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Mar 23, 2018
This is an odd one. The series started off with an interesting idea about a college student who after one bad date ends up as a half-ghoul forced to consume human flesh to survive. As a horror premise that’s pretty boss. How is he going to come to terms with this and what corrupting effect will this have on him? They certainly do go in for questions like that, but a lot of the series is focused on the sins of prejudice, which is where things seem to go off the rails a bit. I get that people who consume human flesh to survive would
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be persecuted, but is that actually as morally outrageous as they make it seem? I mean, having the heroic ghouls only scavenge their food from suicide spots and elsewhere does provide a nice moral ambiguity, but most of the ghouls genuinely go around murdering people and eating them. Not just random people either, these ghouls tend to prefer targeting people they know or feel an attachment to. Friends in other words, or lovers. And how twisted is that? What it comes right down to is that I didn’t think the ambiguities worked very well since I take the view that murder for food or pleasure is wrong (controversial, I know) and many of the scenes where we’re meant to empathize with unrepentant killers left a sick taste in my mouth.
But hey, it’s a horror anime. It’s supposed to be twisted. And viewing it from that perspective it works rather well. Mostly. The adapting to survive in his new environment is suitably gruesome and the treatment of his emotional journey was at least sensible. Figuring out who to trust is also a big concern. So until the ending I was onboard with this idea. That said - it’s not a great ending. Aside from ending mid-battle, the finale was filled with pointless and shocking violence that served no real purpose. And by the end the decent lead’s entire personality has been shredded away leaving only a beast in its place. Delightful. What a reward for finishing the whole thing. I watched the first episode of season two and it only gets worse from there. A terrible end to a series that worked better than it had any right to.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Mar 23, 2018
This is a series about death and the effect it has on the living. I’ve seen anime that deal with death before. Actually, I’ve seen a lot of anime that deal with death before. But what makes this one different is how it focuses not on one person’s struggle to find meaning again, but on the devastating effects it has on a group of friends. After Honma’s tragic death her social circle basically disbanded, everyone going their own separate ways and dealing with their grief in different unhealthy ways. Jinta’s the most extreme case, living now as a listless shut-in, but everyone else struggles in
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their own way from running away to foreign lands to actually buying similar clothes to feel closer to her.
And it goes even deeper than that because these guys also have to deal with their feelings of inadequacy and guilt. Honma was the popular one who everyone loved. And this means that there was a rivalry among the boys and jealousy among the girls. And now that she’s dead they can’t admit to those feelings without feeling like awful human beings. Instead they take it out on each other and on themselves.
I really enjoyed the social dynamics here. The characters really felt like an old group of friends who’d lost touch with each other. And their individual reactions felt genuine. It’s a hard thing to pull off. The progression throughout isn’t a straightforward one of moving on from loss. The fact that Honma is back, and worse that she’s only visible to Jinta, just makes everything worse. The guys get jealous of Jinta’s new closeness and Jinta starts to feel like he can hang onto Honma even beyond the grave. And while they are uniting to sent Honma on her way these fissures are also tearing them apart.
I really liked all the characters here, with one exception. Unfortunately it’s a big exception. I found Honma impossibly annoying. She’s got a lot of that irritatingly helpless kawaii that Japan loves so much, but she’s also childish beyond all belief. I get it, she’s the ghost of a child (though somehow she’s still aged) but even for a child she has no attention span, does stupid things, and always has to be the center of attention. It gets very annoying. And that is a big problem because for the story to really work you have to fall in love with her a little. The depth of the other characters got me over that hurdle, but it still rankles. The final episode is also unimpressive. I mean, it was fine. It just could have been more. I’m not really surprised that what she needed was something so small and childish, but the emotional climax of the show should have been more engrossing than just checking off points on a list.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 23, 2018
I’m not entirely certain what the point of this anime was. It presents itself as a more realistic version of mechs in space, which is potentially appealing, but more ‘realistic’ seems to mean that it just drops the insane action sequences that makes mech shows so absurd/fun in the first place. And in its place they put... nothing. Nothing at all. The show feels like an empty shell.
It’s not like there’s nothing positive to be said about the series. The starfighter squad sometimes works in a vaguely Battlestar Galactica way. By toning down the extreme personalities they provide an opportunity for a more serious look
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at what life as a combat squad is like. In space. But like so many of their good ideas they just waste it. In fact, I’m going to list all the good (or at least potentially good/interesting) ideas and what they do with them:
Humans have been engineered to survive mainly on photosynthesis.
