"Inu Oh" and "One Piece: Red"

Catching up on some recent anime films, I found that two prominent titles both had some surprising elements in common.  

First, there's Masaaski Yuasa and Science SARU's "Inu-Oh," the tale of a blind biwa player named Tomona (Mirai Moriyama) and a deformed Noh dancer named Inu-Oh (Avu-chan), who join forces to essentially form a hair metal band in 14th century Japan.  Very, very loosely based on a few historical incidents and figures from the era, the story imagines that the two outcasts, both negatively affected by the cruel power struggles going at the time, become subversive musical storytellers, spreading the tales of the defeated warriors who still haunt the land.    

The story is a wonderful mix of fantasy, folklore, and historical fiction, with plenty of modern day relevance.  Tomona and Inu-Oh are positioned as the ultimate artistic rebels, breaking away from the established traditional forms of their chosen crafts, and fearlessly speaking truth to power.   A good chunk of the film is taken up by their wild performances, which incorporate everything from American metal band showboating to Cirque du Soleil style acrobatics.  Inu-Oh turns out to be under a curse, which has turned him into a monstrous creature with one gigantic oversized arm and a face so misshapen that he wears a gourd over it as a mask.  His movements are alien and strange, until he finds a way to channel his energies more productively.    

I really enjoy Science SARU's style, which is so much more fluid and raw than most other modern anime, while sacrificing little of the detail.  Yuasa is able to seamlessly mix and match his influences, having his characters use period costuming and other elements to evoke pop stars like David Bowie and Iggy Pop.  He connects old traditions like the drag performances in Noh theater to the subversive genderfluidity of the glam era musicians in some delightful ways.  At the same time, the songs are legitimate bangers and very entertaining.    

The latest "One Piece" film, "One Piece: RED," is also about a pop star.  I count myself as a "One Piece" fan, though I haven't been keeping up with the franchise lately.  It's one of those endless boys' fighting series, this one built around superpowered pirates. I like "One Piece" because it has a good cast of appealing characters and the designs are cheerfully weird, with all kinds of strange body types and visual gags.  Our hero is the goofy pirate kid Luffy (Mayumi Tanaka), who searches for a legendary treasure alongside his intrepid crew of adventurers, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Shanks (Shuichi Ikeda).  In "One Piece: Red," we meet Shanks's daughter Uta (Kaori Nazuka and Ado), a mesmerizing pop idol who can bend reality to her whims.

This movie has done so well financially that I figured it had to be something special.  And for a "One Piece" film, it's certainly very good.  The fight scenes are big and crazy, the songs are pretty solid, and the animation is certainly better than anything I ever saw in the TV show.  The story is also simple enough that I think a newcomer could follow what was going on.  There are good pirates, bad pirates, good cops, bad cops, good musicians, and bad musicians.  There are cameos everywhere, and a lot of new characters I didn't recognize.  However, I never had trouble keeping everyone's allegiances and motivations straight.  It helps that Uta herself is pretty compelling for a one-off character. 

However, I doubt that "One Piece: Red" is going to get much attention from anyone who isn't already a "One Piece" fan.  There's no real story progression, no new character revelations, and Uta's not going to be a regular in the series.  The crazy battle sequences are fun to watch, but they're not any more impressive than what we saw in half a dozen other anime movies over the past year.  The plot is pretty familiar anime business about getting stuck in dream worlds that everything from "Demon Hunter" to "Urursei Yatsura" has done.  We also don't really get much time with any of the colorful cast aside from Luffy and Uta.

It's nice to know that "One Piece" is still doing so well, but the movie mostly just made me want to pick up the series again, and see what my old pirate pals have been up to for the past few years.  

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