X - The Movie

Be warned: this review does contain a few spoilers. However, I tried very hard to keep it light. Also be warned that if you are planning to watch X, you should /not/ watch it as someone who has never /read/ X. You should read X first, then watch the movie. Otherwise you will not be able to understand or appreciate it at all. This review is, by the way, written with the assumption that you /have/ read X – but never fear, for there are very few actual spoilers for the manga and you may still read this review even if you haven’t read X. Now,let us get on to the actual review… The majority of you are angry that X the Movie doesn’t follow X. But that’s because the majority of you are looking at the movie from the perspective of people who have read all eighteen volumes. You see, when I first started watching the movie, I went into it angry. I was ready to point out all the flaws I could possibly find. “No! No no no no no! Seishirou, Subaru, what are you doing!” “Subaru, you don’t walk around in shifuku! I think the animators confused you with Hokuto. Who has been dead for nearly a decade by this point so I don’t know how they could confuse you with her…actually…” “/No. What are you doing. Stop it. You’re both idiots/.” “No no no no no no noooo. Subaru, that is not your wish. And Seishirou, you’re just being downright rude. And stupid. Have I mentioned how stupid I think the two of you are?” “Whoa they turned into dragons!” ~incomprehensible complaining, sobbing, raging ten minutes into the movie~ “W-where is Kakyou?! Who is this brat?” “Whoa Yuzuriha, you’re pretty…forceful. I remember you being much bubblier and friendlier in the manga!” “Hey, Kusanagi. /What happened to you/. When did you become such a horrid brute?” “/What happened to your relationship with Yuzuriha/?!” “Well Fuuma…you’re just going on a rampage, aren’t you…” Half way through the movie, I realized something. And started laughing. X the Movie was released in 1996; by that time, the X manga was only up to about eight volumes. CLAMP is not about to spoil all their developments in a movie. How Subaru and Seishirou’s relationship resolves is one of the reasons a majority of people read X – how do you get that out of the way? /Especially/ since we don’t learn how their relationship ends until, oh, over five years later! The sensible way is to kill them off ten minutes into the movie, of course. Can’t get your hopes up too much, can we? While my heart aches, I can’t blame the directors or CLAMP since it was a rather grandiose move in order to keep X’s sixteenth volume a complete and, I might add, devastating surprise. Kusanagi is portrayed as a bastard, not because he is one, but because they can’t show what sort of relationship Kusanagi and Yuzuriha have later on. That would be spoiling it! As for Kakyou – I don’t think he was even introduced by the eighth volume, so they simply had to replace him with someone else. To be fair, whoever they replaced him with (I apologize, I already forgot his name, yes I know I’m horrible) looked quite similar to Kakyou. Another red herring, if I may say. So, basically, X the Movie is one gigantic troll. Distance yourself from X and you can see it. Even I, who loathe it when manga are taken and dissected into pieces and consequently abridged for anime format, managed to become objective and viewed X as simply…something separate from its manga counterpart. If you so desire to see it as such, you could even call X the Movie a really long trailer for X – or a “what could have been” version of X. You could even see it as a parody, if you want. A really bloody, messy parody. That aside, X the Movie is truly breathtaking. The art is beautiful. Here are the /real/ CLAMP characters – not the stiff, and, quite blatantly, often ugly art of the television series. The animation is wonderfully done and fluid. Now if only an anime series – true to the manga – could be released with this sort of quality! The character designs are completely and utterly true to their original counterparts. Seishirou is dashing as usual, Subaru is beautiful, Arashi is utterly gorgeous, Yuzuriha is adorable, Hinoto is stunning. I’d go into the other characters but that would take too long – I’m simply mentioning the ones that struck me with awe. The soundtrack is also quite solid; I can’t remember having any complaints about it. In addition, the seiyuu were quite fitting for all their characters. The visuals are very dark and mystical, as is fitting for X. Be warned, for there is…quite a bit of gore in X. In the television series, there was almost absolutely no blood, which was one of the major things that irritated me. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not a fan of gore at all. But X is filled with blood and guts and bones and pretty darn painful deaths, and if you’re planning to censor that, why make an anime series at all? The movie, written and released before the anime series, makes up for that. Those of you who, despite my warnings, will be going on to watch X the Movie (and have made it this far into my review) without reading X the manga must be warned – the characterization in the manga is different. The character development is different. The events displayed in the movie either did not occur or are not in chronological order. As I stated earlier – it is best if you read X before you watch the movie. Distance yourself. Know the characters. Know who they are. Watch, watch without getting angry – watch it the “right way”, and you will enjoy it. I know I did. I watched it and I don’t regret it in the slightest. I might even watch it again, if only for that beautiful art.

