Kenshin trilogy thoughts
May. 2nd, 2015 06:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akinoameSo I've finished the Rurouni Kenshin trilogy and...hoo boy.
First off, let me say that I love the first movie. It's fantastic, gets everything right.
Somewhere in the second and third, they completely miss everything.
See, the first movie took very small pieces of the first arc from the manga and other arcs. Then combined them and got a great story. There wasn't a whole lot of ground to cover, you introduced everyone well, and hey, we got Saito as a bonus. I love Saito. Everybody loves Saito.
So the Kyoto Arc, everybody's favorite story, comes along and...it's huge. No, really, it's huge. And it's hard to condense into two movies.
The second movie has pacing all over the place, and for all I loveAnkh Ryosuke Miura's stupid hair, I feel like he was unnecessarily padding the movie. It probably should have just been Kenshin vs. Soujiro the whole time (also, much as I love Ankh Ryosuke Miura, I do love Soujiro too). Don't worry about breaking the sword; worry about Soujiro being a fast little shit and have it end where about the midpoint of the second movie is--with Kenshin needing to find his master and learn the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki. I like Misao, but I feel like she didn't contribute much, and Aoshi was an annoying distraction throughout the third movie.
It feels like these last two movies had no idea what they were doing. So instead, it re-tread places the first movie had gone before. Both it and the second have Kenshin waffling over what to do because he doesn't want to break his vow not to kill, with Saito giving him a hard time over it--and yes, that's the entire plot of the first movie. He found a happy medium that involves blunt force trauma and his villains just kinda killing themselves off in the end--not perfect, but whatever. The second movie also had Kenshin freaking because Kaoru was in danger--when in doubt, try to kill Kaoru. That'll give you drama. The third movie has the fight in the dojo from the first movie and Sanosuke brawling with a praying guy in the kitchen--and even he points out that the last time he did this, it was a Christian and not a Buddhist he was fighting.
We know there are Ten Swords, but other than a very few, we really don't get to meet them. Which is a shame because honestly? I REMEMBER THEM. I loved Monk Anji. I loved Kamatari and never really knew if they were supposed to be considered transgender, and that whole rivalry with Yumi was understandable after the reveal of their physical sex. And while she wasn't actually a member of the Ten Swords, I liked when they went into Yumi's backstory--it was heartwrenching. Soujiro's backstory is just as horrible. But everything is just brushed over in the movies. Anji delivers a single sentence for Yumi, Soujiro, and Hoji, and doesn't even reveal his own name. Sano asks him why he would destroy the peace, and it's summed up as hating the Imperialists. No mention of his temple being burned and the children he took in being murdered by them. I remembered that, and I thought, "Why would they cut that? Why would they take the one thing that made Sano try to reason with him?" But there's 2 movies and more than 10 new characters to flesh out. When do you have the TIME?
Another problem is shared with the first movie, and it's what I think kills the third. Rurouni Kenshin is part-reality, part-fantasy. From the moment the WB logo appears on the first movie, you go into this expecting something like Batman Begins--favoring grit and realism over the fantastical elements like chi attacks and super techniques. Kenshin's special techniques all feel like they make sense--he's the best because he's the fastest and the strongest. Hiten Mitsurugi teaches him that. It's not magic. Hell, we even SEE Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki, and you'd think, "Yeah. That would explain why it's the strongest technique--there's a LOT of speed and power behind it." But then you have things like Jin-e's chi attack on Kaoru in the first and...the dumbest thing I ever saw in the anime. Shishio's actual death. Don't get me wrong--I actually did LOVE the part where Shishio carried Yumi's body up the stairs in an exact mirror of Kenshin carrying Kaoru toward the end of the first movie. But as he started to die, I was silently begging them to go with the fires on the ship, have him burn to death from the cannon fire as his ship sank. Have the backlash of his own attack (which they never explained) be thrown on him by Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki. The anime and manga have him die because he overheats--alluded to enough, and fine--to the point where his body combusts--stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I mean, stupid. It was dumb in the original, but here, where the movie is trying for a tone like the Nolanverse, and it breaks everything. Of all the things. Of everything they could have gone with, this is the thing that breaks the realism. WHY? WHY?
