide important story aspects in the original mangas. So yes, the changes to the characters and stories were inexcusable, they could have made this into a 3 hour anime film to provide us with emotional weight that these characters go through, character backstories and much story as possible. Overall, it makes the story convoluted as hell that it's too hard to appreciate the ideas that it offers for the viewers.

The animation by Sunrise is hit and miss. When it shines, it's in the 2D animation department. The detail is great, coloring and backgrounds look fluid look wonderful and the character models are nicely drawn well and on the miss, it's the 3D CG animation. My god... Why? It looked horrible and the monsters in CG form looked like they popped out of a PS2 game. Hell, the character models in CGi look very ridiculous. I think the reason for this is that Sunrise had a low budget to make this movie and they incorporated CG to save up some money for the marketing. Next time Sunrise, balance out the budget so that this doesn't happen again. For all my problems I have with this movie, does it make it awful? Of course not. There are a few positives I had with the movie. The sisters were handled very well in the movie and you do feel sorry for them for what they go thorugh and Kasumi goes through more hell than anyone can ever imagined. i also love the scenes with lots of tension and gore and the dubbing by Funimation was not that bad. Brina Palencia was perfect for the role as Kasumi giving that vulnerable side to the character and Patrick Seitz was convincing as Marco and the whole cast did a solid job on their perspective roles. Although the accents of each character can be laughably bad at some points.

If you're interested in seeing this, you might like this one as I did cause to be fair, it offers some great relationship moments with the twin sisters, great moments of tension and a nice dub provided by Funimation. However if your a fan of the King Of Thorn mangas, be very cautious with this one as it changes everything about the mangas including the backstory of all characters. Therefore, King Of Thorn is an interesting anime film with great ideas but with a very sloppy execution.

Have some mixed thoughts on this one. King of Thorn depicts a survival/ horror like story where several people put under cryogenic sleep due to being infected by a virus awaken to discover the institution they are at is covered in spiked thorns and swarming with violent monsters. On the plotting end, the series is effective for the most part in slowly building up its mystery surrounding what exactly is going on when Kasumi and the others awaken at the institution. Hints are scattered throughout the movie concerning what happened with some characters having hidden motives for their actions, some good and others are not ... so much. Some characters are fleshed out in exploring their pasts with their past traumas having a role to play in later events of the series, especially in the case of Kasumi when the shocking truth surrounding the origins of the virus and activity in the institution are revealed.

What does hurt the movie for me to a good extent is the pacing. The movie's events fly by a quick pace, which prevent any dramatic or suspenseful moments from encounters with the monsters or revelations from having time to sink in and allow for the maximum emotional impact to be felt by the viewers. In addition, some of the prominent characters in King of Thorn felt rather underdeveloped as either they had little depth or weren't given enough depth to allow me to connect with them fully. Also be warned, this movie can get quite violent at points as a number of characters die in very bloody ways thanks to the monsters they encounter.

The visuals for King of Thorn were also a bit of a mixed bag for me. The regular animation had a great amount of visual detail put into scenery and character designs, with subdued color tones going along well with the tense mood the movie wanted to give off. On the other hand, the CG animation used in the movie, while fluid in action scenes, sticks out like a sore thumb in many instances in its rendering of vehicles, the various monsters and even the characters during action sequences for some odd reason. In the case of characters, their rendering looked quite rough compared to their regular designs and were not as well-detailed.

But while having its issues with animation and pacing, King of Thorn is still a solid movie worth killing two hours to watch through thanks to its plot buildup concerning what led to the institution inhabited by Kasumi and others to become a hellish place they have to survive through.

For some reason King of Thorn feels like a broken rollercoaster; At first you think it's gonna be the best thing ever, it takes you higher and higher - only to stop at the top and leave you somewhat disappointed. King of Thorn doesn't have the required and exciting downfall of a rollercoaster to be called a masterpiece.

STORY:
The most disappointing and yet most impressive thing about this movie is the story. It actually IS very, very good, but only in the beginning. Or, let's say, throughout the first half of the movie. Then it gets unnecessarily complicated - I still don't get everything. It would've ... been perfectly fine if they would've left out some of those many, too many twists. But there are also many enjoyable moments that caught me off guard. You know these moments when you think, okay, it cannot get any worse than this - and suddenly it gets MUCH worse? This movie is full of it, and THAT I liked.

ART:
The art is very fluent and enjoyable. It's a mix between rather unspectacularly animated characters/objects and some 3D elements.
It makes everything a lot more interesting for the eye to watch.

SOUND:
Throughout the whole movie there are parallels to Sleeping Beauty. Not only does a character from the movie serve them to you by narrating the fairy tale itself; The music actually makes you believe you're in a fairy tale. It wonderfully mixes with the dark setting, leaves a bittersweet taste. Simply beautiful.

