Probably better than the Kawajiri san anime. In this work, the maestro combined all his achievements with past anime and elevated them to the absolute. A very brutal and far from childish spectacle that makes one admire cruelty, violence and blood. But do not forget that the masterpiece can not be so one-sided, so in this gloomy fairy tale, the concepts of love and honor are also woven. I applaud this masterpiece of animation.
Here it is ' he did not think, he did not expect ' ...
Here it is, the heat of passions, blood, revenge, deception and hentai.
I didn’t expect anything like this from the 90s. It is commonly believed that ' all this filth ' appeared recently. Oh, no, it's always been there and never gone.
Especially since it was born woven in the most organic way into Japanese culture and compassionate mothers did not rush to close their eyes to their children with palms sweating with indignation.
Back to the movie. Bright. Brilliant. Dynamic.
And an impenetrable, stupid plot. But I am not inclined to make claims for it. By no means, this is a typical 'fantazyuh militant of the 90s on the subject of martial arts' so everything is according to the canon.
I even think that making a film deeper would hurt him.
And so we have a great self-sufficient film, in its niche and a good representative of its genre.
Fully.
Sometimes it is interesting to discover unfamiliar genres, dipping into the unknown and not fully understood world of culture of another people. Guided by this, as well as the advice of a friend, I decided to open the door to the vast universe of Japanese anime. The choice fell on the 1993 work “Ninja Manuscript”. With the translation of the name, there is a slight confusion, the hieroglyphs are a thin thing, so in this case it would be more correct to title the film “The Tale of Ninja”, since no manuscript appears in history.
The main character is a hero of many legends, a ninja without a past, masterfully wielding a sword and fighting for justice. In this story, he becomes an involuntary participant in the internecine battles of Japanese clans, attracting various demons, monsters and other evil spirits to the fight. We are shown typical genres of sword fighting, jumping on trees and candid scenes with young seducers. It was not without flying surikens, stone warriors, ubiquitous snakes and even combat wasps. Full of sur, in which there was a place of love, betrayal, nobility and revenge.
The plot of the picture is simple and uncomplicated: a young mercenary, accompanied by an insidious old man-hire, pursuing his selfish goals, as well as a charming companion, giving death to all who dare to share a bed with her, alternately deal with terrible monsters in order to fight the main villain in the finale, who has learned to rise from the dead. At the same time, it is impossible not to note the uniqueness of each character, which has its own character and a set of combat skills. The whole action looks very stylish and fascinating, and beautiful animation gives the story the necessary cinematography. Each battle is shown ingeniously and excitingly. Liters of blood, severed limbs and a storm caused by the flapping of samurai swords, give birth to the true pleasure of the lover of Japanese battles. At the same time, the relationship of the main character with his involuntary companion is chaste and romantic. And all together create the very magic that turns an ordinary story into a fascinating spectacle.
“Ninja Manuscript” is a legendary anime that has everything you need to reveal the genre. This is an adult cartoon about love, honor and duty, abundantly seasoned with interesting battles, erotic scenes and a bit of Eastern philosophy.
Everything is mixed in feudal Japan - horses, people, ninjas, demons, intrigues of treacherous rulers and cunning government agents, taking on the direction of the director the look of scabby old women, smoothly roaming from one of his cartoons to another. “The Ninja Manuscript” is perhaps the most famous work out of the hands of Yoshiaki Kawajiri and at the same time one of the most standard (and maybe just universal?) of his works. Familiar to fans of his work, the archetypes of characters this time are superimposed on the next orgy of the period of civil wars, which, as you know, diligently inflate the allegorical dark forces that dominate especially unsightly political figures.
The theme of pseudo-historical militants in Japan with each new exploitation began to work worse, which is why the role of woodwood thrown into the heat of the genre over time often began to perform a mystical and fantasy element present in the Ninja Manuscript. However, having transferred the action from Cybernetic Edo (in his previous work) to feudal Edo, Kawajiri still distanced himself from, at least, fellow anime genre. The political and historical context here is cut almost to the root - a minimum of real names and embellished facts (for which the "Wrath of the Ninja" became so famous in Japan), only the general entourage of the Tokugawa era. The authors do not rest on mythology, as did the creators of the atmospheric "Yoma: messengers of the kingdom of darkness" - the fantastic abilities of most screen characters, although they are a significant help in the implementation of action scenes, but are not put at the forefront when it comes to building the world.
