Admittedly, rock musicals aren’t among the things fans of the genre typically watch anime for. However, even though director Masaaki Yuasa ( The Tatami Galaxy , ping pong animation ) Inu-Oh won’t take the spotlight off of other conventional movies coming out this year, like Dragon Ball Super: Super heroes Where One Piece Movie: Red it is definitely the one that deserves the attention of anime lovers.

Inu-Oh is an artistic, creative and stylized tale of an alternate history, and although its story is not heavily dialogue-driven in a typical sense, the blending of the musical genre of rock opera, 14th century setting and the spellbinding Science SARU animation studio art direction come together beautifully to present resonant themes and emotional resolutions.

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Inu-Oh is an adaptation of the novel by author Hideo Furukawa Tales of the Heike: INU-OH, and its combination of revisionist history and rock operas proves to be one of the most ingenious premise for an anime release this year. It follows the story of Tomona, a young man and biwa player blinded as a child who loses both parents. He then meets the titular Inu-Oh, another young man born with severe deformities as a result of a cruel curse. Together, the two become famous throughout the country by combining their musical talents and their fondness for the theater.

The movie isn’t heavy on dialogue, but the story tells a lot without being overly overt or melodramatic – something that anime are sometimes guilty of. And, as you might expect, much of the history and world-building is presented through rock music numbers. However, the top-down casting does a great job of conveying charged emotions in the character interactions.

It’s kind of a story within a story, as the plot vehicle centers around telling the truth through storytelling in the face of authoritarian repression. Its socially conscious themes of giving voice to the marginalized, embracing change while rebelling against rigid tradition, and how history is “written by the winners” are incredibly poignant.

Watching Tomana and Inu-Oh perform with such passion makes the film as a whole feel like a thundering anthem and rallying cry, drawing meta parallels to the world today. And even with these big societal topics discussed throughout Inu-Oh nor does it lose sight of the personal journeys of its two sincere protagonists breaking social norms.

Art direction and hypnotic animation

In addition to narratively effective writing and directing, studio Science SARU (with whom Yuasa has also worked extensively before) is working on Inu-Oh was the crucial other half of telling a story that puts a heavy emphasis on visual presentation. The studio’s animation and overall art direction is akin to what fans of their work on ping pong animation would be used to.

The style is hypnotically surreal and unique from other TV shows or animated films, especially for the way it balances that surrealism with a somewhat grounded setting. These two artistic styles were important to mesh effectively, as this revisionist history/rock opera story contains an essential element of fantasy and magical realism.

The cruel world Tomona and Inu-Oh have to navigate and the unfair life circumstances they live lead to some of the film’s most colorful aspects. From their perspective, this vibrancy contrasts perfectly with the relatively dreary and gray world stuck outside. All in all, it’s an impressive feat of visual harmony.

Likewise, the quality of the facial expression animation cannot be emphasized enough. Especially during the musical segments, the animation perfectly conveys an array of emotions in excruciating detail, from anger and passion to apathy and grief, which is incredibly appropriate in a story that’s ultimately about rebellion. , truth and emotional expression through music.

Refreshing originality

anime like dragonball , A play , Jujutsu Kaisen , and other similar action-oriented shōnen anime naturally take the lion’s share of the limelight in this genre. Some of them are admittedly appreciated for flipping certain demographic tropes and/or immersive storytelling and world-building, but anime like Inu-Oh are excellent palette cleansers for their inventive and down-to-earth conceptual sense.

With its oddly harmonious combination of anime, historical fiction, fantasy, and rock opera, Inu-Oh injects an exciting and refreshing dose of originality into a segment of the entertainment industry that, like many others, sometimes feels like it’s oversaturated and creatively overspread.

It’s not a massive franchise/IP venture meant to appeal to the mass market, but everything down to the direction, the cast performances, and the otherworldly animation seems lovingly done.

And, as an animated movie in particular, it does a great job as a well-rounded story that doesn’t compromise on presenting its vision. While it could have allowed its runtime to be extended slightly to further extend the lives of main and supporting characters, the brisk pacing and colorful depiction of the story is effective enough to overlook this flaw.

Inu-Oh also manages to be one of those select anime that audiences otherwise uninitiated to the genre could watch and appreciate on its own artistic merits. All of the moving parts of the film work together to visualize a creative, immersive, thematically rich and aesthetically unique world. It’s not your typical anime fanfare, but that’s for the best in this case, because Inu-Oh does well to stand out in a dense genre.

Director Masaaki Yuasa and animation studio Science SARU’s Inu-Oh hits theaters August 12.

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