CHARACTER:
The characters all have their own surprising little secrets, which sooner or later are revealed. But it feels like it's not enough. I wished for more background information to each character to be able to better understand them. Which sadly, I didn't all the time. As for the main character, Kasumi; Especially for her I hoped to get a little more information. There are some flashbacks, each time longer than before, and each time delivering you another piece of a puzzle to put together. But as I said; You don't really know enough about the characters to be able to do so. But, even if the characters won't make a lasting impression on you, they're not unlikeable.

ENJOYMENT:
I was plagued by lots of WTF - moments. But as I said, I enjoy those very much. :D There are also few but very well placed shock moments. And blood. ;)

OVERALL:
If you wanna watch a good, in its storyline very twisted movie, I would recommend it to you any time. But if you easily get confused by these kinds of movies, you should avoid this one. You might only be frustrated after watching it. As for my part, I admittedly WAS confused. But it left me thinking about it, about the possibility for something like this to actually happen someday. Scary and fascinating at the same time.

Also, I once had this strange thought, the exact same as it was mentioned in the movie but long before I watched it. SPOILER; What if we're all just a dream or imagination of only ONE living being? This thought still freaks me out and I love the movie for addressing it. :>

So perhaps I am the only one, but I found this quite good. I'll touch on a few points as to why;

First, I have not read the manga so I have no point of reference in that regard. So from that standpoint this is a really good standalone movie that is done very well in a lot of ways, and I think it is unfair to compare the two as written material versus any kind of visual adaptation are often very different for a variety of reasons not the least of which is that many things that can come across great in a novel (or ... manga, as the case may be) do not do so well when translated into a visual format like a movie so many times changes do have to be made.

Second, I actually liked that there was a mix of the traditional anime style and the CGI monsters. Other animes have pulled this off in spectacular fashion, and I think it was done so very well here. It made the things from one part stand out from things in another part.

Third, while the story was confusing and it may be worth reading the manga to get the full version I think for what it was it was told well. I was very surprised at the ending that I absolutely did not see coming, and at the end I kind of had to do a run through in my head to recount the movie and realize how it all ties together. In that particular aspect it's worth watching at least twice for that alone, to notice the little things you didn't the first time with the information at the end at hand.

Finally, overall I thought this was wonderful. A great adaptation of a classic fairy tale with a little bit of a sci-fi element to it and a twisting flair that isn't found much these days. If you read the manga chances are you won't like this, but if you haven't then it's worth the watch because with nothing to compare it to I sincerely think this was great.

I read the manga and did not like it that much because i found it too convoluted and it didn't make any sense. The character development suffered because of this and i was unable to feel the same emotional attachment that i do in the movie. The movie, whilst deviating from the manga, served to slightly make up for it and was much more simplified. The art style for action scenes kind of took away from the overall experience but this may be because i myself am not a huge fan of CG. Overall, i found myself being more immersed and invested in the movie ... than the manga because i found that it was more of a cohesive plot than the manga and it was much more simplified. I would watch it again once in a blue moon to enjoy the nostalgia i suppose but not avidly as this is only a 7 for me. The ending left quite a bit of questions for me as it did not address some pre-existing issues like the virus and there were more than a few plotholes during the movie. But i did enjoy it and for me that's all that matters in the end.

When i started to watch Ibara no Ou i didn't really have any expectations expect the fact that i probably going to like it. In the beginning everything was there a killer virus that turns everyone into stone and people who are put to cold sleep to wait a cure and suddenly when they wake up everything has gone haywire. The story started really great at the beginning but at some point in the halfway it didn't really go the way i was expecting and that somewhat turned me off. The story about how everything happened was for me somehow really rushed off. Still i ... watched it to the end and it was very good entertainment for the whole time of 1,5h even thou it could've done better. It really started good and to the end it just kinda dropped little.

This anime turned out to be surprisingly good.

It is two hour long movie about the world where a strange diseases arrives in human worlds, and slowly turns people into stone. Somebody tries to invent a countermeasure for it, but things do not really go as expected.

I have not read the manga, but from anime perspective alone it is a very solid horror/action movie, that becomes more dream-like and surreal as it goes on. Music is great, and shines in situations where the anime doesn't try to make characters talk. I would say it resembled me Gyo, in its atmosphere.

Detailed breakdown below.

Story: 6/10
The story has weak ... points when the anime stops action and lets character interact with each other. Character interaction is a bit awkward and is not that believable. IT also spends plenty of time setting up the events into full motion, but once it is done with talking parts it becomes more and more surreal and symbolic, acquires a bit of dream-like atmosphere and greatly enjoyable. I really liked later half of the moive.

