Shigurui: Death Frenzy - Complete Series

Introduction

Remember when Manga Entertainment were the bad boys of niche video. Nary a week would go by without the Daily Mail printing a vituperative editorial, warning the nation of the evils of anime, all those tentacles and sex and violence and depravity. Think of the children! This year Manga Entertainment have been releasing shows like Ouran High School Host Club, and Negima, shows that get you thinking that they've become family friendly, light, fluffy, huggable. Think again, as this summer, Manga are bringing us Shigurui: Death Frenzy, a violent, visceral Samurai drama set at the start of the Edo period, and for the first time in quite a while, I'm concerned that it may not get through the BBFC unscathed. It's also something of an experiment for Manga Entertainment, as it's released in both DVD and Blu-ray form this August. It's not the first Blu-ray anime to be released in the UK, there have already been several films, and last winter, Beez released the first anime series, Freedom. Manga themselves have released Afro Samurai and most recently the sequel Resurrection, but Shigurui is the first time an anime series is debuting on both formats together. Unlike Freedom, this is aimed at the general anime audience, and no doubt how it performs will dictate how further series are released on Blu-ray in the UK. To be sure, this is a show that deserves the hi-def treatment, coming from the acclaimed Madhouse studios, and directed by Hirotsugu Hamazaki (Texhnolyze). A Blu-ray review will be forthcoming on this site, but representing the lesser mortals, I turn my beady eye to the DVD.


In 1633, Tadanaga Tokugawa was ordered to commit seppuku, for dishonouring his holdings. It mattered not that he was the Shogun's younger brother. The reason behind this ignominious death lies in a brutal tournament that took place at Sunpu castle in 1629. It was supposed to the pinnacle of swordsmanship, where the best in all the land gathered to prove their worth in front of the highest of nobility. Except that two of the combatants skewed the tournament. When their presence was confirmed, Lord Toril begged Tadanaga that the entrants should be forbidden from using real swords, going as far as slitting open his own belly and pulling out his own entrails in an effort to sate his lord's bloodlust. His death had no effect. At the tournament, those two combatants were destined to meet, a one armed swordsman named Gennosuke Fujiki, and a blind cripple named Seigen Irako, both masters of the Kogan style. Doubts are raised at whether such maimed warriors were suitable to display the best in samurai swordsmanship, but those doubts were quieted by the sheer animosity, hatred and pent up rage that the two had for each other. The seeds of that hatred were sown seven years previously, when a cocky young warrior named Irako walked into the Kogan dojo, demanded a match with sensei-Kogan Iwamoto, and casually broke two fingers on up and coming instructor Fujiki's hand just to prove a point.


All twelve episodes are presented across two discs, along with some extra goodies to boot.

Disc 1

1. Sword Match at Sunpu Castle
2. The Yodare-Aizuki Ceremony
3. Kamaitachi
4. A Children's Song
5. Secret Swordplay Technique Instruction
6. Birth Cry

Disc 2

7. Fangs
8. Chorus of Cicadas
9. Tiger Cubs
10. Kengyou's House of Punishment
11. Moonlight
12. Mumyo Sakanagare

Picture

I started watching this show without reading up about it, or looking at the PR material. The first thing that I noted down was 'Texhnolyze'. It has the same visual style, the same striking colour palette, and the same deliberate pacing. It was only afterwards that I found out that the two shows share a director. As one of the shows that Manga is looking to promote their Blu-ray venture, you would expect a quality transfer to bleed down to the DVD as well, and I found Shigurui to be more than satisfactory. You can't get away from the ubiquitous NTSC-PAL conversion, but Shigurui tries, with a DVD image that is clear, sharp, and free of ghosting or judder. There is a slight softness to it, but it doesn't diminish the detail to any major degree.


The image is arresting to say the least. Just like Texhnolyze, it's a very bleached drained look, over-exposed at time to increase the audience unease and oppressive atmosphere, and is apt to use stillness as style choice. For an anime, it's not all that animated, but never once are you tempted to blame a lack of budget or effort on the part of the animators. There is a deliberate filmic grain applied to the animation, and the only moments of colour are down to arterial sprays, or explosions of viscera. This is one of the shows where violence and its effects are supposed to be hideously beautiful, and it works.

Sound

You have a choice between DD 5.1 English and DD 2.0 Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and signs. This is a seriously sound-designed anime piece, one that relies more on silence than clamour, with every line carefully judged, with traditional music, with a moody, oppressive sound design, and with meaty action when the show calls for it. The English track makes full use of the speakers to bring out this show to brutal effect, and it's fortunate then that the dub is a good one, well acted and suiting the story perfectly. The Japanese track, as usual is my first option, and it does its best with the sound design, especially with Prologic pixie dust sprinkled over. Once again I was reminded of Texhnolyze by the audio of this show, as Texhnolyze too had a stereo mix that pushed the limits of the old and creaky technology. It's just a crying shame that there couldn't have been a 5.1 Japanese track instead.

Extras

Both discs get visually impressive, if static menu screens, and there is a jacket picture to look at when the disc isn't spinning.

The only extra on Disc 1 is the audio commentary that accompanies episode 4. ADR director Christopher Bevins joins J. Michael Tatum (Irako), and Wendy Powell (Iku). As you would expect, they comment on the dark disturbing nature of the show, and how it differs from the usual Funimation output. They also talk of the challenges of dubbing such a dialogue sparse show, as well as the odd pacing. It's an interesting and entertaining commentary track, but there are spoilers for later in the series, which they mention after delivering the spoilers. Best to leave this track till the end of the series, instead of after episode 4 as I did.


