Bayonetta: Bloody Fate

Do you like watching things happen? Think carefully about this question. Watching anime is essentially seeing a sequence of events set to music and sound. Under this definition, there could conceivably be an anime about anything, even grass growing. The reason this hasn't happened yet is because no one would care. Sure, things are happening, but why does that matter to you? You could go outside right now and see grass grow, or you could watch something you care more about, so watching Grass-chan Adventures is understandably low on your priority list. But why is that? Why do you care about some things more thanothers, even though both things are equally happening? The answer is emotional investment. Bayonetta has a lot of things happening at any given time. Guns get shot, monsters get killed, poses get posed, one-liners get tossed around, there's never a moment when things aren't happening. But much like our kawaii Grass-chan, you're never given a reason to care. Why is Bayonetta killing angels? Why are angels killing everyone? Why are some people ghosts sometimes? Why is God evil? What was with that car? Why did Jeanne shoot all those people on that train, and why was Bayonetta there? Where was she going? Where was she ever going? Why did anything happen at all? For an hour and thirty minutes, things are happening, but these questions are never answered. The bad guy is trying to revive the biggest bad guy for... some reason? Is it God? Shouldn't people be stoked to hear that God is coming to Earth? You're never told what the stakes are, so you never care why Bayonetta's fighting. You never see her struggle, so you have no reason to care when she succeeds. You never see her in any danger of losing, so seeing her win becomes meaningless. It just turns into a sequence of events. Bayonetta beats this bad guy, so now she's going to fight this other bad guy, and she's going to win but we're not quite there yet. There's nothing to think about, no surprises, no doubt, no reason to keep watching these things happening. It's just grass growing. I haven't played the game that Bayonetta is based on, so I don't know how this adaption compares to the original. But I know immediately where all the emotional investment went. When you play a game, you supply the emotion. Just making progress gives you a reason to care, since you've now invested your time towards beating the game. You learn the price of failure if you die, which adds excitement to the fights as you try to avoid that same failure. You learn the capabilities of your character, what she can and can't do, and you add your own skill in order to overcome the obstacles presented to you. Just playing the game is enough to make you care. The story and cutscenes are nice rewards for your progress, but the goal is progress itself. This is why a straight adaption just doesn't work. There's no inherent difficulty in watching anime (except for downloading codecs and stuff, but you get the point). Once you start watching, you won't fail and have to start over if you don't beat the boss. Your skill has no bearing on whether or not the protagonist succeeds. You have no control over how or why things happen, so you need another reason to invest your time. You can't help the main character fight, but you can still care if they win or lose if you're given a good enough reason. Bayonetta just doesn't give you a reason. Bayonetta isn't ALL bad. Norio Goddamn Wakamoto voices one of the leads, which makes absolutely any show better (see Wizard Barristers for an example). The art is good, if you've ever seen a Madhouse production it looks exactly like that style. Bayonetta has some killer tits. Beyond that, it's hard to think of any other positive points. Should you watch Grass-chan Adventures? Maybe, if it ever comes out. You'd probably feel the same way watching Bayonetta. Should you watch Bayonetta? Not really. The only thing this movie really has going for it is the action, which is just bland and predictable. The story is a jumbled mess, the characters are boring, and the things that happen just aren't interesting. Your time would be better spent watching something else.

Okay, my 1st time writting a review in this page, and ill start with a simplistic comment: Bayonetta fans, dont overhype yourselves in expectations, the trailers are better than 90% of the movie. I'll be concise. It's a watchable movie, in no way absolutely awful, but it is definetely nothing special. The story is what you already know from the games, but its development is somewhat convulted and rushed as you might expect from a game that has some actual plot adapted into a movie. The scrips are bland, Bayonetta is Bayonetta, and the rest of the chars are just "there" 90% of the time, theresnothing noteworthy about them. Terrible villain and development for the villain. The art ranged from orgasmic, to above average but sometimes it dropped to pretty bad, I have no idea why some frames where so neglected by the artists, but overall the art is pretty good. The sound effects are decent but the music imho, is horrible. They seemed to try and make a game soundtrack instead of a movie soundtrack, and it wasnt pulled off adequately. You'll somewhat enjoy the movie as a Bayonetta fan, but likely feel very dissapointed in some other regards, if you like the character or wanna kill time and are interested then watch the movie, all youll be seeing the movie for is Bayonetta.

After just finishing playing the game Bayonetta, I was surprised and overjoyed to hear there was a movie out; and considering how much I adored playing the game, I just had to see the movie. Unfortunately, the movie fell a little flat. Compared to the game, a lot of things were cut out, and it only really focused on the major plot points. I suppose it is rather hard to fit a 10+ hour video game into a 1 and a half hour movie, but still. I did enjoy the soundtrack though, and the animation; I especially enjoyed the extra scene in the hotel that didn't appearin the game at all. But other than that, the movie chopped and changes a lot of the scenes, making it almost a completely different setting from the game. But; at the end of the day, I honestly enjoyed the movie despite these flaws, and because it was Bayonetta after all.

As a fan of the Bayonetta game I did not pass up the opportunity to watch this movie. Seriously, I don't think there is one person here who didn't come to watch this without having played the games first and if you are someone who has not played it you should before even watching this. Story 6/10 The story itself does not change from the game for the most part. It also retains most aspects from the original game. However, if you already played the games this is not anything new at all. There is no presence of a new concept and most the eventsthat followed are as they are in the game. To put this game in the hour and a half time frame they did have to rush the hell out of the story as well so be prepared for that. Most of things you thought you were going to see aren't present in this film. Art 9/10 I really enjoyed the art used in this Movie. It really represents the game well and all the characters look exactly as they did in the game and you even get to see some of the awesome weapons that were in the game like the Shuraba. I also loved the fact they didn't copy every little scene and presented somewhat of different settings while still following the story. I really wish they included some of the other angels that did not make an appearance in this film like Golem or Grace and Glory. Sound 10/10 They pleased me very much so by not fixing what wasn't broken and that is the music and voice actors. I watched in the English dub and I gotta hand it to them for getting the same or very similar actors who played in the English version of the game. They also brought back personal favorites of mine from the game such as Mysterious Destiny and Fly Me Too the Moon. Characters 8/10 Exactly as they were in game so if you enjoyed them in game there is no doubt you'll enjoy them here. While some of the script is kind of rehashed just for the movie I still find them quite enjoyable. Simple as that. Overall 8/10 Very good at retelling the story to me and they did a great job of keeping the action as presented in game. If you have played the games you should definitely watch this movie when you got the free time but just note there is nothing new the game didn't show. The movie did explain some things such as the actual correlation between Bayonetta, Cereza, and Balder if you couldn't guess just by playing the game but other than that there is nothing new. But, if you have not already played the games I high;y recommend it before watching the movie as it is a better experience and has more detailed than what this could have possibly packed in 1 and a half hours.

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