General Details | About | Personal Comments

Review by Vic-San

Takegami~Original Animation Video directed by Osamu Yamazaki

'Susano-o!'

General Details

Title(s)- Takegami

Director(s)- Osamu Yamazaki

Type- Action/suspense/horror

Recommended Viewing Age- 12+

Art Quality:

Story Quality:

General Quality:

Music Quality:

Recommended Price: I saw this on the Sci-Fi channel that came with a Sky package, I don't know how much that cost.

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About

The blurb says:

'A lonely girl sells her soul for beauty in order to win the heart of her teenage crush but agreeing to be possessed by an ancient dragon lord.'

Actually:

=> She is badly bullied and mainly about her looks, her nose and freckles in particular. She wants to be pretty 'just pretty', partially to stop the bullying and partly so she would feel she was good enough for the boy she is in love with.

=> She and the boy are childhood friends and it isn't simply a crush, she is in love with him.

=> She doesn't agree to anything, she doesn't actually know she's been possessed at first.

=> Also the boy she's in love with becomes possessed by Susano-o to the sole end of destroying the dragon.

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Personal Comments

The animation quality wasn't fantastic it was simply average, the character designs looked very like they were from the early 90's. Nothing makes the animation stand out apart from the use of colour and the backgrounds. The colours are all muted and give an almost water colour or old ink feeling to the piece, making it feel a little aged and supporting the blend of myth and folklore that the story contains. The backgrounds are also well done and don't appear 'static' or simply backdrops for the action. I also really liked the design of the dragon.

The soundtrack was also very fitting for the subject matter. It was haunting and contained influences and I'm sure instruments from Noh theatre. Noh is a certain form of Japanese theatre that uses styilised movements, sumptuous costumes and a certain type of music. They actually seem to show extracts of a performace in the opening credits, showing a 'hero' battling a dragon, setting up the basic story line for the program.

The character designs at first are very usual; the little speaking hero (Koichi Susa), the girly love interest (Terumi Amano), the beautiful mysterious woman (Sayoko Matsura), but they did manage to make them all interesting. I particularly liked how they didn't turn Matsura into a slut, they established she was beautiful but left it at that and instead of focusing on her looks they developed her character instead, no simple fan service. I also liked how Amano's character changed through out the show and how she became a much stronger person by the end. Susa didn't; he remained rather selfish, but that was part of his character and you did sympathise with him, a bit, as he tried to come to terms with being an instument of a God. Another point to note was the realism used, the aftermath of the first dragon attack at the lake I found especially haunting as it showed the destruction caused to the ordinary people of the town, the dead, dying and injured, it didn't just focus on those directly involved with the battle.

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