You want to talk about zombies?
Let’s talk about zombies.
I do not claim to be a connoisseur of zombie films and media, but I do enjoy the genre
from time to time.
What I don’t like, or rather what I am disappointed in, is the way zombies are portrayed in anime.
To my knowledge, at the point when I am making this video, a proper zombie anime is an extremely
rare thing, and depending on how much you want to argue what is and is not a zombie,
you could almost say that a proper zombie horror anime has yet to be made.
But before you head down to the comments to rage at me with the obvious examples of anime
that you think will prove me wrong, several of which I have reviewed in the past, let
me clarify about the kind of zombies that I am talking about.
I am not talking about zombies that by and large are like regular people who just have
the random desire to eat brains, so that cuts out Zombie Loan and Tokyo Ghoul.
Speaking of, I’m not talking about Ghouls either.
The traditional ghoul, while occasionally mindless depending on the story, is usually
controlled by a vampire.
This can still be horror, but it’s a different kind of horror and not what I’m looking
for here.
So there goes Hellsing and Shiki.
That said, Shiki came close by really adding in the paranoia that I want, but still that
was vampires, not zombies.
What I’m looking for is zombies that are mindless, brainless, infectious as all hell
and for there to be a shit ton of them.
And I DON’T want them just to be a set piece for pin up models, nor do I want them to fall
in love.
I want a story about the undead horde and the plight of the last bastions of humanity,
not the result of some fanfic writer trying to become the next E.L James by replacing
vampires or werewolves with zombies in their kinky sex story.
SIDE RANT, I should mention that I have yet to watch The Empire of Corpses, which may
be the answer to all my problems, though Funimation is taking their sweet time releasing it on
home video.
Even though they did give it a theatrical release, they never bothered to add a showing
in Canada.
END SIDE RANT So today, we are looking at an anime from
last season that, at first glance, is an answer to all my prayers.
Just going to let that statement…hang there for a second.
Ladies, gentlemen and others, my name is Arkada and welcome to Glass Reflection.
Today, the 2016 anime from Wit Studio, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.
Let’s Jam.
ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE, STEAMPUNK SETTING, SAMURAI IN JAPAN, CRAZY TRAIN.
The weird combination of set pieces is masterful here, let me tell you.
So in this alternate history of Japan, the entire country has been overrun by infected
mindless beasts known as Kabane or “corpses".
Most of the survivors are luckily able to keep them at bay by living in heavily walled
cities, connected by a massive railroad system.
How they built that railroad system with the undead hoard bearing down on them is never
explained, but it’s there, so might as well use it.
And use it they do!
Carrying supplies from stronghold to stronghold, armoured trains travel constantly throughout
the country, and as such are under constant threat of attack from the Kabane, and the
humans deal with them like you would expect.
Hold them off as best you can, and if anyone gets bit they must sacrifice themselves for
the good of everyone else.
So the onset is good.
The paranoia that anyone can become a Kabane is brought into play really early, and while
the series never dips into horror per say, it never needed to.
And let’s be honest, it’s was hard enough to get the paranoia right.
Adding proper scary horror elements would be asking too much when they have the handicap
of doing it all animated, which makes horror much harder to be considered actually scary.
So, we get introduced to our main character, Ikoma, who looks like he was found in a lost
pile of Matsumoto sketches.
He is an intrepid young engineer who comes up with a piercing gun to quickly dispatch
the Kabane, but quickly becomes a messiah-like “I can do anything because I’m the main
character” character who gets bit by a Kabane, but instead of becoming one of the undead,
he gets superpowers instead by becoming what is referred to as a Kabaneri.
OH HEY, I GOT BITTEN BY A ZOMBIE TIME TO AUTO-EROTICALLY ASPHYXIATE MYSELF
It was at this point that I released I still wasn’t getting the kind of paranoia series
I wanted, because if one character could gain superpowers from this, doubtless others can
as well.
Even if they don’t, the possibility is always there, and the threat of the hoard suddenly
becomes a lot less threatening.