And I find myself asking, "WHY?" a lot through these last two movies. The cast is fantastic, and Takeru Satoh is the perfect Kenshin. But WHY is Kenshin's personality constantly stuck in depression, when the character is normally very dorky and kind? Satoh is amazing at changing personality at the drop of a hat. You can see the difference between the rurouni and the assassin immediately without having to rely on something like dissociative identity disorder. Why never actually delve into his past with Tomoe? All he ever says is that she was the fiancee of the man who gave him his first scar and finished the job with the second. We never get to see her. You get the sense they probably would have told her story, but nope. No time for that. Hell, I was amazed they kept the part where he went by "Shinta" as a child and would have been sold as a slave, if bandits hadn't attacked the caravan, and that he buried ALL of the bodies there. Emi Takei is fine as Kaoru, but a lingering problem from the source material is that a lot of the time, she exists to be the hostage. I loved seeing her fight in the second movie, but while I understand that she professes "a sword to give life to people," she should have been armed with something a little better than her bokken. Yu Aoi is a good Megumi, Taketo Tanaka in the first and Kaito Oyagi in the sequels are good as Yahiko, and Aoki Munetaki is fantastic as Sanosuke. Most of the other characters kind of fade into the background, but you get some gems like Koji Kikkawa as Jin-e in the first, Ryosuke Miura as...well, your typical Ryosuke Miura character in the second, and Tatsuya Fujiwara as Shishio. Soujiro's actor, Ryunosuke Kamiki, is pretty good, but I do wish they'd added more depth to his backstory because I think he was a little TOO stuck in the "smiling nice assassin boy" persona even during his breakdown. He didn't end up coming off as polite because of horrific trauma--more like a cocky little shit.
Overall, though, I have to recommend the first. The second two...you REALLY have to like the actors, I think. And if you don't know the Kyoto Arc from the manga, the anime, or the New Kyoto Arc OVA, you're going to be hopelessly lost. I love the Kyoto Arc, and in some ways, I wish they'd done the entire trilogy on that, just so it wouldn't feel so rushed and repetitive of the first, but whatever. The first movie was certainly worth it.
Also, check out One OK Rock's stuff, since they did all three end themes: "The Beginning," "Mighty Long Fall," and "Heartache." They're really good.
First off, let me say that I love the first movie. It's fantastic, gets everything right.
Somewhere in the second and third, they completely miss everything.
See, the first movie took very small pieces of the first arc from the manga and other arcs. Then combined them and got a great story. There wasn't a whole lot of ground to cover, you introduced everyone well, and hey, we got Saito as a bonus. I love Saito. Everybody loves Saito.
So the Kyoto Arc, everybody's favorite story, comes along and...it's huge. No, really, it's huge. And it's hard to condense into two movies.
The second movie has pacing all over the place, and for all I love
It feels like these last two movies had no idea what they were doing. So instead, it re-tread places the first movie had gone before. Both it and the second have Kenshin waffling over what to do because he doesn't want to break his vow not to kill, with Saito giving him a hard time over it--and yes, that's the entire plot of the first movie. He found a happy medium that involves blunt force trauma and his villains just kinda killing themselves off in the end--not perfect, but whatever. The second movie also had Kenshin freaking because Kaoru was in danger--when in doubt, try to kill Kaoru. That'll give you drama. The third movie has the fight in the dojo from the first movie and Sanosuke brawling with a praying guy in the kitchen--and even he points out that the last time he did this, it was a Christian and not a Buddhist he was fighting.
We know there are Ten Swords, but other than a very few, we really don't get to meet them. Which is a shame because honestly? I REMEMBER THEM. I loved Monk Anji. I loved Kamatari and never really knew if they were supposed to be considered transgender, and that whole rivalry with Yumi was understandable after the reveal of their physical sex. And while she wasn't actually a member of the Ten Swords, I liked when they went into Yumi's backstory--it was heartwrenching. Soujiro's backstory is just as horrible. But everything is just brushed over in the movies. Anji delivers a single sentence for Yumi, Soujiro, and Hoji, and doesn't even reveal his own name. Sano asks him why he would destroy the peace, and it's summed up as hating the Imperialists. No mention of his temple being burned and the children he took in being murdered by them. I remembered that, and I thought, "Why would they cut that? Why would they take the one thing that made Sano try to reason with him?" But there's 2 movies and more than 10 new characters to flesh out. When do you have the TIME?
