In a mid-15th century Kyoto ravaged by successive waves of floods, drought, and famine, Asura was left to fend for himself in the wilderness as an infant and grew up into an axe-wielding child surviving on both animal and human flesh. Asura's life took a turn when he became acquainted with Wakasa, a young village girl who taught Asura words and drew out semblances of empathy from within him. Yet Asura's peaceful moments with Wakasa would not last long, as famine began to take its toll on Wakasa's village.

Source: ANN

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Potential spoilers in my review, so please read at your own risk. This anime is utterly gutwrenching in despair, if you like sad sad movies, this is for you. The main character, Asura, a boy who is as feral as the wolves in the woods struggles to learn compassion and humanity, or at least enough to be saved. The supporting cast, The Monk and Wasaka aide him in learning how to trust people and what is and isn't acceptable for humans to do.Contains copious amounts of blood, cannibalism, despair, starvation and death. About the only thing I have seen like it was Grave of Fireflies. Still a great movie.The metamorphosis the main character, Asura, makes is astounding, the development is gradual and comes with a very forceful hand (Literally and figuratively once you watch it you will know what I mean by this). The animation is very very smooth and the scenes are all very bland and depressing, but it aims for that, not a nock against it in the slightest. The story is complex enough to not be linear, and not too complex to lose the simple minded who do watch it. The soundtrack was phenomenal and fitting. I recommend it if you like character driven plots.

I was just looking for something to watch with less runtime that's why I started watching it. ------------------ THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ONWARDS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Right off the bat, I started feeling bad for the pregnant lady and her kid. How hungry one must be to feed off a rotten human body. She even tried to eat her newborn baby, it broke my heart. But it really was just the beginning. At this point, it was getting hard to keep watching. It might have even triggered my anxiety. The story revolves around a boy later named "Asura" from birth. From his birth, he lived a tragedy. It was heartbreaking to watch. I think the movie did well in capturing the "beast" residing in the human heart which comes out in extreme situations, for example, poverty; not having anything to eat or drink. The ending tho was unexpected, I didn't see it coming and it was absolutely heartbreaking. The characters of the movie look straight out of horror films xd. But it does suit the mood. The animation style is gloomy and dark which is just perfect for this movie. For a movie with 75 min runtime, it was not too bad.

When I started this movie I had little to no expectations since I haven't heard of it at all and the average rating made me expect a mediocre movie at best, but little did I know that what I actually found was a surprisingly good movie. Asura is a dark tale that takes place in medieval Japan during a severe famine and people is desperate for food. Enter Asura, a child who was almost eaten alive by his mother when he was a baby, and soon after abandoned. 8 years later he's shown as a child fiercer than any beast who would try to eat anything to survive; birds, rats, and even other people. During his journey he'll meet different people who will teach him in one way or another how to communicate and became a human. The movie is a journey through Asura's life in which the strongest part of it are the characters themselves. There's the titular character which Asura become less and less feral and more human during it's development with the help of Houshi, a monk who resorts to buddhism to help Asura to evolve, and Wakasa, a girl who adopts him in secret and teaches him how to speak. There are also some other important characters, but they aren't as relevant as the aforementioned ones. Animation-wise the movie opts for a CG-like style (not the videogame-like kind of CG though), which might bother some people at the beginning but, as the movie progresses, one ends up adjusting to it. Though it doesn't mean it's perfect, since there are times where it looks a bit choppy, but for most of it's runtime it's fluid and the characters and backgrounds are depicted well. The OST does it's job well but it's not really memorable. In short, this is a movie which fans of dark, character-driven stories will definitely appreciate. Keep in mind it's fairly bloody, but if that's not a problem for you then go ahead and give it a try. You won't regret it. This rewiew was done as part of Daily Anime Marathon Club.

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