Muramasa

Welcome Lovely fans to the second review of horror anime month. Today we're looking at a short offering from the legendary Tekuza Osamu. You may know him as the creator of Astro Boy, Black Jack and many others. Today's selection is a rather odd choice for him. A lot of his works are lighter-hearted action series. A horror film is pretty atypical. Let's take a look at Muramasa and find out what he did with it.

The plot is really basic, it would have to be given that Muramasa is all of nine minutes long. A wandering warrior finds a sword stuck inside a straw dummy. ... He takes it along with its scabbard. He uses it in practice and finds that it's incredibly sharp but then things start to go wrong and he begins losing his mind. That's as far as I'm going to take the description. Now, the plot is simple but it's actually really well done. Especially when you factor in the time constraints. The inner struggle that the warrior goes through is portrayed poignantly and, although events move quickly, they never feel rushed. I will say, however, that it's not scary. The struggle is poignant, yes, but that doesn't make it frightening in any way. Psychological, yes. Horror, no.

The characters aren't as interesting. The one character you get is the warrior and you know virtually nothing about him. Since the story is all about the struggle there's very little nuance to him. Not that I can really blame them since, again, it's all of nine minutes long.

The art... Well, the images themselves look almost like Watercolour paintings. Which does look really good, mostly. There are some cases where the expressions just look really bizarre. The animation, however, is really slow and choppy. There are also several scenes that get repeated. I remind you, this anime is nine minutes long. Is there really an excuse for being lazy with the artwork?

There is no voice acting. Which actually works really well in this. The story is told without any dialogue and that helps heighten the mood, I think. As for the music, it's a little boring. Even with the short length there's very little variation and it doesn't change to suit the mood so the anime might just be better if it's watched in total silence.

The yuri factor is a 1/10. There's no yuri in this, although you probably figured that out already.

My final rating for Muramasa is a 7/10. It's a good little piece with some power behind it. The biggest issues are the choppy animation and lackluster music, but I'd still suggest checking it out. It is well worth the nine minutes.

Muramasa is, in my opinion, an anime which is underrated and certainly requires reexamination. While it might not have stood out for some reason or the other, to me (a person who finds himself appreciating and has recommended this anime alongside Shigurui) it certainly holds strong and for some interesting reasons.

As a story, its actually bare boned - the synopsis itself is a bit of a spoiler on its own, hence watch it without actually reading what the anime's story is (or blackout as soon as you start seeing it). In itself, the story was in my opinion, something which could be considered straight from ... Japanese folklore and certainly from the samurai age. It has all the aspects covered in that respect.

What makes this anime standout is its use of art, sound and character. Even if the art is very low-budget and lacks the fluidity expected of anime from the eighties (Akira, for instance), this anime delivers on the grounds that the characters - without having a single dialogue - represent their emotions and moods through well drawn features. Interestingly, there is no blood which is actually shown in this anime - and the way it handles the reason for why it doesn't show blood is unique and actually made sense to me. Combining the art with a slow, brooding, Japanese centric sound that is haunting, stirring and worthy of a cringe on the back, both the art and the sound bring out the character's dilemma as the story progresses. In fact, without one dialogue, we have all aspects of the tale - the beginning, the protagonist's struggle, the climax, and the conclusion - all covered, in record time, and with a conclusive resonance that lasts even after the anime has ended. And the art and sound give this a high rewatch value, for the reason that its art is quite good, if not well animated.

Muramasa is an 80s classic short film which is underrated - especially to those who have a liking for Shigurui, this is certainly a phenomenal short film which carries itself really well.

Excuse me, I'm Spanish and I don't usually write in English. If you want you can read my review in Spanish.

Like Phaedrus and Aesop, Osamu Tezuka likes to make fables. On this occasion, we will talk about Muramasa (1987), an eight-minute short film that tells the story of a man who one bad day obtains a demonic sword with a great capacity to cut anything, but which distorts the perception of its owner by point that for him all human beings are straw dolls that must be cut. The short film is a simple allegory about the madness of war.

At first the cursed sword, as ... an instrument made to kill, is exhibited as a wonderful object. Everything in its path is easily cut off. In one way or another, the samurai notes that the spirit of his former owner, now an undead, emanates from the sword. A fact that serves, as with the samurai, to indicate the danger of the artifact. Yet the man is blinded by his power. Hence he ignores the monk's warning about discarding the sword. As a result, he ends up murdering a man by mistaking him for a straw doll that he cuts almost instinctively. Despite his understanding of his mistake, the process repeats itself over and over until a law enforcement officer dies. Persecuted and unable to get rid of her, he tries in vain to curb his urge to kill, the only exception being a small boy. However, the end of him is around the corner because he turns into a straw doll like the ones he saw.

As can be guessed, the short film recounts the process of dehumanization of the samurai through violence carried out with the cursed sword. Swords, like other weapons, were created with the primary objective of taking someone's life. Therefore, it is to be expected that taking the life of someone implies undermining our humanity. And because violence begets more violence, this samurai is unable to stop his murderous impulse. A story that, by the way, does not end with the man's conversion into a straw doll and his death, but continues with the next one that takes hold of it just as our protagonist did. A circular ending that is new to Tezuka's filmography, who is more fond of the unpredictable and ironic.

It also emerges from his usual humor, but not from the images as the main means of telling his story. The director combines still images and slightly animated images, achieving a narrative sequence effect that allows us to understand the story while appreciating the art. The set of images, on the other hand, is supported by traditional instrumentalization. It's clear that Tezuka intended to get out of his comfort zone to try something new and I think he succeeded.

You can read my review here: https://elarmarioanimados.blogspot.com/2020/06/cortometrajes-de-osamu-tezuka-anos-80.html