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Kaidomaru
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Animation - 7.3 |
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Sound - 6.6 |
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Story - 4.6 |
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Character - 4.9 |
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Value - 4.2 |
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Enjoyment - 4.8 |
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Average - 5.4 |
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| Average |
3.2 |
| Animation |
5 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
2 |
| Character |
2 |
| Value |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
2 |
| Kai Doh Maru is a 45 minute long OVA released in 2001 featuring several computer generated scenes. However, many aspects of the OVA only adds confusion for western viewers who do not have a strong background in Japanese history and culture.
Although Kai Doh Maru has a number of scenes fully rendered in 3D, those scenes look bland and lifeless. Only the simplest of shading and lighting techniques were implemented, and many scenes lack graphical textures, making the objects they represent look dull and monotonous. To make things worse, a number of scenes in Kai Doh Maru literally showcases these low quality renderings, by revolving around the stage for many seconds at a time.
The graphical style in Kai Doh Maru is unique, but fails to impress. The character designs are overly simplistic. There are some well animated fight scenes, but those are few and extremely short. Kai Doh Maru appears to be a graphical showcase, which fails miserably. It might impress viewers who have never seen computer generated animation before, but given the time at which the OVA was released, its graphics only serves as a serious disappointment.
The voice acting in Kai Doh Maru is decent both in Japanese and in English. The musical soundtrack mostly fit in with the anime, but the same cannot be said for the various songs. Kai Doh Maru is not a major disappointment in sound, but that fact is overshadowed by its many flaws.
Unless the viewer is very knowledgeable in Japanese history and culture, they will most likely not understand the storyline of Kai Doh Maru. Kai Doh Maru assumes a lot about the background knowledge of its viewers, and as a result, lacks significantly in its storyline development. This greatly damages the enjoyment of the OVA in many ways, and makes it seem incomplete. In addition to the many questions the OVA deems unnecessary to answer, the conclusion of Kai Doh Maru ultimately disappoints. The OVA skips past two of its potentially most exciting scenes, and finishes without offering any explanation or insight as to the events which have taken place leading up to the ending.
The creators of Kai Doh Maru have carried over the same assumptions it's been making in the storyline over to its characters. Therefore, character development in Kai Doh Maru is few. On occasions, the dialogue might reveal some facts about the characters, providing subtle hints of character development. However, there are no instances of solid development, where facts are explained and characters are introduced.
Hence, as with the storyline, Kai Doh Maru fails in its characters.
Kai Doh Maru is definitely not worth watching for viewers who do not have a strong understanding of Japan. However, given the quality of the anime overall, the same is most likely true even for those who do have a good background knowledge. Kai Doh Maru disappointed me in almost every aspect, and there is a high probability that the same will hold for you.
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
5.3 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
5 |
| Character |
3 |
| Value |
4 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
| Kai Doh Maru is an interesting film in a number of ways, but it is also flawed. The film seems to be an almost perfect mix of good and bad, which seems appropriate because it uses a Yin Yang symbol as part of its title.
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
4.7 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
5 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
4 |
| Value |
4 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
| Unsure about the animation, unsure about the story and very unsure about this anime.
From the makers of Blood, this was certainly nothing like it, the story is quite weak, but then I didn’t mind that in Blood. I think it’s the characters that you don’t engage with as much. It’s very true that the main character in Blood is someone very recognisable and has a definite attribute about her, characters in this I missed that.
The animation might have rescued this, but not really. There were brief moments of animation that looked very simple and amateur, not what I expected. Whilst at other times, they were fantastic.
There wasn’t much that stood out for me here, nothing came together. The confusing and weak story didn’t help anything. If there was one thing good about this, it would be its short length.
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Ridian |
(2005-04-27 14:46:09) 2005-02-20 13:56:23 |
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| Average |
3.5 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
4 |
| Story |
2 |
| Character |
2 |
| Value |
2 |
| Enjoyment |
3 |
| Kaidomaru is something that tries so desperately hard to be epic that it forgets even the most essential parts of structure. It's very obvious that this derived heavy influence from Rurouni Kenshin, especially the Reminiscence OVA. Just watch the last five minutes of this and tell me that the ending wasn't heavily inspired by Watsuki's classic work. Unfortunately, Kaidomaru took the worst part of RKR, the occasionally muddled and slightly bare-bones plot, and magnifies it to an astonishing degree.
What does work in this OVA? Well, for one thing, the animation is really nice. Unlike a lot of the other reviewers, I found the CGI to be an interesting integration, bearing a stoic sort of austerity that fits in well with whatever the hell is going on in the plot. It only really works about half the time, most notably when the camera is peeking through the trees or characters are plodding through tall, waving grass. The actual animation itself is very stylistic and unique. I found the washed-out nature of the coloring to be very visually pleasing, and the anime made good use of a lot of interesting graphical effects. The character design is fairly lackluster and it can occasionally be difficult to differentiate characters, but part of that may also be the rather minimal time you spend getting to know them.
