"Inu-Oh" is a co-production between China and Japan and this film had its premiere back in 2021 already, so it is not really totally new or fresh anymore, but still relatively new if we are looking at the other areas of the world where it took much longer for the film to get its wide release. My country Germany is one example for that and I watched this film in the form or a preview tonight. And it still takes a little longer for the movie to be shown on more than one occasion here. Let's start with the basics here: The movie is longer than 1.5 hours (if we include credits), but still stays under the 100-minute mark, so it is not a super long film we got here. The director is Masaaki Yuasa and he is among the more, if not most successful anime filmmakers from his country right now. He has worked a lot for television too and on many series as well. He is not credited as a writer here. The base material is by Hideo Furukawa and he wrote the novel that this project here is based on. Actually, this tale also got turned into a series not too long ago and this series consists of one season only, like it is so often the case with anime these days. I have not watched said series and also not read the novel this is based on, so I cannot talk about parallels and differences there, but I will just elaborate on what I thought about this movie here. Akiko Nogi was in charge of the screenplay. I see she(!?) has worked on quite a few projects since 2010, so she has not been super active for very long, but been quite prolific since in the last slightly over a decade. I also reckon with a look at her body of work that her focus was mostly on non-animated projects so far and perhaps this is where she should concentrate on and I genuinely hope those turned out better than this one here.
You can see from my rating that I did not like it too much and that I would not agree with the many viewers and also many critics who appreciated the watch here. Still, I would say that the dislike comes from a more personal point of view here. This sure was a daring project. I mean this is basically an anime/animated rock opera with a story that is set several decades back in the past. Quite a challenge, but I did not really feel it. The opening I still kinda liked and I felt and hoped I could maybe appreciate it enough for a positive recommendation in the end, but it just wasn't meant to be I assume. Interestingly enough, it is not just that most of the story is told to us by a singer, but the connection there is music in a double sense because the protagonists are also musician(s) and dancer(s). We find out there is a feud early on between two clans about who is the rightful ruler. This was an interesting premise. There is also some violence and tragedy in here and this is certainly not an anime made for children viewers, let alone small kids. Not at all. We have one character fall from a boat and drown relatively early on and we have his son struck by tragedy too as the latter loses his eyesight. A ittle later, this resulted in one of the more comedic and certainly most harmonic moments included in this film, namely when the blind character meets another character and this one is said to be so ugly, creepy and disgusting that everybody runs from him, even if he carries a mask supposedly. Well, the blind fella of course does not see the other character and so they just sing and dance together and have a fun time.
This is also one of the key aspects of the film. These artist protagonists are fairly talented and special and have the ability to entertain, so there is a conflict between their deformations and between their talents and the joy they bring to others. You can see how they entertain the masses on quite a few occasions, like then they sing a tale about whales and dolphins and everybody in the crowd is singing along with the one performing on the stage. These deformations are the face that apparently scares everybody and also one character has one far too long arm that he tries to hide. Strange inclusion, but yeah back then centuries ago that would probably freak out more people than it does today and I am not even sure anyway how Asian people today would react to something like this. I can only comment on my country and the western world and I doubt it would be a big issue (t)here today. On the contrary, sometimes they even put people in the limelight only because they are different and sadly sometimes those do not even possess a great deal of talent at all, but the manipulative, politically correct people want us to believe they do and buy their records etc. And if we don't, then we of course automatically disrespect and mock them because of their disabilities. But that the fact that they may simply be mediocre at best shall not be mentioned. Complete absurdity in the full-on other direction compared to this movie, but sometimes positive discrimination can be equally despicable. Anyway, that is another story. Let us get back to this movie now for the time (character quantity) being. It probably helps a lot if you love Asian/Japanese rock music and then you will also appreciate this film more than I did. I must say the music parts did almost nothing for me and this was crucial because while the first third of the film did not yet include too much music, all that followed in the final hour included music from beginning to end almost. Too much.
There is a relatively unhappy ending here when one character is beheaded (they depicted this from further away to not make it too graphic), but still there is a somewhat happy ending too with what happens right before the credits roll in when we have two main characters reunite apparently many centuries later and they still have nice chemistry and feel each other's groove and say the same words they said when they ran into each other for the first time. This allegedly great connection is still a bit difficult for me to grasp though because the blind guy cannot see the other dance and the other does not sing, so what does the blind guy see in him really? Does he just like being liked? Well, others liked him too when he performed and both being outsiders is not really enough of a reason for me in this context. By the way, I also did not really make out a pumpkin there in the early meeting, but oh well, now is briefly after Halloween at least. Speaking of spooky inclusions, one character reminded me of the Joker. Not sure if it was intended like this. Anyway, I think those recurring words between the two were something along the lines of "Oh you are pretty good!" and the response from the other is "I know". There is a key plot inclusion here that is about the name one character goes by. The one he wants to use is not the one others want him to use and this results in major conflict, tragedy even. This adds up to the discrimination for other reasons I mentioned earlier. Different times back then. Asian (anime) films are almost always also (that is quite a few words beginning with the letter a) about family issues. Here this is not too much the case, but still you can feel this issue looming, even if they do not constantly talk about it. The reason that it is not always included is simply that the parents are deceased already when the protagonist has grown into a man. The maybe funniets inclusion is linked to this, namely when we have one character talk to the spirit of his father and you would expect a big powerful father figure there with a deep voice, but the truth is different. Daddy shows up with the size of a little bird pretty much and has a high-pitched voice as a consequence. His words may still be deep and meaningful, but it was quite a contrast to his physical presence there. Or lack thereof.
Okay, I guess there is not too much more to say about this film. I cannot even talk about crucial flaws here. This is not a bad film objectively, but I think the plot and the general idea here are not easy to appreciate the way they were presented. It is definitely a very different film, but this does not automatically mean to me it is a good film. I found it also pretty difficult to follow and understand the story as a whole. Maybe one has to watch it more often for that, but I really have no intention to do so. Feel free to call it my loss. I would say that during those moments when I liked the film more, it was just because of individual scenes and the story and plot as a whole never won me over. The style is alright if we are talking about the film's animation. There is nothing wrong with that. However, there are also no really breathtaking moments, but those of course would have needed proper elaboration or preparation from the story side, so this may also be a factor why I perceived it like that. As a consequence, from my very subjective perspective, I give the outcome here a thumbs-down and don't recommend checking it out. This was among the weakest new animes I have seen this year. Only go for it if you have seen pretty much everything else. On a side-note, the inclusion of "Heike", one of the clan names, confused me a bit here and there because it is a common female first name here in Germany. But that is just some brainstorming now from my side. Oh yeah and the "monogatari" in the base material's title also confused me a bit because this word is obviously used in the title of another really famous anime, but there is no connection plot-wise I think. Finally, it can be said that the literal translation of "Inu-Oh" would be "dog king", but they are going with the original title pretty much everywhere where the film is released. Not a bad choice with how catchy it is and easy to remember. They also went with this original title when the film premiered in Venice back in 2021 and this was quite an honor for the film of course. Not really a deserved one I would say though. That is all.
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