Another Epinions foundling. I think I need to watch it again -- it sounds a lot more complex than I remember.
Mirage of Blaze is the anime developed from a series of boys' love light novels that have never been translated into English. I first watched it with German subtitles (nope, I'm no longer that fluent, and I need to work on that), and liked it enough that I decided to buy the DVD when I found it at a good price. Even though there is no real resolution, either to the conflict that forms the main plot or to the relationship between the protagonists, it's definitely worth seeing.
Takaya Ougi is, to all appearances, a normal high-school student whose best friend, Yuzuru Narita, has been "acting strange." Takaya is concerned, and becomes even more so when he encounters Nobutsuna Naoe, a strangely compelling older man with mysterious powers who tells Takaya that he, Takaya, is the reincarnation of a feudal noble, Kagetora Uesugi, who had been born a son of the Hojo clan and "adopted" (meaning turned over as a hostage) by the Uesugi. Naoe and Takaya are "Possessors" who have taken over host bodies to keep vengeful spirits under control, and work with Haruie Kakizaki, who has come back as a woman, and Nagahide Yasuda. And now the spirits of the dead samurai of the Takeda clan have begun to assemble to reconquer their ancestral holdings -- and quite a bit besides. Word is out that the Oda are also assembling. And the Hojo and their allies, the ninja clan Fuuma, have their own ideas about who should be in charge. There is a wild card in here, too -- Kousaka of the Takeda clan, who seems to be on no one's side but his own. If this all sounds complicated, that's only because it is -- and it gets a lot worse.
There is a huge helping of Japanese history and magic here, but that needn't be a deterrent: it reads well either as historical drama or fantasy. And I'm enough of a military sf buff to enjoy the strategy sessions. It's a fairly talky series, but the talkiness is all back story and development, so in spite of my insatiable appetite for movies where everything explodes, I wasn't put off by it -- and there are plenty of things exploding, anyway.
As far as the BL element, it's very understated and ultimately open-ended: the relationship between Takaya and Naoe is far from resolved. Takaya refuses to accept that he is Kagetora and has thoroughly repressed his memories of his previous incarnations, and it becomes plain that Naoe is a big part of the reason. Naoe finally confesses his feelings toward Takaya, but to say that Takaya is conflicted is a weak description: as we see from a couple of scenes, Takaya has strong feelings toward Naoe, but they are all tangled up with the few memories that come back to him of his previous life and his relationship with his older brother, what he perceives as an injury that Naoe inflicted on him in the past, and his unsureness as to whether Naoe's feelings are for him, Takaya, or Kagetora. (This relationship has been ongoing for four hundred years now, and apparently has always been this difficult.) "Love-hate" might be an accurate take on Takaya's feelings. This all contributes to some major psychological tension as the story progresses. The creators have managed to hit some real emotional depth here, and those scenes have a fair amount of power, in spite of the melodrama. (And I should point out that the melodrama is not on the order of the bosom-heaving film dramas of the 1950s, but only the product of some real intensity.)
This set also includes the OVA Rebels of the River Edge, which takes Takaya, Naoe, and Haruie in a further adventure involving an ancient mandala, woven with the hair of executed members of the Araki clan, and the reincarnation of their lord, who deserted them at a critical time. This is all complicated by the Haruie's belief that the lord, Murashige, is her dead lover, Shintaro, lost these two hundred years. And the relationship between Naoe and Takaya is as spiky and unresolved as ever. Takaya has changed, though -- there's an edge of sadism in his exchanges with Naoe, and you can feel Naoe's helplessness in the face of his strong love for Takaya. I had seen Rebels as a stand-alone, and strangely enough, it works better that way than as a sequel, perhaps because it undercuts what little resolution there was between Takaya and Naoe.
A word about the music. The opening title song for the main series falls into the category of "misfit" -- while the lyrics (in English, for some reason) do tie in, sort of, the music is an up-tempo rock/jazz combination that misses the core of the story by a mile. The incidental accompaniment, happily, is in general more on point, and the closing title song is a beautiful string quartet that captures the tenderness, pain and sorrow in the relationship almost perfectly.
This set includes production drawings, textless opening, trailers, and the option of English dialogue or Japanese dialogue with subtitles. I chose the latter, simply because I enjoy the sound of the Japanese.