Sound is not quite as well-crafted. Some of the musical tracks are the worst things I've ever heard, reminiscent of police sirens set to a beat or people screaming into a microphone. The opening theme, in particular, is a decent song ruined by some guy repeatedly intoning "Silent time" or something stupid like that. He sounds like a dying cat. There are some okay orchestral pieces, usually towards the end, but I'm not going to be picking up the OST any time soon.
Unfortunately, past the solid aesthetic elements, everything totally falls apart. The very most I could garner from the plot was "gangster group wants to control the emperor's throne, so they burn down a town and capture a soldier that the evil princess is in love with". Hm, 45 minutes and that was all I could come up with? Can someone say 'unclear exposition'? There are probably 100 more unresolved plot threads, but to be perfectly honest I was paying more attention to the animation than the dialogue by the half-way point. I'd already given up, so to speak. As previously mentioned, this seems to borrow a lot of plot elements from Rurouni Kenshin - Reminiscence, such as the setting of the OVA, the beginning, the basic structure and the climax as well.
The characters are similarly unremarkable and underdeveloped. Unlike most, I had little trouble discerning the main character's gender; she's got BOOBS, guys. Any other member of the cast is poorly elaborated on or created. There are two love stories featured in Kaidomaru, but neither of them are convincing or believable. One of them, in fact, was created for the sole purpose of having a dramatic ending, while the other one is to advance the plot itself. Anyway, the rationale of the characters involved in these romances is shaky at best, simply because we don't get enough time to comprehend where they're coming from.
I don't hate Kaidomaru outright, because for all it's worth the intentions behind this OVA weren't bad at all. I just feel sorry for it. If you're willing to plunk down almost an hour for an impressive-looking slideshow, feel free to watch this. Otherwise, I recommend avoiding it.
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1 of 1 people found this review helpful.
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ps4fa |
2005-01-22 06:44:17 |
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| Average |
5.0 |
| Animation |
5 |
| Sound |
6 |
| Story |
5 |
| Character |
6 |
| Value |
3 |
| Enjoyment |
5 |
| In a word, "maddening". The only way I can really think of to review this anime fairly is to give it 2 reviews, one of straight 10's and the other of straight 1's, but I guess I'm only allowed one review, hence the generally middle-of-the-road marks. In just about every department it's a very highly-flawed work of genius.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
5.0 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
5 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
5 |
| Value |
4 |
| Enjoyment |
3 |
| Hmmm... ? Yeah, okay, so.. ? What..what ? We're finished ? What the.. ?
That was my impression when I watch this movie.
This movie has it great from the beginning, it feels like it's going to move to something bigger.
But then, as it getting big momentum... it ended.
Think of it like this, Lord of the Ring, but it ended when Gandalf fell off with Balrog...
That's not good, is it ?
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
5.3 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
4 |
| Value |
3 |
| Enjoyment |
3 |
| Another product of Production IG that, like "Blood: The Last Vampire", should have been made as a series -- even a short series.
Blood, at least, dealt with single plot segment and worked quite well as a single feature. Its weakness was that one gets the feeling that there's alot of history that one is missing out on, and that there is alot of relevant content that would take place after the ending.
Kaidomaru leaves me with the same impression, though even more so. Beyond that, the story is rushed and fragmented, as if it were made up of individual scenes from a much longer feature or a series.
Although it seemed like something interesting in the plot was going on, I found myself very confused as to what was really going on. For that reason I give story a 4. Although the characters seemed like they could be very interesting, there was practically no exploration into their past and their personalities.
Basically, this anime has more potential than actual substance. It is pretty pictures, but with horrible plot execution; it is an experiment in visual artistry. I am quite disappointed and can only futily hope that IG might choose to expand Kaidomaru into something more worthwhile.
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| Average |
9.0 |
| Animation |
10 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
7 |
| Character |
10 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| This is a great ova, you might have to watch it twice to really understand it, but if you like animes like kenshin this is a must see. The animation is beautiful and the characters are great.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
2.3 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
3 |
| Story |
1 |
| Character |
1 |
| Value |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
1 |
| After watching 'Production I.G' last anime 'Blood' I was expecting too much from these guys.
The makers seem to concentrate to much on style than content, which resulted in 'kaidomaru', after watching the movie I had no idea who the main character was, what the story was and no recollection of what happened to me for 1 hour. These guys need to get their head out of their ass.
Why would you make a movie without a story or purpose.
By the way I did like the style of animation that the use but I was kicking myself after I brought this because I couldn't get a refund after watching this.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
3.0 |
| Animation |
3 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
1 |
| Value |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
2 |
| Just overall very poor. The movie ended and I still had no clue who the hell anybody in movie was. The animation would have gotten a better score if they hadn't washed it out so much. Dont bother buying this, or even renting it for that matter.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
4.7 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
6 |
| Story |
5 |
| Character |
4 |
| Value |
2 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
| I was hoping this would be a good OVA but it turned out to be a disaster. The animation looks like it would have been alright except for the fact that all the colours are dulled which creates an original looking effect but is just annoying to watch, also the cg building look way too overly simple in comparison with the animation. The sound is average, nothing special, the story is poor, and the characters never come even close to being well developed in the brief length of this film. Not even worth checking out, there's much better anime out there. A very disappoining release from production I.G.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
3.7 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
3 |
| Character |
3 |
| Value |
1 |
| Enjoyment |
1 |
| I'm sure this project seemed like a real good idea on paper. Or maybe thats taking it too far. Maybe it seemed really coherent after the 5th or 6th round of saki. However Studio IG really dropped the ball on this one and its a real shame because it had the makings to be interesting.
