Category: Action

Sword of the Stranger, Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?

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This was our second experience at the Imaginasian theater and it continues to be a nice, quite place to see a film (though it was about 40 below in the theater). My only issue was the film was dubbed, I was quite surprised. I figured a place that specializes in foreign film would show it in its original language. When I asked about it they said they have no control since it is just what the company gives them. Bandai! In the Anime News Network coverage it said it would be shown in Japanese.

I think it all revolves around the fact that anime companies are convinced that the majority of people want dubs over subs. That is a mantra you here all the time. So they release movies in theaters with dubs because they assume they will get more people in the theater. That might make more sense if this had a large number of theaters it was playing in. But as it stands Sword of the Stranger is only playing in a few select theaters across the nation. At that point you’re only going to get less casual anime fans (more otaku) and art house movie goers, both of which tend to prefer subs. I understand their position but I too would have preferred watching the Japanese version.

The movie begins when Kotaro and his faithful dog Tobimaru are on the run from warriors from China. The monk Kotaro has been staying with tells him to run to the main temple in the area where he will be safe. While trying to get to the main temple Kotaru takes refuge in an abandoned shrine and meets a nameless swordsman. Soon warriors come to take Kotaro away and the nameless swordsman defends the boy but Tobimaru is poisoned in the fight saving the swordsman. Kotaru then hires No Name to save his dog and escort him to the temple. No Name reluctantly agrees but must wonder why such powerful warriors are attempting to kidnap such an ordinary child.

Sword of the Stranger presents a simple tale of a man who did something terrible in his past and lost his warrior spirit. Through the events he becomes entrenched in he regains his desire to fight.

Atleast it would be simple but the director, Masahiro Ando, insists on throwing in dozen of side characters and secondary plots. The are over half a dozen Chinese warriors who have their own little stories. There is local lord and his servants who are working with the Chinese while plotting against them. There is also several sub plots that are only tangentially related to our main character’s story.

Don’t forget the drug plot! Oh and they guy who wants to marry the Princess. Along with the man that sort of knew No Name in the past.

I admire the director’s ambition but if this were a series of OAVs or as TV show I would understand the need to throw in so many different plot threads. But it is a movie so he would have done better to simplify some of the plots or reduce the number of changes to make things run a little smoother. I realize he wanted more fleshed out characters and themes but this movie did not need them. All it needed was a simple plot to attach us to Kotaru and No Name and more quality with less villains.

It is true it might have served better is some longer format, but I still saw what was important coming through to the surface. The characters that were supposed to stick out did and the fights were great. And while the plot does have a too many threads, it isn’t done poorly and it isn’t confusing. The film sets the tone and pace with the fight in the rain kicking it off then gradually building up to the final confrontation.

Indeed the director has the good sense to make sure we never got too bogged down in the byzantine plot. We spend a good deal of time watching Kotaru and No Name bonding. We also learn quite a bit about all the people scheming to get Kotaru and scheming against each other. In between all these scenes are some awesome battles. Anytime things get close to getting slow someone will challenge No Name or the Chinese warriors will get into a fight. This is an action movie and it know you came for the fights so they deliver.

No Name (Nanashi) is a totally sweet combination of Kenshin (from Ruroni Kenshin) and Jubei Kibagami (from Ninja Scroll). His refusal to draw his blade doesn’t keep him from beating the tar out of everyone that tries to attack him. His past haunts him and though he claims to be helping the Kotaru and his dog for payment he grows to genuinely care for both of them.

Unlike Kenshin, No Name seems to have made no such vow as not to kill. He quite impressively proves that a sword can still be an effective killing weapon even if you never unsheathe it in the first fight. He is a laid back fellow with many secret although one of his secrets was rather odd and I’m not sure why it even existed in the first place.

Kotaru is your stereotypical anime brat. An inexperienced angry little know it all punk in the beginning he definitely grows into being a much more likable character as the movie goes on. I liked the scenes where No Name teaches Kotaru to ride a horse. They let you bond with the characters as they bonded with each other. Tobimaru is an awesome dog though out the movie and one of the most likable characters. I am sure Narutaki wishes he had a Tobimaru.

We get a wide variety of villains, some with a little gimmick and some who are just damn good with a sword. Like the whip guy who was the first to show up was out of control. But then our major baddie, Rarou, is just looking to slice and dice in a new country. He establishes himself as a force to be reckoned with when he kills an entire group of bandits in the opening. His only real motivation is to pick a good fight, well he certainly picks a good one when he runs into No Name.

