Forum - View topicREVIEW: Loups=Garous Blu-Ray
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SoandSo
 Posts: 204 |
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"based on an original novel by Natsuhiko Kyogoku (who also penned the source material for Requiem from the Darkness)..."
That would handily explain why this film is so embarrassingly shitty. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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Well that was an interesting review. Sort of the opposite to Zac's reaction to the movie. I pretty much thought Ayumi was supposed to be female, and I believe she is wearing leggings in some of the artwork.
The movie reminded me a bit of Asimov's "The Naked Sun" and of course a little spoiler[Soylent Green] thrown in. I think the story was aiming to be a murder mystery in a Utopian setting that included alienation due to technology with a surprise twist at the end. Instead we got a concoction that had some of those qualities merged with your typical anime story about friendship plus the shoe-horned in references to manga and the Scandal music video. Wow that's marketing for you. For me, it was a bit schizo, does it want to be a perky story about the friendship of these girls overcoming obstacles or does it want to be a dark tale of murder? I felt that they did not blend these two different approaches well, if that was what they were trying to do. I also didn't find most of the characters interesting with the exception of Ayumi. I think there was some interesting possibilities here, but I don't think it quite delivered for me. The novel is supposed to be decent and I'm actually kinda curious about it. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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From what I remember I liked the art, but I really, really hated the writing in the second half. You are being too kind with "some logical lapses". There weren't just a couple but quite a few, and they were big ones too; logical chasms more like it. The ideas were kind of good, and I did like the characters, but this really needed to be a one-cour series at the very least. |
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DmonHiro
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"Some" logical lapses? The thing made almost NO sense, the ending came out of nowhere, the main character did absolutely NOTHING for the whole movie, the curse of the full moon was never explained, the deformed art stuff was forgotten completely....
The story of this movie is complete BULLSHIT. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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I haven't seen the movie itself but I've heard a detailed summary of the story and yeah, calling it anything but utter bullshit seems nuts to me. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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With all due respect to Theron, it is Hazuki, not Haduki. I notice the review misspelt her name five times. Yes, I realise that on the counsellor's computer monitor early on in the movie it is spelt with a 'd'. However characters (like her father in the teleconference scene, and the guard when Yabe is banging on the door) clearly say her name with a 'z'. I take spoken to be more 'canonical' than written, especially with written Engrish being so rife in Anime productions.
On another note, I found this - taken from MAL - to be a pretty good read. I hope no-one minds me posting it here: [Please note that the following contains some minor spoilers, but spoilers nonetheless. They shouldn't ruin the movie for the uninitiated, but if you are someone who is adverse to spoilers then you may want to skip this to be safe.] As technology continues to grow, the ways people watch one another and in turn are watched, change. Some have paranoia over the "Big Brother" concept where everything and everyone is under mass surveillance by cameras. Privacy might be a thing of the past. In Loups=Garous, it is. Set in the near future, this film depicts a totalitarian society under constant regard from cameras located just about everywhere. The idea of a public and private space has become different. Cameras in the streets? Understandable. In the hallways at a school? Fine. In your dining room? Well, if there was a line, it wasn't drawn because while you're having your Wheaties for breakfast-- someone is continually watching and recording you. And all for the safety and good-will of society, of course. The world of Loups=Garous is run by a giant corporation known as SVC. They monitor the streets, aid the police, and they even control the population's diet, feeding them something akin to space food. SVC has built utopia on the surface, but the city underneath is dark and disturbed in spite of the pristine streets and neatly-ordered town-houses. Even the slums look not-too-shabby. The problem is the people. The citizens, especially the children, have become entirely dependent on their handhelds, the internet and computer programs. A father has "dinner" with his daughter by telecast. Friends are made on message boards, not face-to-face. In fact, the youth no longer really interact with one another. They even have a term for meeting with someone non-virtually: Real Contact. Already the setup for this movie promises many things, but while the foundation blocks are of great material, the house that Jack built ends up being a disaster-shack. First off, it tries to construct a Minotaur's labyrinth with the blue-prints of a turf maze. Loups=Garous confuses itself and the viewers with dozens of overlapping plots that do not so much mix but crash into one another quite awkwardly. Far too much is going on. It wants to be a murder mystery, suspense/thriller, government conspiracy, action, human drama, comedy and music video all at the same time. The jumbled mess that it eventually becomes in the end is no surprise. It knots itself up and by the time it's all over, nothing can be unravelled. It attempts complexity by throwing the viewers into about three or four directions, but none of these lead anywhere that makes any kind of sense. The explanations, when not truly confounding, just seem quite juvenile. At points you may find yourself asking, "You got me all worked up for this?" But that's just one of the many questions, pervasive ones being who exactly is the bad guy and what is their motive? Loups=Garous tries very hard to make the answer ambiguous, but by the end, it seems to have confused itself so much, that it just spits out the answer. It concludes with a generic wrap-up filled with the stereotypical feel-good "what ifs". The actual most intriguing question it poses comes far too late in the show; what if one of the sheep were really the wolf? In the whole scheme of things, a murder and kidnapping take place and both are related. The main character Makino finds herself being questioned since she is connected with the kidnapped victim. Soon she makes Real Contact with the bubbly