On the borderline between past and present lies a strange prison and the ferrymen who deliver outlaws there.
What They Say:
When swords were outlawed in the eleventh year of the Meiji era, the mighty samurai population began to dwindle. Those who rejected the ban on blades rebelled, causing violent unrest to erupt throughout the countryside. To combat the rise in criminal activity, an inescapable lake prison was constructed. Three young men, born of the Kumo line, were given the duty of delivering criminals to their place of confinement – but could there be more to their mission than meets the eye?
Episode #1: “Three Brothers, Standing Under the Clouds”
The three Kumoh brothers ferry criminals to the largest prison in Japan, Gokumonjo. One day, a criminal escapes en route to the prison…
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Laughing Under the Clouds (Donten ni Warau) comes to us as an Eastern style fantasy in a season already brimming with many promising fantasy series. It’s adapted from a Mag Garden manga by Kemuri Karakara running in Monthly Comic Avarus, so it was easy to expect pretty boys and the supernatural.
This first episode mostly acts as an introduction to the three brothers of the Kumoh family. Tenka is the oldest, fights with a fan, and is overly protective of his younger siblings. He’s also the oddball of the boys, going to absurd lengths to keep track of the youngest’s whereabouts. His antics seem to be well known by the locals, but behind the goofiness seems to be a competent warrior. Soramaru is the middle child, and the serious one who ‘wants to be stronger.’ Yes, we’ve seen this character a million times over by now. The youngest Chutaro is nearly as strange as his eldest brother, cheerfully doing everything he instructs with a ‘hai sir!’ He’s obnoxious.
To round out the cast are a couple of bumbling cops, who keep loosing the criminals that they’re supposed to be escorting. There’s the friend of the family who appears to be living at the shrine, Shirasu, who has white hair and purple eyes. I can’t tell if that’s significant or if it’s just to offset him from the black and red haired brothers. Then there’s Botan, who is Chutaro’s teacher, and she’s clearly hiding something. I expect her to end up as someone’s love interest, I’m just not sure whose.
The focus of this first episode falls mostly on Soramaru, who disobeys his older brother in order to attempt to prove himself as a fighter to him. It’s the typical overstepping of bounds you see in these stories, and Soramaru ends up having to be rescued by his bother. Strangely, Tenka isn’t angry at his sibling, just calmly worried. At least that was one trope avoided.
The animation isn’t anything flashy, just workmanlike standard stuff that gets the job done and doesn’t go far out of it’s way to be interesting. The action scenes are criminally shoujo in nature, cutting away from the strikes and focusing more on the thoughts of the fighter. There’s a small amount of completely unnecessary CGI for the woods that the boys traverse to capture escaping ronin. The character design likewise didn’t go out of their way to capture the more interesting bold colors from the manga artwork, and clearly didn’t have the budget to go for it’s delicate linework. It’s attempt to recreate the strangely shaded eyes of the leads ends up being distractingly odd looking with their dead white centers. It does help foster the sense of unease that bookends the episode.
The music so far hasn’t been particularly noticeable one way or the other, and the ending theme is the typical slightly 80’s-ish sounding ballad nonsense that ends up on too many anime. The voice acting is fine, although the youngest brother sounds particularly obnoxious.
In Summary:
Not a strong start for Under the Clouds, as the brothers aren’t particularly amusing or interesting characters at this moment. The setting and set up are interesting, and there are hints that the overarching plot could be intriguing. The mysterious and sinister prison seems to house a terrifying force, perhaps that massive serpent which is being hinted at. There’s also a potentially dark past that the younger brothers might not remember fully. The shadows of the plot are all over this but they chose a lighthearted start focusing on the boy’s daily life. A show lives or dies by it’s characters, if they suck it’s hard to get behind it. It’s certainly far too early to pass judgement, but right now I’m tempering my expectations. I’ve seen rougher starts to what ended up being fine series.
Episode Grade: C
Streamed by: Funimation
Review Equipment: 27” iMac running OS 10.9.4, via Safari 7.0.6, FIOS 15/5 Mbps connection. Your milage may vary.