So what is it, the own face of the Ninja Manuscript? It's multifaceted. It is the stone face of Tessai, the face of merciless violence and bloodlust, which he quenches in the most literal sense of words. This is the snide face of Shijima, able to take people under sexual control and clearly satisfied with the grotesque-erotic inserts that are present in the anime. This is a refined face of Kagero, expressing not only femininity and beauty, but the tragedy of her life path. This is the face of the blind Mujuro Utsu, unable to see the aesthetics of a magnificently drawn world, but able to give the viewer a delightfully thought out and animated sword fight. But the most important thing is the face of Dzyubey, a warrior commanding the wind, and like his own element, rapidly sweeping the viewer through all the events of the cartoon, so that all previous appearances merge into a single, dizzying kaleidoscope.
Building the narrative of such a beautiful action film in its straightforwardness, Kawajiri clearly realizes that exchanging here for a classic exposition is an unforgivable luxury. Everything you need to know about the local world and the abilities of the characters is read directly from the screen, and the general plot, being not too rich in strained depth, still surprises with its naturalness even in the most unnatural moments. Here again makes itself felt the author’s subtlest sense of taste, which when working with the most base and genre things can sometimes be almost more important than when creating allegorical works.
Behind the rapidly developing events barely visible frame from the road-movie, in which forced for the heroes stops are organized by a slightly disparate team of eight demons, and the final goal and strives to leave for free navigation at the slightest delay from Jubei. In this fleeting, but, at the same time, balanced in the plot pace of the chase occurs the notorious disclosure of the fantasy universe through events. And in this case, the authors achieve an amazing result - when you look at how the enemy wasps calm down from the petals flying out from under the free sleeves of the main character's combat girlfriend - and at the same time there is no doubt in the soul that this is how it should be, that this is how the local feudal world turns.
But, as you know, for Gaijin – good, for the Japanese – “well, nothing like that.” So historically, almost all the key works that contributed to the popularization of anime in other countries, if they were successful at home, it is clearly not commensurate with what would be expected. However, unlike any Akir in the Shell, the asymmetry of the financial results of the Manuscript had a rather long-lasting effect on the director himself. Becoming a little later one of the most commercially successful anime releases in the West, it was the story about Jubei that in many ways pushed the studio to release high-budget D: Bloodlust in the early 2000s, primarily in America. And although the visual feast created in it sought to justify every yenna invested in the animation, but the return on the project in English-language cinemas was not as rosy as we would like.
The more surprising was another attempt to flirt with a Western audience, which resulted in a full-fledged collaboration with American producers and screenwriters called Highlander: In Search of Revenge. The result is a lack of audience interest in the United States and a certain degree of rejection at home. Released in 2007, “Highlander”, in fact, put an end to Kawajiri as the author of major projects, becoming his last (although I want to continue to believe that this is only at the time of writing this line) directing experience.
Because of this, the sequel to “Ninja Manuscript”, announced too late, remained only at the level of a viable teaser and fan dreams. And the main consolation here is only that, among the other faces of the original anime, the face of Lord Gemma was also hung up. The villain, who is able to regenerate and return to life as easily as the viewer, is to turn to the seemingly more than once watched adventure of Dzyubey in order to once again feel the ease and fun with which one of the best genre creations still looks.
Before you is one of the pillars of full-length anime and, concurrently, one of the most famous works of the living legend Yoshiaki Kawajiri. Under the wing of the Madhouse studio, more than a dozen works were released, at the time they became classics. Who am I telling you? If you subscribe to E:\anime\, then you do not need to explain what Madhouse is. This picture is a perfect example of what you need to show a person who considers anime a frivolous genre. There is everything you need without frills: cruelty, liters of blood (but within reason), easy eroticism without vulgarity, incredible footage and a good plot, albeit also without particularly elegant moves.
Japan, seventeenth century. In one province, an unknown disease mows down an entire village. To deal with this, the remains of the once large clan of ninja Koga are sent. Only one warrior returns back – the girl Kagaro, who was saved from certain death by a wanderer who introduced himself as Jubei, and who made powerful enemies in the form of the “Eight Demons of Kimon”, a group of warriors endowed with superhuman abilities. Jubei and Kagaro are joined by a wandering monk / government agent Dakuan, who blackmails and tricks the heroes into understanding the true causes of the death of the village and the appearance of the “Demons”.