Used to make Toyosaki’s nonphotosynthetic eating habits stand out. And nothing else.
Dead people are recycled for... nutrients I guess?
Toyosaki’s vaguely scared by the idea.
The ship’s acceleration requires people to hook onto walls or be thrown to their deaths.
We do actually get a pretty cool action scene out of this.
There’s an entire ocean above them.
They use it to go on dates. And nothing else.
There is a third gender now.
Goes absolutely nowhere. Not even a romance really.
It’s not a show devoid of ideas, just one that goes nowhere with them.
The animation is weird and takes a biit of getting used to. It basically looks like a JRPG, with digital characters being manipulated to act out scenes. I suppose it saves them the money they’d have to use to correct these designs digitally, but it does look odd. Characters look identical as part of the efforts at “realism”. Everyone has black hair and a typical anime face. Except the villain and one random girl. Honestly, I can only tell the two main girls (or rather one girl and one third gender) apart by the size of their breasts. It’s that bad.
The plot is typical mech stuff. An evil alien race destroyed Earth and is now chasing the surviving ships. Sidonia is one of those ships and the inhabitants have found a way to kill the enemy using mechs armed with a rare type of metal. The fight scenes are brief and basic. Extreme fight mechanics have been erased. This means that there’s never any real thrill to the battles. Sometimes this approach leads to interesting ideas, like an entire episode spent trapped in space in a powerless mech. More often it just means interminable dialogue that establishes nothing.
I dunno. I wanted to like this but I couldn’t even make it through the first season. It just didn’t have any substance. And without substance and without mindless fun... what’s the point?
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Mar 18, 2018
This is a series that’s never what it seems. When you turn it on it seems to be an odd mix of Psycho Pass and Death Note. It’s obvious that the series is going to be a police procedural with a quirky and antisocial cop chasing after a supernatural demon boy who hunts serial killers. Except that it isn’t. The hunt is pretty perfunctory and they drop it as soon as they can. Same with the serial killer-hunting stuff. The detective and the boy aren’t even fierce opponents, they just happen to be following different plotlines. The boy’s story isn’t what you expect either. From
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someone hunting killers you expect a strong moral desire to inflict vigilante justice. Turns out that’s just a coincidence. He’s really killing specific people (who just happen to be engaged in murder) to send someone a message. I can’t say what that is without giving things away. Basically, most of what you think you know at the beginning is wrong, particularly when it comes to the direction things will take.
Normally I’d be praising such unpredictability, but when you put it all together it’s a jumbled mess. None of the stories work together. The magic boy is hunting for someone in the hands of a massive supernatural organization with ties to the government. The detective is hunting a human serial killer who murdered his sister for personal reasons. Completely different enemies with completely different motives. There’s no mesh. And when they do briefly manage to force the storylines together it’s ridiculously contrived. And soon they go their separate ways again, except now they don’t even pretend that they’re connected. This attempted connection leads to some of the worst exposition I’ve ever heard. Both boy and man explain to us the complicated story that takes what looked like an everyday police procedural with superhuman villains (normal!) and takes it straight down the rabbit hole. It’s crazy stuff, made worse for not fitting in with the more serious elements.
With a series this inconsistent characterization is going to suffer too. They’re so busy rewriting the series away from the police procedural setting that they have precious little time to waste on characterization. And just to make the brief linking of the boy and detective stories work they need to make some serious narrative leaps and irrational character choices. The boy Koku never really recovers from this. His backstory is so monumentally stupid that it’s hard to take him seriously once you know it. After some early attempts to expand his character by showing his skill with musical instruments and their repair they drop all personality and just use him as a tool for action scenes. Oh, and he loses any intelligence he may once have had and goes into the final boss fight with the worst battle plan I’ve ever heard.
Detective Keith fares rather better. He’s a sort of cross between L and the entire department of Psycho Pass. A pretty typical loner detective in many ways, he’s rude, direct, sees patterns where nobody else does, and is an absolute failure at everything else. Where he stands out is his puppetmaster qualities and generally detached personality. Somehow it’s less irritating when he does his own thing without explanation than when most anime characters do it. At least he’s convincingly able to act like he has a plan. This doesn’t make his forced backstory any less silly, but he’s always fun to watch regardless. The less said about the villains the better. Their motivations (such as they are) are tied to Koku’s and make no sense at all. Indeed, they could have ended the entire series at the halfway point and it would have made a whole lot more sense.
