It’s been four years since Bright met Netflix to break viewership records. While critics ruthlessly curtailed it. Some critics may mention that Bright Cinematic Universe: A Sequel in Development and the spin-off anime Bright: Samurai Soul has already aired. “Samurai Soul” was a change of pace for director Kyohei Ishiguro. Whose most famous projects, the films “Words Inflate Like Soda Pop” and April’s “Your Lie” series, were relatively complicated. The anime film took the original fantasy concept – orcs and elves and those who live among humans on earth where magic exists – released in 19th century Japan. Let’s see if it works now.
This is Japan from the mid-19th century.
Once a great battle was stopped when a massive pillar of blue and white light energy shot into the sky. After a few years, they say everything has changed. Can’t we just say it? We meet several characters in an upscale Kyoto brothel: Izo (voiced by Yuki Nomura) is a Yojimbo restaurant samurai. This intelligent species has a surprise emo pony that hangs low around scars covering his face and missing an eye. A young elf girl with nipples, scratches and anger named Sonia (Shion Wakayama). There you have a great place!
Senior slut Chihaya (Maaya Sakamoto) takes Sonia under her wing as her assistant, and for a moment, everything seems fine. We learn that Chihaya is the source of the world-changing pillar of light. Which happens because she is an elf with a staff known as “bright”. Suddenly robbery! Nobody else could use a stick because I thought it would instantly blow up your pancreas or melt your spine or something.
Orcs and goblins attacked and smashed people’s heads in a bloody glow.
Izo cuts some to trigger death before facing the cruelty of an orc named Raiden (Daisuke Hirakawa). The fire started to engulf the brothel. Sneeze killed. Because of Sonia’s plight, Ryden is forced to stop being the bad guy. And they form an uneasy alliance with Iso. The three-run away, Sonia is carrying Chihaya’s wand and not realizing that a fool might want the girl for that reason.
Ryden promises to take Sonia to a prime elven land where she can live freely. It turns out that Ryden is a gentle soul in a large, fragrant, rugged body. However, Izo is still pretty bad, and we learn why in a few flashbacks. Your plan to go to the nirvana of the elves doesn’t go according to plan, of course, because like birds have to fly and fish have to swim, violence has to happen in a film like this.
Of course, things happen, many of them are violent;
We also meet a few additional characters. Most notably, some white guy who seems to control things because they don’t always do, and a man best described as the Centaur of Exposition. Oh, and there should be a thematic link to the Bright movie, some Shield of Light, etc. The Dark Lord and I are not sure how many of us would invest in it.
The samurai soul looks excellent – the flat 2D CG animation is precise and detailed, with beautiful colour tones and smooth, almost floating motion. And it’s better than Bright, which doesn’t say much. Because the film is almost the opposite of chocotastic.
I also want to say some good things. It is complicated to rate the TV-14. Many plots with similar parts of the script are lost and combined with the annoying hand of fate. Which gives us fiction and opportunity; see also Roger Ebert’s laws of economics. The dialogue is stupid. Iso’s Mystery Man story is stupid. And we never felt emotionally attached to these people. Greater importance in Brightiverse – does anyone care about greater importance in Brightiverse? Does all this visual art serve big fat? Who cares? I scratched my head.