By the time Kai do Maru stumbles out of the building toward the end of the fourty minutes, the view stumbles about trying to figure out just what the fuck he or she watched. While the bits of plot make sense if you tie up the loose ends mentally, it still amounts to a fourty minute waste of time and money.
Also the animation quickly becomes a failed experiment in white wash. Mixing in three dimentional scenerely does little to help the situation. The end result is High-end crap. Tack on about 40 more minutes with some character development and conventional story telling and you have an decent IG hit.
Instead you have a fourty minute incoherent romp which takes vaugeness to a whole new level. Rather than stimulating your mind, you are lefting wonder why you actually are supposed to give a fuck if everyone dies. If they arent worthy enough to be fleshed out, who gives a damn? Why am I watching this? Give me my damn time and money back!
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simonsays6 |
(2003-10-09 23:34:01) 2003-08-23 20:03:27 |
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| Average |
4.8 |
| Animation |
6 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
2 |
| Value |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
5 |
| Two questions: what is this and who are these people?
Unique art-style for certain, which the washed-out look. Personally though, not a fan. Great character designs though. Also, the paintings that 'filled in the blanks' at the beginning and end, though they made little sense, were quite amazing.
I have absolutely no idea what is going on. Kintoki (who I thought was a boy for about the first 15 minutes) was taken in by Raiko, raised as a soldier, etc etc, battles the gangsters or whatever. I get that. But who are these princesses and why is Kintoki known as Kaidomaru? Makes no sense to me. It sounded like they were supposed to have powers, but what were they?
And the rest of the characters... I mean who are all these people? These 'evil' guys come out of nowhere, and so many. WHO?!?! ... man, I spent half the time wondering if they were the reincarnated brothers, in which case why were they doing what they did... it boggles my mind. Boggles I tell you...
This should have been much longer, or even an OVA series. Starts out fine and then gets messy... too bad.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
8.2 |
| Animation |
10 |
| Sound |
7 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
9 |
| Value |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| a real worth to see movie, despite the fact it's only 40 mins long.
the characters are greatly introduced eventhough they are taken away a bit fast. I can't see a reason why they didn't make a full lenght movie this time. it kinda puts me in the same mood as blood: the last vampire did, I'm both fully satisfied, and somewhat dissapointed. with a heavy sigh I leave the movie to my mind, reassured that I will watch it again to gain further understanding.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
7.0 |
| Animation |
7 |
| Sound |
9 |
| Story |
3 |
| Character |
6 |
| Value |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
10 |
| Watching this anime was a unique experience. The animation itself was quite cheap for its time (lack of subtle gestures and movement altogether at times), but the artstyle and use of color schemes was striking. The light coloring gave the anime a surreal feel, complimented by splashes of red blood. The story line however was quite lacking, the whole deal too short. You'll walk away feeling surprised, yet unfulfilled.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
8.3 |
| Animation |
9 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
8 |
| Value |
9 |
| Enjoyment |
8 |
| As expect from I.G. this OVA packs quite a punch! The good animation mixed with a different char design plus some CG gives the perfect aspect to a nice story yet too short. I liked Blood The Last Vampire a lot and as for this one I'm not dissapointed at all :) I just liked if it was a bit longer ^_^
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
6.3 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
3 |
| Story |
6 |
| Character |
7 |
| Value |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
7 |
| nice animation(color usage) which differs from the 'normal' animation styles used for anime.
action scenes were good. i'm not sure if i had a bad copy but the voice seemed way out of sync and the voices only strange enough. other sounds were sync the right way. the music was good. this anime had a seriousness about itself. i thought the ending was set in very fast.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
3.8 |
| Animation |
5 |
| Sound |
5 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
5 |
| Value |
2 |
| Enjoyment |
2 |
| Some good ideas that are wasted.
This anime uses some very unusual types of animation and coloring which are really welcome but the utilization of cg in a few parts ruined the "antique" feeling.
The story could have been great but poor plot development and direction kill this anime.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
6.0 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
4 |
| Character |
7 |
| Value |
5 |
| Enjoyment |
4 |
| Violent Anime, no real message or something. I don't like it.
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0 of 0 people found this review helpful.
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| Average |
8.0 |
| Animation |
8 |
| Sound |
8 |
| Story |
8 |
| Character |
8 |
| Value |
7 |
| Enjoyment |
9 |
| hmm... .this OAV was good but not great.. it was'nt that much.. it was over too soon... even though it lasted 40 min..
it would have been better if there was more action in the beggining 'cuz in the starting u will be like 'boooooooring'... u will know what i mean... ^^ but hey.. the fighthing scenes were awesome; i really liked the effects that are used in during the fighting scenes...
The story is good but not great...
this anime is something that u dont wanna buy or anything.. but its great to see one time..
Rated R - for Xtreme Violence
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