The art is at least pretty. The series is set in the fictional European nation of Cremonia, an archipelago kingdom of modern cities, medieval castles, and pointy islands. It looks stunning, although I find it rather odd how little they seem to want this. The mid-series battle takes place in a random Buddhist temple and from that point on they seem determined to hide the visuals indoors or in a series of caves. Character design is a mixed bag. I like Keith, who looks a lot more realistic than most anime protagonists (he could step right into an episode of CSI) but I find Koku to be bland and boring, in whatever form he takes. The rest are a mixed bag. Some are good, others are generic. Only the villains stand out as hideously over-the-top. The realistic and exaggerated styles really don’t mix well here. You can actually tell which plot line a character is a part of by their visual style.
Be warned: the series is rather gruesome, with numerous deaths and tortures happening onscreen. It’s a bit exploitative in nature. Oddly, this cruelty doesn’t extent to anyone we actually care about. The show’s surprisingly protective of its leads. Less so the killers, who suffer more deaths due to random murders than they ever do from our heroes.
I did enjoy the first half of the series, before it switched from police procedural to I don’t even know what. The basic dynamics of the police department were interesting and the setting seemed fresh as well. But it quickly burns out its promising elements and tries to fit a lot of irreconcilable elements together into a single plot. If it had just chosen one (Keith’s story ideally) it could have been fine, but they tried to do too many things and ended up undermining themselves. Ah well, at least it’s short.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 17, 2018
So this show is a thing. I didn’t really know what to expect from a show whose basic premise is that the lead character is so powerful that he literally destroys his enemies with a single punch. I mean, doesn’t that make for awfully boring fight scenes? They’ll be over in seconds and there can be no doubt about the outcome or clever tactics to achieve it. And that is broadly true of the series. The only way they can have their long drawn-out anime fight scenes is by having Saitama absent or just presenting a horde of faceless goons. The secondary cast is likeable
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enough that you worry about them in a way you never worry about Saitama. And they have a series of hilariously ridiculous reasons for keeping Saitama away, ranging from a sale at his favorite grocery store to getting lost in the villain’s lair.
But the fact that they need to come up with these inventive reasons just underscores how limiting a factor Saitama’s nigh invulnerability is. It would be a pretty stupid feature to have if it served no narrative purpose. Fortunately, they get a lot of mileage out of Saitama’s boredom with life. His motivation to be a hero isn’t to save the world or anything, he does it as a hobby. Which means that the ability to defeat anyone in a single punch is immensely frustrating. Unsurprisingly, this makes him rather eccentric and gives him a skewed set of priorities. His extreme competence at beating people up is matched only by his inability to do anything else. He knows nothing about how superhero society works and doesn’t even have a basic curiosity about his surroundings. In general, he’s a mundane guy who cares most about the boring everyday tasks of life.
With a detached and unmotivated hero as the lead the sidekick is obviously going to serve as his motivation and foil. And Genos doesn’t disappoint. A teenage cyborg with a laser arm, he takes life and superheroing immensely seriously, often copying down every word his master says as if it contains profound wisdom. He also has a tendency to overexplain everything and confuse his simpleminded mentor. They don’t really do much with Genos yet in terms of driving the plot. I suspect that next season will see more of this.
This series is just plain fun. Saitama is a great character and the supporting cast is fun too. The situations are completely ridiculous and the parody elements are funny. But it also works well as action scenes.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 17, 2018
I am curious about light novels (a pretty uniquely Japanese thing which we’d probably classify as young adult novels) so I thought I’d give this a go. This novel is a collection of side stories connected to the events of Your Name and as such doesn’t really tell a coherent story of its own. But that’s fine. I enjoyed the film and was curious to see what parts they expanded on. The film had a lot of room for expansion I thought, particularly in the early days. The bodyswapping story seemed ripe for all sorts of incidents surrounding their insertion into unknown yet preexisting social
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connections. And it didn’t last long enough to my mind.
But here lies the mistake in my interest: this book by necessity follows movie continuity. All those interesting avenues to explore were alternate routes that the film could have taken. Which means that there is actually very little left for them to do with the concept beyond expand on the secondary characters. And so that’s what we get. The entire book takes place in Itomori. We get to hear from most of Mitsuha’s family (her sister and father) as well as her friend Teshi. All these stories basically say the same thing: Mitsuha’s acting weird; what should we do about it and how should we explain it? While it interesting to learn more of these people’s backgrounds and characters, I don’t feel particularly thrilled by anything I’ve learned. It doesn’t help that it isn’t so much narrative as stream of consciousness thoughts.
