Shisha no Teikoku

This review is my very biased opinion. I am a huge sucker for redjuice and EGOiST and it will be apparent in the review. Let's start with the good point(s). Art: 10 The art and animation is amazing. Redjuice has provided the movie with some great character design followed by incredible backgrounds, animation of scenes and effects. Story: 3 The story is hugely inspired by Frankenstein. This might be due to me not being able to understand the story, however it mostly seemed like a mediocre fanfiction which includes major characters from many classic western novels such as Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes books and more. This might be dueto the fact that this is a movie adaptation from a novel. With knowledge of all the characters (I only knew about 30% beforehand) this might be an interesting approach. The movie has a lot of plot holes, pretty much nothing is explained or showed (unless this is caused by my lack of understanding) and the story pretty much uses the most cliché plot twists to a point where it's not even surprising at all. In the same way action scenes seemed hollow and seemed to follow some kind of cliché setup taken directly from the worse end of Hollywood action movies. The events defy common logic and the choices made by the characters makes no sense but this is something you'll see in many old novels (in my very biased opinion). Sound: 9 Soundtracks wasn't used a lot (unless I failed to notice) which in my opinion was a nice decision which made the movie feel closer to the time of the events (19th century). I was quite impressed by the sounds the zombies made and the sound effects in general were nice. The 2 ending themes, Door by EGOiST and another one was quite nice and fit the movie really well, but they were the only clear instance of music or soundtrack (I might be very bad at noticing soundtracks). Characters: 5 Even if the art of the characters are 10/10 the characters themselves are quite mediocre. The characters don't seem to resemble the source material (how they are in their respective books) and seem to fit a stereotype quite well. Without spoiling too much, the sidekick Barnaby (I'm pretty sure it's Barnaby) is basically random sidekick nr. 1. Enjoyment: 8 This was quite enjoyable to watch as the art (backgrounds, characters & animation quality) was so good that I could fap to it. The story was interesting, as it used tonnes of references and had some really great ideas, but it wasn't good enough to keep me hooked. Questions I wanted answered during the movie was usually like: How are they going to explain this? The answer was it wouldn't be explained. The characters, while not being unique, they weren't terrible either so just mediocre. Overall: 7 (I allowed myself to vote 8 on it for bias) Quite similar to Guilty Crown by having superior art and bad story. Also had other Guilty Crown feels and elements (Guilty Crown haters shouldn't watch this imo :>) Might not be the movie you remember as the best but it is definitely enjoyable as you watch it.

Story: 7/10 This story is heavily influenced by Frankenstein. The whole plot revolves around the possibility of reanimating corpses infusing them with their "souls". These corpses prove to be very useful after time and they're used for different works. Watson is hired to retrieve some notes that would help to recover the souls of the corpses, but there are some conflicting opinions. Some people think this process is awful, and some others want to take advantage of it. Watson will find himself in the middle of this situation and will have to take a decision that will affect everyone. This story is a re-reading of Frankensteinand the moral conflict it arises from the use of corpses. There are some changes, like the technology used, but the similiraties are there. Art: 10/10 The art is stunning. The characters are absolutely beautiful and very different from each other. The details in the backgrounds are simply amazing. Visually, this movie is a masterpiece. Sound: 7/10 The music is nice and it fits with the situation of the movie but there's not any remarkable song. Character: 8/10 Okay, this may be my favourite part of the movie. All the characters are based in literary figures. If you've read the works it's funny to see some similarities between the characters with the original sources, like how Watson is actually studying medicine, for example. For me this was a very nice touch, but I admit that if you don't know the works this little details are going to pass unnoticed. Either way they're not necessary to understand the main plot but it is a nice touch either way. Enjoyment: 8/10 I think this movie is pretty enjoyable. It can be confusing at times but it is interesting enough. Overall: 9/10 The animation is amazing, the characters varied and the story is interesting enough to keep you entertained. The only problem can be the fact that the plot is not that original but a re-reading of Frankestein and that it can get complicated at some parts.

Shisha no Teikoku (The Empire of Corpses) a movie from the Project Itoh, so this entire movie was some how confusing, I enjoyed it, but I had problems understanding part of it maybe with a re-watch in the future I will understand more, part of the reason it's hard to understand is the characters since they are from different novels/books and without reading them you may not understand some characters decisions so moving on: Story- 6/10 On the paper, Empire of Corpses looks like the coolest thing ever. Seriously, a movie about zombies who become part of society and are used in our daily lives in aSteampunk London with famous characters from various novels? Fuck Yeah but as always the sad part is, the movie promises you lots of things but has trouble to keep them. The story looks simple at first sight but it’s actually way more complex that you think. The first half of the movie is pretty good but it falls apart in the second half, the ending will leave you with lots of questions that will never be answered nothing is explained multiples brains had to work together on this movie to understand it well i guess that’s something. Characters- 8/10 The characters are almost all from various novels/books or are real people that I believe lived in London during that century. But that doesn’t really matter actually. Aside from little references that made me smile like “ooh look it's Frederick Burnaby” the characters being named after famous people has no influence on the story whatsoever.You have the Main Character Dr. Watson (sidekick to Holmes) Hadaly Lilith (from the book The Future Eve) and many others so are they well developed? I’d say meh i guess without reading those books you can't know how much alike they really are or different they are, the character designs are great. Sound- 7/10 Really nothing big to say here, the OST had nothing memorable but it was good enough to set good moods for action or drama. Art- 10/10 Now this was the best thing from the movie, the Art is amazing, Wit studio has done a great job once again the movie is eye candy for anyone from snowy cold landscapes to the noisy, full of corpses city of London, corpses exploding and fighting scenes everything was detailed, well draw and animated. Overall/Enjoyment- 8/10 Should you watch it? well if the movie sounded cool you should check it out, I know I’m kind on this one, but the Art saved this show, I also liked the characters and the story of this movie i belive there is more to it than what i understood or what you can understand watching it only once it’s obvious that it could have been better handled and executed with maybe more explanations on the incentives of the characters and the story as a hole. Anyway it's a good movie and i don't think you lose anything from watching it :)

