Party like its 1582!
What they say:
“I sing with all my heart.”
Review:
Allow me to break this down as best I can. A nameless swordsman wonders Japan is wounded in battle but is taken in by a family (?). He then proceeds to fall in love with their daughter. Some generic villains kidnap his beloved and he tries to console some random child presumably their son. Again, we’re given so little detail it is hard to tell. The man sets out to rescue his girlfriend/wife and the must then fight against a series of stock villain archetypes.
The first villain is some random woman who is done away with off screen, the second is a pirate who seems to have wondered onto the wrong set but they decided to keep him in anyway. Flash forward and he is holding his girlfriend/wife in his arms as she is dying. One of the stock villains in his dying moments presumably shot her. Looming over wandering swordsman is the big kahuna who he fights off-screen because why bother showing all these trivial, uninteresting details when we can break into random choreographed dance and song?
The villain is dancing on stage with no colour to his body, presumably because it is his corpse, who is then tossed aside to reveal that our protagonist won! Then fireworks are set off and there’s an audience standing in front of the inexplicably modern looking stage as nameless swordsman sings along to the background music. I’ll just assume this was supposed to be a music video and end the explanation at that.
In all honesty, this was an enjoyable watch. The animation was gorgeous and the short itself was enjoyably campy. It really is a shame, however, that there were no subtitles for the music as I am legitimately curious as to what music could correspond with this short. One of the biggest problems with this is the fact that there is no development for the supporting cast and it all feels rather haphazardly slapped together.
In summary:
The animation in this is actually quite eye-catching and, for a music video, it has a decently cohesive plot (ending aside where I think they lost their grip on reality). In a guilty pleasure sort of way, I could see some people enjoying this as it is absolutely shameless. There is very little actually offensive content in this so if one is in need of a brief diversion this should suffice.
Grade: C+
Streamed by: animatorexpo.com