The first chapter is closer to what I expected this book to be. It tells the story of Taki in Mitsuha’s body trying to pass as her. The film was mainly experienced from her POV for the first half so we missed a lot of this stuff. But in truth, there’s nothing very interesting there. Taki likes feeling her breasts. What a revelation. He doesn’t know how to put on a bra. He struggles with the idea of avoiding conflict. He’s afraid of what she’ll do to him if he steps at all out of line. All of this stuff seems pretty obvious. And unimpressive. This is again the limits set by the film impeding any sort of creative expansion. I hadn’t realized before reading just how little there was left unexplored by the film.
This book verges on spoiling the film by making it seem emptier than I thought it was. We saw literally everything of interest on screen and there was nothing worthwhile that we missed. I’m not exactly sad I read it, but I’m certain that I’ll never look at it again. It just doesn’t add enough to make it worthwhile.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Mar 17, 2018
After years of hearing Clannad: After Story described as the best and most powerful anime of all time I was understandably curious. When I watched Clannad and found it merely okay I assumed that all the good stuff was coming in After Story. And after watching that I’m still confused as to why this series has the reputation it does. Don’t get me wrong, the series is fine. There aren’t an enormous number of things wrong with it. But conversely I found there was little to recommend it either, nor did there seem much to set it apart from other high school-themed anime.
The one original
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idea they did have that I thought was excellent was taking the high school drama and extending it past high school into young adulthood. That was a brilliant idea full of pathos and sadness, for graduation means the loss of all your friends and a whole way of life. The real world is a much less free and forgiving place, and the series did a good job of showing that. Or at least the latter half of the series did. This means we say goodbye to all the schoolmates except Tomoya and Nagisa. No more hanging out in the club room or around town, no more acting crazy and being irresponsible, no more amusing practical jokes... These were the elements that made the show come alive, and abandoning them was a bold step. And it’s one that mostly worked. Instead of comedy and hijinks we get drama and a look at moving on and what it’s like to build your own life. This is something that’s rarely dramatized in anime. And when it shifted in this direction I thought I could see why it’s got the reputation it has.
And then comes the point where they decided that this just wasn’t enough. Suddenly everything comes crashing down at once and they start throwing one nightmare after another at Tomoya. Clannad has a reputation as a tearjerker and I can see why, but none of this felt earned. It felt as if they had a list of awful things they wanted to put in and then just threw them together one after the other. It’s not that nobody suffers this much, it’s that this seems to come so utterly out of left field and takes a relatively light-hearted comedy and turns it into a story of complete hopelessness and despair.
And then it ends.
Alright, there’s an OVA afterwards that erases the whole thing in an act of astonishingly lame wish-fulfillment, but the whole thing remains astoundingly bleak. And it’s not that there’s no place for bleak, it’s just the complete absence of hope after teasing us time and again that feels so maliciously cruel. Or more accurately, it feels exploitative and forced. They want you to be reduced to tears, and will do whatever it takes to get you there. And what gets sidelined are the parts that I did find interesting: the struggle of moving on and adapting to a post-school life. Of starting a family and changing into an adult. But nope, it’s now a torture porn-fest. Jesus.
It’s not that I don’t like tearjerkers. Your Lie in April is among my favorite anime of all time. But if I’m going to care I need to see the tragedy as a natural progression of the story. And the natural conclusion of a high school comedy romance with haremesque elements is not the hopeless death of everyone who matters. It just doesn’t follow naturally, though I will concede that the spend a few good episodes trying to manage the tonal shift. Angel Beats somehow managed to pull off a similar shift, but then I cared about those characters more and the whole purgatory thing always left you a bit uncomfortable. With this one I found it forced and intellectually acknowledged all the horrible things happening rather than feeling it in my gut. That’s not the position you need to be in for this to work. I’m also not sure I’ve ever seen a tearjerker work that didn’t include at least some element of hope. This one had none, except for that stupid OVA which rewrote the fundamental laws of the universe. That’s not an emotionally satisfying solution either.
