Forum - View topicREVIEW: Shigurui: Death Frenzy DVD
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dragonknight1234
Posts: 8 |
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See my earlier post. ;) Albeit, I put it in spoilers, so I'll yank this quote from the first episode which sums up the general plot in a nice if not abstract way. It's an observation by a lord as the two, clearly disabled and heavily critisized by another lord, face off, debunking the other lords words in the process. "These are swordsmen who have indominable spirits, and the cruel fate that they bring on themselves is truly what sways their souls." And the plots more or less shows how they came to be. LauraOrganaSolo: See, I thought the violence and sex in Berserk was servicable up to a point. It did a wonderful job building a brutal, godless world, perfect in line with the story themes... and then Miura decided he would draw trolls raping women followed by aliens-esque birth scenes... because he COULD. >_<; Yeah, skipped over a lot of that... You know, my main complaint isn't about being caught in an audience (I couldn't care less, frankly) or any particular jab at Carl. It's that I think the review generally gives an inaccurate portrayal of the series itself, and in addition, at times is completely inaccurate according to plot points. Putting the latter aside, gorehounds? I presume that somehow refers to people easily entertained by large amounts of graphically violent scenes. Keeping that in mind, would a "gorehound" stick around for the rest of the series after the first episode? I can't see that at all. The series is meticulously slow, but the review makes it out to be Ninja Scroll. I mean, seriously. You have the opening seppuku, then it's "let's watch some nobles walk around and two guys standing off against each other in the sun." That's half the episode right there. Maybe I have the definition of "gorehound" wrong, but it doesn't seem like such a person would be entertained by that. |
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DKL
 Posts: 1945 Location: California, USA |
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LauraOrganaSolo:
I think it needs to be said... That was a seriously great post (that managed to be completely on topic); I actually learned something (while I have watched this show in detail, I'm actually not intimately familiar with the actual historical backdrops and whatever and have only this vague familiarity with it). Anyway, on the topic of what the show has to offer... (outside of what LauraOrganaSolo already posted)
I... talked about this earlier... ANYWAY, well... I did talk about the depiction of the rigidity of the culture; it's actually REALLY fascinating to watch: Like I described earlier, there's a part where Kogan Iwamoto and crew go visit this blind dude who is very high up in the food chain ("meeting him is like meeting the shogun" or it went something like that); it was really interesting seeing Iwamoto's hands tied down by the culture/politics while walking into what was an obvious trap: how was he going to go about it? (Iwamoto even puts on this amusingly fake smile a lot of the time... but you can tell that he's generally quite annoyed by the whole farce of politeness required by the culture or whatever) ANYWAY... yeah... it's a really interesting show outside of the violence and whatever (like I said earlier). |
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dragonknight1234
Posts: 8 |
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It's wasn't quite the culture, but the rather the politics. Kogan couldn't kill Kengyou's protege lest he bring down the wrath of the emperor upon himself. This draws an interesting tangent to the fact that he once tried and failed to appeal to the emperor earlier, and, having once already insulted the court, had no desire to do so again. :D |
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ironwarrior
 Posts: 151 Location: Under Clare's armor, Lewisburg, WV |
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WOW!! I go to get back here more often--the reviews are getting better and better! And for some reason, I find myself agreeing with Zac a lot..WTH is with that? (ha-ha)
Seriously, the bombastic language in some of the reviews is GREAT! I don't understand why anyone would give a crap whether Carl, Zac or anyone else liked an anime since everyone's tastes differ--I like reading their flamboyant use of language. If not for Carl's use of hyperbole, metaphor, and simile, I'd probably never even given a whit about this anime. Carl hooked me right here: "Ah, feudal Japan: when men were men, violence was violent, and women were traded like sexual Pokémon cards." Hell, yes!! "And for viewers who like their entertainment gory, sadistic and full of gratuitous sex, it's heaven." That's like an extra helping of taters and gravy! Give me more! But, Carl, my friend, I think you made a mistake with the "+" and "-". All the below: Sadistic, gut-spilling violence for the mindless cretin in us all. Misogynistic, homophobic and just plain nasty enough to make the less cretinous parts of us blanch; grimly humorless and unnecessarily stylized. are "Yes, please. I want this NOW!! NOW!!" positives. When anyone uses words like "misogynistic" and "sadistic," I WILL be watching that anime. Maybe I just know too much about sociological