Mio and the aloof Ayumi and these young girls take the crime-solving into their own hands. It seems a lot of young girls have been getting nabbed and they aim to figure out the reason. The movie splits its attention between the girls and their teacher, a woman who interacts with some very important members of society (you know they're important because they have a meeting using holograms of themselves). All these significant persons have to respond to their higher-up (and you know he's the boss because he has the biggest hologram) who is so sneeringly evil-looking that only the feeble-minded would not figure out he's up to something. But what and why? And what does drawing manga have to do with anything as well? And the masked attackers? And the shifty police force? Let me not forget the robots with possible built-in laser beams. Then there's Myao who is clearly supposed to be the Chinese stereotype kung-fu queen but how exactly does she fit into the story? She doesn't really, but perhaps the audience ought to be grateful since she's basically cracking bones with her twin batons, high heel boots and cheongsam. The lack of believability brings most of this movie down. The first half passes confusingly, but at least with some intrigue, and the second half just seems to be an exercise in ridiculousness. It amazes me that someone heading a conspiracy this gigantic only has a total of three lackeys on his payroll. The bad guys in this anime are the regular thugs that characterise children's programming-- they might as well be dressed like the Hamburglar considering how obvious they are as villains. And if they don't look like brutish goons from a Saturday morning cartoon then they're the usual campy super-genius. Loups=Garous tries to wiggle its way around the concept of "bad guy" by making a few "unexpected" (I say it like that because it's totally obvious) people not so moral or good in actuality. Most of the cast seems to be constructed out of wrapping paper, but the only characters with any kind of solidity are Mio and Ayumi. They are curiously day and night with one another; Ayumi is as robot-like and inexpressive as humanly possible while Mio is the resident hacker who challenges the whole system behind SVC's perverse way of creeping into people's free space and controlling their lives. She does not seem as hard-wired to her handheld computer as Makino who might just be the biggest waste of space in the entire movie. She has zero appeal as a character or as a protagonist, and every time she survives an attack, you just wonder... why? Why does this useless girl live? She can barely even run so she's not even good at escaping. She has grown so dependent on SVC telling her how to live that when she actually meets Ayumi, she responds like a total social spaz. Myao, other than being said Chinese caricature, is basically the Energiser Bunny mixed with the Terminator; no matter the beating she gets, she just keeps coming back and back and back. The number of times and moments she shows up unexpectedly to kick all ass (despite whatever physical condition she's in) becomes laughable and amusing. It kills any semblance of coolness she may have had (granted, she only racks them up because she's the only "outsider" in the anime, and she's voiced by the ever-awesome Sawashiro Miyuki). While on the seiyuu, Loups=Garous' cast makes up for a lot. In fact, the entire sound aspect is so good it's almost like an apology for the fiasco that is the story and the two-dimensionality of the characters. As aforementioned, Sawashiro does a good job as Myao but it's no role impressive enough for her talent. The performance comes off rather mediocre when compared to her other work. Inoue Marina plays Mio well, but again, a case of a great seiyuu stuck as a minor character. In some ways, it can be said that Oki Kanae is perfectly matched to voice Makino because her voice is as annoying as her existence. Igarashi Hiromi might be the only actress to give a performance worth any sort of attention for this film; she does cold, tomboyish and aloof quite spectacularly, especially considering her background doing softer roles. A good soundtrack really seems like the topping for an anime, but in the case of this film, it's the whole damn sundae. Set to Scandal songs, the movie has several music video-like sequences that just seem jarring in comparison to the rest of it. However, despite being ill-suited for the overall atmosphere, they manage to be the only really good scenes as well. Scandal them in animated form makes appearances, though the whole mini-story behind the music being in the film has been totally forgotten by the end. The background music is something to boast about. The film incorporates many styles to fit its many genres and rather than just be a cacophony of bad ideas, it comes together rather harmoniously. Does it sound like a teenage rebellion movie? Yes. Does it sound like a suspenseful thriller? Yes. It sounds like everything it tries and fails to be. Loups=Garous is a rather forgettable (and sometimes lamentable) experience. In the beginning, all the plans have been abandoned since nothing seems to find a direction to go. By the end, nothing makes sense and everything becomes utterly absurd. Punctuating the movie are several scenes that totally destroy any kind of dignity it may have built. There is one entirely stupid moment that stands out the most where the girls are attempting to override the entire program controlling the town. Mio tries hacking the system, but the others are smashing the the computer screens and pulling out plugs. Such an advanced system and yet they're banging away at the equipment like it's a colour TV from the 90s with no cable. And it WORKS. This might be the dumbest moment in all of Loups=Garous, but nothing beats when the girls eventually meet the villain. The whole thing plays out like it's the Wizard of Oz with the big baddie at the end being as disappointing as the actual Oz-- someone only scary on the screen. However, this one moment makes the whole thing worth watching. During the expected endless exposition by the villain about his master plan and motives, someone shuts him up in the most perfect way possible. Ah, suddenly that hour and half of head-scratching pays off. The big reveal about the title comes in rather uselessly and stupidly near the climax of the film. If you do not know, loup garou is French for "werewolf". After enduring this movie, nothing really ties the concept of lupine creature into the rest of the story. The only thing that contributes might have been the big full moon that appears a handful of times. Somehow real werewolves showing up might have been more worthwhile than the actual explanation given. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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Is it really necessary to copy paste an entire review from another site in the response thread to this one? If people want to read that review they can go to that site and read it there.