The soundtrack to the film was written by Japanese composer Kaoru Wada, better known for the anime “InuYasha”. The music fully captures the spirit and atmosphere of medieval Japan. Shakuhachi, koto, shamisen and more familiar to us classical instruments create for us "classic in the classics" - a real concert with Japanese flavor. Very well listened to and separately from the film.
Director Yoshiaki Kawajiri made a graceful and stunning anime in 1993 called "The Ninja Manuscript". He immediately entered the list of the best and most interesting anime of the early 90s. I watched it twice, and both in the first and second cases I enjoyed watching it. The story of the cartoon is powerful and original, painted realistically and atmospherically. Heroes are far from ordinary personalities, with their secrets and zest. It’s hard for me to call it an anime movie, it’s more like an adult movie. There is a taste of action movie, action, erotic and fantasy.
Before us is the time of Japan in the early 17th century. The survivors flee the province as an unknown plague engulfs the villages. Wars sent by the powerful Koga clan were brutally killed by an unknown thing, only a ninja woman named Kagaro survived. She is rescued by the mysterious traveler Jubei from the clutches of a bloodthirsty demon. After killing a demon, Jubei signs a death sentence, and the heroes learn the secret of eight powerful demons who want to lead the whole country into war.
The character of the main character of the ninja Jubei is very intriguing. He is a true warrior: strong, unshakable, with pure reason and kindness in his heart. His treatment of a poisonous ninja woman gives her a meaning in life. The story of these heroes was very touching, but tragic. I want to pay attention to the battle scenes. They were all thought out very well, and painted spectacularly, powerfully and gracefully. The whole entourage of the picture in the background was harmonious and so lively. This anime plunges into itself and into its distant world, takes it into the world of warriors and brutal battles.
For me, "Ninja Manuscript" is a clear example of the perfect feature-length anime film. In this picture there is everything to the connoisseur of anime enjoyed watching. Before us is a sophisticated and cruel samurai action movie with a shade of fantasy and eroticism for all time. Immerse yourself in the history of this amazing film and you will get into the graceful and cruel world of dark magic, mysterious creatures and the fate of a true war.
Pleasant viewing!
Yoshiaki Kawajiri, the future father of the full-length Vampire Dee: Bloodlust, presented the Ninja Manuscript in 1993, which opens the doors to Japanese culture in the tradition of its people, which has a rather strange mentality in the best and in detail for all its hour and a half. The work, which is very fantastic, fabulous, at the same time bloodthirsty, in the truest sense of the word, and this pleased me as always. The perfected centimeter, millimeter of this film is made with such difficulty that it is simply impossible not to call its creator a genius.
Do you like full-length quality, adult and what cuts like a sickle in the balls? Then a great view of you my dear friend is provided. Only to look for depth in it and some serious meaning embedded in it is not worth looking for. The reason that he is a lightning-fast sharp blade, cut into the memory of his picture and the soul of ancient Japan. Capable of one battle scene to put on the shoulder blades of modern fighters.
Sorry not to reveal the plot, but I watched the film with a saggy jaw.
The master of the blade, the ninja Jubei from that moment on, became a reference hero for me. With a sense of humor and a degree of equanimity, he walks over the corpses of rivals.
There are eight proven ways to end your life. Choose any, it will be guaranteed to hurt, unbearably painful and expected blood. And there's only one way to keep it while your feet take you nowhere. They carry along empty roads trampled into the dust of human destinies, away from the past in which the dead - the vassals of the Yamashiro clan who have entered the path of dishonor - have left; in which a country, engulfed in the madness of internecine strife, spreads its legs before the ruling shogunate deep at the bottom of the mass grave. And if your name is Jubei Kibagami, then you know this method, it rests in sheaths, carelessly thrown behind your back.
Chapter one. A man from the past
Where the sun rises with a scarlet flower, lie the lands of the divine Amaterasu Omika, tormented for centuries by endless wars, scorched by the fire of human ambition, sown with thousands of arrows, like rice fields, giving bitter shoots of greed and power, suffering and sorrow. They feed only those in whom the craft of war is absorbed with the milk of their mother. These fertile lands give birth to children who sleep with a sharp sharpened blade at the headboard, who study the science of killing in the most sophisticated ways, merge with shadows, change faces with the skill of street actors, spy and steal, sit still and train for hours all their lives, turning their body into an instrument demanded by the era. Somewhere here, Jubei, a Shinobi from Yamashiro, the hero of the dark, blood-soaked militant Yoshiaki Kawajiri, left his mark. More than once turning in the aftermath to the type of lone hero, an outcast who opposes not society, which ejects outcasts, but evil, which hides behind the mask of infernality the decay of the vicious human soul, the author endows his hero with archetypal features. A noble warrior tormented by the past, ready to come to the rescue of someone in trouble, bold to the point of recklessness, but closed and deliberately rude. This image, devoid of the individual features of its prototype from late medieval Japan, is interpreted by the director deliberately collectively. It merges the features of many characters of the classic gunki-monogatari and heroes of the canonical samurai thambara. However, Jubei, contrary to conventions, remains a colorful man, whose slight irony and warmth of heart, not stained by political dirt or the black blood of perjured criminals and murderers, preserve the depth necessary for the viewer.
