X: The Movie

As a fan of the long running manga (I'm at Volume 11 of the Japanese release) I did not enjoy this movie. Sure, the animation is beautiful, at times you can see the insane detail that the animators pushed into each cel, and the dark "cold" colors if you will, fit the mood perfectly. The art was beautiful, but a movie is nothing without characters and a developed plot. In the manga, much of the backstory is revealed through Kamui's aunt and small sidestories at the end of each graphic novel, but neither Kamui's aunt nor the sidestories were even hinted at. As for the nonexistent characterization, just as you think you're beginning to understand one of the characters, they die. In the manga, most of the action doesn't even begin until the 8th volume, but everything before it builds up the plot and the characters, slowly but surely. However, the movie is almost nonstop violence, leading to the godawfully anticlimactic ending. Thank God that the folks behind X (CLAMP) are going to release an OVA and TV series to follow the manga, which is still yet to be finished.

What is up with this movie! Can someone tell me? Please? I don't think I've ever seen such a strange movie! There was no plot, no characters, and pretty much nude women with swords being either stuck into or extracted from their bodies. This film makes Lynch, a big mysogonist, look like friggin Ayn Rand! Every woman in this film is either innocent and sickly violated, or evil with a pair of giant hoo-hoos. The only redeeming thing about this convoluted nonsense is the artwork, and it it BRILLIANT! I've never seen such outstanding animation. This puts Akira to shame!

Rating: 4/10( My advice, ignore the dialogue and the nonexistent story and look at the breathtaking artwork)

X is an excellect film if you understand it, nothing irritates me more than a bad movie critic, to be a good one you must understand what you are critiquing...

One the title X makes perfect sense:

Definitions of X

1) a symbol to often symbolize an unknown in mathematics.

2) the 24th letter in the English Alphabet

3) The Roman Numeral for the number 10.

Words that contain X such as X-ray, X-generation, X Day (an unknown day) are often used in everyday language, this X brings a sense of something unknown or not being able to be understood. Everyone would know the ever Famous "X Files" with FBI agents Scully and Molder that try to explain the cases of the supernatural, the X in that would be a same meaning to that. So Clamp's X would have the same meaning too.

In X there is a combination of previous works such as "Tokyo Babylon" and "Clamp School Detectives", (which one should see before the movie X anyway) apart from that X also contains elements of the supernatural such as "Ying Yang Shu", "Feng Shui and people with super powers which adds yet another mystical atmosphere to it.

From the points above, X definitely is not a simple or single story, but is very complicated with many different elements. It looks like the "unknown" theory definitely suits or is incorporated in some way in the title.

2 swords, the opposing Ten no Ryu and Chi no Ryu could also be seen in the Structure of the letter "X" and how there are opposite sides to everything.

So basically, X is good if you have the mental capacity to understand it, it's not a film for someone expecting simplicity, it's a film for people who like to get more out of a movie experience outside of pretty colours.

I'm not an anime fan myself, but these movie is a HUGE exception. The landscapes look extremely natural, the characters have personality and the sound track is solemn. But what took my breath away were the fight scenes, that no matter how violent and bloody they were, they didn't fall into the shameful gore category. Actually, they looked strangely beautiful, metaphoric and aesthetical. I loved the detail of the sakura leaves rain and how Kamui couldn't ever catch them. If you're into anime, this is a must see. If you're more into human films, like me, this is a must see for you too.

When I first watched it, I thought it was one of the best movies I've ever seen. I mean, the story is great. I absolutely love the storyline. I still think so today. But as for the movie, that's another story.

I've read the mangas. I'm not exactly a big fan of CLAMP's work, but this one is the first that I got into with the mangas. I fell in love with one of the characters in the story name Subaru Sumeragi. Favorite character for obvious reason, but if you like any character other than Kamui or Fuuma, then you're in for the biggest disappointment if you watch this movie. OK, to get to the point, this is basically stuffing all the series of the manga into one movie. You won't have time to get to know the characters if you didn't know them already. You just won't get to. Well, they at least explain a bit of their purpose in life for a few seconds. Also, they failed to explain a lot of things about the movie, so that's another big disappointment. Er, and another big disappointment is that, they change some of the character's personality! ANOTHER big disappointment is that they didn't put some of the good story lines in the mangas into the movie. I know that doesn't seem like a big deal and I would like to give an example. There's this one character who loves another character from the other angel (they're enemies angels), but in the movie, they hate each other. So that's what I mean.

But wait, there's a good! The good is that the animation is great. Beautiful and artistic like all of CLAMP's work. It's realistic in animation, and the way it was done was just, wow. even though they lack everything else, but it was still nicely done in animation wise. Now if only the series was done the same way. Oh yeah, the music is great also.

Even though I like the story and how it was animated, I just didn't want to sit through it anymore. Once was enough. So I gave it a 4/10