Art: 7/10
Highly detailed backgrounds and fairly solid overall, however, there instances where certain creatures are done using CG, and it is noticeable. Basically, CG is not horrible, but it doesn't perfectly blend with hand-drawn parts, like it was done, for example, in Seikai Suru Kado or Sidonia no Kishi. So, the CG parts stand out. Having said that, realistic character proportions and decent amount of detail help a lot.

Sound: 7/10:
Some wonderful and fitting music in the later half of the anime, which contributes to the atmosphere.

Character: 5/10:
In the 2 hour time window there's not much time for proper character development, and in situations where characters do interact with each other it is not really convincing. It is not really horrible, but it isn't that well done, and this anime works better when characters are going somewhere, running for something, etc. I.e. during movement/action parts.

Enjoyement: 7/10:
I liked it. It started as a decent anime with some action and horror, and in later segment it became enjoyable due to more surreal atmospehre.

Overall: 7/10:
Definitely worth a watch. There are very brutal scenes, but it doesn't try to go over the top with on-screen gore, like some titles do. The atmosphere is interesting, and enjoyable, and in conjuction with nice music, later halves turned out to be very enjoyable.

I definitely recommend watching it.

Notes to Self:
TL;DR: The plot is very interesting, the only problem is the way they executed it. Characters were too naive and the ending 30min felt rushed, main characters died with no shock factor. Would have been better in a 13 episode series but works well in a film format. Interesting reference "Miracles don't happen without wishes" ties into the plot...

Notes while watching:
Spoilers****


plot seems interesting, the film begins with a lot
of promise an outbreak
leading to a seemingly worldwide apocalypse.
... Little too many unnecessary flashbacks.

characters are so naive, e.g Kasumi is screaming her head
off to the developer yet he says nothing and dies.
They could have both lived if he told her to shut up
considering the creatures sense based on sound, surely
moving away from the source of the sound should be enough
to avoid being captured.

Inconsistent mechanics, creatures are attracted to sound
yet still chase characters running that aren't making any
sound.

OR

characters know the creatures detect based on sound alone

LOL the blonde female character literally shouts "BOY"
in front of the f*cking creature. Why are they making
these characters so stupid, surely you wouldn't yell
in front of a monster that detects sounds. Also
in that scene how can they determine which sound to
follow when the whole place collapsing produced more
sound than character dialogue, so many plot holes and
unexplained mechanics.

When she finds the camera on the ground outside of the
castle, she doesn't take it with her to explain to
the other characters because she's naive. She also
goes inside the castle with no explanation to any
of the characters thus endangering them and herself
for no reason.

Other characters leave in a helicopter which is such a
dumb decision, they know that their aircraft will get
striked down by thorns yet decide it's a good idea
to get into the air and endanger themselves for no
reason.

great, the f*cking blonde has to add on to the
endangerment by holding the gun to the guy who's flying
the helicopter's head.

~And I called it, the weapon she had in her hand literally
misfired and hit the helicopter dashboard... ffs

too much unnecessary dialogue...

Solid anime sci-fi/horror film with very good animation, likeable characters and genuine thrills. The first half is top-notch stuff, with a phenomenal set-up and an even better follow through, but the second half gets a bit bogged down in nonsensical exposition and an attempt to make the film more profound than it needed to be, resulting in some convoluted and muddled plot threads.

To clarify though, things never get too confusing not to be able to follow, but the first two-thirds of the film are so straight-forward and well executed that I didn't feel like it needed to go in the direction it did. This ... would have been better off as a "dumb" genre flick instead of trying to be intellectual, and considering no one is complaining about anime classics like Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D being true to what they are, this would have been fine going that route as well. Not everything has to aspire to be Ghost in the Shell. I would have probably rated this higher if it had a different final act, but it's certainly not a deal-breaker, and is still well worth checking out.

I’ve always been fascinated with survival type of stories and the same reason why I’ve been in love with “Resident Evil franchise”. Not only it always comes with the too much thrill of staying alive while fighting monsters or staying sane amidst the confusion but it always has that mysterious and twisted plot that will reveal at the end of the story.

The story was about a set of people who were bewildered by what they saw around them after waking up in a supposed long sleep. They didn’t had enough time to think because they had to stay alive from the mysterious monsters that ... lurked around the facility they were kept. Not only they had to survive but they also had to figure out what happened to the world while they were asleep and just how long they’ve been sleeping.

This movie exceeded what I was expecting from it. It’s not just a survival type of story that has a mysterious and twisted plot but it has a strong psychological touch which revealed at the end of the movie. You will be confused and puzzled after every revelation and so you really have to finish it to really understand the whole storyline.

The animation was superb which to be expected considering it was done so recently. Accompanied with a nice soundtrack, this movie was definitely worth to watch.