This is a movie that just showed up in my recommendations on Amazon, though I'd never even heard of this anime before. It had an interesting look to it, and the description seemed interesting, “In this anime saga, 8 samurai, all reincarnations of Princess Fuse's spirits, serve the Satomi clan during Japan's tumultuous Warring States era.” And before any review can go on, I need to say this description is utter nonsense. The Samurai in the show are barely important, and all this stuff about reincarnation is kind of pointless. The show is about Fuse, creatures who have some kind of innate desire to feed on the life essence of people, a desire that can't get rid of regardless of their own desires and because of this the eight of them are hunted.
The lead character is a young girl who was raised as a hunter in the mountains. Given this is feudal Japan, women aren't typically seen in this kind of roll in normal society. After her grandfather dies, she gets a letter from her brother that moved to the city to become a Samurai, though she had to have the letter read to her since she isn't able to read. She decides to go, despite having no idea of how life in society is.
Her brother sought her help after learning she became a good hunter and wanted to catch one of the two remaining Fuse so that he could live a more comfortable life and possibly become a Samurai for the government. The story focuses mostly around Hamaji, the female hunter and Shino, the last remaining Fuse after Hamaji and her brother successfully take down the other one.
Where the movie gets a bit conflicting is the overall story is a bit of a mess and it feels like you are missing a lot of the details to fully flesh out the plot. A lot of stuff happens during the climax that just comes out of nowhere. The Samurai who is paying to have the Fuse hunted is constantly going on about being fake or a replica, there is some weird water sword he pulls out of a painting, and he's talking about being chosen by the sword after his face transforms into some weird bizarre face that resembles the one from a play that happened earlier in the movie. This in no way matches the feel of the rest of the movie, and I won't lie about being able to follow what the fuck was going on.
While only the end is that bad, we are at a point the overall plot of the movie is pretty weak because of the lacking information. I don't walk away from this film feeling like I understand how the rules of this world work. That is always a big handicap for a film to overcome, if you can't follow the logic of the universe how can you really feel the impact of events that happen?
After I watched it I looked it up to find out the movie is based off a book, which kind of explains why it feels like you are missing details. When a bunch of the side characters join in to help near the end, it kind of feels like the movie thinks the characters have built up bonds and relationships that it hasn't actually dedicated any time to, so it becomes pretty obvious a lot was cut from the source material to make this movie. That can sometimes be done to good effect, but here it feels obvious even without knowing about the book something is missing.
The show isn't helped by some odd-looking characters. The backgrounds and actual animation are all fine, but something about the way the characters look just doesn't really feel like it matches the world they live in. It's not even that the animation is necessarily bad, but something about it feels distracting and off. Not to say the show can't look great at times, it certainly has it's moments, but the whole feels like it's a bit lacking in the visuals.
That said, I still really came away liking this movie. Despite the issues above, the show manages to have a really fun and interesting cast of Characters. And while the relations between the side cast are a bit lacking, anyone Hamaji herself interacts with plays really well with her personality. You have her and her brother, each with very different outlooks on life which creates some funny and touching moments, especially since it's from her brother she has to learn how to adapt to city life. She meets a young artist, who is also the daughter of a famous novelist, who is able to get along with Hamaji and when it becomes important to the plot, is able to read on Hamaji's behalf.
Finally, there is the main focus between her and Shino. This is where the show really becomes fantastic, as the main theme of the show is about coming to terms with yourself and finding a way to be okay with that. Though they are coming from very different angles, the two form connections in part because of their understanding of each others problems. Hamaji feels like an outsider at times and was raised in a way that conflicts with the society she now lives in, and is also in a bit of conflict with her own desires and feminine aspects, though I won't' spoil too much of that here. Then you have Shino, who clearly does not want to feed off the spirits of humans, but can't get rid of the desire as it's part of who he is. There is more to it than just that, but it's a great foundation to build off of, and the show does wonderfully with it.
I am sitting here seeing a movie with overall more problems than positives, but all the same, it managed to get me to care about the characters and their struggles, and make the progression of their character arcs believable. It may be a bit wonky and hard to follow in relation to the main plot, but the themes and characters are strong enough to carry it through all that. It's defiantly worth checking out.