Anime Hajime Review: Kurozuka

Series Synopsis

A highly skilled samurai named Kuro (voiced Mamoru Miyano) is on the run. Within a dark forest, he comes across an old house occupied by a beautiful woman named Kuromitsu (voiced by RomiPark), who Kuro instantly becomes infatuated with. She opens up her home to the swordsman for as long necessary.

Over the next few days, the two start to develop a strong attraction for each other. Eventually they confess their love, but Kuromitsu is hesitant to act on their shared feelings for unspecified reasons.

Later that night, the residence is attacked by Kuro's pursuers. During the surprise assault Kuro is mortally wounded, but Kuromitsu easily disposes of the invaders with an unexpected display of terrifyingly unnatural strength. To save the samurai’s life, Kuromitsu offers Kuro a chance at immortality.

What follows next is a strange series of incoherent events. Kuromitsu is revealed to be a vampire, Kuro is then turned into a vampire, and this leads to Kuro's closest confidant betraying him by cutting of his head. Then sometime either before or after the beheading (I honestly don’t know which) Kuro gets his head cut off again by some random bandit. Kuromitsu kills that man and puts Kuro’s severed head on his murder’s body. Finally Kuro goes unconscious, somehow, and wakes up many centuries later in a dystopian future.

Regardless of all that, Kuro begins a quest to reunite with his beloved Kuromitsu; leaving a massive trail of bloody bodies in his wake.

Kuro

Kuromitsu

Series Positives

Yah this one's…this one’s not good. You would think, or at least I did, a show with vampire samurai would make for something pretty neat. Well not Kurozuka, which turned out to be completely uninteresting.

What’s odd is that this series didn’t start off this way. The first two episodes had me thinking that there might actually be something to it. Then the show hits episode three and if you where to ask me what happened from that point…uh, I don’t know what to say.

I’ll get into what's wrong with the story in a bit, but first I actually do have some positive things about Kurozuka.

The Atmosphere

When this show wanted to, and I’m disappointed and surprised that it didn’t do this throughout, it could get creepy.

There's some unsettling imagery; quite well done in fact. I haven’t had a show trigger this level of uneasiness within me for some time. Blood and gore aside, there are moments that create an unnerving knot in the pit of your stomach. The same kind of reaction you would get in a good horror story.

In fact, had Kurozuka's story been worth anything, this could have been a genuinely solid horror anime. It uses tone, atmosphere, and visuals to induce fear and tension; there are no jumps scares.

To see this level of thought put into creating such an eerie world raises the question; why even have all this other pointless BS?

Action

If Kurozuka didn't want to go full horror, it could have also been a decent action anime.

The fights and altercations in this series are without a doubt the most entertaining thing about it. How on Earth they have anything to do with what's going is beyond me.

Whenever Kuro taps into his vampire powers, which is completely sporadic mind you, it's awesome to see him tear through droves of enemies. I’m not going lie and say that the staggering amount of blood and violence didn’t add to the show’s watch-ability

There are some badass throw downs. Unfortunately they involve characters that are dull and are in a story that’s broken.

Series Negatives

Christ I don’t even know where to begin.

Alright, how about with the word “immortal”. This show doesn’t know what that word means, or alternatively, it’s relying on the viewer not knowing what it means.

Kuro gets “killed” a lot. By the fourth or fifth time, the slow-mo dramatic death gets old. Plus I never bought it when a supposedly strong enemy showed up. Why you ask? Because they were not immortal so eventually they were going to lose. Also there’s always one sniper left, no matter what, to shoot Kuro in the back of the head.

So while this show does have good atmosphere and fights, this is not nearly enough to counterbalance the rest of this mess.

The Story

Kurozuka is a jumbled monstrosity. It doesn’t make sense. Not for one second did I ever know what was going on.

First problem, the transition between feudal Japan and the distant future is crap and does not mix with the situation. The show never establishes what it is that Kuro is able to do or what he does or does not know. For instances, he never once questions what the f@#$ a car, gun, or electricity is. But a motorcycle is clearly the most fascinating thing he has ever seen and also he knows how to ride one.

Waking up from a couple hundred years sleep, okay I’ll accept that, but why not have in the contemporary world? Why go full future? Why create this post-apocalypse setting filled with monsters and demons. Yes I realize that the show started off with vampires, but they were still human based.

Oh and by the way, please take a moment to try and guess what it was that destroyed civilization.

Apparently a giant asteroid hit Earth. All the nations of the world used their collective nuclear arsenal to try and stop it, but it was to no avail. So that happened, but that’s not what did humanity in, I think. Instead, because of a calculation error, a few of those nukes hit other countries triggering a full scale nuclear war. That’s what did it. Oh, and that asteroid, it still hit, but yah that’s not important.

Moving on from that, another issue is with Kuro’s goal. The simple answer is that he’s trying to find Kuromitsu. My rebuttal, why does he want to do that? The shows hints at Kuromitsu having ulterior motives, and by “hints at” I mean sort of suggests, but half-assedly. Sure she did cut of his head and all, but she was also like the third person to do this, so who really gives a s@#$.

I could go into all the side characters now, but honestly f@#$ them. They all die anyway and I couldn’t care any less. Mainly because the show really couldn’t be bothered either.

I could also go into the ending, but F@#$ NO because I don’t want to get a headache. I am not in the mood to try and decipher if everything was simply reset to a different future, but with all the same characters for some reason. And I really don’t want to think that everything was a simple vision and didn’t actually happen, because that’s infuriating.

What I will say is this. At almost every opportunity available, something is thrown in that is nothing but a giant waste of time. FOR EXAMPLE, there’s one episode where half of it involves Kuro talking to an old beggar man in a wheelchair. They discuss philosophical nonsense that stemmed from Kuro agreeing to toss out the man’s collective three days’ worth feces. I WISH I WAS JOKING! 

PLUS…IT’S A DAMN HALLUCINATION. That was complete bull crap, both metaphorically, and for some f@#$ing reason, literally.

I am so happy that I never have to watch this show again.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know if what I’m about to say is a good or bad thing. This is not a hard series to sit through. Nothing makes any damn sense, but it’s over quickly. This is mostly due to Kurozuka being a completely forgettable anime. Because of this review alone this show will be saved from banishment to the black void of my memory; where it probably belongs.

Yes it can get legit creepy and the action scenes are cool. However, they're not worth it. From almost beginning to end, everything Kurozuka does is completely random. It tires, oh believe me it tires, to make a story out of this. But if you are anything like me, you won’t find it; nor do I think it’s worth finding.

               Google+                           Facebook                          Twitter