Once upon a time Capcom created a game called Onimusha. It was Resident Evil with swords game set in the sengoku period starring actor Kaneshiro Takeshi (Golden Bowl) and it was good. It was a puzzle action game like resident evil with the main character having this magical gauntlet which could absorb the souls the bad guys and give him special powers.
Very excited to see an Onimusha anime on Netflix. Very surprised to see the main character look is Miyamoto Musashi and they made him look like Mifune Toshiro! Even better, they got the legendary Otsuka Akio (Snake/Batou/Skull Knight) to the voice! I thought it was a cool idea.
The story is a straight copy of Seven Samurai. Musashi who is past his prime has to go with a bunch of samurai and a monk to defeat this bad guy Iemon. Musashi borrows the Onimusha gauntlet for this mission and they say this girl and fight lots of genma/zombies.
Onimusha started out ok. Then it was revealed that the gauntlet would turn Musashi into a demon/oni so he can't wear it all the time. I guess they want to do the Ryu because Evil Ryu stereotype story which is fine.
Then Onimusha started to become a rehash of Musashi's greatest hits with his famous antogonists turned into genma. It started to feel like someone just wanted to mash Seven Samurai with Musashi and didn't care about the game at all.
Can you guess who the director is? Miike Takashi. The same director who took Ryu ga Gotoku ip and mashed whatever elements he like and turned it a crazy Miike movie instead of a good RGG movie. Why can't he pay the same respect to the actual games he adapted like he did for Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney? It was the one game adaptation where he was faithful to the game.
Speaking of Ryu ga Gotoku, I am so scared for the amazon adaptation. Takeuchi Ryoma does not have the I will eff you up fKiryu aura but I hope I am wrong. Will be getting prime to support it regardless. Giving money to streaming services to support jdoramas is so much cheaper than buying overpriced jdorama blu rays. A new jdorama blu ray box set costs around $200,00 yen. Crazy.
I got freaking bored with the Musashi rehash and it just gets worse. The fighting in Onimusha is just bad especially in the end when it just went Dragonball Z recycle the same animations to show how fast they were swinging their swords. This is bloody Miike doing whatever the hell he wants. Maybe its more the writer's fault but I have seen this from Miike before. He should have done his own Musashi rehash movie and didn't need the Onimusha IP. Such a freaking waste of Netflix money. Miike should have done the story of the first Onimusha game. Do not watch.
Hey, glad you enjoyed Tasogare Yusaku!
ReplyDeleteWanted to thank you for putting "Oi Handsome!" on my radar. Been enjoying it lately.
Two dramas I thought you might like:
0.5 no Otoko - an understated dramedy about a hikikomori after his family decides to move into a 2.5 generation house (the hikikomori, his parents, and his sister & her family all living under one roof).
Brush Up Life - a time loop comedy starring ANDO Sakura and written by Bakarhythm
I'm not familiar with Ryu ga Gotoku, but I read somewhere that the writers/producers for the Amazon Prime live action series didn't even played the game, and they're going to made their own stuff.
ReplyDeleteSurprised you haven't watched extremely inappropriate in Netflix yet. I recalled you have certain fondness of Kudo Kankuro's writing. Yuumi Kawai is quickly becoming my favourite up and coming actress too. She has another short dorama on Crunchyroll called RoOT based on an anime.
ReplyDeleteAnon: Have seen 0.5 Otoko which was good. Have not seen Brush and Life but will give it a go since it has Kaho, Kinami Haruka, Mizukawa Asami and Ichikawa Yui.
ReplyDelete@Faiz: I have that news is false.
@Notpenk: Have not seen Inappropriate yet. Now that I know Kudo Kankuro wrote it, will definitely try.