X

After his mother dies giving birth to a sacred sword, Kamui Shiro returns to Tokyo for the first time in many years.  He arrives to find two powerful forces at war with one another: The Dragons of Heaven, who want to protect the Earth; and the Dragons of Earth, who wish to see the planet reborn anew.  Kamui’s entry into the fray marks a critical turning point as he is the deciding player, the one who will lead either side to victory.  As warriors clash and destruction reigns, Kamui learns his destiny is also entwined with his two closest friends, Fuma and Kotori.  It is a destiny that will tear their lives and Tokyo asunder as the final battle for the planet begins.

From the Creators of Cardcaptor Sakura and the Director of Galaxy Express 999 comes X, a no holds barred team deathmatch between powerful sorcerers to determine the fate of planet Earth.  It comes from a Manga that isn’t finished, which should be a red flag when it comes to these kinds of adaptations.  Oh don’t get me wrong, X isn’t perfect when it comes to its story or its characters.  When it comes to its visuals, however, X might just be one of the best looking Anime of the 1990’s, on par with it’s fellow apocalyptic blockbuster, The End of Evangelion (which came out a year after this movie).  But is this a case of getting so lost in the visuals that you can overlook the rest of the films shortcomings?
 
X actually shares a bit in common, production wise, with Katushiro Otomo’s Akira.  Both films were made while the Manga was still ongoing and thus, an ending had to be crafted for an unfinished tale.  Akira did this better mostly because it had the original author, Otomo, both writing and directing, so he was able to personally provide a decent ending while also providing nuggets of what was to come in the Manga.  But while the Akira Manga was only a couple of years out from completion, X was barely halfway done when this movie was greenlit.  As such, the movie feels very incomplete when it comes to character arcs and story progression feels very fast with pauses being used to provide massive exposition dumps to bring viewers up to speed quickly.  It feels less like a proper theatrical tale and more like an extremely pretty Compilation Film for the X storyline.  It also makes me wonder if X could have been better served as two movies instead of one.  Given how good this movie looks though, I get the feeling a budget for two high quality films would’ve been a bit of an ask, even if it could allow the story to flow more naturally and allow audiences to get to know the characters besides Kamui a bit better.
 
Indeed, The supporting cast is done the most dirty by this approach.  At around 100 minutes, X has to quickly introduce both teams of Dragons, the Dreamseer Sisters plus Kamui and his two besties and give them all a fair amount of screentime.  100 minutes just isn’t the kind of runtime for a story as loaded and heavy as X (hence my thought about the two part movie approach).  Characters like Kanoe, Sorata, Arashi and Yuzuriha are around more than most but their character arcs are sparse and theyre either there to provide exposition or kick some ass.  Others like Nataku, Aoi, Karen and Subaru disappear in battle as quickly as they appear.  There’s even a character freshly introduced to even out the sides and he is dispatched without a word or chance to stand out.  Even Kamui’s bestie turned rival, Fuma, a key part to Kamui’s journey, has his own arc in fast forward as he jumps to the dark side and then even darker side entirely off screen.  All if this disregard for supporting cast is in service to Kamui, who gets the most development of any character as we follow his journey from unwilling participant to unwilling but necessary savior.  His is a tragic story for sure but it isn’t allowed to breathe and simmer, not at the pace the plot progresses, even with the many minutes of info dumping.
 
So the story and characters aren’t done very well.  Everything else…well I’ll be honest, X is the kind of movie you could get away with saying, turn off the audio and just watch the pretty (and disturbing) pictures and enjoy the ride.  Studio Madhouse clearly set out to make the most beautiful Anime they possibly could and this is definitely in their Top 10 best looking works of all time.  Everything looks so sharp and the character models maintain CLAMPs penchant for wide eyes while also looking more mature than their more kind friendly protagonists from Cardcaptor Sakura or Magic Knight Rayearth.  Mature is also the best way to describe all the carnage that unfolds.  Mass destruction and oceans of blood are the cocktail X offers and it offers them in abundance.  Whether or not you agree with how the characters are handled, when it comes to action, they are here to be discarded or sent out in brutally horrific fashions.  There’s even an added dose of body horror when you see where the mystical weapons Kamui and his fellow fighters wield come from.  X is an apocalyptic visual thrill on a massive scale, arguably doing what End of Eva would do a year later…only End of Eva had a story to go along with it, even if it was a TV Series.
 
Also have to give a shoutout to the music in X.  Yasuaki Shimizu delivers a score that’s as haunting as the images its matched too.  At points its very ethereal and mysterious, like the chimes that ring whenever cherry blossoms fly across the screen in the breeze.  But it can just as quickly turn twisted and menacing depending on the horrors Kamui and company witness.  This is doubly so when it comes to the very trippy dream sequences, making you feel appropriately uncomfortable and uncertain as to what might happen next.  I felt like I was watching a musical number from Disney’s Fantasia at points and considering I think of that film as one of the greatest ever made PERIOD, that’s saying a lot for the music of X.  It’s as beautiful as it is tragic, more than matching the visual feast for the eyes and even has an equally fitting end theme with Forever Love by Yoshiki, which is such a beautiful and bad ass piece of music. 
 
This is tough.  By rights, X has a very rushed story with barely serviced characters outside of the lead and that should make it a bad movie.  But when a movie looks this entrancingly good, it’s hard to really dislike it altogether, and it’s rare I make that kind of compromise.  If you want a more fleshed out X storyline, I highly recommend the X TV Series directed by Yoshiyaki Kawajiri (man his name keeps coming up this month a lot).  But I wont say just skip over X the Movie (maybe watch it after the show though).  It’s dark, haunting, gorgeous to look at and an even greater experience to listen to with the soundtrack.  I should dock a lot of points for everything else feeling rushed and incomplete but in this rare instance, I’m gonna say the visuals alone are worth the watch…then go find the TV Series and get a more complete experience (even if its not nearly as pretty).
 
8/10
 
Next Monday, we steer away from bloody mages and head back to the age of the Samurai for a look at an Anime that, at one point, everyone thought was going to be a sequel to Ninja Scroll…boy were they wrong.  A month of Anime Horrors continues with Ninja Resurrection, Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.