This series did have its good elements. The post-graduation adjustment to everyday worklife was good and something I’ve not seen in anime before. The gradual decrease of fun and increase in obligation is one of the stronger elements in the series. The highs school hijinks were fun, although I think the arcs in Clannad worked better than these ones. And I do enjoy Tomoya, although his liveliness isn’t of a sort that can really flourish outside of school. But I never really found myself engrossed in the character arcs and I don’t really care for Nagisa. Her family’s great, but she herself is bland as molasses. The last few episodes are designed to make you cry, but I could never get over the obviously exploitative nature of the design enough to really feel it. In all, I think I liked the first series better. This one is fine, but it’s really nothing special. I don’t get it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 14, 2018
There are series out there that just kick your heart’s ass, and the worst of these are the ones that don’t even have the decency to come in through the front door with gloomy visuals and an obviously tearjerker setting. Which is my slightly bitter way of saying that this series will crush your heart by surprise and leave you in tears despite being mostly a comedic and silly romp in a strange afterlife where nobody can die. My God, when a series teeters between lighthearted comedy and ALL THE FEELS it should not succeed at both as well as this one does. Even six
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years after watching it for the first time, just hearing the main theme sets my heart fluttering and seeing clips makes me turn the channel in terror.
What I mean to say is that this is a very emotionally powerful anime that will stick with you through the years. It is also a lighthearted farce. Both elements arise from the purgatory they all find themselves in, which means that nobody can die permanently (consequence-free OTT deaths are funny) and gives them all a reason to hate God or whoever put them in this unchanging and regimented fake high school. Conversely, having no permanent consequences means that (after)life has no purpose and they all have real reasons to resent their lot in life (flashbacks can be so cruel). A big part of the emotonal kick is the fact that the series’ tragic aspects only really get developed later on as we grow to understand more about this world and its purpose. We grow attached to these silly and lively characters only to find that they have suffered things that no one should suffer. The scent of death is never far away, even in the comic scenes, and by the end this grows to be oppressive.
Any series described as “tearjerker” runs the risk of seeming exploitative, especially when it has such powerful tonal shifts. I didn’t find this exploitative at all, although I would understand it if people did. While the real tearjerker stuff comes later, they are clear from the start that all these kids are dead and trapped in a strange purgatory. From a premise like that it’s actually the comedy that’s so surprising. The final episode will likely be divisive on this front as they do throw in one last minute revalation that seems unfounded in what came before. I think it still works, although I was rolling my eyes when the moment came. But even if you think it’s rubbish, the rest of the episode still hits an emotional spot that really hurts. So there is that. But still, a powerful series with emotional heft. Worth seeing if you have enough tissues.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 14, 2018
The movie has a great concept about people from two civilizations which fall in opposite directions. The idea of essentially falling upwards (from both perspectives) is unique and leads to some truly inventive scenarios where both Age (an unfortunately confusing name in English) and Patema have to hang on to each other and use their weight to become essentially weightless. It’s helped along by some excellent animation.
Unfortunately, that one idea is really the only compelling and original element in it. Patema’s people are fairly typical tribesmen living in underground caverns. We don’t spend all that much time with them. Age’s people are living on the
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surface in a dystopian fascist society that suppresses all independent thought and loaths the idea of inverts (people who fall away from the earth) so much that they aren’t even permitted to look upwards. It’s a sterile and unwelcoming place, and while they do convey that in a wonderfully stark utilitarian way it doesn’t exactly draw you in. Indeed, every appearance of the city makes you want to see even less and get back to the beautiful natural and magical world of flight. Maybe that’s the point, but it’s just not very engaging.
It doesn’t help that the leader is a gross caricature of every bad trait a human can have. The sheer glee with which he does evil things just to be evil is amazing. Why anyone would follow him is an utter mystery. More to the point, his constant harping on about sin and corruption just isn’t interesting as a motivation. I mean, the surface-dwellers have a reason to associate the inverts with danger (their ancestors were experimenting with harnessing gravity as an energy source and this caused their problem) but making it purely about sin and purity is boring and seems weak. At the very least their motives are insufficiently established, unless you consider a desire to be evil a motive.
Age and Patema fare rather better since they both seem decent enough people. The hints of romance work well, although how they can make that work when each falls a different way must make for an amusing relationship. But again, they seem poorly motivated in all their actions. Patema at least falls into the curious young explorer archetype and has ties to a previous such person. Age seems to be a bit of a dissident, although it’s unclear exactly what this means beyond not being a dull automaton. Yet he immediately rescues and bonds with Patema. Okay, he’s not prejudiced, but why not? What are these kids taught? What are they supposed to think of inverts? I have no idea. And this doesn’t even seem a conscious rebellion, he simply sees a girl falling upwards and grabs her. His later character development is even less interesting. He never truly understood how scary it is to fall upwards? What a revelation. And since the villains have no real ideology beyond obedience, his confrontations with them are essentially ‘I understand how she feels’ ‘I don’t care’, and frankly that would have made a much better confrontation. There just isn’t a purpose behind the villains’ actions.
