Oni: Thunder God's Tale

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'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.

This is one of the best things I have ever seen.. And I am an adult too.

But lets talk about the 1 strike against it. That film grain. What on earth were they thinking. Why add it? There must have been some kind of visual interference throughout the show and they were trying to cover it up? In some scenes it looks like it flip flops between 2 different film grains...and these scenes are hard to watch. I actually could NOT watch these scenes. Which in grand total i counted about 3 or 4 and each lasted a minute or 2..So overall not bad..But man oh man. It could give people seizures.

So despite this 1 big strike against the show, I hope you give it a shot. I also hope they fix this problem in the future.

I'm not going to rate this one, since I don't want to skew the ratings for something where I'm not remotely the target audience. This is aimed very much at young children, of which I am not one.

I watched this because the animation in the trailer looked cool, and the animation really is very good. There's also a wonderfully imaginative collection of characters - the weirdest I saw in ten minutes I watched was a guy with a water dish for a head who passes out every time his water splashes out, at which point someone has to refill it for him. Seems like an evolutionary dead end, but it's certainly creative.

I like a lot of cartoons that are ostensibly for kids, like Infinity Train or Pixar movies. But those films have a certain sophistication, whereas Oni has got that cute, simplistic kids vibe. It doesn't mean that nothing interesting will happen, or that there won't be a good story. It just means that my adult brain almost immediately said, "nope, not gonna watch *this.*

But if you've got a kid and want to watch TV with them, you could certainly do worse.

This is a primal story. Though children will get it and enjoy it - it is also a tale for all. The story gives truth and is told well.

The access points of the story are Japanese mythic characters, nature, and the task of childhood learning about one's role in the world. The need for children to come into their own gifts seems to be better addressed in this setting. It is taken seriously and yet is situated amidst the delight of Japanese aesthetics - weaving play, wonder, movement, surprise, natural delight and suspense.

The revelational parts of the story are many and led me to really examine my species. Is humanity really worth it? I think the answers offered in the story- though simple, within its dynamics really do take.

I appreciated the tender work the story made on my own wrestling match with "us-them" dynamics. The story though Japanese in its main form, is itself a testimony to diversity - including its international support team.

This is a potent story for me. Thank you for telling it. I thank and honor the tellers of this story- all of them.