You know, despite all the advantages they have in terms of budget and brevity, it's a shame anime films get so little attention within the community and even more of a shame that they're generally not very good. And it's not like they're rare or anything, as I've been reviewing quite a lot of them as of late. With the exception of Kizumonogatari and arguably the new Ghost in the Shell, they're not even franchise films made solely to milk the life out of a product that's already on life support. They just don't really take advantage of the fact that they're supposed to beself-contained stories, often coming off like someone just crammed an entire series worth of material into the thing before realizing they only have two hours to tell their tale and proceeded to edit like they were taking lessons from the guy who was responsible for Green Lantern's final cut. But for all my complaints regarding the weird pacing in Anthem of the Heart and The Boy and the Beast, I must now extend an apology to them. Because I recently saw Empire of Corpses, and I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that the pacing in that movie was so bad it literally physically assaults you. Empire of Corpses is one of three adaptations of the novels written by Project Itoh that noitamina announced sometime last year, and before people get on my case regarding the dude, no I've never even heard of him prior to now let alone read his stuff, and yes I know he's dead. In fact, Empire of Corpses is actually based on a novel of his that he never completed before kicking the bucket, and boy does it show. Because the way this movie played out, it felt like I was watching a live-action outline that clearly didn't go through any revising before being pushed into Studio Wit's hands. Now as I've said before, I respect Wit for their desire to challenge themselves and I can see the appeal of wanting to complete the work of a great author on your own (assuming that was the intention). But that doesn't change the fact that when they fuck up, they really fuck up. I don't think you even call what happens in Empire of Corpses a story. More like a bunch of explosions that might as well have a giant sign attached to them saying "are you entertained, motherfucker? I sure hope you are, because we overstocked on explosives and need to clear out the warehouse before the end of the week". The movie is centered on John H. Watson, a young scientist who experiments with corpse reanimation in a European setting where dead people are reanimated into "Frankensteins" in order to function as expendable labor. Having turned his recently deceased friend, Friday, into a Frankenstein, Watson is recruited as a government agent in order to help out with his own research and what follows is a series of what I can only describe as trying to cram an entire series' worth of material into a two-hour film, so the plot shifts rapidly from trying to make me sympathize with John to making me want to punch his eyeballs out of his skull. My big problem with the movie is that it doesn't really tell you what's going on and why I'm supposed to care. I don't know who John is besides the fact that he's obsessed with his work and getting Friday to become capable of speech again, and I don't know who Friday is because the film just assumes that since John cares about him, so should I. There's a scene in the middle of the movie where John is supposed to destroy an artifact called the "Notes of Valour" that's supposed to contain secrets regarding the Frankensteins that the bad guys want to utilize, but because he's more determined to get Friday back to a human-like state, he nearly gets his non-Frankenstein buddies killed and loses the notes in the process. This might have been understandable if we had seen anything of Friday when he was alive, but John doesn't even give a sentence regarding what his buddy was like back then. He just wastes people's sacrifices all for his own selfish gains, and without a good understanding of where he's coming from, it makes him incredibly unlikeable. Don't even bother looking at the other characters for support, because they're nothing but plot devices to either die or get close to dying so that John can experience a character arc without good grounding. Friday constantly turns on the characters due to his zombie state, so he'd be kinda hard to sympathize with even if Empire bothered to tell me who the fuck he is. The only other really noticeable character I can think of at the moment is the one female character in the movie, Hadaly Lillith, and that's only because of a secret regarding her true nature that I won't spoil and how she barbecues a bunch of zombies with a flamethrower. There is one guy who in the dub has a really bad German accent, but he gets arbitrarily killed off about thirty minutes in so don't expect his voice to make you laugh all through the movie's overly long two-hour length. Nobody but our dear old Watson really has an arc in this film, and to this day, I still don't know what the fuck the main villain's plan was beyond creating a bride out of humanity's souls. Why? Um...he couldn't move on? I guess the big selling point of the film is the whole "Frankenstein as sacrificial" labor premise given that they're dead and thus you don't have to feel guilty about overworking them or whatnot, and that's pretty cool because that's one of the few things zombies haven't been used for yet in fiction's constant attempt to exploit them to no end. But Empire keeps turning them into an excuse for action set pieces and very rarely do said setpieces have to do with how the public uses them as war fighting machines. Now this is Wit, so the action is decent for the most part, but prettily-executed junk food spectacle is still junk food, and junk food is never going to be fun to watch under any circumstances - especially not when video games alone have pretty much exploited every way for a zombie to become a threat by now. Without a narrative, or even a good personal reason for John to be involved in it, they quickly become the equivalent of the well-produced yet boring musical numbers from Blues Brothers 2000. And despite being incredibly simplistic, the narrative also somehow managers to be overcomplicated at the same time. It even ends with an incredibly grim scene of John trying to turn himself into a Frankenstein after the happy times achieved with his comrades. Why? I don't know, but I wish he had done it before the thirty minute mark so I wouldn't have to hear him talk with that bad accent anymore. So let's recap this film, shall we? Story: A fucking mess. Characterization: A fucking mess. Visuals: As expected of the studio, if once again it's trying to be Attack on Titan. Entertainment Value: Almost none. The film is not funny apart from some unintentionally bad dubbing choices and it doesn't make me think at all. Without either of those elements to invite me in, the only thing I left the theater with as soon as the Egoist song played was a stone-cold expression and an hour-long train ride home in the middle of the night.

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