systems and language, as I'll never understand the absurd uses of the expression "homophobic" in today's society (ok, I do understand one reason is PC-mania). And describing an anime as "homophobic?" Uhhh....how's that exactly work? If someone doesn't like homo-sexuals or homo-genized milk, that doesn't mean they are afraid of homo-sexuals or homo-genized milk. As for conveying that the anime allegedly has "anti-homosexual propaganda," well.....whatever. Is that bad? Is it good? Why would that even influence my decision watching? Kind of like me, a Jew, getting bent out of shape when I see a swastika symbol in an anime. Or me pizzin' in my britches over the pro-Arab doctrine in Gundam 00. Do I care? Nope. Do I think its a travesty or the sky-is-falling, blah-blah? Nope. I liked Gundam 00, even with all its politicization. I watch anime to be entertained, and EXPECT the Japanese to give me a a table-sized bento full of the extreme--that's why I love them! I want to go there so bad, but I just want to spend a lot of time in the country and at the temples. Maybe fight a few MA matches. NOTE: I consider Technolyze one of the greatest animes ever....I own everything Technolyze that I could my grubby hands on! I love dystopia anime due to my work and designs in Social Chaos Theory and just an appreciation of alternative history fiction. Given the setting, I don't think a comparison is relevant, unless its maybe regarding artistic style. BTW, all the posters had some excellent reads in here--impressive. Zac, Carl, and the posters, keep it rocking! And, Zac, I WILL BE making myself a Queen's Blade t-shirt! 
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HellKorn
Posts: 1669 Location: Columbus, OH |
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Naw, good arguments are fun -- or do you not remember our exchange on Cerebus? 
His review of the third Death Note actually holds both the positives and negatives of his reviewing style. While I do appreciate that he cuts to the core of the actual story -- plotting, characterization, the superficial grabs at moral philosophy -- but, while I actually agree with the review overall, this comment, "It's a streak of solipsism so extreme that the series sometimes borders on a masturbatory fantasy for every teenager who ever blithely came to the conclusion that the world was evil just because they felt disenfranchised," along with the "manure bath" in the con at the bottom show a critique spun too far. Carl is a good reviewer, so it's those moments that are disappointing.
If that's all he sees, then he can elucidate that argument by also focusing on how the plot, characters, ideas, direction, et cetera also fall short of providing appeal outside of the hyper-violence. There's little of that, actually; his remark about Hamazaki's direction is the only one that directly deals with that. The rest is a predominantly a moral outrage at the display of violence and other elements.
Aside from LauraOrganaSolo's post, there've been posts by DKL, Ian K, rekishi, darknight1234 and myself that specifically mention the show's appeal beyond its graphic content. None of us deny that the show contains some excess, but these three posts capture the interest beyond those who are just in it for the gore and tittaz; most particularly because that material isn't happening at a clip a minute -- maybe two scenes an episode, on average. Hamazaki specifically mentions how, outside a placement of Kogan's initial introduction in episode two, that single episode only adapts one chapter of the original manga -- 20 pages adapted into 20 minutes. With the general decompression that Japanese comics have, that's really stretching it out (in contrast, episode six covers an entire volume's worth of material). What essentially happens in that episode is that a duel is concluded, Irako is taken away, and then he is introduced to Kogan. That's more or less it.
Yep. Going back to my mention of Pol Pot: if want went beyond want The Killing Fields are really delved heavily into what was done, would these same critics state hold a negative view of explicitly historical events? Also, very, very good post.
Did you get the Blu-Ray or DVD version? The latter comes with an incredibly meticulous, well-done booklet about various aspects of the Edo Period: explaining the term "shigurui" (and its relation to Hagakure, which LauraOrganaSolo mentioned); the take on brutality in the original novel and the manga adaption of the first chapter, weaponry; the introduction and rising use of guns, Christian influences and its impact on changing values; pederasty and male prostitution; bathhouses and bathouse women; japanese swords and their legends, how the time that Shigurui is set in allowed this kind of pointless barbarism and employment of samurai; three legendary schools of swordplay and three masters; even information on blind men and the lute and the Todoza guild; and finally two separate interviews with Hamazaki and Minakami, and then Yamaguchi and a voice actress. I think you'd like it. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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Apologies all - I was concentrating on the review and the HellKorn/Zac exchange and evidently didn't see the wood for the trees when I skimmed through the rest. Thanks to you all for taking the time to restate yourselves for me.