Chapter two. Beyond reality
The path along which the wind carries the rolling field of Jubei, turns away from the well-built paths, to where everyday life no longer has power over reality; where the fishing village suddenly turns into a plague-scorched, stinking corpses open cemetery; where one after another the scouts from Koga, sent for exploration, die, parting with parts of bodies and giblets, as if by the waving of a devil's hand; where the stone demon lustfully licks the weakened body with Kagoga, collecting his flesh. A swarm of fireflies circling in the darkness in a meaningless dance, as if marking the border of two worlds - familiar and mystical, born of the generous imagination of the author. “Everything here is infested with spirits and soaked in blood. Beyond these lands begins Hell, warns us the director, who ventured to follow the heroes, putting alarming words into the mouth of the old fox Dokuan, a spy of the Tokugawa authorities. Through Dokuan, the viewer also gets some idea of the connecting threads of the plot, weaving the fates of the heroes into the web of a large-scale conspiracy, about demons that slide onto the smell of blood and gold, about puppeteers hiding their faces in the shadows. The historical action movie acquires an unexpected taste of a political thriller, describing a slice of an era with careless strokes. But Kawajiri seems to whisper in the ear of the discouraged naked nakedness of outright violence to the viewer: “Wait, wait, you’ll see more than that...” And behind-the-scenes games go by the wayside, releasing eight demons of Kimon on the stage of the sinister Kabuki theater.
Chapter three. The Eight Demons of Kimon
Yoshiaki Kawajiri paints old Japan as it probably was under the Tokugawa shogunate. The fire that devoured the country during the Sengoku-jidai period had by then been extinguished by Tokugawa Ieyasu’s powerful hand, but the disgraced princes continued to thrash the pitiful crumbs of separatist sentiment, unaware that the clock of history was irreversible. On the roads in search of work roamed restless ronin and goshi, who lost not only the daimyo, which served their clans for more than one generation, but also the reason to drink blood blades. The era of relative calm turned into a period of decline for many of the ninja families that thrived on the chaos of war. Against the background of such cardinal changes in society that affected many military classes, the plot delights of the film do not seem so unnatural. The director uses the historical era as a scenery on which a cruel conflict of interests of a whole gallery of the brightest characters unfolds. In giving free rein to his imagination, he draws the images of antagonists partly from the mythological fleur enveloping the once practiced martial art, partly from the dark corners of his own consciousness, while at the same time indulging in a fall for the mysticism of human nature. Hence the impressive images of demons-ninja, with which the characters intersect in the course of the story. There are eight, eight unique killers. Each of them has its own approach to the art of killing the flesh. And it does not matter who you meet on a forgotten off-road: with a tattooed whore, like Lilith, venomous snakes from his body; with a lover of sodomy handsome, wrapping the victim in thousand-volt threads; with a blind man in a mournful white kimono, devilishly wielding a katana, or with someone else – a painful death will be the perfect conclusion of a friendly conversation. There is only one sure way to keep his head on his shoulders at this jigoku jester carnival, and his secret is kept by Jubei. All these images are not so much mystifying as they mythologize Kawajiri’s invented world of alternative Japan. And the origins of mythology lie in the self-consciousness of the islanders, habitually endowing masters from the past with supernatural abilities. But, despite this, the story, for all its ambiguity, remains simple and understandable to the viewer, and the motives of heroes and villains are quite human.
This is probably my favorite anime cartoon. I just didn't watch that much. In fact, I hardly ever looked at it. I'm not looking. The most famous, who were successful in the international arena, except that. But this film combines everything I adored. I still love it.
They are, of course, ninjas. There was a time, and I was one of them. Of course, no one knew about it. I'm not sure there was even suspicion. But it's like Batman, you know? What are the extra ears?
