Yami no Matsuei
Reviewer: Holli [website] [email]Overall Rating: A-
Media Reviewed: DVD
Creator: Matsushita Yoko
U.S. Licensed: Yes
Released by: Central Park Media
Run time: 13 episodes
BL Content: Ambiguous (yaoi implications, fanservice)
Genre: Drama/Horror/Supernatural
Other media: English-licensed manga
So, here's your basic premise; well, almost basic: Even after death, life is full of paperwork and criminals. Tsuzuki Asato is a 26 year old, happy-go-lucky, laid back, and dorky shinigami (god of death) that makes sure that those who are dead remain dead and are where they are supposed to be. Even though he's been doing this job for over 70 years, he has the worst division and pay. He has a knack for not keeping partners, but now he seems to have a more stubborn one, the smart mouthed, very serious, and defensive 16 year old Kurosaki Hisoka. With each case the two solve, they come closer to the conspiracies of the serial killer Dr. Muraki Kazutaka. Muraki commits crimes just to torment gentle Tsuzuki. Tsuzuki is becoming closer with his fellow comrades, especially with Hisoka. But there is a dark past to how Tsuzuki died... and it is the key to why he works as a shinigami.
This anime is pretty interesting, in the way how there are always 3 episode story arcs (except the last, which is 4). It's an awesome blend of shounen-ai angst, horror and supernatural powers. YnM is a powerful story which is very character driven. Whether this series is TRULY shounen-ai or not is so debatable; it should be, but so much can be attributed to being eye candy for us fans, and who even knows about Muraki? The man may just be a creep to distract people. But enough about the genre!
Tsuzuki is the greatest of dorks and Hisoka just a cute grumpy person. And, Muraki is creepy. His motives are scary.
All the other characters are great, but I was disappointed to see some hilarious characters get cut from the anime version of this story (I'm a manga veteran of this series; I've pretty much read all that is available). I miss the hilarious Yuma and Saya!
I was a little disappointed to not see more of the humor this series originally had in the manga, but with only 13 episodes, what else could be done? Thankfully, the writers wrote excellent character driven arcs that were powerfully entertaining. This series should have been longer (and it's noticeable how things got chopped in arcs, especially in the first arc, with drastic scene changes), and I'd love to see a sequel of any sort!
The visuals. The animation was excellent! A bit of the CGI however, did not blend well, but I liked it anyway. That's just nit-picking. The character designs were faithful to the manga, but had a nice look of their own, that was also different from the manga, maybe a bit more solid; it's hard to explain.
The gore was great! Tragic, horribly disturbing and graphic scences were beautifully, hauntingly rendered. The entire show had a wonderful dark atmosphere to it, but also a nice unearthly, hauntingly beautiful feel when the characters were in Meifuu (Afterlife World). The colors weren't overbearing, but bright and vibrant (especially eye color, woo!), which is interesting for a horror themed anime like this.
Some of the most interesting animation and color schemes I've ever seen have come from the anime. I mean afterall... blue blood.
Some recapping was done, usually for filling in the viewers about the previous episode, but there was also a bit more than that. However, it didn't run rampant over the series, and overdone, so I can't complain.
The music is either to love or to hate. It takes awhile to get use to the opening and closing themes, which are performed by some kind of J-Rock band that... has a leader singer... who sings... uh... very interesting. I don't despise the themes, but they took some getting use to, to become an acquired taste. The soundtrack itself tends to be a little overbearing sometimes (not annoying, just overpowering the dialogue of characters), but the violin music for the Devil's Trill Arc was excellent and most of the soundtrack was good. Some very beautiful music was almost hidden in this soundtrack that should be listened to. Alot of them are Engrish, but are really pretty and haunting, nontheless.
The voice acting was excellent! I haven't heard such anguished, beautiful voice acting for quite some time. Tsuzuki and Hisoka were so powerfully performed! You could just feel their emotions, and especially their pain. Beautiful!
Uh-oh. The dub. I do like dubs, but I hate a lot of them too. So, I love this series and watched it all before it was out in the boxset. So when I got my boxset, I watched all the dub in one day.
The dub was like the music of the series; half good, half bad, but mostly bad. Some acting was genuinely awesome, while the other half wanted to make me hurl. The performances of Tsuzuki and Hisoka were good, and became better as the series went. I was impressed with Hisoka's voice actor; he started out making Hisoka almost unemotional and monotone, but by the time the story was really becoming emotional strung (especially at the end), he was really good! And he screams well! If you're used to the Japanese though, Hisoka's voice in the dub will take some getting use to though. It took me awhile too, since Hisoka is originally voiced by a woman.
So, the voice actors on a whole improved; either that, or I got used to them. But, I don't think so. I'll say one thing though; after hearing Hisoka's English voice (which I found to be too old sounding at first because, once again, he's actually voiced by a man this time), when I went back to the Japanese, I realized just how feminie Hisoka's orignal voice was. But, I have to say I like his Japanese voice best; the actress sounded boyish enough to me!
Muraki's voice sounded like a nasal half-nerd; but I did find I liked it better as I watched. It was a strange fit, but somehow worked for the most part, and the voice actor was...hee hee, right into the creepiness and inneudos. Nice voice acting in bringing out a genuine creep.
Man... I was looking for Barry White behind the tv when I heard the first Guoshounin! That voice actor had a deep voice that sounded a lot like Barry White.
Tatsumi's voice was really good, but I thought it would have been more... well, more mature sounding than Tsuzuki's. Their voices sounded like about the same maturity level. Same for Oriya. Oriya sounded like an average guy, even a teenager. And his acting kinda sucked too. It really sounded like he didn't know shit about the character he was voicing (which was probably the case).
Watari's voice was unforgivable. I mean, it's the guy who does James' voice on Pokemon, and the exact same voice he used for James he used for Watari! Even if the actor was going for making a fake accent to make an "English Kansai" accent (since Watari grew up in Osaka), it sounded really bad. His voice came across to me as more of a stereotype gay man's voice... which was really weird. And not in a good way. How did we manage to go from the guy who did Riki's voice in Ai no Kusabi and Legato in Trigun in Japanese, to the guy who does Pokemon voices in English?
As for the dvd extras, most were mediocre, but the fun facts on the 3rd disc were hilarious! They had a whole episode with facts popping up. Sometimes the facts were completely out of context, and they liked making fun and noting all the double entendres in the episode (...and phallic references... ohmygod, I had no idea, that was so bad!)! I laughed my butt off hysterically! I couldn't believe an American licensing company would embrace the genre of a shounen-ai title so enthuastically. I don't like most of Central Park Media's dubbing, but I have new respect for the company now when it comes to some of the extra content their dvds contain. That took guts!
Even with all these problems, the series was very good! This anime stands on its own, seperate from the manga, but not so different that the story had been drastically changed or the characters shown to act differently. Just what kind of relationship Tsuzuki and Hisoka have with each other? I wish I knew!
So, it's a bit choppy, a bit gory, and the music a tad corny, but this is my favorite series, and I highly recommend!