It's subjective, obviously, but I don't read that as a stretch too far - I read it as reinforcement of his point and as welcome added colour. And that last is important because a good review is insightful, engaging and entertaining reading. If that means something non-critical left unsaid here, a bit of added emphasis there and a witty aside over yonder, that's fine by me. What I don't want is a detailed synopsis followed by a technical deconstruction and nothing more than that - it's an opinion piece and I want to see some informed, relevant, telling opinion on top of the bare bones. Personally, I think "It's a streak of solipsism so extreme that the series sometimes borders on a masturbatory fantasy for every teenager who ever blithely came to the conclusion that the world was evil just because they felt disenfranchised," constitutes insightful, engaging and entertaining reading.
That seems like a reasonable request.
I agree that moral outrage shouldn't prevent the reviewer from actually describing the work but I also think that the space given over to moral outrage should, in some measure, reflect the degree of moral outrage the reviewer felt. The review is, after all, a record of the reviewer's impression of the text. He'd be remiss to not tell us if he were offended or to not explain why the work had that impact on him.
Surely the subject/content itself (and its explicitness) isn't the issue. The issue is the subject/content plus the context, tone and authorial intent. Or, to put it another way, it's not just about the ingredients - what does it taste like?
You should never start a paragraph by claiming to know "too much" about something if every word you say thereafter proves otherwise. |
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ironwarrior
Posts: 151 Location: Under Clare's armor, Lewisburg, WV |
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Ha-ha!! It was a purposeful juxtaposition. I live by my "ironwarrior's 5 Golden Rules for Being a Scientist."
http://ironwarrior.org The duality definitely seemed fitting given I followed it with an analogy regarding the ridiculous use of the term, "homophobic." Even with my 5 Golden Rules, I stand by my assessment of the expression and the linguistic fallacies with its use. As an aside, you are a pretty good writer--enjoyed reading your comments. |
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DKL
Posts: 1945 Location: California, USA |
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Actually, this is correct; I've been using "politics" and "culture" interchangeably, so in order to lift my confusion, I asked my Economics History professor to give me a simple way of identifying the difference (Politics = stuff governing power over other people and Culture = values and whatever passed down by family or community). But yeah... the whole Kogan thing was really interesting; he pretty much had to suck it up during the thing in order to not get into trouble (but he was really annoyed and you could kinda tell that he was forcing himself to smile during the thing *and, again... it was amusing, especially considering what he usually looked like in the show*; I really liked the part where his facial expression changes when he realizes that he was being duped in the pretend/exhibition duel thing). OH MAN, talking about that part of the story, I also found Kogan's unfamiliarity with the rapier really interesting as well; when I first watched the thing, I was a little confused at why he seemed so uncertain of what it was he was analyzing, but this is mainly because I knew what it did and assumed that it should be obvious... anyway, they actually did a really good job of showing the foreign-ness of outside weaponry; I was really convinced of how, despite Kogan's mastery of swords and whatever, he honestly didn't know how a rapier was used (it's... hard to describe why I was so impressed by this). Kogan carefully looked over the rapier and assessed that it couldn't cut through stuff (which he was right about, of course) and how this later played out was really neat. But yeah... little details like that were cool.
You know, the problem with DVD is that Blu-Ray is AWESOME... But yeah, I've always been wondering what was on that damn booklet that wasn't included on the BD set; it's apparently REALLY important... I think I'll have to get the DVD set too, if only for the director interview on the booklet. |
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dragonknight1234
Posts: 8 |
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That was n amusing scene. Who says there's no humor in this story? :D
This is one of those subtle details that actually delves into the martial arts of the story. In addition the being light, a rapier thrust (or a sword thrust in general) is inherently faster than swinging a sword about, thus Kogan's initial confusion considering that most Japanese sword techniques involve a swing. This is due to a difference in the meaning of swordsmanship itself, for while Europeon fencing evolved as a duelist's weapon that inflicted first blood far more often than fatal blows, the Japanese sword was constructed with slicing someone open in mind. This is not to say that a rapier can't kill, but rather it's a difference in swordsmanship ideology that confuses Kogan. However, Kengyou's protege throws a lot of force behind his blows in order to make them fatal, and Kogan therefore, knowing that he can't kill Kengyou's protege and knowing that he may not be able to get the speed he needs without killing him, Kogan uses the protege's momentum against himself and disables the rapier's only form of attack. And then he punches him in the head. :D |
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DKL
Posts: 1945 Location: California, USA |
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Yeah, just re-watched the episode, actually... People were really pissed off at each other (Irako even tries to be polite: "Oh... sorry that I spilled the stuff on you... as you can see: I'm blind."), but they couldn't actually do anything about it; everyone was so full of crap that I was laughing my ass off. (and I can't get over how hilarious Kogan's smile is; I think it's because of the success of the art: you can really see that he's exerting effort just to smile) ALSO, another part I like about the swordplay is the stances that people would take and how they would convey themselves... I'm no swordplay expert, but the impression I get from how the stuff is done is that it's very technical; I actually feel convinced of the competence of the people handling the swords. Is there stuff in the booklet that talks about how they went about doing this aspect of the production? |
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LauraOrganaSolo
 Posts: 109 |
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This is why the rest of us can't have nice things. :- ( Whoever asked what a gorehound was, there's your answer.
