Shigurui

lagore

lagore

New Member
[sadht]Shigurui[/sadht][sadhl=1447]shigurui[/sadhl][sadhdc][/sadhdc]

Okay, so... I just watched this and I have no clue what just happened. It had some good points and some bad points but mainly I'm just confused:

Did they ever have that final battle? How did the main guy lose his arm? Did I miss some episodes or something? What happened to the dojo? This show just feels totally unfinished. Ugh! AHHHH!!!
 
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lagore said:
This show just feels totally unfinished.
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It is.
Basically Shigurui is based on an manga... and, hey, do you see where this is going? Yup, they didn't include the actual ending. That's definitely one of Shigurui's biggest flaws (though at least they settled things up with Kogan, IIRC).
 
One could say the same of Berserk or Claymore and so on and on. It's an all too frequent flaw, frankly.
 
Yep totally agree on what happened about the show, it is good but short. The same for Berserk which happened to it.
 
Sad to know it's ending is a flop.

However, after just finished episode 3, I think it'll still probably get a high mark from me. It's not really... pleasurable to watch, but it's just so intense and visceral that it's feels like a worthwhile watch. I feel like I can't peel my eyes away.
 
The ending isn't that bad. As I opined in my review it does tie up some thematic threads. It's that pesky plot it doesn't quite shut down. -_-

As far as the watching experience goes, the phrase that stuck in my mind after watching it was that it was, uh, worthwhile to endure. 'Enjoy' is not exactly a word I'd use to describe Shigurui, though it is a completely unforgettable anime and a stylistic marvel.
 
Naw, it's... it's a pretty bad series. In my opinion. Good style, but very slow, and... I dunno...

It rubbed me the wrong way.
 
Shigurui is definitely one of those love or loathe it affairs (heavy emphasis on both love and loathe, i'faith). I've seen it described as one of the best anime ever made if not the best, and, well, also as one of the worst. It's just not a title that leaves people feeling neutrally.

I come down somewhere on the 'yes, good, even great at what it sets out to do, but not amazing' line. And yeah, if you want a heavily pretentious and humourless satire of the samurai era used as a clothesline for intensely, savagely graphic violence, served up with great panache and style... well, you're not that common but you'll appreciate what Shigurui has to offer. -_-
 
valondar said:
The ending isn't that bad. As I opined in my review it does tie up some thematic threads. It's that pesky plot it doesn't quite shut down. -_-

As far as the watching experience goes, the phrase that stuck in my mind after watching it was that it was, uh, worthwhile to endure. 'Enjoy' is not exactly a word I'd use to describe Shigurui, though it is a completely unforgettable anime and a stylistic marvel.
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I think I agree with this. I'm not enjoying it, but I like enduring it. I feel like there is something new and interesting there that is completely worth the watch. I haven't been so shocked with a different style like this since watching Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet by David Lynch. (Which, as a side note, are extraordinary movies, watch if you haven't done so)

Even Kaiba and Pulp Fiction, both of which I've watched somewhat recently, don't really come close to a freakishly unique style.
 
Lyzl said:
I haven't been so shocked with a different style like this since watching Mulholland Drive and Blue Velvet by David Lynch. (Which, as a side note, are extraordinary movies, watch if you haven't done so)
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Lynch is a pretty excellent point of comparison, actually, particularly those two films (the latter of which as far as I recall also divided audiences).

Even Kaiba and Pulp Fiction, both of which I've watched somewhat recently, don't really come close to a freakishly unique style.
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I think in terms of style Shigurui probably owes most to Mahashiro Shinoda films like Double Suicide, Pale Flower and Samurai Assasination, but that may just be me. Just in general it's channeling the bitter, darker aspects of the Japanese New Wave.

But yeah, as I said in another thread, Hirotugu Hamsaki (this series and Texhnolyze) is definitely a cult favourite anime director. Not a personal favourite of mine but I certainly get the appeal of his style.
 
I'm not familiar to any of those references, but the thing is I'm not much of an obscure anime watcher. Even for movies (which I am a big fan of as well), I tend not to go for culty/obscure/independent stuff unless highly recommended.

(For fun, I'll mention some of my favorite culty movies: Rocky Horror Picture show, Little Miss Sunshine, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: a space oddessy, Blade Runner, Donnie Darko, a Clockwork Orange, Cube Trilogy, Planet of the Apes, and Requiem for a dream, but even the vast majority of these, you'll notice, are not really that obscure)
 
Honestly, I WANT the cliched samurai stuff. I just loved they style (animation, music, slow pace) but the odd story and what seem like loose ends (not just the ending, but what seem like aborted story arcs) just left me saddened and wanting more. The parts I liked the most were the cliched parts, like the narrator. I loved him! Chiming in every now and then at pivitol moments "...and at that moment Fujiki perfected an unparalleled technique..."

