This [rant's] sort of a rant/review, but that's necessary to describethis horrible depressing little piece of anime theatre. My advice to allthose who are looking at it, or thinking of getting it, is that if you'rehaving a good day, don't watch it. It'll all bum you out for the rest of theday. Warning: There are spoilers ahead, so if you actually were thinking ofwatching it, watch it first and then come back and read this. However, myrecommendation is to read this first and be sufficiently warned. Spoilersare necessary because in order to truly rant about this flick, you must delveinto it's, uh, plot.
Essentially, the plot can be summed up like this: Kamui is your slightlystrange main character guy, who doesn't really care about anything but wantsto protect his best friend and this girl who he really likes, apparently.Well, problem is, the end of the world is coming. The dragons of earth wantit to happen, the dragons of heaven want to stop it. Kamui must choose oneside; trouble is, whichever side he picks, his best buddy has to pick theother side by some powerful destiny. Well, we're introduced to all thedragons of heaven (who appear as people with super powers) and theircounterparts, the dragons of earth. But the plot can truly be summed up by this:
Everybody dies. Period. Everybody except for the one main character.The worst part is, they are casually offed with no glorious death scenes orbravado so common in anime and well deserved for such cool characters as thismovie boasts. Also, once your favorite character is executed mercilessly inan offhand manner, they're gone. Forgotten. No further mention of them forthe remainder of the movie. Now don't get me wrong, when I first began towatch the movie, I loved it. The plot was kinda neat, but the truly coolthing about it was the characters. The characters, both good and bad, wereawesome, well-developed and the kind that inspire posters and shrines socommon in anime-dom. Well, therein lies the true problem (horror) of thismovie. You're watching it, thinking:
Hm. Well, this is pretty cool. The plot is a little wierd, but man, look atthese characters. I particularly like that redheaded chick with the swordand all the living ribbons, and that casually-dressed guy who's the toughestof the cast. But really, all of them are so neat. Hm...one of themjust got killed. Man, that was a little callous. Well, it happens, andthere are so many other characters to root on... Hm. Well, crap,there goes another. What's with them getting killed off so quickly? aw, man, he was a bad guy but he was cool! What's with this 'kill off all the characters' bit?
Y'know, there's a 4-hour version of this movie, but I refuse to watch it.Essentially, I'd just get more attached to the characters before they werecasually wasted and moved along. I mean, some of the deaths are truly wrong. For example, at one point, two villians and a couple of heroes are fightingin a parking garage to a building, one of them misses with an energyblast...KABOOM the building falls on the whole lot of 'em and they're allkilled. 3-4 gone. Then, arguably the two coolest characters in the movie,both heroes (and the ones mentioned above in last section) are fighting thebig villian guy. The cool, charismatic and casually dressed guy, realizinghe cannot defeat him, expends all his life energy in one great final heroiccataclysm that basically kills him in the process and does...NOTHING!!!Absolutely NOTHING as the unscathed villain laughs and cuts him down frommidair. 'Nuther one gone. As he's laying on the ground, he says his finalwords to the redheaded chick who had so much style and was such a goodfighter. Midway through, the girl stiffens with an 'urk', and the camerapans up...to show the villain impaling her on his sword, she dies, he walksaway. Nuther one gone. Then there's this 'cute little girl' with a dogthat's a spiritual guardian. Towards the end, the plucky young 'littlesister' type wants to do her part. My impersonation of her great debut:
"No, don't, you'll be killed!"
"I have to do my part! I've just been standing around, I wanna be a hero!"[runs and leaps into battle] [is immediately executed and flung back to where she jumped from]
"Told you!"'Nuther one gone. Dog howls and then vanishes. When I first saw it, I said
"If she gets killed that'll just be in poor taste". Well, guess what. Theseare just some of the 'worst of' list of character executions.
But the truly inexplicable depressing bit comes from Kamui and the two peoplehe wanted to save. OK, final impersonation of the rant: Kamui and friendsin X:1999 30 second theatre! (start timing):
"Boy I like you guys. You guys are cool."
"Hey, you're a dragon of heaven now. Well, 'cause of that destiny, I'm now adragon of earth."
"Man, that sucks."
"Hey, that big superspiritual power sword is hidden in that girl you'retrying to protect, Utena style. I need it."
"Hey, wait, crap, what're you--" [tears sword out of girl's chest]
"Well, while I'm at it, might as well cut her head off."
"Hey, wait, what're you--"
"Auughh this really sucks!!!!" [holds severed head, bawls, severed head ruinsperfectly good school uniform]
"Hey, I'm all kinds of psycho now! I'll kill you, Kamui! Yaaaa!" [runs atKamui]
"Hey, no, wait, all I ever wanted to do was protect you guys! It's badenough that she's dead, I don't want to kill you too!"
"YAAA!!!"
"No, wait, this sucks! I don't wanna -" [accidentally severs best friends head, which sails through theair and lands in his lap.]
"Aw man, this REALLY sucks! All I wanted to do was protect my two friendsand now look they're both dead and they're the only thing I ever cared aboutand I even killed one of them myself and all the other characters worthy ofmention are dead and I'm the last one left alive!"[holds friend's severed head, cries, credits roll].Yep, that's it folks. Sucks, dudnit? At least armageddon was prevented...oryou presume so, since it ends right there.So, in conclusion, I don't know what happened. CLAMP is such a shojo styleanime company; where precisely in the hell this came from is beyond me. Ifyou do decide to watch it, my advice is to have a couple of tapes ofsomething really sugary cutesy like Azakukin Cha-Cha on hand to clear thatcrap out of your system. Well, I hope you have all been sufficientlyforewarned (we should all help each other out ^_^). Until next time, jamatte ne!
~~Dan H.
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"I believe in dragons, faeries, good men, and other fantasy creatures."