I dunno. It’s not a bad film. It’s just an empty one. If the concept appeals to you and you’re just looking for some pretty eye candy then give it a try. Just don’t expect too much.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Mar 12, 2018
You never know what films are going to stick with you years later. I’ve seen many films I’d consider good, but I’ll rewatch very few of them anytime I run across them. This is one of those rarities.
This is, oddly enough, one of the more western-structured anime I’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong, the setting is very Japanese and the only characters that aren’t Japanese or Chinese are still products of those cultures rather than western imports. But the structure, themes, and even music remind me of Hollywood movies more than your typical Japanese film. In fact, I’d go so far as to state that
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the closest analogues I can think of are all Westerns, with the tortured warrior secretly craving redemption, the fugitives fleeing through the countryside, the soldier obsessed with nothing but combat, the climactic duel... The samurai and Western genres are closely tied to each other of course, with each copying from the other, and I suppose my reaction might be different if I’d seen more modern samurai films. Still, it doesn’t feel like a Hollywood film would have handled this material any differently.
I don’t mean any of this in a bad way. Many of my favorite anime draw heavily from western media, and vice versa. An outsider’s perspective not constrained by the immediate context can do wonders when inspired by great ideas. And I think that one of the best elements of this film is the incorporation of foreign elements. This is true on many levels. Both the lead figures are foreigners, Nanashi an orphan of unknown (even to him) background raised in Japan and Luo, the blond-haired, blue-eyed Chinese mercenary with no real ties to... well, anything. The difference between the two is obvious. Nanashi embraces his world and tries to find a place in it, even knowing he can never fit in fully. Luo accepts his isolation with equanimity and seeks only the thrill of combat. The racism they both encounter and the way they adapt to it is probably the strongest element of the film. There are numerous Chinese elements here as well since the main villains are from the Ming Empire on a mission from their emperor. Indeed, they speak in (awful) Chinese whenever there are Japanese present and in Japanese when on their own. An approach clearly lifted from western films like The Hunt for Red October and The Thirteenth Warrior. This internationalism adds a lot of needed scale to the film, which is generally basic and narrow in focus.
The characters are another real selling point. Nanashi is a typical tortured ronin. He’s got some real baggage in his past and seeks only to hide from the world that has been so cruel to him. Obviously, genre conventions can never allow that. Kotaro is his sidekick/employer and a charmingly pushy kid. He’s rude and abrasive at times, but always in a manner that shows he’s putting on a show rather than actually being heartless. He’s likeably feisty and they make a good team. Luo is the last of the leads, and his storyline obviously follows a different arc. He is mainly there to be an obstacle overcome and as such needs to be very scary. Which he definitely is. But the way in which he is always treated so snidely for his background, even by his allies, is fascinating. He brushes it off of course, not because he’s tough but because he cares so little for anyone around him that he can calmly take any form of abuse. As villains go he’s memorable.
The real hero of this film is the climax though. I have to wonder how well this film would have worked if it had had a restrained ending. I’d probably have listed it as a good film and then never seen it again. But the final fight is just extraordinary. A true thing of epic beauty. This is the sort of thing that can only be done in animation: a swordfight swinging off heights and over obstacles between two master swordsmen. The animation is first rate and the choreography superb. And while it may sound like I was dismissing the film’s earlier strengths there by questioning how much of the film is pulled up by the ending, it’s more than just a technical triumph. When Nanashi charges in to the rescue, tearing loose his sword for the first time since, um, things happened, and the (first rate) music starts to soar, you don’t just think ‘wow, this fight is going to be awesome’, you rejoice because he’s overcome his past sins. He’s found a cause worth shedding more blood for. And it’s going to be epic. It’s an emotional moment and one that only works because it’s built on a solid foundation of character work. Marvelous stuff.
It’s odd that I’m so fond of this movie given that nothing here is particularly original, barring perhaps the Chinese mysticism. I’ve seen innumerable stories where the hero is a fallen warrior who has to learn to care again and redeem himself, and most of them are paired up with spunky kids who care too much and have a lot to learn. There are certainly plenty of samurai anime and while I can’t think of any that have a comparably grand finale, there are undoubtedly good action scenes within. And yet somehow this film, so seemingly unoriginal, is better than the sum of its parts. By the end you do genuinely care about the leads and that final battle is unmatched for its power. This is cliche done right. It follows worn tropes but handles them so well that you’re okay with following the undemanding path and just enjoy the ride.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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