I watched it a year ago at the Venice Biennale. It was the only Japanese animated entry of the festival, which happened to screen somewhat close to where I lived. I went there just to see it thinking that no matter what, even if I wouldn't get the story at least I would let my eyes feast on what looked like the next great feat of animation, provided by such an indie and original studio as SCIENCE SARU, known for jewels like Devil Man Cry Baby and later Heike Monogatari.
What I got was the complete opposite.
Even if I didn't get it completely, the story was heartrendingly beautiful and well executed, while the animation.. well I would not have paid the full ticket just for that. No Makoto Shinkai level of detail for sure, but not even the elegance seen in previous features like the Night is Short.
It has a gritty, almost dirty, yet precise style that nevertheless manages to perfectly portray the vibe of a story revolving around the poor and outcast. Realistic and vibrant, with uncensored sweat and spit and bodily hair which is pretty refreshing to see in the contemporary hyper-idealised anime landscape. The character design and the action is great, bold, intense.
What did not sit with me was the conspicuous use of frame recycling. There were many instances where the scene is exactly the same and just the color or the context change, while the animation goes in a loop.
But allow me a little digression. I need to mention how this anime is, first and foremost, a musical. It is a story told almost entirely through musical lines, like a biwa player singing in the streets used to do.
There is an incredible amount of time (like 10+ minutes) in multiple sections throughout the movie dedicated to the full development of a song, which makes it feel as if you were really witnessing a rock concert in real time. The music the two protagonists craft with just their voice and a biwa pimped to electric guitar has a visceral, universal allure that will probably make you hum the lyrics while clapping your hands to the beat. If you like festival folk music you'll have a blast and will be avle to grasp what I think is the most important message in the movie: how the power of music and art unites people through the ages, through their differences, through their struggle against society and against fate.
Just like the development of the folklore fairytale it is based upon, the story and the music in this movie go through a repetition with variations scheme until they gradually reach a climax. It's an elementary old way of treading a story, something I only remember hearing in my grandparents bedtime stories or some Grimm Brothers. Not the kind you'd expect in an anime. Which is probably what makes Inu Ou a unique viewing experience.
I deeply appreciated this decision to honor the forgotten ways, but to come back to my point, I still felt like I was being cheated on a bit in terms of the looping animation. Was it laziness, lack of finances or time? Or was it done on purpose for full coherence in all facets of the medium? In that case I could accept it, as radical and weird as it feels.
In all other aspects Inu Ou is successfully fleshing out character dynamics and their ambitions, the clashes within society and the politics of that historical period that so often tend to blend into myth.
More than anything, it reveals how magic is intimately connected to human psychology and spirituality.
And that sometimes, what originates a legend is the sheer energy turned sacrality of certain extraordinary instants we live in our ordinary life.
