Kabuto

Directed by  Buichi Teresawa 

Produced by: NEP/KSS 

Kabuto is not by any means [are stretch of the word] a good anime.  Kabuto is average that’s the only word I can muster to describe it [and yes this “average” can be stretched to the point of breaking.] Kabuto reminds me of another 1995 production Red Hawk the movies are decidedly similar in terms of the main protagonist both have powers relating to hawks and both are drawn in a fairly unimaginative style it is this lack of imagination that kills Kabuto however the case is reversed in Red Hawk [odd] Kabuto’s story concerns a series of bizarre disappearances of young ladies from a province in Japan ruled by an evil queen it is Kabuto’s task to get to the bottom of these mysterious disappearances how does he intend to go about solving the mystery? It’s simple by anime “action” movie logic kick four shades through everyone until you find the head honcho.

There are numerous faults with Kabuto that stifle it’s grade firstly the unimaginative character design and story definitely fail to inspire the viewer in any shape of form [the production team tries hard by throwing in some meaningless and non seneschal fan service in the form of the evil queen getting naked at various points in the movie for no reason.] On top of the lack of imagination comes a lack of general animation a lot of the movie is silhouettes of the characters speaking or still frames of landscape [I am aware that this is to build atmosphere however here it appears to be used lazily in order to clog up those all important minutes.]  Back to the character and mechanical design both of these elements are lacking in visual prowess the most imaginative thing in the movie is a robot that can shoot a disk from his arm that cuts things up [a la Dragon Ball’s “energy disk” the “Rock man’s” weapon in Ninja Scroll] it is a good thing that I mentioned Ninja Scroll because when watching Kabuto you’ll notice that this movie wants to be Madhouse’s classic.

The first comparison I can make is Kabuto he [like Jubei] has the feel of Leone hero from the old western movies a lone hero capable of delivering people from evil not for them but because the evil got in his way.  The bad guys and some elements of fights also bear resemblance to Ninja Scroll however seeing as they were both made in the same year I suppose it is mildly excusable.  The fight scenes in general are not up to much Kabuto is invincible he can do anything and not get hurt and this adds to the boredom factor in no moment does Kabuto show any signs of been a human being always confident he never seems to be in any real danger.  The fast pacing of the movie’s fight scenes is realistic but disappointing especially considering the fact that the enemies appear to be somewhat interesting however Kabuto merely disposes of them without breaking a sweat.  It could easily be speculated that the seeming invincibility of Kabuto is to show the coolness of the character however it merely makes for inspirational watching.

This movie reminds me of how boring “action” anime are they are simply brainless and I am not surprised that even the target audience got bored of them soon enough like all fads in the growing industry this one was destined to end and judging by Kabuto I am glad it did.  Kabuto is simply poor it is in fact below average [because it stretches the word so much it breaks.]  And so any consideration of giving this movie a: “Five out of Ten” has been abandoned in fact if you are not fond of fan service are bad “action” anime in general drop a mark off the final score.

Four out of Ten