Rarou is an evil (more evil?) Kenpachi from Bleach. He is always fighting in hope of finally finding someone who can give him a run for his money. In fact he is only with the Chinese because he knows they are were the action will probably be. The Chinese bad guys were without a doubt cooler than the Japanese ones. They mostly exists to get their bums handed to them by cooler fighters.

The battles were beautiful, fluid, and bloody! Heads rolling, limbs flying! The movement was smooth and they always kept you right in the action. I just keep thinking of the fight that starts on some stairs. It was only a moment but it was so cool! Also liked how the terrain was coming into play for some of these fights, just kept it interesting. They were everything I was hoping for.

The fight choreography was well done and beautifully animated as only a movie could be. I liked the fact that most people had their own unique but interesting fighting style. There are even good deal of horse mounted fighting which in not something you commonly see in anime. The end battle is quite the bloodbath which is a fitting climax for the movie. It is quite a nice series of battles even if Narutaki thought that the music was too epic for the actions taking place. I would definitely see other action anime by Masahiro Ando again.

As much as I complained about the plot I could see this being a break out hit in America. It is a one shot movie with a good amount of violence which is usually popular among casual anime consumers. In fact, the plot complications might give it a boost among the casual anime fans. Most of the plot additives where added to give a sense of depth and philosophy to an otherwise standard story.

My initial interest in this movie stemmed from a need to see some really well done and totally cool fight scenes. Everything else that might have happened was just gravy so on that note I was totally satisfied. Sword of the Stranger doesn’t do anything new, doesn’t have an incredible plot, but it has a serviceable story with totally amazing battles and great animation to boot. I will be happy to own this movie.

Top 5 Favorite Swordsmen
5. Guts (Berserk)
4. Magatsu (Blade of the Immortal)
3. Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin)
2. Zoro (One Piece)
1. Manji (Blade of the Immortal)

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Batman Gotham Knight, Pow! Splat! Kerplop! Flurb!

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Batman, DC, Dark Knight, Gotham

We did a little preview of this a while back, but now that it is out we thought it only fitting to tell you if it lived up to our expectations. I have heard it said that if you aren’t a fan of Batman, don’t bother watching this. My question is, who isn’t a fan of Batman? because I don’t think we can be friends.

It’s interesting because it’s another anime co-production that takes a super popular American franchise and touts the anime production team doing the animation as a selling point. I can’t see something like this coming out once a month but it looks like they sell well enough that I would not be surprised if we saw a co-production like this every two year or so. Plus Batman is always +10 to awesome. I try to catch anything with Batman in it. We just get to cover this one for the blog because it’s anime related.

Batman, DC, Dark Knight, Gotham, DVD

We didn’t go all out for the special edition, but obviously the most important part is the actual show! The packaging is sparse for the regular printing. You do get this nice coupon however and to my great surprise it is actually valid at a couple of theaters in Manhattan.

Batman, DC, Dark Knight, Gotham, coupon

This is basically The Animatrix for The Dark Knight. It is a collection of 6 stories set between Batman Begins and the Dark Knight showing what Batman has been up to since the end of the last movie. The stories are stand alone but they are interconnected. You could theoretically watch only select stories or watch the stories out of order and it would be of no real detriment but you would miss out on little nods between the stories. Each story had a different writer, different director, and three different anime studio doing the animation.

Have I Got a Story for You

The first short deals with how every person sees Batman differently, indeed the entire film deals with this idea, too. But this being the first brings the viewer in on a lighter note than the rest of the shorts would have. The kids telling this story are funny and typically trying to one up each other with their tales of the caped crusader. I noted right away that the animation very much resembles Studio 4C’s Tekkon Kinkreet. I always see this as people kind of being shaped like diamonds, as you move away from the body they become extremely narrow and pointed.

For some reason certain Japanese directors love making their animation look like it’s being shot through a fisheye lens. I’m looking right at you Mamoru Oshii. I liked each kids fantastical take on their encounter with Batman. It is certainly one of the most amusing takes on the unreliable narrator I have ever seen. All in all it’s cute story and it’s definitely the funniest story in the bunch. This piece reminded me of Almost Got ‘Im in Batman in animated series.

Crossfire

The next short made me chuckle as I remembered that all of Staten Island has been turned into Arkham. I think this series wouldn’t be complete without the typical cop that doesn’t trust Batman story, so here we have it. I really enjoyed the vision of Batman in this one. He seems ten-feet tall at points and I think that is really how you would feel if you came face to face with him. This had much more intensity and it gripped me. I thought this one also had the best fight throughout, thought that isn’t a surprise when Production I.G. is involved.