And frankly, the violence didn't affect me because of the quantity, it was the quality (ie. graphicness). I mean, there really isn't much, maybe one gross scene per episode, but it's like... "man dropping a gouged eyeball in his mouth and spitting out the juices" gross. And it's tough to upset me. I just think maybe... MAYBE they could have pulled it back just a tiny little bit so they could have stopped distracting from the story. I mean, look at Sheex, his opinion (in his review) would no doubt be much different if the violence was just slightly lessened. I'm not talking done away with, but there's a thin line between supporting the story and distracting from it.
 
I sincerely doubt Sheex's view would be considerably different if there was less violence (I mean I got the impression he didn't think much of the story either); and it would be sort of worth noting that the excessive violence is part of Shigurui's appeal. It takes this absurd view of the samurai period and then brings it to staggeringly disgusting extremes. It's an excerise in unsettling and creeping the fuck out of the audience. You kind of have to want that done to you to appreciate Shigurui. -_-

Lyzl said:
I'm not familiar to any of those references, but the thing is I'm not much of an obscure anime watcher.
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Well, Shinoda and the Japanese New Wave are just conventional movie references. Texhnolyze would be the only cult anime I referred to in that post, though I'd like to think I'm fairly familiar with the cultish variety of anime.

but even the vast majority of these, you'll notice, are not really that obscure)
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Quite. I wouldn't call a single one obscure. Maybe the Cube sequels but that'd kind of be it.
 
Well, I know of technolyze, just not the rest. I guess that boils more down to the fact that I watch near no anime movies/shorts, I've seen maybe 20?

I'll agree that none of those are "obscure", although, to the average film watcher I know, they wouldn't have heard/watched 75% of them. By film watcher, I just mean people who regularly watch movies, not film critics or fanatics. A lot of them are culty in a sense too, where many people I know that actually watched them just hated them (requiem, 2001, rocky horror, and clockwork orange being major examples).

I would also proclaim you pretty culty in your anime knowledge as well ^^. I like to stick to popular where I can, mostly because I like to have opinions on everything people generally talk about, so if people are talking about it, I watch it, haha.

(Most people consider me extremely argumentative, and I am, because I tend to have opinions on everything and want them to be known ><)

Also, we're so horribly off topic right now I feel bad. Whatever though, I like going off on tangents, and most of this is semi-related haha.
 
Lyzl said:
Well, I know of technolyze, just not the rest. I guess that boils more down to the fact that I watch near no anime movies/shorts, I've seen maybe 20?
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I mean they're live-action movies. They're Japanese but they've got nothing to do with anime at all. Sorry, I was probably a little vague there. The Japanese New Wave was like a movement back in the 1960s. You know Akira Kurosawa? Yeah, they were completely undermining the kind of positive portrayal of samurai you'd see in movies like the Seven Samurai.

I've heard some compare Shigurui to Kurosawa but I think they're severely missing the mark in that respect, it owes a lot to the New Wave and pretty much nothing to Kurosawa (who incidentally I love dearly).

Samurai Assasination in particular comes to mind because it also has some pretty shocking elements of violence (a head cut clean off, gasping in surprise) and a pretty despicable view of the samurai in general. None of them really compare in terms of sheer visceral savagery as far as Shigurui's violent quantities goes, though.

I'm not as big a fan of violence as I may sometimes seem (honestly!) but this kind of meditation on viciousness Shigurui-style I just eat up helplessly. I really think this is easily the best ultraviolent anime I've seen, though I can certainly see why people who even liked titles like Elfen Lied and Gantz don't quite care for it.
 
I think this is a completely different experience then Elfen or Gantz. While those had gore, they didn't feel anything like shigurui. Elfen's gore is more of a fun flashy gore. They kind where you exclaim "That was CoOlZoRs!!" Shigurui on the other hand makes it feel as if you are feeling the pain, hurting as they do. Elfen, on the other hand, you feel like your feeling Lucy's feelings, not the people in pain.

Examples of other places you might feel a bit of the same as Shigurui is surgery shows, where you sort of have empathy for the person being operated on, and feel a bit of their pain.

Although, Shigurui is certainly a lot more suspenseful and thrilling, which makes it a lot more exciting then a surgery show in my opinion.
 
Lyzl said:
While those had gore, they didn't feel anything like shigurui. Elfen's gore is more of a fun flashy gore. They kind where you exclaim "That was CoOlZoRs!!" Shigurui on the other hand makes it feel as if you are feeling the pain, hurting as they do.
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Yup. Shigurui makes excessive violence uncomfortable again.

Which arguably makes it a far less reprehensible series than Elfen Lied or the rest. Certainly I'd hold to that belief.
 
Well, there were parts I found weak and parts I found incredible. The animation was awesome, I enjoyed the soundtrack too. I like the short length of fight scenes with a long suspenseful build up. The 1 and done swing made it seem very realistic yet still over the top in a sense. It was awesome. I just wish they had finished it, there was more back story to explain, more relationships to develop and a true ending wasn't reached.
 
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