Tuesday 13 May 2014

Fusé Memoirs of a Huntress

see that accent in the title? thats the only place i will type it... yes i have the capabilities to type it in every time but i wont.
a) cause i'm stubborn
b) cause it's a pain in the ass to either switch my keyboard to french Canadian or figure out the alt shortcut.
c) cause it doesn't need to be there.

The reason that there is an accent on the E in Fuse is cause an english speaking person will most likely read it as Fuse (as in to fuse one thing to another) which isn't wrong, thats what the word is meant to be but since in japanese vowels are always pronouced a certain way (Ie. E sounds more like A) so the easiest way to convey that is with the little accent.
but it is completely unnecessary... especially since the word is meant to be fuse and the kanji for it is person and dog fused together.

to clarify: i'm not annoyed that thats how they translated the title... just annoyed at languages in general.... and figured i should explain why i'm being subborn about typing Fuse.

So... Fuse Memoirs of a Huntress is a movie released by NIS America. A little under two hours long it's about a Girl in the mountains who happens to be a huntress. After her Guardian dies she gets a letter from her brother asking for her to come join him in Edo.
deciding that it would be better to be with her remaining family she heads out.
the problem is that she can't read or write so when she gets lost she immediately gets lost.
after wandering around for a bit she happens to bump into a man with white hair and red eyes.... and he promptly steals her gun so she follows him to get it back.
this fate encounter is what the rest of the story is based on.
between being mistaken for a boy constantly she also learns about this Fuse hunt.... humans who can change into Dogs... they kill without discrimination to consume human essence and her brother called her to town thinking her skills could earn them money.

however after they manage to hunt one down, she realizes that they may not be the monsters everyone describes them as. She is conflicted about how she has spent her life and how she will spend the rest of it.

The good:
it's a very pretty film... the character designs aren't the prettiest but consideringthe setting and story it all works.
the music and voice acting is all very good. Hiroshi Kamiya is in it for a little so that always is good in my books.
The story while a bit long and extremely japanese wasn't difficult for someone like me who knows a little about some japanese Myths/stories (mainly Hakkenden in this case)... they tell you everything you need to know to get the gist of the underlying story. if you know a bit more about the story in question you do get a little more from it but it's not essential which is very impressive.

the not so good:
it's a little long and common with Japanese films they have a different sense of pacing then a western audience does so some things that could have used more focus are quick and other things that could be a bit shorter are long.

The lost in translation:
damn there are a lot of cultural references and i'm positive i didn't get them all so i'm sure i missed something. so yeah you may need some external learning to enjoy everything.

that being said i did enjoy it quite a bit. NISA boxsets are just so lovely and i am happy to add another one to my collection.

the only way i think you can watch it is by owning the blue ray so here is the link.

but yeah it's a very sweet movie...
you know what other sweet movie i'd love to see NIS America put out?
Hotarubi no Mori e.
i know it's only 40 mins.... i would throw all my money at them if they did this (not that i don't already throw a lot of money at them... i mean... Nagi Asu, Eccentric family, pilots love song, cardcaptor sakura, toradora dub.... just take all my money...)

but yeah, good movie.

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