Oni: Légendes du tonnerre

I've been taking Schoolism lessons for a long time so I will say that I have a mild bias towards Tonko House, but based on how little publicity this series has received I assumed that it must've been a dud.

However, it turns out that Oni: Thunder God's Tale is a sweet and pleasant movie mini-series that has gorgeous visuals and a fun story that works for the most part, but we'll get to that later.

First things first: This is clearly a film made by Dice just from looking at the color palette's alone. He's pretty well known for his use of diffused lighting and very specific color palette choices, so it's nice to see that all in here. The film is supposedly a blend of stop-motion and CGI, but as far as I'm aware the movie was all CGI (based off of interviews with the producers and director) so I find it a little odd how many reviewers claim this is a stop-motion film. Regardless, the effect is beautiful, saved some money, and works for the most part. There are just a few scenes where it can be visually confusing as to what is happening, but those are far and few between.

In terms of story, I think it works for the most part and has the structure of a really good movie, but it just has some pacing issues. Since it is a mini-series and not a movie, it is not meant to be watched in one sitting and I would strongly argue against doing that as there is A LOT of repetitive dialogue. This is probably one of my biggest gripes about the movie is that there are a ton of instances of characters repeating dialogue they have already spoken or reinforming the audience of what their character motivation is.

I know this is probably because the movie is intended to be watched by a fairly young audience (which is fine) but I think it beats the audience over the head just a few too many times and there are several emotionally engaging scenes ruined by characters interrupting the scene with redundant dialogue. Possibly, the reason for this is due to the fact that the intended audience (English speaking Children) probably doesn't know what Oni, Kappa, or Kami are, so they're trying their best to overexplain the plot? Who knows.

The voice acting itself is also a little hit or miss. All of the child characters sound great and Takei sounds good, but everyone else seems to be just a little bit off. It's not bad or anything but it becomes more apparent when they are also speaking redundant dialogue.

The other minor gripe (and I'm glad the movie doesn't double down on it) is that it ALMOST tries to pull a Ferngully narrative and I about turned it off when I thought the movie was just going to do a "machines bad, nature good" but fortunately the movie is a bit more clever than that.

All in all, Oni is a pretty good film/series that definitely deserves more attention for the amount of love and quality put into it. I must applaud the series for having some really great moments and ideas, even though it is held down by some strange pacing choices.

Give it a watch.

It's short, it's cute, and visually appealing!

A beautifully stop-motion animated 4-episode story with decent messaging for kids! Like the dangers of trampling over tradition, not taking care of nature, fear against things that are different, and losing one self to emotions and the enemy being within ourselves.. or something. Still, it is energetic enough to distract younger audiences (target demographic)!

I've seen this done better in other places, which makes it hard to stand-out, even with a Japanese Yokai theme. The choppy framerate certainly gives it personality and style.. but also made it very distracting, and hard to enjoy. And overall, doesn't overstay its welcome, but doesn't linger enough to be memorable or recommendable.

Part stop motion, part animation, the style of this short 4 episode mini-series was fantastic and the story was adorable to boot. A bit predictable, but it is of course mainly for kids. Following Onari, a young girl being raised by her magical father in the land of the Kami who must prepare for the coming blood moon when the evil Oni will attack. The frame rate of the stop motion suffers in certain scenes and feels a bit stiff, but generally the animation is fantastic and each of the characters is cute in its own way. I had a lot of fun and I could certainly see how kids would like it. I did, was good.

I started the series for the adorable visual style, it's cute but not simplistic, there's great sophistication of details and texture. The slow frame rate makes it a little choppy (I assume budget limitations? Maybe if it gets enough viewers they'll go back and fill in frames?), but the overall aesthetics make up for it.

I stayed with the series for the story, which seems simplistic at first but then takes quite a deep turn at the end, and is quite moving. I won't give any spoilers, but it's a lesson that much of the world needs now, in our polarized fractured age.

All in all, amazing film! (I guess long film or short series.)

Beautiful art & beautiful story.

Simple story with great characters, about finding something wonderful that is unique to every child, but also a story of a father and daughter.

Nice character development, pace is great, nothing too slow or too fast, everything is just right. Only 4 episodes so can be finished in 1 or 2 sittings.

Again, the visual style is just amazing. It's a mixed style of CG animation with stop motion style that somehow really works well for telling this story.

Highly recommend this to anyone with a kid, or someone who's into good animation, or like japanese mythic tales, or just someone looking out a good wholesome story.