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunrei-shiki_romanization |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Well you learn something every day. I didn't even know of that system until now.
This caught my eye:
'Passport' is in bold because it interests me. If it is on a passport it is probably in the government's databases, such as an education database holding student records. Anyway, it is possible that in the Anime's universe they use the Kunrei-shiki system for governmental records. Although as the saying goes, be careful about attributing to malice (or in this case, deliberate action) what can be blamed on stupidity (or in this case, a simple typo by the animators). But if 'Haduki' is indeed the proper spelling, then ANN's Encyclopedia page for the movie should be changed to reflect that (it currently has 'Hazuki', naturally). |
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maaya
Posts: 976 |
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I don't think that the goverment's database has any romaji spelling at all in reality. The Japanese themselves don't necessarily know very much about the common romanization systems, because naturally they rarely have to use any of them (for many reading Japanese in romaji is rather difficult). And unless they plan to travel abroad, they also don't have a passport. So for any spelling they use in fictional works ... I have the impression they just chose quite randomly 
In the end, there is really no difference between Hazuki and Haduki, apart from the fact that the first one is I guess a bit easier to understand for foreigners. Concerning the movie, I felt like I was watching some children's movie ... it was really bad, and difficult to finish o_O |
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pachy_boy
Posts: 1323 |
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As I was watching this film, I thought it might've been made by the creators of Tweeny Witches, because the art and style look so similar. Upon looking through ANN's encyclopedia, I surprisingly find no such relation.
When I looked at the cover, I thought I was seeing a girl. Then I watch the movie's (otherwise solid) dub and it was a boy's voice. I just shrugged and accepted it at the time, although "his" feminine face and style of clothing was a little weird. Then I watch the extras and find out Ayumi's a girl. I go online to confirm that she's a girl. I watch some of the same Ayumi scenes in Japanese, and they were clearly a girl's voice, and yet the subtitles still keep referring to Ayumi as a "he." All this really put me off. I don't mind a token-boy character joining a cast of girls, but if it wasn't a boy to begin with, what was the point? Is it because Haduki acts crush-y on Ayumi? One could easily interpret Haduki's blushing as social awkwardness partly due to Ayumi's intimidating aura, but what would've been wrong with it if it was yuri subtext? I think this was just pure sloppiness on Sentai's part where they didn't do any careful research, which is too bad because they normally do hiqh-quality releases for their titles. It's for this distraction alone I'm not sure I could ever watch the movie again--although I would agree with anyone that the movie's ending was rather blunt and out there, even though this is one of those more-about-the-journey kinds of stories. |
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Jacut
Posts: 140 Location: Paris, France |
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I understand ANN's ratings less and less. Last week (or was it two weeks ago ?), the best anime of the year - at least that's what the vast majority of anime fans think, newcomers, veterans and critics alike - Fate/Zero was rated C and today the utterly shitty and already long forgotten Loups=Garous (a movie without visible redeeming quality) is rated B. Some reviewers have it totally wrong it seems.
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Shenl742
Posts: 1524 |
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...You do realize that both those titles were reviewed by two differant people, right? There is no mandatory group concensus on this site, all the reviewers have differant...views. Hell, Zac totally trashed Loup on the last ANNCast, and Bamboo is giving Fate/Zero pretty high marks on The Stream So...I don't see what the heck's your issue with "ANN's" ratings, unless you only think a review "counts" if it's an "official" one. |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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You're not actually "confused" by our review scores, you're unhappy that your favorite show got a C in one of our reviews. This kind of hyperbole makes it very easy to see what you're *actually* saying, yanno. |
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SoandSo
Posts: 204 |
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Hahahahaha Also, way to completely fail to understand how reviews and criticism works. |
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