傷物語 こよみヴァンプ

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DIRECTED BY: Tatsuya Oishi

FEATURING: Voices of Hiroshi Kamiya, Maaya Sakamoto, Yui Horie, Takahiro Sakurai

PLOT: Mild-mannered Koyomi Araragi sticks his neck out for a dying vampiress and ends up tasked with fetching her missing limbs.

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: With the recent death of Godard, I was saddened he wouldn’t be able to co-direct that neat-o vampire cartoon with Bill Plympton. Fortunately, Tatsuya Oishi has that covered.

COMMENTS: Kizumonogatari has three tiers of characters. The highest tier consists of the four protagonists: the deadly and dramatically named Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, a mighty vampiress; the senpei-styled Koyomi Araragi, a dork with “idiot hair”; the ebullient and unflappable Tsubasa Hanekawa, a brainy student; and the cigarette-twiddling (but never cigarette-smoking) Meme Oshino, a goateed sorcerer. The second tier are three oddly-named vampire hunters—Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotine Cutter—who provide Araragi with his questline. And in the third tier: the film itself.

Taking cues from mid-60s Godard, director Tatsuya Oishi plays around not only with his characters, but with the storytelling medium he’s working with. The cuts, mini-loops, and staggerings all scream Breathless. Araragi’s journey to become a powerful (albeit reluctant) vampire skitters around a throughline, maintaining the trajectory of plot and character development while twitching in its place along the path. With its many cuts to TV test-screen-styled intertitles—some explaining the impending action, some reacting to on-screen line delivery, and many simply flashing the notice “Noir”—Tatsuya makes his nod toward Weekend. This is an extremely violent picture, and something of a long one, but the director makes it clear that, as with life, it’s nothing to take too seriously.

In that vein, consider the animation. In many ways, Kizumonogatari is standard: well-designed characters in well-orchestrated motion. We see close-ups of Araragi’s face a great deal, which is a treat: the desperate fellow’s trial by fire is often reflected in his expressions of confusion and anguish. He is very much alive. And on the off chance our interest wanes, Tatsuya swaps styles during both moments of comedy—when young-form Kiss-shot has a hissy fit, image detail drops to grade-school level and the motion explodes—and violence. The latter is where the director’s mastery of line shines, particularly in a showdown sequence whose splat-stick noodlings would have Bill Plympton’s approval. (I recall, with a side smirk, Araragi’s brilliant use of his nearly severed hand as a grapple, swinging on to a catwalk along its thin connecting tendril.)

These eccentric characters, techniques, and artistry are put to the service of an interesting story, which itself is in service of exploring the nature of responsibility. In the first act, Araragi submits his body and life to a limbless Kiss-shot, because he cannot quell his pity (and, also, because really likes her boobs). This dubious act of selflessness comes back to bite him, for though he was expecting death, he returns to life as her minion—a highly powerful one, at that. Kiss-shot, too, is forced to face her past, particularly an early incident involving her first minion. After the zany blood-bath of a showdown, the sorcerer provides some consultation about their respective dilemmas. Ultimately, there is no good way for this to end for anyone involved, but there might be a solution which leaves them equally sharing the misery. A sober lesson, deliciously told.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The action-fight sequences also become so outlandish that they are downright hilarious. However, rather than feeling cheap and cartoonish, these scenes fit perfectly into the mythical world of vampires, who can have limbs ripped off, only for them to regenerate moments later.” – Emma Vine, Loud and Clear (festival screening)