The regular DVD version comes with this? Because even if it's the Blu-Ray, that sounds amazing.
EXACTLY. That and Casca almost getting raped every ten pages, and the king of Midland's sexual assault on his daughter... yeah, the anime was a great improvement since it cut all those unnecessary LOL T&A bits out. Oh noes censorship. But I digress.
Thank you both very much. m(-___-)m |
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dragonknight1234
Posts: 8 |
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[quote="DKL"]
I loved when Fujiki was finally like, "f*ck it," and spat in Seigen's face. Fantastic. XD As for the swordplay, it was semi bs, but there is merit to it. The whole idea behind the weird grips was range, but to do such a technique, you need incredible wrist strength. That, and you would absolutely have to be fast enough to strike first, because a two handed technique would easily deflect such a strike and leave someone open. Basically, it's a one-time-deal strike, because if you miss, you're screwed. The two finger deal takes the extra grip deal a couple inches further, but I seriously doubt anyone could do that in real life unless you have godly fingers. :3 It's an interesting play on real sword techniques, though not especially realistic. :) |
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Crowzero
Posts: 8 |
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The main selling point is the violence, but it's not their fault it's marketed in that way. Shigurui is as close as you will get to watching an old classic Japanese samurai film, in anime form of course. That should have been the main ingredient for Shigurui. If we forget about the violence for a second, and focus on the pacing, the dialogue, the way it was shot, the character's behaviors, you will get all the colorful details from an old samurai film. Me personally, watched it without know what it was about. The first 3-4 episodes it was hard to discern the characters simply there wasn't anything unique about their appearances. They looked too human to be even in an anime. However I will say this, of all the anime I've watched Fujiki is probably the most "human", or "realistic" character I've ever encountered in any anime. And as far as samurai characters go, I don't see anyone coming close to him in terms of loyalty, honor, restraint, discipline...or just the general badassness of not giving a damn about nobody but his master. This would be the main reason to watch Shigurui in my opinion. What's interesting about this character, unlike other anime characters of the same genre, is that he isn't a savior, nor is he a destroyer. He is nothing but a pawn, a puppet on a string who is completely helpless as to what is going on around him. He doesn't come out in the finale and claim his throne, in fact, he doesn't do much of anything in the entire series at all...he is merely a spectator. He doesn't become stronger, or weaker, he is just who he is. All you see is his emotions growing and changing throughout the course of the series, and towards the end, he has to restrain himself from complete madness. I thought that alone is pretty amazing, simply because he IS the main character...and in most anime....you just don't see someone who resembles him. As the "protagonist", there is nothing special about him, he is very, very normal and to see a character like this play a huge part was just awesome. I thought that he was quite likable, and I definitely sympathized with him. |
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Mike On Top
 Posts: 298 |
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At least, in this series they had some brain to use real sword techniques and flesh them out with intense and specific training, as well relate them correctly to the propriate situations. For example, the conversation between Gonzaemon and Irako in the pub. Just gives you far better perspective on batto-jutsu than anything remotely samurai-related in anime as of now. Certainly was developped for and from practical reasons  Not to mention that masterfull fast-draw maximum-damage strike saves you immediately from a fighting opponent and extra repairs for your katana by the fourth. Whatever the era and the nation, those people made it an art, consider it a national treasure, namely because it should be not for killing without good enough reason. I mean, whoever missed the meaning of the kanshi and what lies beneath Kogan's servile smile, surely has missed the whole point of the series. 
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Tratious
 Posts: 316 Location: Savannah, GA |
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i enjoyed the show it wasnt really that gory, i thought it would be worse.
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; Yeah, skipped over a lot of that... 
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