MovieChat Forums > Shigurui (2007) Discussion > Pretty good but confusing

Pretty good but confusing

posted 15 years ago by iamomeed
10 replies | jump to latest

I watched it with english subs, I have to say that this is pretty gory lots of good fights. I had a hard time following the story line tho. Theres a lot of flash backs, flash forwards and dream sequences. Also some scenes the text was really fast and so was the action so that was tough to process simultaneously. Also it tends to drag at some points too, just showing the scenery or bugs crawling for a minute or 2.

Theres a ton of WTF scenes in the series. It has a huge S&M undertone to it with females being raped tortured and humiliated. So this is not for kids or the faint of heart.

And as of this posting theres only 12 episodes. Episode 12 is not the conclusion and leaves alot of questions unanswered. I have no idea if they will finish the series off or not.

Overall this was pretty good, I gave it a 7/10.

[–] NRTOOD 15 years ago

Bah. I for once can't understand why many find it good or even masterpiece. The only ones who are loving it are probably love it for it's violence for the sake of violence (and exaggerated too). It is obvious that the director (Hirutsugu Hamazaki) likes violence. But at least his previous project had soul in it not just you know.

And for the story there isn't much to it. Mainly two talented warriors fighting and one revenging the grandmaster of the dojo with some subplots and one plot twist (The spanish sword towards the end). It hasn't even got a proper end.

You got to make something compensate about the constant women humiliation and the dojo totally unrealistic fights with other dojo's. But in Shigurui case there simply isn't.

5 out of 10

[–] ats02171 15 years ago

Visually it is a wonderful anime. I you should give it a try in English dub.

[–] mr_beck45 14 years ago

I found it to be great ,actually 10\10. It's not for the blood - to be quite frankly i was slightly shocked by some scenes.It was the suspense that got me, i found my self, as i watched, grinding my teeth (and no anime or movie or anything made me do that before ).
I liked shigurui and found it to be the best thing i laid my eyes on .. because i't so much stuff hidden in there and so hard to understand (there is a scene where there is auto-sexual pleasing - that was another shock). Blink once and u lost the entire episode. Oh! and the bugs... watch closely , you'l find that they are just symbols for the characters. Honestly i think that they won't make another season and the anime series it's a project that it's made just to give u a taste so you'll read the manga. ( i did and int's mind blowing).

pardon the english.

[–] ckneko 14 years ago

Yikes.
The poor treatment of woman: Remember the time period here; women are there to service men and produce children. That's how it was back in the day. Especially in such a male dominated area like a dojo. That's why it's such a big deal that Irako requested that he and Mie make babies in private behind closed doors.
Violence: There are swords involved X_x It's kinda obvious there's gonna be blood. There's actually relatively little of it compared to the amount of build up to certain events.
Bugs: I think there's a LOT of symbolism that's lost on us here in the west. The cicadas are shown at odd times and sometimes doing odd things, I think it's something that loses it's meaning.

[–] tntales 14 years ago

Watch it like a David Lynch film where you probably will only catch a portion of what's happening and it unfolds with repeat viewing. Of course if you didn't find it interesting the first time it probably won't get better. I watched it all in one evening (took a break to eat).

Just let it soak in and then watch it again and see something you didn't before. It's very rich visually and has a lot of symbolism. And yeah, it was pretty screwed up. This show has a relatively low body count compared to ones like Ninja Scroll, but for some reason the violence and its presentation unnerved me in ways other show didn't. I came in as a gorehound and left impressed by an art film.

I don't think it was violence for its own sake, unless you see it as a realistic depiction of a time of fierce class / family / dojo warfare where life was really cheap and some people's lives are worth less than that so it was a time of violence for very casual reasons. I'm not trying to justify it, just saying that it's not just there to make you squirm (though squirm you shall).

[–] nick_alvarez2001 13 years ago

I thought the sword sword in this series was excellent. Who ever planned out the fight sequences has good understanding of Japanese sword play. All that fencing you see in other amines only happens during battles between opponents wearing full battle armor. The death blow is usually landed in the first or second strike and is usually the only blow to land. The sword technique was my favorite part of the series, all though half of the techniques were variations of other techniques, I still liked it. The combat didn't have the style of samurai champloo, but that was much less realistic, just look at Mugen. As for the unarmored combat, that was bad ass too (love the teeth).

[–] breaker-the-magical-warr 12 years ago

Violence for the sake of violence eh? Go watch the powerpuff girls or something if you have a problem with gore. Don't criticize someone else if they don't. This anime shows you exactly what happens when a sword meets human flesh. I doesn't hide that, and its mature label clearly states it. Shigurui is much more than that, an if you can't see that, you just didn't get it. I'll leave it at that.

[–] NolanBruce 12 years ago

I'm a little late on this, but I think you might want to give Powerpuff Girls another watch. It's actually pretty violent.

[–] NRTOOD 12 years ago

If we are at it, the manga is even more "artistic" with a samurai with a face of a toad who defecates while slaughtering other samurai's,write with it a warning statement to other warriors to not flirt with his lover and than disappears in the middle of the story without explanation. His lover, by the way, is a rambo style female who suddenly spurts a conch made dick out of her vagina, and then disappear out of the story without explanation. The rest of the story right to the end is more balanced but still pretty unintelligent and lacking logic. Now excuse me, i need to go watch the care bears pull out their intestines while making subtle comments about bug's with human faces, and don't you dare interrupt my realism session!

[–] slop101 13 years ago

I personally couldn't get over it's lack of animation. The artwork/design was fine, but it has the same amount of animation as those old '60 Spiderman cartoons. Seriously, I've seen more movement in those motion comics. I'm not asking for big-budget Disney caliber animation, it's just that other OVA animes put this one to to shame in just their level of animation.