You make it seem like that is not just the next logical step with Staten Island. Batman is merely speculative fiction. This is clearly the first episode that shows that this is grittier than the standard Batman cartoon. People are dying left and right in this episode. I mean all the people who die are mobsters but people still die. This is also the episode that makes it utterly clear that Batman is a total bad-ass. I found it odd that they went to Arkham but then it never came up again in any of the stories. I was waiting for an Arkham breakout to no avail. I wonder if it was originally intended it to appear again or if they just threw it in because it is so iconic.

Field Test

Ah, and we come to the title of our preview article. Bat-Bishonen. This version of Batman is certainly the closest to Christian Bale’s portrayal of him. They obviously based how Bruce Wayne looks on him, too. I liked how this short deals with Batman and Bruce, not just his dark alter ego. I liked how he uses himself as the perfect cover. This short also has Fox in it so that automatically makes it better, so we get to see all kinds of gadgets at work.

Ah. Bat-bishonen. I still like the ring of that. I liked how it showcased that Batman and Bruce Wayne can just as easily work synergisticly as easily as the two identities can cause trouble for each other. It’s an interesting insight into the morality of Batman as well. At one point Batman threatens the two warring faction in Gotham while he knows he does not have enough evidence to get them locked away for their crimes. He can’t stop them from engaging in illegal activities but he can make their lives horrible if they don’t behave. It’s a look at where Batman will draw the line in his fight against crime.

In Darkness Dwells

I was promised an awesome Killer Croc fight, I did not receive it. I wonder if I would have been so disappointed had I not watched that whole first look where they talk about this episode. This episode was the most creepy, but anything with Scarecrow and his weird drugs is freaky plus the animation added to it. But apprently those drugs didn’t have an effect on Batman, he still did his Batman-ness. Oh, I did like how well he knew the underground.

In this story Batman fights his greatest foe: The homeless. Batman’s fight with the Scarecrow’s homeless minions was longer than his fight with Killer Croc. I think this was certainly a story that could have used more time to develop. It seems like if this had been a full half an hour episode it could have taken more time and created a better story overall. I also felt that the poisone Batman was hit with seemed to have no effect on him. The fact that Batman got poisoned seemed there so they could throw in trippy visuals.

Working Through Pain

I liked when one person we watching this with said Bruce looked like Gackt in this short! This was different than all the others, we are getting a look at Bruce’s past not as Batman. The title is a throwback to something he says in In Darkness Dwells. I like the little tie ins thry throw in the episodes. I liked Alfred’s role of actually coming to rescue Batman a little. The ending of the episode was a little humours and a little of a sad look at what Gotham is.

This story, interestingly enough, is more an examination of Bruce Wayne the man than any other story in this collection. Although Bruce is wearing the Batman suit for half the story he does very little Batman work. It’s mostly him remembering his training as he tries to get home after being painfully wounded. This is a story of what about Bruce Wayne makes Batman the character that he is. It is a good look into what makes Batman so strong but so broken at the same time.

Deadshot

Batman has a mad crazy chin in this short! Really the animation is good in this one, I was just blown away by the chinlyness. This story had a little bit of a slow build to the final confrontation. A lot of players who were involved in the previous shorts have a role in this one. Deadshot is a crazy sniper, maybe better than Golgo 13. Through I did feel that Deadshot ended up being a total weenie in the end.

Like In Darkness Dwells I feel that this was a story that if it had gone on longer could have been much more interesting. Plus the preview hyped this story up so much. They promised this revised Deadshot who would be Bruce Wayne’s shadowy reflection. A twisted version of Batman who used his wealth and tragic past for personal gain and to satisfy his perverted desires. It was supposed to be this slow building epic confrontation. It turned out to be a rather pedestrian story of Batman VS another random gimmick villain. It’s not a bad story but it’s also not epic. I was entertained but I felt that the preview hyped it up to be something to remember.

Batman rocks, he came, he showed how much he rocks and he was gone in a flash. How very Batman like of him. The combination of talents in this collection ensures that you will like atleast a couple of these mini movies. As a whole this was good and entertaining and totally worth watching. There were some missteps but overall I’m looking forward to viewing this a second time. And it makes me even more eager to see the new movie.

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Claymore, no yuri scenes depite how much you want it.

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The yoma food pyramid consists of one section, as opposed to the six sections of the human food pyramid. Unfortunately for humans, the sole section of the yoma food pyramid is labeled human organs.

In the Claymore universe, there are demons called yoma who are shape-shifters. They hunt humans by eating their victims brains and then using the memories they gain to impersonate the people they have eaten to infiltrate their victims communities. The yoma are also stronger and faster than humans and can regenerate as well as turn parts of their bodies into weapons.

