anime movie

No writing today.

Last night I caught the very end of a um, movie, I guess, that I found very interesting. It was a Japanese anime thing, sort of, and because it ended so suddenly, I thought it was part of a series. Nope. It just ended. But the whole thing was in a different animation style from the other anime you see nowadays--very washed out and bare-bones (I thought something was wrong with my TV at first)--which caught my eye because it had to be a deliberate choice, not just cheapness like in American cartoons. And the structures and clothes were Heian era, which is also not usual, as far as I know.

I checked the internet, and this movie, Kai Doh Maru (or Kaidohmaru) is generally disliked, it seems. It doesn't show the backstory the viewer needs to understand what's going on; the washed-out appearance doesn't hold our attention (or direct our eye); and the characters themselves don't explain much about what their relationships are. Not to mention it ends so abruptly it's even more confusing--to Americans, anyway. But the thing that's interesting to me is that much of this is probably a deliberate choice. The filmmakers chose the washed-out look to reflect the artwork of the era, and in Heian Japan, people didn't refer to relationships directly. They didn't even use names, generally. Also, I saw it pointed out that the story is meant to drive home the idea that you can't fight your fate (thus the abrupt downer of an ending). So the question to me is, how much of this is artistic mistake, and how much is artistic, too-bad-if-you-don't-get-it choice? I want to see the whole thing now.