It's a classic. My love for CLAMP began with this movie. I saw it in 1997, in the manga con. I was overwhelmed. It's the best start of familiarizing oneself with X. Those who already read manga probably won't be delighted. It certainly lacks depths of characters and between characters - or, does it really? For me, the depth of Kamui-Fuuma relation was obvious from the very start, as well as of some other people, even if it was only slightly pointed at. Apart from this... It's epic. Art. Psychology. Emotions. Despair, choices, fate, love, desire... Shattered glass, sakura petals, feathers, fire and water, holy swordsand chosen ones. Dreams, above all. Struggling for a future. Design is fantastic, much better than intv series. Music is... Well, I've never heard so psychedelic sound in any movie. It stays in your mind forever. The plot is so minimalist and so rich at the same time. And the end crushes you and leaves you unable to think or feel anything. For me, X The Movie is a masterpiece and the best you can get from anime.

You know that maligned Rintaro adaptation of Clamp’s never-ending manga? The one that condenses the entire story in 90 minutes, and thus makes less sense than America’s gun regulations? I really love the thing. The anime. Not the fact that America has bad standards in terms of gun control. You guys might say that the main reason for me loving this trash is related to how I love the type of post-apocalyptic story that makes up X, but I’ve shown in the past to be really harsh on premises that I like but don’t deliver – insert rant about how White Fox shows suck here. Youcould say that I know the characters and how things play out in actual story due to my love for the TV show – which I saw prior to seeing this – but I couldn’t get through the Diebuster movie despite loving the original OVAs, so that’s not a good answer either. I’m sure it helped though. No, the main reason I love this movie is how it pulls off its badness with so much style. I compare the film to Guilty Crown in the title above because it does many of the same things that made the show work for its fans – irony or not be damned. It’s well-animated, has characterization so rushed that it feels like the plot was made up as it went, and goes to really dumb territory that you can’t help but become entertained by it, even if it’s just to laugh at it. Basically, everything that made that show loved by its fans condensed into a more tolerable 90 minutes. Does that paint enough of a clear picture for you? If you’re one of those who’ve never seen Guilty Crown, let me elaborate further: I love the movie because it’s an epic mess treated with such seriousness to the point it’s hilarious, and has a beautiful visual style to please me as a fan of animation and make me overlook said plot deficiencies. In order to make the “epic war between those who want to save the Earth despite its imperfections and those who to destroy the Earth and build a new one” fit in such a short length, it kills off its characters quickly before you even get the chance to know them and doesn’t really look back on ‘em afterwards. The fights themselves are very well done, and the deaths involve a ton of blood and sometimes occur through beheadings. Hilarious beheadings. Try watching a character get their head chopped off and not laugh at the ridiculousness. The stuff in-between that cool stuff is full of your usual Clamp dialogue. I know some people aren’t a fan of that “Unmei! Kaihen!” stuff that the movie partakes in, but I personally thought the dialogue was enough to give you an idea of what was happening without really establishing anything. And really, a movie that relies mostly on stylistic action for its appeal doesn’t need that sort of establishment. If anything, that’d just make the film harder to sit through. I’ve seen the movie three times and I think my affection for it increased each time. Still prefer the TV show despite the fact that it has the opposite problem of being too long, but god this thing was equal parts awesome and comedy gold. Decapitations usually are. Especially when the movie ends with a whiny douche crying at how his happiness is gone whilst cradling his best friend’s head. School Days has nothing on this shit.