Before I saw this movie, my mind was enslaved by Michael Dudicoff. I was an American Ninja then. And just physically did not imagine shadow warriors without a distinctive black suit. I didn't like the colorful options that were in the second movie. But they were, and the jester was with them. Only black, nothing else.
And that’s what impressed me with this movie. Of course I was small. But it still doesn't excuse me. It doesn't matter what clothes. Ninjas can disguise themselves. And wear whatever clothes. Imagine, at the first viewing I did not fully understand that grandfather is a sinobi!
I like the graphics. Hard, rough and bloody. There are no concessions. And that's great.
The plot is also very classic. There are eight healthy demons who fight the main character. And he methodically brings his business to the end. There is a heroine who has sympathy for the hero. But she's a ninja, so she has no emotions. But she's a woman.
There are some very interesting ideas.
A perfect cartoon that plunges the mind into another era. And you can't stop. We have to watch. Because you just can't.
Here everything is teeming with spirits and soaked in blood, for these lands begins hell.
Spitting out another portion of blood after another brutal beating, Jubei will raise his eyes, already knowing who he will see next to him, waiting, albeit uninvited. Her legs are long, her sleeves are full of deadly pink petals, and her body is soaked in poison. An incredulous, angry look from the underside, like a child who was often beaten. Cagaro. Each ninja has its own "interesting technique", its own set of improvised miracles. Hold out your arms. Slip into warm waters, shedding old skin. Spew a hornet swarm. Or, like her, with self-hatred in her heart, she fell into the arms of the enemy, surrendering, killing, not knowing otherwise. To destroy a demon, you have to become a demon. To become an antidote, you have to be a poison. But this story is not about the superpowers of ancient warriors, not about the struggle of pride and fear with bodily need, not about love that will not happen in time. This is a story about human greed.
Passing through the edge of the country anime, it is not so easy to determine what exactly Kawajiri Yoshiaki wanted to say with his tape. In the foreground is a simple fantasy quest: the hero, deceived and blackmailed into someone else’s quarrel, with the help of a random ninja maiden and an elderly spy, alternately fights with eight “demons”, who for the time being prefer to practice their interesting techniques on each other, without seeing in Jubei a real threat. Uncomplicated and predictable, the plot, gushing with blood, washing, gushing with it, purposefully moves from murder to murder until the final task of destroying the regenerating “boss”, successfully solved in 1991 by James Cameron. The plague epidemic, the crooked zombies and the shogun of darkness commemorated in vain are enclosed. But the deeper into the bamboo thickets, the further into the fields overgrown with yellow flowers, the more obvious becomes the strict non-compulsory mystical component. The mysterious cargo that demons hunt is gold. A despicable metal whose heaviness, however, can upset the political equilibrium, open the crimson rivers of another civil war. Wealth is synonymous with power, and for the sake of someone’s possession of it, a driven horse falls in the middle of a provincial town, the corpses of children decompose in the streets, the shots of the flares of black wings tear up. Brother attacks brother, hits in back... Hell is really here. Now. Always.
While the seeds of the sura often find fertile ground in the anime, growing shortly before the closing credits with bizarre predatory flowers, "The Ninja Manuscript" wanders against the tide, purging itself of the mysticism, the heroism/legendariness itself, kind of underlying the tambara genre. The first shots with Jubei (demonstrating where “Kung Fu Panda” came from) carry the comic nature of superhero action movies, where gloomy guys lay villains with one finger, while managing to demonstrate high principles and chew cookies. The first shots with Kagaro are like a prelude to hentai. But the atmosphere rolls in and the fighting cripples: a broken tooth, a torn hip, a broken arm, wounded pride. And here on the screen are just people who accidentally found themselves in the face of evil, in front of a thousand of its faces. If the first demons, such as the hive man or the petting manipulator, are difficult to associate with anything in the real world, then the unkilled Lord Genma is the personification of the order of things when a severed head and a punched skull do not put an end. The place of the tyrant is taken by another tyrant, perhaps one of yesterday’s tyrants. Old age and skill bring not good wisdom, but deceit and readiness to become like the enemy. The art of survival comes down to the ability to close your eyes while someone else is being eaten. There is no right-hand side to which one can stand, there are only multiplying gangs of collectors, tearing each other's prey. The choice is not rich: to pass by, or ... not to pass, realizing that there is nowhere to wait for help, and each victory is local. Tomorrow there will be a new "important cargo" and a new bloodbath, the forest is being cut down - chips fly.