1001 Nights

Story : The story for this anime will be hard for a lot of people to pick up on because it relies entirely on visuals. If you like to analyze things, go for it. I just took two classes for analyzing art and literature, so I enjoyed it easily. If you find yourself going "WTF?" over the simplest of symbolism, I don't recommend you watching this one. You will be vastly confused. The fact that it requires more thinking than the average anime and the story itself is nothing amazingly original has prompted me to give it a 6.

Art : Now, this is where 1001 ... Nights seems to lose a lot of people. The art is very abstract and nothing like your typical anime. This anime mixes 3-D and 2-D art rather well, but most of the art is 2-D. It has a very sketchy look to it; like a colored pencil drawing. It gets a 9 because, to be very honest, I love this kind of art. If they had botched the mixture of 3-D and 2-D, I'd probably have been extremely strict on this section and given it a 5, but it works together.

Sound : Amazing. If you like orchestral music, this is going to be the shit for you, honestly. There is only one instance of voice acting at the very beginning, and I have to say that this is very well done, too. The moment I heard this woman's voice and the dialogue I was drawn straight into this one. I was like, "This is gonna be awesome." So, even though it's only used once, the dialogue and voice acting are a great hook in this anime. Therefore, 10.

Character : These characters serve their purpose very well. If you like to get into the mind of a character, understand everything about them, their actions, and their motivations, don't touch this. This anime is all about the emotions of these two lovers. You're not invited into the inner corridors of their mind. If, on the other hand, you are enraptured with emotions, these characters are teeming with it. Desire, longing, sorrow; it's all there despite the somewhat flat way in which they're expressed. This is why 1001 Nights gets a 7 on characters. The artistic representation of the character's emotions are somewhat hindered by the stylized form of art used on them.

Enjoyment : I, personally, enjoyed this anime greatly. It pulled me in and kept me enraptured for 23 whole minutes with absolutely no dialogue or direct plot/action. That's pretty good for someone of my attention span. So, it gets a 9.

Overall : It reminds me of Fantasia. If you like fantasia, take a look at this. It's like a Japanese, sex-centered Fantasia. X3 But really, it's not an anime for everyone. It has it's audience, and you'll just have to watch it to find out if you're a part of that audience. If you like artsy things, analyzing, symbolism, abstract artwork, or those old serious cartoons, you'll like this. I did, and that's why Overall it gets a 9 on my list.

1001 Nights is a movie that came out in 1999 and should not be confused with the first hentai film ever that came out thirty years before it. It is loosely based on the famous collection composed of different tales of the same name.

It is necessary to clarify that this movie is essentially a musical film in the likes of Disney’s Fantasia, so its main focus is to present great visuals and music instead of a good story. In fact this movie was thought as an interpretation of an orchestration and nothing more so the visuals and music flows together spectacularly. Speaking of those elements, ... they consists of classical music and a mix between 2-D and 3-D art, more specifically, colored pencil drawings and early CGI; they somehow managed to make it right, it looks gorgeous. Isn’t it funny how a movie that came out almost two decades ago did it right while the recent attempts at doing the same thing look horrendous? The recent Berserk anime(the movie trilogy too if you want), Asura and Arve Rezzle are a few examples of what I’m talking about.

As for the story…well, it barely has one (if even). If you’ve read the original tales you can find references to some of them thrown in it but if you haven’t all you will see is erotic sequences with a most trippy art style that equals(or even tops) the sex scene from Mind Game. You could think of it as a couple dealing with the internal demons of their relationship…or just them wanted to make love but all of a sudden are being chased by an angry demon in a really intense adventure, what is this, Ghosts n’ Ghoblins?

Anyway, this movie is a great example of art in its pure form both visually and musically and one of the most unique pieces in the medium and that alone makes it worth watching despite not having much of a plot, or any.

2/7/23 update: After watching the likes of Pale Cocoon, Angel's Egg, Cat Soup, Junk Head and Mad God, I decided to stop giving a pass to movies like these that are just visuals, sound, and a setting, if your movie has nothing to say, its plot is very loose, and there are no characters in it, then it doesn't get a base score from me. Bye

RECOMMENDATIONS

Disney's Fantasia (basically the same thing but for everyone).
Interstella5555 (also a musical film, but it has way more conventional art style and music, and a much more comprehensible plot).

Rate:4
Eng dubbed (however, only the intro had vocals once the show began it was just a musical)
More classic music art than regular anime

Story/art
A cluster of events all coexisting with one. Story wise and art wise. With the stories the scene would change slightly and so would the character's personalities. Art wise you would have semi realistic art, black and white art, dark art, light art, morphed art, and a bunch of others.

The intro to the film was a lovely original concept. You start by seeing what appears to be a massive artwork. As the film pans in to its goal you see a lot more ... than what you thought was there.

Character
I would love to say there was background but that was only true if you knew other stories see other reviews to further understand. I don't have that knowledge so it was a complete agony to watch for me. I felt like a rat in a maze that kept morphing it's layout. I just wanted it to end.

Enjoyment
Background research before watching this is a must to further appreciate the film.