Kobo’s Blog

I saw this awesome Japanese animated movie yesterday night, Sword of the Stranger, by the great animators at BONES studios, and directed by Masahiro Ando, the same people who brought you Wolf’s Rain, Eureka Seven and Soul Eater. The movie came out last year in Japan, and the DVD was just recently released on April 11, 2008.

The film follows a young boy named Kotaro and his dog Tobimaru who randomly meet up with a samurai called Nanashi, which means in Japanese, no name. Just as they meet, some Chinese men under orders of Emperor Ming attack them in order to capture Kotaro for an unknown reason. Nanashi quickly disposes them, but Tobimaru got seriously injured, so Kotaro orders Nanashi to make amends and help him save his dog, and bribes him with an expensive jade stone.

The movie has everything I love in a film, good story, a lot of characters you can identify with, awesome fight scenes, plot twists you weren’t expecting, a great musical score and…blood! Good ol’ Japanese films!

It was a heavy 2GB download since it’s the DVD version, but it was way worth it, seriously it was, I can’t wait to see it again with my friends, too bad the DVD is probably never getting near our shores.