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Japan in the Heian era (794 - 1185) and things are not well
in the land. In the capital city of Kyoto the imperial court
is at the height of its power, art and literature are flourishing
in a creative explosion. However, in the countryside poverty
and illness ravishes the land and the capital, itself, is
quickly falling into a state of disrepair. In order to halt
this decline the emperor must find the missing Magatama. When
the five are joined together legend says that the suffering
of the land will be alleviated, more than this who ever places
the last three will become Emperor. Through a twist of fate
Hikaru, disguised as her brother Minamoto, crosses the land
with Watanabe no Tsuna, a partially sighted samurai, as her
only companion...
Volume
Two of the twenty-six episode Otogi Zoshi is finally
out, continuing to provide a great narrative married to exquisite
looking animation. For some further background on the show
have a quick look at the review for Volume
One before reading any further. The story continues
to combine the best elements of action, quest and political
intrigue.
Episode
six, Noroi-Jima, and we pick up the story where we
left it last time with Hikaru and the gang off to the cursed
islands to confront the pirates whom the villages have accused
of theft and murder. But things are not always what they seem,
as Hikaru quickly discovers. Although Hikaru recovers the
Magatama of water, it is not without cost and consequences
and the group find themselves shipwrecked and separated.
In
Mansairako, Hikaru finds herself washed up in Chinzei,
still on the trail of the last Magatama (the Magatama of fire)
which she needs to save the capital and the Mikado. The problem
is that it is in the hands of Shuten Doji, who has his own
plans. For once, Hikaru is revealed to be a woman and she
comes close to being raped until she is rescued by Mansairako,
who has lost his music troop whilst staring at a sunset -
well drugs will do that to you every time.
Episode
Eight: Red Demon, and with the gang back together they
are finally in a position to go after the Magatama of fire.
But Doji, holed up in the Kumaso stronghold, not only possesses
this artefact but also gunpowder - making a frontal assault
of the castle suicidal. Unfortunately Kintaro, who was introduced
last episode, has joined the quest much to the detriment of
the show. This type of character, with his over exaggerated
expressions, is more normally found in anime comedies and
his continual inclusion does little except spoil the tone
of the show. For a minute there, when he bit into a bomb and
it went off, I thought that they had gotten rid of him, but
the annoying little brat survives. Lady Urabe continues to
be an enigma when she calmly announces to the group that she
too can create gunpowder bombs - not the sort of thing that
your average lady of the court should know.
Episode
nine: Darkness and Hikaro, and her companions are in
a desperate race to get back to the capital before Shuten
Doji and the Kumaso clans have an opportunity to attack. However,
Hikaro finds that people often are not over kind to the messenger
when they don't like the message.
Volume
Two carries on the tradition from Volume One of
providing some very high quality extras. If this ever comes
out as a box set in the UK (it's already out in the States)
it's going to be a killer. First up is a group discussion,
running at a little over twenty-two minutes, between director
Mizuho Nishikubo, Kazuchika Kise (who is both the character
designer and animation director), Shou Tajima (who worked
on the original character designs) and Yoshiki Sakurai (the
chief writer for the show). If nothing else it shows that
these guys take their art and craft very seriously. For the
intellectually inclined, and for those wishing to prove that
anime isn't just for kids, we have a Tokyo University Lecture
on the Heian era, which runs to a healthy twelve minutes and
looks at the historical accuracy of the show. Last up is a
bunch of original trailers for the show. As per usual there
is also a set of trailers for some up and coming shows - always
worth a once over.
Audio options on the disc are extensive; you have the choice
of either stereo, 5.1, DTS in both English and Japanese, with
English subtitles. Normally the English dub is inferior to
the original Japanese, but not so in this case. The voice
over artists do a superlative job, though some of the translated
script is a bit suspect as it moves between a serious tone
and some very jarring modern slang.
Given
the quality of both the show and the extras on offer, we can
only hope that this is the future of Manga releases.
Charles
Packer
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