An unnamed human organization has created a special breed of warriors to combat the yoma, they are called Claymores. The organization takes young women and creates half-human/half-yoma hybrids that gain a degree of a yoma’s strength, speed, and abilities. These hybrids then have silver hair and silver eyes making them easily distinguishable from normal humans. The appellation Claymore comes from the humans they protect not from the organization or the warriors themselves. People call them Claymores because they wield gigantic Claymore swords almost as big as they are.

What first attracted my interest was the female dominated cast, in powerful roles. In fact, men rarely show up at all, minus Raki, until the very end of the series. It’s rare that a clearly shonen show has an all woman cast and it is not fan-service central.

Well, there is somewhat of a non-Raki male presence before the end; there are those two church knights in episode 4. But the major purpose of the two church knights is to show that you can be an awesome human fighter and that you are still nowhere near the same level as even the weakest Claymore.

When Claire appears she seems to be a flawless killer. Claire is certainly a stoic character, and I almost mistook her for completely emotionless. But as the story goes on I believe this exterior is melted to some extent through her interactions with others. Also, it helps to give depth to her motivation to find out she is the lowest ranked warrior. I think it is worth pointing out that Claire does have many qualities that are typical of shonen male heroes. But as the story progresses and we see some of her back story, I felt I saw a woman.

I think the writer wants Claire to be a mystery in the beginning. He wants Claire to be the same enigma to the audience that most people see when they see a Claymore. In fact, the writer tries to go out of his way to make Claire seem like a monstrous killing machine in the first few episodes. Most people see the Claymores as emotionless monsters only a little better than the Yoma they hunt. Only as the series progresses do we slowly learn that Claire has feelings, inner conflicts, and personal goals and desires.

In fact, in the early episodes all the Claymores we see are rather emotionless and serious business like. It’s not really until Helen and Deneve do we start to see Claymore who are somewhat playful or personality filled even if it’s a definitely psychotic version of playful or personality filled.

I like that Claire is the weakest of the Claymores. She win fights more on learning and cleverly applying new techniques or using teamwork with other Claymores and their abilities, more than winning because she has a hidden, previously unknown, mysterious power that makes her super strong and lets her win due to brute force.

Raki is vulnerable yet determined and I think Claire sees a lot of herself in him. Unsurprisingly, he has a strong desire to protect his savior and works towards becoming stronger. He also brings the only fully-human sided perspective to the situation. As his race completely rejects and abandons him because his family was killed by Yoma.

Raki is the stereotypical shonen hero who wants to get more powerful to protect the ones he cares for. In most shonen anime Raki would the protagonist who would grow stronger with his hidden previously unknown mysterious power and Claire would either die or be surpassed by Raki. Although it has yet to happen in the manga I feel one day Raki might be able to fight along side Claire as an assistant and comrade but I don’t see him ever surpassing Claire and I find it unlikely he will be her equal. His role will always be support. At least that is my prediction.

Since Raki also appears in the first episode, it t is almost strange that he wasn’t the main character. I like that. I knew what Claymore had in store but for a split second those formulas came to mind. I am quite enjoying this string of shows that have both female and male protaginists that both grow. We also have to remember that Raki just decided to become strong right when we meet him, but Claire we really don’t have a sense of how much time has passed but it seems like a significant amount.

Raki’s other importance to the plot is to be the naive person who has how the world works so the audience learns how the world works as well.

I don’t think Raki has totally been rejected by humans in general. I think he was definitely abandoned and cast out by his home village but he had several chances to stop following Claire and just settle down in another town that does not know his family was killed by Yoma. Both Raki and Claire were abandoned by the people of the town they lived in and they both had chances to leave the people who saved them but stuck with them despite the fact that their lives would be far easier if they stopped following the person who saved them. It’s not like Raki has to follow Claire. He wants to. That’s an important distinction.

I loved the comradery that became a ongoing theme. In a series where everyone seems like a loner, this is a nice touch. It makes the characters more tangible to realize they need other people. The friendships you see can sometimes be unexpected in the situation everyone is in. But then maybe that is what makes these vital, a lot of these woman I assume “grew up” together if you can call it that. You truly see this between Deneve and Helen who appear later as friends. While we don’t get full back stories of anyone except Claire, there is a lot of things one can infer through the way characters deal with one another. The the group of half awakened beings that form a kinship are especially strong as a group who have a common bond.

