Shigurui: Death Frenzy
Feb. 7th, 2010 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yelosonI powered through the 12 episodes of this on Hulu over the last week.
I was intrigued because this was a period anime (1600's Japan) with a dojo on hard times- stylistic art, and brutal fights that are "stylistically realistic" - if that makes any sense- people get nasty wounds, they don't heal nice, and even winners don't come out that ahead.
The story is about two students of a run down dojo who end up in a blood opera rivalry. The sensei suffers dementia, and on his good days, is sociopathically abusive. Story wise, I was hooked along trying to understand why anyone was ok with this abusive situation, and whether anyone would get their comeuppance - which never really materialized.
There was lots of misogyny! They made sure to include that! For 12 episodes, there had to be at least 6 rapes or attempted rapes of women (half are incestuous or close enough to), two sexualized mutilations, and two women killed randomly. The only points of "agency" granted to one character were either suicide attempts (two) or attempted violence in an act of insanity.
There's one queer relationship between a man and a boy, and they die within 2 episodes.
Needless to say, pretty failtastic. I was kept on hoping that either a) some kind of condemnation of the whole situation would occur, or b) the women would get some agency. So yeah, I'm telling you it doesn't and don't bother watching.
I was intrigued because this was a period anime (1600's Japan) with a dojo on hard times- stylistic art, and brutal fights that are "stylistically realistic" - if that makes any sense- people get nasty wounds, they don't heal nice, and even winners don't come out that ahead.
The story is about two students of a run down dojo who end up in a blood opera rivalry. The sensei suffers dementia, and on his good days, is sociopathically abusive. Story wise, I was hooked along trying to understand why anyone was ok with this abusive situation, and whether anyone would get their comeuppance - which never really materialized.
There was lots of misogyny! They made sure to include that! For 12 episodes, there had to be at least 6 rapes or attempted rapes of women (half are incestuous or close enough to), two sexualized mutilations, and two women killed randomly. The only points of "agency" granted to one character were either suicide attempts (two) or attempted violence in an act of insanity.
There's one queer relationship between a man and a boy, and they die within 2 episodes.
Needless to say, pretty failtastic. I was kept on hoping that either a) some kind of condemnation of the whole situation would occur, or b) the women would get some agency. So yeah, I'm telling you it doesn't and don't bother watching.