So through a series of stupid decisions by some unimportant red shirts, the initial city
the show starts in gets overrun and survivors make their way out of the city on the titular
Iron Fortress to hopefully survive further onslaught.
The train consists of a variety of different characters, from weak willed assholes, to
musclebound goddesses of strength, and over the course of several episodes the train makes
it way towards the capital, with all of its passengers, including two Kabaneri.
Oh yeah there’s more than just Ikoma.
Mumei is our secondary lead and honestly the only real character in the show to get any
positive development.
This might sound strange on the outset because her introduction places her in the camp of
“I do awesome things because I’m awesome”, and she is the living embodiment of the idea
that anything is possible if you make the acrobatics check.
I’d almost say she is the series’ true lead character as Ikoma’s standard bearer
personality of a typical seinen hero make him feel more like he’s just filling a role
rather than leading the charge.
Mumei’s backstory is pretty screwed in the head though, with biological experiments,
a sometimes crooked sense of right and wrong, and a brother complex to top it all off.
But what I liked most about her character arc was how it quickly passed over the part
of it that I was least looking forward to.
In the beginning with every battle Mumei would continue to get more and more reckless, which
I predicted would eventually come to a head.
She tackles more than she can handle and suddenly becomes a damsel in destress, and while that
is technically what happened, the show doesn’t dwell on it too much and her recovery to stoic
badass happens much quicker then with other characters.
Looking at you Asuna.
But as most people will tell you, the biggest problem with this series is the second arc.
The first 6 episodes of the show barring Ikoma’s disposition and development are really good,
borderline amazing at times.
But then there is a noticeable drop in…entertainment.
The whole plot shifts from one of survival to this: what felt like a hastily put together
yet self-contained story of revenge from a character who’s not even introduced until
episode 7.
The shift is so drastic I would say that it almost felt like I was watching a different
show.
Let me put it this way, episodes 7 through 12 are an enigma and an anomaly.
The status quo that existed at the end of episode 6, is still in place at the end of
the series.
Hell, this is a show where the threat of characters dying from the zombie apocalypse should be
a very real thing and yet I don’t think a single character from the first half of
the show lost their life to a Kabane in the second half.
Because it wasn’t really their story anymore, so why dwell on them right?
*unimpressed face* So that is where I got disappointed.
The second half did have some entertainment value to it, sure, but it wasn’t to the
same caliber that the series started off with.
If we ever do get another season I would hope that the writers try to pretend that the second
arc never happened as much as they can.
Just do a Bugs Bunny cut through continuity and it’ll be fine.
Now, as far as the animation goes, Kabaneri was done by Wit Studio and directed by Tetsuro
Araki.
When I did a first reaction of the series, a subject I quickly touched on was the comparison
between Kabaneri and Attack on Titan, considering their almost identical staff.
Allow me to reiterate my opinion on that comparison: *ahem*
Calling Kabaneri “Attack on Titan but in Steampunk Feudal Japan” is a really good
and quick way to potentially sell the show to people.
It’s probably the main reason why I started watching the show in the first place.
But I think that this inevitable comparison is not entirely accurate.
On the one hand, Koutetsujou no Kabaneri is made by the same studio as Titan.
It was directed by the same person, it has a similar artsy style, the same musical composer,
and as far as the development of our main character, fairly parallel plot points.
However, that’s as far as the comparison goes.
In Titan, it’s semi-steampunk Germans fighting against giant colossal beasts.
Kabaneri is a much more steampunk-heavy series with samurai and railguns who fight against
a zombie apocalypse.
Just because something is fighting something else in both cases does not mean that one
is copying the other.
There are enough major differences that makes the series distinct enough to stand on its
own.
Plus, personal opinion but I just think that visually Kabaneri looks much better.
Like Titan was great, but that was three years ago, and I’m impressed with how far Wit
has come as a studio.
I would also say, despite its literal trainwreck of a finale, that it also shows a slightly
positive upswing in Araki’s directing of original work.
