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SYNOPSIS
Tokyo,
1999. After a six year absence, Kamui has
returned
to Tokyo at the behest of his deceased mother.
According
to destiny, the Dragon of Earth will soon
devastate
the earth's surface in order to bring about its
purification.
The Dragon of Heaven is destined to try
to stop
the Dragon of Earth from devastating the planet
so that
human life can be preserved. Kamui is destined
to become
the Dragon of Heaven and to fight the Dragon
of Earth
to the death in the coming apocalyptic
battle.
COMMENTS
X is
a movie filled with beautiful and highly detailed
artwork,
stunning animation and a haunting musical
score.
But don’t let that fool you. X is also a movie
with
many undeveloped characters and a confounding plot
that
drops us into the very end of a story and asks us
to accept
it as-is even though we the audience have no
idea
how the story developed to that point. See the
paragraph
I wrote just above this one? That’s X’s plot.
I’m
serious - That’s the entire plot. No subplots and
no character
development - just Kamui’s destiny that
obligates
him to save humanity from the forces that
would
destroy it.
X has
plenty of characters, but in the end, the only
ones
that matter at all are Kamui and Fuma (Kamui’s
childhood
friend). The rest are little more than devices
that
are used to distract the audience with visually
impressive
but ultimately meaningless battles. Distract
the
audience from what, you ask? From X’s laughable
plot,
most likely. X is nothing but a long series of
grandiose
battles between superhuman opponents called the
Dragons
of Heaven and the Dragons of Earth (or the
Dragons
of the Heavens and the Dragons of the Earth:
whichever
way you like to say it). Each member of Team
Heaven
and Team Earth as I call them has a unique power
or ability,
such as the ability to create and
manipulate
water, the ability to create and manipulate fire,
and
telepathy. How did they acquire these powers? Who
knows?
I assume they were chosen by destiny in the same
way
that everything else in this movie seems to be
manipulated
by the abstract concept known as destiny.
In fact,
destiny has such a ridiculously large role in
X’s
plot that it makes me wonder if X’s creators used
it as
a crutch to help them get through production
until
they finished the movie. I can see their
brainstorming
sessions now:
“Why
did Kamui return to Tokyo?”
“Destiny.”
“Why
does he have to fight the Dragon of Earth?”
“Destiny.”
“What
about all these other characters? Why did they
join
the conflict as well?”
“Destiny.”
“Yeah,
I guess I can see that, but why does this
character
here suddenly go from good to evil in this part
of
the movie? Did he have a reason?”
“Destiny.”
"You
seem to have quite a fascination with destiny.
Why?"
"Destiny
is simple. If I use destiny for everything in
the
movie, my brain won't have to think as much. I
like
not thinking. It relaxes me."
"But
what about the audiences? Won't they care that
everything
in the movie revolves around one abstract
plot
device?"
"Nah.
As long as we make it look good, they won't
care.
They'll be too caught up in the visuals to notice
anything
else. Trust me, I know how these things work."
"Well,
okay. You're the boss."
X has
a few very comical moments that I’m sure were
never
intended to be comical. An example is Kamui’s
mother
literally blowing apart for no apparent reason at
the
beginning of the movie. Maybe I just have a dark
sense
of humor, but something like that happening all of
a sudden
for no apparent reason struck me as funny
because
of how absurd it was. But what’s even more absurd
than
that is X’s ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but
I found
it to be so unintentionally funny that I could
barely
keep in mind that it was supposed to be tragic.
It was
definitely one of the most poorly executed
endings
I’ve ever seen.
PRESENTATION
The same
front cover art that was used for X’s VHS
release
was wisely used for the DVD release as well. The
front
of the DVD case features a picture of Kamui from
one
of the few shots in the movie in which he was
shown
using his sword. I was disappointed however that the
same
fuzzy shot of Kamui standing with his hands in
his
pockets was used on the back of the case.
The menu
screens on this DVD are some of the best I’ve
seen
on an anime DVD. The main menu screen is very
animated
and shows shots from the movie in the background
while
that exciting music from the X trailer plays.
But
of all the menu screens, the scene selection screens
struck
me as the most creative. Each one has a red
pentagram
with a small screen shot of each scene inside
each
of the star’s outside triangular sections while
the
main menu button is located in the pentagon in the
middle
of the star.
After
owning a home video copy of X for quite a while,
I found
the picture and sound on the X DVD to be
remarkably
clear. This is an excellent transfer.
The available
soundtracks on this DVD are Japanese
Dolby
Surround 2.0, English Dolby Surround 2.0 and
English
Dolby Digital 5.1. English subtitles are available.
I recommend
watching X in the original Japanese
because
of the superior voice acting and also because the
setting
is Tokyo, Japan. But the English dub is pretty
good
- I recommend it if you’d rather watch your anime
dubbed
in English.
EXTRAS
I have
no idea how tarot cards would be involved with
X, but
one of the extras on this DVD is a collection
of tarot
cards that each have some background
information
about one of X’s characters.
My favorite
extra on this DVD is the X theatrical
trailer.
This trailer makes X look so incredibly good that
I wouldn’t
blame anyone for wanting to watch X
immediately
after seeing it. Great music combined with some
of the
best imagery and sound bytes of just the right
dialogue
make for a trailer that’s easily more
effective
in getting someone excited about the anime being
featured
than any other anime trailer I’ve seen.
The Animerica
interview with X’s director, Shigeyuki
Hayashi
(also known as Rintaro) is also included and I
found
that it shed some light on the reasoning behind
making
X into nothing but one big ending to a
nonexistent
story. The following is a quote from the
interview:
“With such a long and grandiose story to compress
into
100 minutes of screen time, the decision was made
to focus
on a final, climactic battle.”
Other
extras include a Manga DVD catalogue, previews
for
various other anime and a picture gallery with
screen
shots from the movie.
One extra
that was oddly left off this DVD release was
a music
video for X that I've heard a lot of good
things
about but that I haven't yet seen myself. Also, I
would
have liked to see a trailer for the new X OVA
series.
I was disappointed that neither of these things
were
included.
CONCLUSION
There’s
no denying that X is visually impressive and
that
it has some great action and music, but
unfortunately,
there is little substance to back all that up. X
has
a laughable plot, no character development and a
pathetic
ending. That means that what we have here is
one
big piece of eye candy. If eye candy is primarily
what
you look for in your anime, then by all means give
X a
shot; I doubt you’ll be disappointed. If you’ve
read
the X manga, you’ll probably get a lot more
enjoyment
out of this movie than someone like me who has
never
read it. But if you primarily look for a good plot
and
well-developed characters in your anime and if you
haven’t
read the X manga, you might want to just save
your
money and either rent X or purchase another anime
that’s
more worth your time and money.
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