CAUTION: Spoilers ahead – especially in the comments!
“I have no idea what’s going on†was my mantra the entire time I was watching the first volume of the six-part anime OVA series Karas: The Prophecy. This movie felt like a combination teaser trailer that never quite ended and a dream that you dreamed you were having and then “woke up†and realized you dreamed you woke up and were still dreaming. Karas was as confusing as the latter statement and as tantalizing as the former.
The animation for this movie was excellent and the designs were all top notch, but you can tell that they failed to include anyone on the staff that knew what a plot line was. Karas started out in the middle of the story with absolutely no background info on anything and kept on starting in the middle. By that I mean you felt as if the story were trying to develop all over again every so many scenes and never quite made it.
I kept trying to get a sense of the actual story from all the false starts and the only thing I could conclusively come to is:
- Demons are over running the human world in mechanical bodies the antagonist, Echo, created for them. Echo is a villain with absolutely no background or purpose besides maybe taking over the world. We the viewer aren’t privy to what Echo really wants to do; he maybe wants to destroy or remake the world, we have to guess.
- The forces opposing Echo are the Karas (I think, yet another guess) but Echo himself is a Karas (maybe, this is all conjecture). The Karas are disembodied human souls who are in the service of cat girls called Yurine who dispatch them within set territories in the city.
- While all this Karas mumbo jumbo is going down, two cops in the human world are trying to crack the bizarre cases left behind after the robo-demons attack. For some reason, we get some in depth back story about the two cops, but I didn’t even really give a shit about who the hell these flat foots are.
What I really wanted to know through out the entire painful movie experience and will never know is:
- Who the hell was Karas?
- What was Karas?
- Where did he get the ability to turn into a fighter jet?
- Why did he turn into a fighter jet?
- What was Echo’s plot?
- Who are the Yurine and why are the Karas the Yurine’s bitches?
- Etc., etc.
The unanswered questions are countless…I knew within the first ten minutes of the movie that I would be yelling at the TV screen for answers. It wasn’t a language issue either; Karas didn’t make any sense in Japanese or English.
I’m still confused as to the “ending†of Karas…it had all the subtly and finesse of a car driving into a brick wall at 90 mph, bursting into flames, rolling into a puddle of gasoline then exploding, then imploding, but without as much depth.
The soundtrack was well scored and matched OK with the movie, but it felt at many times that the music was too good for the story or that it was making up what the story lacked. At those times, the score was laughable; just imagine John Williams scoring the old animated Transformer movie with the Superman soundtrack and you’ll get an idea of what I mean by the music being better than the movie.
Karas was painful to watch, mainly because you wanted it to make sense. The concept sounded pretty good and the animation was great. The designs were well done and the voice actors were well cast, so why did it suck the way it did? How could it have sucked the way it did?
I keep going back to the theory that the studio was on a time constraint and they wanted to make it symbolic and minimal. I’m not an incredibly deep person when it comes to anime, but I know the difference between symbolism and laziness and the difference between art house and pretentiousness; Karas was lazy and pretentious.
I realize that “Prophecy†is the first of six parts but usually with a series like this there is some extensive background established from the get go to maintain interest instead of jumping ahead and never looking back. I don’t have enough interest to want to continue watching Karas when number two is released since I don’t like playing the guessing game with a movie for an hour and a half.
Read the part two review (Karas: The Revelation) here.
outta four gummies
@martyr, I’m sorry if there were spoilers in the comments. I don’t have much control over what people say, although I do hate spoilers; which is why I will never post spoilers in my reviews. There weren’t any spoilers in my review of Karas, but don’t let anyone else’s spoilers get to you…they might actually help! The movie was so confusing and so confounding that any info you can get going into it is actually a blessing. In fact, Anime Insider did a spread explaining the movie in depth. No kidding. So please don’t think what you read in the comments will spoil your experience; the movie does that for itself.
@cynthia17, I don’t know the opening song but it seems to be very popular. If anyone out there knows, please share ^^.
Folks, please respect each others opinions. I’m not asking for much except that in the future:
A.) Warn people about spoilers! I hate spoilers and so do many, many fans. Feel free to post them but type a warning first.