When paying attention to some of you guys, the viewing masses, as the last few episodes
of this show aired I saw quite a few references to one of Araki’s previous works, Guilty
Crown, a series I reviewed late last year, and I don’t actually agree with the comparison.
I think the comparison between the two was mostly made because the internet community,
or at least segments of it, rather disliked the ending of Guilty Crown, and since they
also seem to dislike the ending of this and they were both directed by the same guy then
“obviously” there is correlation there.
[Mabel what is happening here gif] But Kabaneri was a lot less convoluted than Guilty Crown.
The finale still had major problems and one or two narrative leaps that I didn’t think
made sense (THIS RIGHT HERE), but it wasn’t the same kind of cluster fuck that Crown was.
Kabaneri however did thankfully take the best part of Guilty Crown, by having Egoist perform
the opening theme.
EGOIST, a musical unit derived from Supercell, is just as amazing here as it was there.
Because of this Kabaneri’s opening is thus far my contender for best opening of the year,
even though as I stand here we still have several months to go.
Sawano also came back to work with Araki and did the music for the series as he has for
several of Araki’s other works but I’ll be honest, as good as this soundtrack is,
and it is very good, it is still just a Sawano soundtrack, which means it kind of blends
with his other works.
It’s slightly depressing, but would only bother me more if I didn’t happen to really
like his music in general.
Overall, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is a show that I very much enjoyed, but I don’t
think that it ended up becoming something that’s truly memorable.
The Intro was solid, and for the first 6 weeks I was recommending it left and right as the
season began, but that stopped quite quickly in the second half.
It’s still not a horrible show by any means, but I felt as if it had lost sight of what
made it entertaining.
To bring back my recent D&D comparisons, Kabaneri is what I would expect out of a campaign when
a new member joined and doesn’t know how to play nice with the spotlight.
So they hog it all.
Sure having that character voiced by Mamoru Miyano was awesome, but that doesn’t excuse
the lack of development for characters that we just started to get to know in the opening
half of the season.
As such with all its faults I can only unfortunately present Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress with
a recommendation to Stream it rather than buy.
I’d recommend the initial episodes to most everyone, as they are rather superb, but beyond
that watch at your own risk and pray for a season two.
Though once again, I’ve hit that snag where actually following my recommendation might
be difficult to do.
Streaming the show legally is only currently an option if you happen to have an Amazon
Prime account, specifically if you live in the United States.
Everyone else, including us Canadians are kind of screwed.
There are certainly ways around the region locking which I went through to watch it legally
but for most people I think that would be far too much of a hassle, especially for only
one series.
Now a home video release is sort of confusing with the recent agreement between Crunchyroll
and Funimation.
As technically the series was licensed for home video by Crunchyroll despite Amazon having
the streaming rights.
According to the recent agreement I would expect that now it is Funimation who will
be distributing the series and possibly be giving it a dub, but we haven’t heard the
details about Kabaneri specifically.
So we just get to sit and pray that a decent home video release will be forthcoming in
a timely manner.
As for alternate anime recommendations, I’m going to skip over the other Tetsuo Araki
works that others would consider obvious so no Titan or High School of the Dead.
Also with both of these I don’t guarantee that you’ll find them to be good.
Mostly because I don’t guarantee that you’ll find Kabaneri to be good so there’s some
similarities there.
First up though is the “initially hyped, then quickly forgotten” series from last
year called God Eater.
It’s a series with a similar premise, which looks amazing, sounds amazing, but has some
bumps in the road as far as plot.
Second recommendation is a blind one but I’m bringing it up anyways and that is The Empire
of Corpses.
Even though from what I’ve read it’s a take on Frankenstein and not Zombies, I still
have high expectations of it, even though I have this feeling that the film won’t
live up to said expectations.
Some of the people I’ve talked to who HAVE watched it have given me mixed reactions to
it, but I’m still hype enough to put it here.
Sure, I could cop out and put in one of the other shows I’ve mentioned like Tokyo Ghoul,
but it’s really not the same kind of show, so I’m not doing that.
Hopefully between those two you should find something to your liking.
And that’s it from me.
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And until next time, stay frosty!