Anime feature trades plot for visual prowess
By Jeremiah JeffriesIn America it is nice to see Japanese animation, or anime, movies make it to the big screen. So it was especially nice this past year to have seen two excellent films from different genres in theaters: the beautifully intelligent Princess Mononoke and the powerful psycho-thriller Perfect Blue.
Unfortunately, X breaks from that trend.
X is based on the Japanese comic published by the very talented Clamp group (Satsuki Igarashi, Mokona Apapa, Nanase Okawa and Mick Nekoi), and directed by Rintaro. Technically, the film is strong; the animation is balanced and well conceived as it blends the dark supernatural horror tones of another Japanese animation film, Wicked City, with the more fluid and crisp tones of Street Fighter. However, the script falls disappointingly short.
The story is the good-vs.-evil-recruiting-warriors- for-Armageddon-and-only-the-chose-one-can-save-everyone plot that already proliferates far too much in anime. The main character, Kamui, finds himself drawn into a battle between two sorcerers, the Dragon of Heaven and the Dragon of the Earth, who want to cleanse the planet of humans—starting, of course, with Tokyo. Their battle is the prelude to the coming Armageddon between both sides, though they also fight for personal reasons that are never made clear.
The rest of this movie progresses in a predictable way for anime fans, with the usual gathering of forces, the chosen one (Kamui) actually becoming a chosen two and a half, and mystic one-on-one fights of dragons. But even these battles take place almost simultaneously building up to the very anticlimactic ending.
Throughout X, a coherent plot is apparently sacrificed in favor of visual displays of artistic prowess, with gaps in the plot constantly nagging at the viewer.
For example, why Kamui is the chosen one is unknown. There is a large cast of characters who are introduced in this sort of casting-call scene at the beginning of the film. Their background and relationship to each other is unknown. Why anyone has taken the sides they have is unknown. Flashbacks, dream sequences, and trips to the astral plane provide some sketchy details to the relationship of the three main characters, one of whom serves the role of damsel in distress throughout the entire movie. Not the most enlightened of film aspects.
The English-language dialogue is poor and most of the time unnatural. Sometimes the dialogue and tone are even contrary to the little character development they did provide. The dialogue also does too much explaining of things that were obvious or could be made clear through better storytelling. This contributes to problems of plot and characterization.
The world created in this story is two-dimensional at best, as very little was shown of Tokyo’s non-dragon and non-chosen one population. There are only one or two scenes when the viewer sees that the city had people being affected by the damage from all the battles—even though major sections of the city are destroyed during the film.
In addition, the emotional content of the movie lack’s validity. There is little character motivation in anything that happens, so the end of the movie leaves the viewer wondering why anyone cares about any of the characters or even the fate of their world.
Finally, one is never really sure what the title “X” means either, unless one postulates that the film’s producers saw everything important to good story telling as an “unknown” algebraic sum.
Jeremiah Jefferies is founder of CAINE (C.omicbook, A.nimation IN. tellectual E.xploration) and the KalamId-Din Library of Comicbooks and Animation at the University of Virginia.