Review for

Reviewed by Harvey Karten Manga Entertainment Director: Rintaro Writer: Asami Watanabe, story by Clamp, Satsuki Igarashi, Mokonaapapa, Nanase Ohkawa, Mikku "Mick" Nekoi Cast: Tomokazu Seki, Junko Iwao, Ken Narita

When the Japanese anime people get together to make a political movie they are not going to be concerned with the latest development in the race for the Akita City Council or with the progress of the anti-noise lobby in Narita. Anime folks are prone to deal with nothing short of the apocalyptic: the end of the world. This is a theme not unknown in America, which recently saw Peter Hyams direct Arnold in "End of Days" and Don McKellan ask "where were you on the final night of the earth" in "Last Night." Where Americans are the last word in special effects, first prize goes to Japan in the sheer color and audacity of its animated features. Remember the marvelous "Princess Mononoke," which was Hayao Miyazaki's take on the final struggle between good and evil (a major theme of the Zoroastrian religion as well, by the way)? Given the penchant for color and design of Miyazaki (and let's not forget Satushi Kon's "A Perfect Blue"), don't be surprised if the integrity of plot is not uppermost. If you go to "X" expecting anything like a linear narrative or slow-moving, step-by-step development of story, forget about it. Don't worry if you don't comprehend much of what's going on or see redundancy in the explosions of buildings, laser beams that dwarf the rays and shafts of "Star Wars," and characters who can fly through the air and are nonetheless vulnerable to thrusts of the sword. The biggest audience laugh of the 98-minute film comes about 3/4 of the way through when one of the central characters says, "What's going on here?"--the understatement of the evening. Look for color, texture, animation, and the sheer joy that the animators must have had in pushing graphic software to the limit.

But if you insist on the age-old need for a plot to give you half an understanding of the fable, the world is about to end (so what else is new)? Only one man, Kamui, can save it. He faces the big decision: side with the fear-inspiring Dragons of Heaven who opt to preserve Tokyo and the rest of the world with all its problems, or take arms with the Dragons of Earth who are intent to destroy our planet to save it. (Huh?) In a Jekyll-Hyde dualism similar to a theme explored in "Princess Mononoke," whichever side Kamui takes, his brother, whom he had early-on sworn to protect forever, automatically becomes his bitter enemy pledged to fight Kamui to the death, Star-Wars style.

The director of this colorful bit of nihilism, Rintaro, has been in the anime business for over 30 years, known in the U.S. for directing the TV series "Kimba the White Lion" and "Astro Boy." The animation is done by Clamp, aka four women from an all female animation studio. The market for this product is the massive number of comic book fans in the U.S., say about 14-17 years old, usually associated with the brightest people in their special-progress high-school classes. In Japan, in fact, the word is that this age group is going more to anime films than to the reactionary passe stuff peopled by human actors. If one insists on interpretations of the allegory, the two brothers represent humankind at war. Though alle menschen wierden bruder (says Beethoven in the fourth movement of his ninth symphony), remember that the tale of Cain and Abel ended in a not so fraternal manner. Are we doomed to be killed by our fellow creatures who look more or less like us but have different political or religious ideologies? It sure looks that way if you go along with the flow of "X." Aside from that, a happy ending and we all go home. All of us, that is, who are about 16 and chose to see and probably groove on this film while they could--somehow knowing that ten years from now, they could see the same thing and say, "Huh...I really went for something like this?"

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