Onimusha

[Drunk Monk]

Onimusha

 
The first part of e1 wasn’t working for me at all. It had a Seven Samurai vibe and the alleged Mifune hardly looked, sounded or moved like him beyond scratching his chin with his hand through his keiko-gi, and I almost bailed. But the first demon appeared and it had a tentaclesque tongue with a Miike vibe and that was interesting.

I’m in for more monsters. Jury still out about any DooM rec. Stay tuned …

[Drunk Monk]

E2 was about zombies. Rather ordinary zombies, slow moving, wielding farming tools. The plot thickens as the depth of villainy emerges. 

The main villain is named Iemon which I keep reading as Lemon because the subs are sans serif. 

Musashi's magic gauntlet is like the Ring or Stormbringer. It gives power in combat but at great cost. 

The characters are beginning to flesh out. The chubby samurai is a hawker. I loled at when his hawks came into play and how they showed him respect. 

I'm warming up to this.

[Drunk Monk]

E3 is reanimated skeletons and super ninjas. Man, the body count for the heroes is high. Only 3 eps in and half of the fellowship is dead. The skeletons were just more stuff for Musashi to chop up. The super ninjas have potential for something significant and they kidnapped the girl. I like the monk.

This ep started with Musashi colllapsing after hiking a steep mountain trail and I could totally relate. It was a flashback to my Yosemite near death experience (I should really share that but I’m still not quite at peace with it). This show depicts an older, more flawed Musashi.

[Drunk Monk]

E4 was rough. Another hero death and a totally gruesome one. Miike’s directorial hand is clearly visible now. The super ninjas were more reanimated dead so they morphed into yokai proportions - excessively long multi-jointed thorny arms, bird legs, that sort of thing. The yokai are so Miike (remember one of my fav Miike flicks is The Great Yokai War). Musashi’s stormbringer gauntlet turns him into an Oni which is a classic yokai demon, the Oni in Onimusha (I think musha means warrior but I haven’t bothered to look that up). 

I’m beginning to wonder if this squad will even make it. There’s only two samurai left accompanying Musashi, plus the orphan girl and the hawk. They started with nine of you count the two hawks. And this is only the midpoint.

This show is based on a video game and it’s starting to show with each ep centering around a new villain plus its emphasis on sanguineous fights. 

I’m leaning towards D00M recommending this - although not near to when you watch Blue Eyed Samurai because these are such different anime styles. The comparison is irresistible yet unfair.

[Drunk Monk]

E5 was a total filler ep. The sisters of the Genma from the previous ep turn up and seem to have potential, but that’s unfulfilled. There’s some ruminating by the girl, a fever flashback that reveals some backstory that’s not too interesting. And one samurai has a crisis of faith. No hero deaths. Meh ep.

[Drunk Monk]

E6: Choppy chop chop chop. Another one bites the dust. The psycho gwailo has his moment. Musashi goes full Oni and it’s going to be tough to reconcile. And there’s monkey flower pollen, or something near to it - this hallucination is short but it plays out well.

I’m a bit confused about Iemon’s intentions now since the reveal that he’s sitting on a mountain of gold but I’m just going to roll with it.

[Drunk Monk]

E7 is all about Iemon’s intentions and the big villain teased in previous eps is revealed (but we all know that if it’s Musashi, the villain had to be a genma Kojiro). And then there’s a quick twist that reminded my of Miike’s 13 Assassins, only this wasn’t nearly as brutal. The battle rages and cut to the cliffhanger, like any penultimate ep. 

Leaning away from D00M recommending this because its references are deep Musashi lord and yokai. Not sure it works without that background. Not even sure if it works with it. But still, it has its moments.

[Drunk Monk]

Well bummer. This too ended with a thunk. There were some moments. The rematch between Musashi/Oni v Kojiro/genma was over the top in ridiculousness but I did appreciate the use of swallows (it’s a Kojiro thing). The quad amputee again drove the Miike-ness of this anime home. But the ending just didn’t deliver that well. It wasn’t a cliffhanger and there’s little opening for another season (although being largely fantasy, anything could happen). Disappointing.

D00M skippable.