Summary
In the early years of the Meiji Restoration, a human Ronin, Izou, accompanied by an orc assassin, Raiden, must unite to save an elf orphan from their common adversary.
Netflix anime film Bright: Samurai Soul is based on the 2017 American film Bright. Directed by Kyohei Ishiguro (Children of the Whales), this film is an action-packed flick with a blend of emotions like loyalty, friendship, betrayal, and retribution.
I am not a frequent anime watcher but with this film, I am quite curious about the animes for sure. It has so much enriching quality that I couldn’t imagine. With beautifully composed and designed shots, this anime gives the feel of nothing less than a movie altogether.
Talking about the story, this is a beautiful blend of mythology, history, and fantasy. And with this beautiful blend, this anime becomes very entertaining. The lovely use of gruesome violence and bloody action sequences made this a very enjoyable 80 minutes of my life.
With all these technical qualities, the standout point of the anime is the characters. The characters are quite well derived on the screen by the writer Michiko Yokote (The Grimm Variations) giving them the perfect emotional quotient for the screen.
That’s why we are engaged with these characters very much. Though there is some pretentiousness, the character arcs are quite rounded, and they make full use of them.
With all these entertainments, on the subtextual level, this film is also quite good. The portrayal of the dark and bright side of human nature with the two groups of ‘Shield of Light’ and ‘Inferni’ is quite apt. This beautifully showcases the duality of our nature in this world.
I love the ending where Izou stated that light gives birth to darkness as strong as itself and they both have meaning. This sums up the whole thing of this duality. And it reminds us we can never have the world out of the darkness as everyone carries darkness.
But there is light also everywhere. We have to accept that brightness within us without any shame as we have to face the darkness without any fear.