Disc 2 also gets a commentary with Christopher Bevins again, this time with R. Bruce Elliot (Ushimata), and Jerry Russell (Kogan). It covers pretty much the same territory as the first track, although there are a few observations about real life history in Japan of the period, and how much of the show is authentic. By and large though, this is a more jovial commentary; there are certainly more japes than in the first.

On this disc, you'll also find 16 character biographies, a settings gallery (looking mostly at the Iwamoto Dojo), and the textless credit sequences for the show.

Conclusion

This is where I ought to ask the question, whether you're more interested in the journey or the destination? That's a false distinction of course, as in the end both matter. Shigurui: Death Frenzy favours the journey over the destination, and is ultimately a disappointment, mostly because there isn't a destination at all. The end credits rolled on episode 12 and I was left anticipating more. After a few seconds, I realised that more wasn't forthcoming, and then I started poring over the disc, hoping that another episode had been hidden as an Easter Egg. Then I turned to the Internet, hoping against hope that more had been animated, and that these two discs weren't just the whole thing. Alas that wasn't the case. This isn't a profession of love for this show by the way, and it's not so good that you simply have to have more.


Watching it was an ambivalent experience for me, Shigurui has a slow and measured pace, it hints and alludes, gradually unveiling its narrative and its secrets, and it's very easy to dismiss it as an art project gone wild. I found my attention beginning to drift by the second episode, and as events unfolded, I became more and more uncertain about how I felt. I told myself that this is one of those shows whose worth would be determined by how the story ends, and I vowed to give it the full twelve episodes before determining my response. Except Shigurui doesn't have an ending. It just fizzled out halfway through the story. So here I am, still uncertain on how I feel about the show, and asking futilely, "Where's the rest of it?" As you can guess, my consternation grew into frustration very rapidly.


It's a show that needs a conclusion desperately. Shigurui is a nasty, exploitative piece of work. It's violent, full of reprehensible and morally hideous characters, horrific and abusive. Stories like that need a redemptive quality. They need the little guy to win one over on the big guy, they need some sort of moral centre, or they just need the story to end so that the audience isn't left feeling that these characters are trapped forever in a cycle of vicious hate and moral vacuity. Without that definitive conclusion, the story becomes pointless, the imagery becomes gratuitous and exploitative for its own sake, and this is truly closer to a video nasty than any of those titles that so caused offence back in the eighties. This becomes violence porn, where we go from one 'entrails spilling out' money shot to the next, and there's no point to the whole thing.


But there is the journey aspect of the show, and I'd be a liar if I didn't say that it was enjoyable while it lasted. It's visually stunning, it's certainly a title worth seeing in hi-def, as the atmosphere, the level of detail, and over-stylised impressionist feel is astounding. You could freeze frame at any point and have a work of art to look at, unsavoury as the subject matter may be. It's minimalist animation, but not so you think that the animators are saving frames and Yen. There's very much a Spaghetti Western feel, long pauses, extreme close-ups, measured silences, and a bated breath feel to the whole thing. It's a show that's constantly on the verge of an explosion, and when those explosions inevitably do come, they're all the more effective for the enforced wait. When violence does occur, there's stunning use of an X-Ray visual technique, as we get to see the tensed muscles underneath clothing, or skeletons on the verge of shattering.


The story is almost classical in feel, concentrating on eternal themes of vengeance, the acquisition of power, betrayal, love, hate, control. It's all one insane, twisted, dark tale that spirals around the demented form of Kogan Iwamoto. He's the creator and master practitioner of the Kogan style of swordplay, except that his ascent to power was halted by a misunderstanding at the court of the Shogun, and since then he has been left to run his dojo, turning out exemplary Samurai. Except that somewhere along the line, dementia has taken hold, and he's been left a mental cripple, unable to control his actions, his speech or even his own bladder. Yet he is still held in the highest esteem by the members of his dojo, and his students. It's to this dojo that Seigen Irako comes, in search of power and social standing. He's driven, skilled, and determined, although his lust for power also makes him delusional (His delusions are perhaps the most colourful things in this anime). With Kogan so infirm, all thoughts are on the successor, who will inherit the Kogan style, and who will marry Kogan's daughter Mie, to beget him suitably strong heirs. Up till now, all bets have been on star student Gennosuke Fujiki, but when Irako defeats him, it sows the first seed of hatred between them. The thing about Kogan's dementia is that it's remarkably selective, and he snaps out of it at the most appropriate moments. It doesn't stop him from having sex, and it may be the perfect excuse for him to assault his daughter (to check when she is ripe enough to bear him an heir). With Irako the most likely candidate, he basically orders the rape of his own daughter at Irako's hands.


But with Irako getting a taste of power, he decides to get a head start, and turns his attention to Kogan's woman Iku, his first betrayal, and one that sets forth all the descent into madness that ensues. 'Bellies sliced open and guts spilling out' is this show's ground state. Decapitations follow, dismemberments, genital torture, mutilations, the eating of a human eyeball, one man self-fellating in grief at losing a student. Oh, and cruelty to a cat. Not all of this is explicit mind, it's still has to satisfy an 18 rating, but those moments that are implied leave you no doubts as to what is going on.


A tit for tat plummet into madness, sex, hatred, and violence, your perfect ingredients for a video nasty, or a Shakespeare play. Shigurui: Death Frenzy is a hell of a ride, which goes absolutely nowhere. We start off with a blind cripple facing a one armed man on a tournament field. We never find out how that confrontation is resolved. Instead we get a flashback that purports to tell us how this state of affairs came to pass. Except that we only get half the flashback, and the story of how they did in the end get to that hateful confrontation isn't concluded either. I found Shigurui to be an empty disappointment, despite the amazing visuals and directorial flair. For all the butchery that goes on within, there's just no meat to this anime.