B.) No mindless badmouthing. It’s easy to drop the f-bomb and once one person does it, it’s like everyone pressing the red button. After that, there’s no longer any sense of communication, just who can type expletives faster. You’re better than that. If you need to vent your frustration, do it in a creative and constructive manner.
C.) Do disagree. Everyone here loves Karas. I don’t, but I respect that you guys have a connection to this anime. Wunderbar. I give my reasons why I hate it you and guys give reasons why you love it. I disagree with them but that’s me. I actually enjoy reading the intelligent rebuttals to my reviews. Keep it up, it’s what we call dialog…it’s a good thing.
Karas fans: Enter to win a Karas Pocketwatch, from TheAnimeBlog.com and courtesy of Manga Entertainment!
Rachel you really just don’t get Karas, and I pity folks like Camus111 who obviously “gets it” but are being ignored by people who do not want to explore other possibilities, just like the people in Karas who are happy to dwell within their comfort zones and have forgotten that demons actually exist.
I do not understand how you have can judge a 6-part OVA based on a single episode, which is roughly 20 minutes of a 2-hour movie, where the goal is not to draw out the entire plot but to “hook you in”. Characters are just starting to be developed, and the conflict is just being introduced. Like you, I was confused in the first few episodes. I could not get what the hype as all about. This was supposed to be awesome? But I stuck through it and eventually everything made sense as more and more of the plot was revealed. Unlike Hollywood movies, Karas is not told in a linear fashion, so you really have to stick through more than just one episode in order to appreciate it. Cheers.
Rachel, but you ripping apart a 6-part OVA just by watching its first episode is not a good review, nor does using phrases like “I do not give a shit” to refer to characters in a story in your own review is what I would call, in your own words, a “lazy and pretentious” handing down of judgment.
@Dennison Uy, I was not hooked in at all for the first part of Karas. I don’t believe it’s my job to glean meaning from an anime by watching it multiple times; that’s the studio’s job to get the point across the first time. Sticking with something means watching the entire series (which I did), not re-watching it over and over to eke out some sliver of sense.
I reviewed the first part of the six part OVA (not the first twenty minutes) in this review, and the first half did suck and was a waste of time. I watched Karas: The Revelation, and though that was better, it was too little too late.
There are intelligent and noteworthy anime which are difficult to understand initially- Ghost in the Shell and Ergo Proxy to name two. Watching both can be confusing and the concepts are high handed, but neither series takes what the viewer understands for granted. I felt Karas did, and yes, that was pretentious.
Soundtrack out yet? I would like to know. The ending song from prophecy was really nice.
To any and all interested in the soundtrack for Karas: the Prophecy, it’s available at Amazon for $32.49. It’s an import so it’s a bit pricey, but if you buy it used you’ll save some cash. Good luck and I hope that helps!
rawrrrrrr! folks,
It’s me, here to tantalize and annoy once again. How’s it going Rachel, is Zingor still around?
anyway, on to buisiness.
first off, thank you to mr. Dennison Uy for his nice little comment, but honestly, you give me too much credit. Just because i “get” this one, doesn’t mean i’ll be getting others…..knowledge only goes so far sometimes
still thanks Dennison….
as for Karas II? well, I must say, i was fairly surprised by how decent it was, definitely good enough to own (as far as i’m concerned) and watch sometimes.
Watch them back to back {shudder} “JOY!”
anyhow i’m rambling,
i sincerely found ‘revelation” to be noteworthy, it lacks some of the more sensual aspects of the first, but in general is pleasing and intermediately entertaining. However, it is very flashy, and in some regards that upsets the equilibrium of the film, i know at certain parts i payed more attention to the art and cinematography than the actual story, i believe it’s called “zoning out’ or something alike. anyway, on to ratings
Karas:The Revelation
movie score 7/10
anime movie score 8/10
feel free to contradict, debate or otherwise debacle these
later,
Camuss111
“The skies blossomed with crimson glow, ashes raining from the rift in the heavens, with his dying breath, Camuss breathed one phrase
“Jana, I love you.”
and all was still as she cried.”