As I said, I wasn't really prepared for the impact this one had on me -- there are some very strong scenes here, and the portrayal of the relationship between Takaya and Naoe is certainly a cut above most BL anime.
(Anime Works, 2008)
Takaya Ougi is, to all appearances, a normal high-school student whose best friend, Yuzuru Narita, has been "acting strange." Takaya is concerned, and becomes even more so when he encounters Nobutsuna Naoe, a strangely compelling older man with mysterious powers who tells Takaya that he, Takaya, is the reincarnation of a feudal noble, Kagetora Uesugi, who had been born a son of the Hojo clan and "adopted" (meaning turned over as a hostage) by the Uesugi. Naoe and Takaya are "Possessors" who have taken over host bodies to keep vengeful spirits under control, and work with Haruie Kakizaki, who has come back as a woman, and Nagahide Yasuda. And now the spirits of the dead samurai of the Takeda clan have begun to assemble to reconquer their ancestral holdings -- and quite a bit besides. Word is out that the Oda are also assembling. And the Hojo and their allies, the ninja clan Fuuma, have their own ideas about who should be in charge. There is a wild card in here, too -- Kousaka of the Takeda clan, who seems to be on no one's side but his own. If this all sounds complicated, that's only because it is -- and it gets a lot worse.
There is a huge helping of Japanese history and magic here, but that needn't be a deterrent: it reads well either as historical drama or fantasy. And I'm enough of a military sf buff to enjoy the strategy sessions. It's a fairly talky series, but the talkiness is all back story and development, so in spite of my insatiable appetite for movies where everything explodes, I wasn't put off by it -- and there are plenty of things exploding, anyway.
As far as the BL element, it's very understated and ultimately open-ended: the relationship between Takaya and Naoe is far from resolved. Takaya refuses to accept that he is Kagetora and has thoroughly repressed his memories of his previous incarnations, and it becomes plain that Naoe is a big part of the reason. Naoe finally confesses his feelings toward Takaya, but to say that Takaya is conflicted is a weak description: as we see from a couple of scenes, Takaya has strong feelings toward Naoe, but they are all tangled up with the few memories that come back to him of his previous life and his relationship with his older brother, what he perceives as an injury that Naoe inflicted on him in the past, and his unsureness as to whether Naoe's feelings are for him, Takaya, or Kagetora. (This relationship has been ongoing for four hundred years now, and apparently has always been this difficult.) "Love-hate" might be an accurate take on Takaya's feelings. This all contributes to some major psychological tension as the story progresses. The creators have managed to hit some real emotional depth here, and those scenes have a fair amount of power, in spite of the melodrama. (And I should point out that the melodrama is not on the order of the bosom-heaving film dramas of the 1950s, but only the product of some real intensity.)
This set also includes the OVA Rebels of the River Edge, which takes Takaya, Naoe, and Haruie in a further adventure involving an ancient mandala, woven with the hair of executed members of the Araki clan, and the reincarnation of their lord, who deserted them at a critical time. This is all complicated by the Haruie's belief that the lord, Murashige, is her dead lover, Shintaro, lost these two hundred years. And the relationship between Naoe and Takaya is as spiky and unresolved as ever. Takaya has changed, though -- there's an edge of sadism in his exchanges with Naoe, and you can feel Naoe's helplessness in the face of his strong love for Takaya. I had seen Rebels as a stand-alone, and strangely enough, it works better that way than as a sequel, perhaps because it undercuts what little resolution there was between Takaya and Naoe.
A word about the music. The opening title song for the main series falls into the category of "misfit" -- while the lyrics (in English, for some reason) do tie in, sort of, the music is an up-tempo rock/jazz combination that misses the core of the story by a mile. The incidental accompaniment, happily, is in general more on point, and the closing title song is a beautiful string quartet that captures the tenderness, pain and sorrow in the relationship almost perfectly.
This set includes production drawings, textless opening, trailers, and the option of English dialogue or Japanese dialogue with subtitles. I chose the latter, simply because I enjoy the sound of the Japanese.
As I said, I wasn't really prepared for the impact this one had on me -- there are some very strong scenes here, and the portrayal of the relationship between Takaya and Naoe is certainly a cut above most BL anime.
(Anime Works, 2008)
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