I think that I like all of the interactions between the Claymores because besides comradery you also see a wide variety of different relationships between them. You have fierce rivals, friendly rivals, devoted companions, standoffish business relationships, bullies, mentors, subservient lap gods, loyal retainers, and more. It’s almost like two Claymores don’t interact with each other in the same way. It speaks a lot to how quickly and carefully the Claymores are developed in the series. Since a lot of the Claymores don’t last a long time it would be easy to simplify their characterization, but the writer takes the easy way out in that respect.

I also have to say that, as we both sort of hinted, Helen and Deneve have the most interesting relationship outside of Raki and Claire. They are characters that would easily be voted as characters most able to have their own spin off series. They have a close almost sisterly relationship while still being sort of messed up 6 ways until Sunday really makes them fascinating characters. I’m also sure that there are like 5 million yuri doujinshi of them only being surpassed by the 6 million doujinshi of them getting raped at the same time. Oh doujinshi. :(

I’m also surprised you did not mention Jeanne who I was pretty sure is a character you would marry (or at least make your BFF with benefits) if she were not a fictional character.

Well, this was the great thing, I thought it had a steller cast in general. I liked Claire, Raki, Helen, Deneve, Miria, Theresa, and Jeanne. Okay, but you’re right Jeanne was my dearest. Although she doesn’t show up till much later she brings honor and pride, without arrogance. Her sense of duty to those around her, especially Claire, bring real depth to her personality. And lets not forget her totally awesome ability.

Raki and Claire’s relationship brings me back to my point about seeing a woman in Claire through a sort of seemingly male figure. But I must admit, the turn it took between these two happily surprised me. It could have gone a number of ways, but I liked this route. I also felt like this could create a really dynamic interaction that is not often explored.

I feel that the change of the relationship is unexpected and interesting but not out of the blue. Their relationship was definitely always building and always growing so it’s not like anything was thrown in just to be thrown in because it was time for something to change. It also subtly changes both characters without being to subtle as to be almost no change in the characters or too bold as to be unrealistic and out of character.

The ending was pretty weak in my opinion but this doesn’t devalue the show for me. I felt like the Claire and Raki relationship, that I thought would be dynamic, just collapsed in on itself and it was just a role reversal.

Well the dynamic part of the relationship really falls apart when the stop using the manga as a guide and start making their own ending. I have a distinct feeling that the writers of the anime did not fully understand how Claire and Raki’s relationship worked so they fell back on the formula they already knew and just changed the roles.

I also feel the writers could only do so much with the ending of the series. Where the manga ends and anime basically ends is a very open ended part of the manga. It seems the writers wanted to put some sort of ending on the series because it does not look like will be getting a second season of Claymore. They basically had to pull together plot threads that were not together in the original manga to make some sort of resolution. That kind of abrupt patch job will always lead to a ending that is less than it should be. I think all in all it did what is set out to do. They wanted to get you wanting to read Claymore while being and be okay with the ending if you can’t read the manga.

There are a bunch of things I would have liked to have seen but we never got to see but I think a lot of them just have not come up in the manga so there was not much to be done about it. I would have liked to have seen how Claymores are made and trained. We have a vague idea of how it’s done but I’m sure there is something important about the processes and how it’s done. I would also like top know what the deal with the Claymore organization is. It seems that even the Claymores themselves have almost no idea how the organization works and they seem to have their own less than savory agenda. I would have also really liked to have seen more done with the Yoma’s ability to take on other people’s shape and how you can never know who is a yoma. I think that could have made some really interesting stories but they stop focusing on it after the first few episodes.

There are things I wanted to know, but I don’t fell like the series suffered from not telling us. In fact, being brief and vague can be good when done right. I like when the writer lets me infer things, make guesses , and come to my own conclusions about some things. But you are right, these are all things that haven’t been throughly explored in the manga yet either, so we will get our answers eventually.

I have to say, nothing has capture me in the same way as Berserk did, until this show came along. Although not quite as violent and gory, it is enough to satisfy. This show has a pretty large following if the Internet can be believed. But I personally doubt we will be seeing anymore animated productions of this series. I suspect it is very well loved among otaku and did well in its time slot, but not better than expected. I guess we will just have to wait and see what is on the table for the spring line-up. I also expect to see theis series licensed in the near future. In any case, I am definitely going to start reading the manga.

This show just finished up in Japan and also on the fan-sub circut. Now you can watch it straight through, we were watching week by week. It’s fairly easy to come by, too. I recommend the Eclipse translation. And don’t forget, if you like this show be sure to mention it at cons and write in saying you want it licensed!

UPDATE: Claymore is now licensed by Funimation!