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All of us had
been waiting for the next big anime movie to come
along. Something that sat apart from the run of the
mill OAV. This was it. Clamp had heard our prayers
and joined forces with Studio Madhouse to develop X
into an abridged and slightly modified animated
version of their (still running) 20 volume manga
series by the same name. All I had seen had been a
couple short clips of the opening Kotori's dream
sequence,
and a brief fight between Seiichiro and Nataku. I
then sent these clips to Liz. We were both
dumbstruck. Her response was almost identical to
mine. “F**k me. <<squeal>> Oh my God”, and then some
unintelligible murmuring for the next 20 minutes as we
reviewed the 30 second clips over and again. Then
eventually we went to sleep with images of sadistic
angels and compassionate demons flashing through our
heads.
Mancer
originally picked up a fansub of ‘X’ back in mid 1999,
which he lent to me shortly after his fourth viewing
of it. The tape was in pretty good shape for it’s
time. A bit grainy and the contrast was wonky, but
for $7 who’s gonna complain? The subtitles were easy
to read, and they seemed to sit with the dialogue
quite well. The first time I watched the movie was
late at night with all the lights off as I sat glued
to my TV. I found myself breathless three times
during the film, shocked by the beautifully horrific
images. By the end, I was emotionally drained. The
story was great, even if a tad heavy and completely
out of context, thus more confusing for those who
haven’t read the manga series yet. The characters
were all original and interesting. If it weren’t for
the tragic nature of the film, they would make great
spin-off OAV’s (Tokyo Babylon).
Fast forward a
couple years and Clamp finally released X on DVD in
Japan. Mancer of course gobbled that up in a hurry,
then requests the use of my regionless dvd player to
watch ‘X’ in “all it’s Clampy Goodness”. Anamorphic
widescreen, Japanese 5.1 Digital audio, huzzah. No
subtitles, but a bright pink and white cover (which I
think was used just to mislead people). Then Manga
decides to get off their butts and release ‘X’
theatrically in the U.S., dubbed of course. So Mancer
and I pack our bags and drive 4 ½ hours downstate to
Ann Arbor to watch it at the State Theatre with Liz.
We waited in line and in the rain to buy our tickets
and eventually watch the show. There were about 60 or
so patrons ranging from the very few hardcore fans to
the people who came in just to get out of the rain.
What dismayed us the most was that the crowd laughed
at the parts that rendered me speechless. I am going
to lend that credit to the dubbing which was slightly
under standard fare and made the characters sound
“hokey”.
Not a great
reception, we went back home dismayed that Manga was
going to screw things up even more with the DVD
release. Maybe it was a premonition, maybe it was
seeing the forordained because sadly, we were right.
While the transfer isn’t as bad as their deplorable
excuse of a DVD “Wings of Honneamise”, it isn't as
clear as the region 2 Japanese release. I blame the
MacroVision encoding for that problem. The biggest
problem that Mancer and I have is the omission of the
Japanese 5.1 digital track. While it’s nice to hear
the movie in it’s original language, why not get the
better soundtrack? Obviously the Japanese 5.1 exists,
why didn’t Manga offer it as well? Way to treat the
fans Manga. Booooo.
The subtitles
also mock the intelligence of the viewer by noting
when someone uses telepathy to speak. Well DUH… it’s
pretty obvious while watching the film what is
happening.
One thing I
never really noticed is how absolutely beautiful the
animation really is. Just gorgeous. No corners were
cut when they produced this movie. I can understand
not quite noticing it on the fan sub because of the
poor quality tape, and the film is innately very dark
to begin with. The theatrical release left me bitter
due to the audience’s reaction, and that subtracted
from my overall enjoyment of it. But to watch it at
home with people who can appreciate it is a far more
rewarding experience.
So, if you
don’t mind having less than the best audio, and you
can stand the minor subtitle belittling, by all means,
watch the movie. One strong note of caution though:
Due to the graphic violence in the film, kids should
not be watching this until they are a bit older. |
1.
North-America
Damn
it Matt! I need to borrow that DVD from you... now!