Another problem is shared with the first movie, and it's what I think kills the third. Rurouni Kenshin is part-reality, part-fantasy. From the moment the WB logo appears on the first movie, you go into this expecting something like Batman Begins--favoring grit and realism over the fantastical elements like chi attacks and super techniques. Kenshin's special techniques all feel like they make sense--he's the best because he's the fastest and the strongest. Hiten Mitsurugi teaches him that. It's not magic. Hell, we even SEE Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki, and you'd think, "Yeah. That would explain why it's the strongest technique--there's a LOT of speed and power behind it." But then you have things like Jin-e's chi attack on Kaoru in the first and...the dumbest thing I ever saw in the anime. Shishio's actual death. Don't get me wrong--I actually did LOVE the part where Shishio carried Yumi's body up the stairs in an exact mirror of Kenshin carrying Kaoru toward the end of the first movie. But as he started to die, I was silently begging them to go with the fires on the ship, have him burn to death from the cannon fire as his ship sank. Have the backlash of his own attack (which they never explained) be thrown on him by Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki. The anime and manga have him die because he overheats--alluded to enough, and fine--to the point where his body combusts--stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I mean, stupid. It was dumb in the original, but here, where the movie is trying for a tone like the Nolanverse, and it breaks everything. Of all the things. Of everything they could have gone with, this is the thing that breaks the realism. WHY? WHY?
And I find myself asking, "WHY?" a lot through these last two movies. The cast is fantastic, and Takeru Satoh is the perfect Kenshin. But WHY is Kenshin's personality constantly stuck in depression, when the character is normally very dorky and kind? Satoh is amazing at changing personality at the drop of a hat. You can see the difference between the rurouni and the assassin immediately without having to rely on something like dissociative identity disorder. Why never actually delve into his past with Tomoe? All he ever says is that she was the fiancee of the man who gave him his first scar and finished the job with the second. We never get to see her. You get the sense they probably would have told her story, but nope. No time for that. Hell, I was amazed they kept the part where he went by "Shinta" as a child and would have been sold as a slave, if bandits hadn't attacked the caravan, and that he buried ALL of the bodies there. Emi Takei is fine as Kaoru, but a lingering problem from the source material is that a lot of the time, she exists to be the hostage. I loved seeing her fight in the second movie, but while I understand that she professes "a sword to give life to people," she should have been armed with something a little better than her bokken. Yu Aoi is a good Megumi, Taketo Tanaka in the first and Kaito Oyagi in the sequels are good as Yahiko, and Aoki Munetaki is fantastic as Sanosuke. Most of the other characters kind of fade into the background, but you get some gems like Koji Kikkawa as Jin-e in the first, Ryosuke Miura as...well, your typical Ryosuke Miura character in the second, and Tatsuya Fujiwara as Shishio. Soujiro's actor, Ryunosuke Kamiki, is pretty good, but I do wish they'd added more depth to his backstory because I think he was a little TOO stuck in the "smiling nice assassin boy" persona even during his breakdown. He didn't end up coming off as polite because of horrific trauma--more like a cocky little shit.
Overall, though, I have to recommend the first. The second two...you REALLY have to like the actors, I think. And if you don't know the Kyoto Arc from the manga, the anime, or the New Kyoto Arc OVA, you're going to be hopelessly lost. I love the Kyoto Arc, and in some ways, I wish they'd done the entire trilogy on that, just so it wouldn't feel so rushed and repetitive of the first, but whatever. The first movie was certainly worth it.
Also, check out One OK Rock's stuff, since they did all three end themes: "The Beginning," "Mighty Long Fall," and "Heartache." They're really good.