SAMURAI SPIRITS: HATEN GOUMA NO SHOU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

OVA ActionSAMURAI SPIRITS 2: Asura Zanmaden
OVA DramaNakoruru: Ano Hito kara no Okurimono
MANGA ActionSamurai Spirits

REVIEWS

• 

  MegaTheRealOne

  70/100
  They Can't Act for Shit, and That Makes Me Laugh

  (Originally Reviewed on Letterboxd)

  I love how they just call the dog that accompanies them Puppy. Like seriously, you couldn't have picked a better name for him? He is the best boy, but he definitely ain't no puppy anymore.

  It has been a few days since I watched and reviewed the Art of Fighting TV special that was made back in the 90s, and yet, I don't think that I have quite fully recovered from that yet. I wouldn't necessarily say it was one of the worst things that I had ever seen, and I imagine someone who grew up with this kind of special would end up liking and appreciating it a lot more then me, but I just simply couldn't ignore the goofy-ass characters, terrible animation, awful voice acting, and very stilted action scenes, which usually would make me laugh and have a good time with how bad the special is in most cases, but instead, this one brought me nothing but pain and misery. Thankfully though, I found a solution that'll help me forget that that special ever existed: I just need to watch yet another one of these SNK anime specials, one based on a much better game, to get the bad taste out of my mouth. It's a fool-proof plan! So I managed to do that with Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture.

  At this point in time, I have only played the first two Samurai Shodown games, but based on what I had played from them, I can safely say that both of them were pretty great games, and I had a wonderful time with them when I tried them out. So, needless to say, I was somewhat excited to check this thing out. I didn't necessarily think the film was gonna be great just because it was based on a game that I really liked, but based on what I saw previously, I imagined that the quality of these things could only go up from here, which gave me hope. Thankfully, my hope wasn't purely in vain, because what we have here was actually a pretty decent film here, one that certainly does have the issues most of these kinds of adaptations tend to have, but one that makes up for those issues by just genuinely being pretty fun to watch all the way through.

  The story pretty much follows the plot of the original game, with one or two changes made here and there, but for the most part, it remains pretty much the same, and the way that the story is portrayed throughout the movie is very typical, yet still very fun with how cheesy and dumb it can be, the characters are, admittedly, a mixed bag, with a good few being fun to watch and genuinely likable, while everyone else doesn't leave much of an impact to have a solid opinion on, but I didn't hate anyone in the film, so that's a plus, the voice acting is... terrible, there's no beating around the bush there, but unlike with Art of Fighting, the bad voice acting does add to the enjoyment of it, where it isn't too bad to where you wanna rip off your ears, while still being bad enough to where you wanna hear every hilarious thing they try to say, the animation is pretty good for the time, even if there are clear errors everywhere, but it is still fluid, smooth, and consistent enough to where I didn't feel pain from watching it, and the action, whenever it takes place, can be pretty good, with plenty of sweet sequences and deaths all throughout, making you keep your eyes glued to the screen to see what could possibly happen next.

  As you probably have picked up on though, since this is an SNK anime adaptation that was made back in the 90s, it comes with all the problems that you would typically expect out of one of these: the terrible VAs, the cheap animation, the errors that can be seen everywhere, the rushed plot, and so on and so forth. These are present in every single one of their specials, and from what I have seen, there is a right and wrong way to make something like this. Kinda weird to hear, I know, but if you were to watch these yourself, you know what I mean. Comparing this to the Art of Fighting special is probably the clearest picture you could possibly get of this, as while both have equally bad issues that bring them down, you can tell that one had more effort put into it then the other, and that little bit of effort does help push one over the edge of the other, making for something that much more stupidly memorable and charming.

  Overall, despite its many apparent flaws, while also having plenty of that 90s cheese, Samurai Shodown: The Motion Picture managed to take full advantage of these issues and deliver a stupid, yet quite enjoyable film, full of plenty of genuinely fun sequences, some cool action scenes, and plenty of laughably bad moments that I'm sure anybody, whether you are a fan of the game or otherwise, can easily get behind and love to watch all the same. I would recommend it for those who are fans of the Samurai Shodown, as well as those who aren't quite familiar with it, because while this definitely isn't the proper introduction to the series you would need, it is a nice little distraction that will entertain you enough to where you would probably seek out the rest of the series because of it. But anyways, to end off this review, I need to bring up something completely unrelated, but important regardless: while watching this film, I discovered that there is a Ninja Gaiden OVA out there, and I had NO CLUE that that existed before. I love Ninja Gaiden, so I imagine this OVA would be just as bad as this, so we definitely gotta review that at some point later down the road.

  Film #397

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