INU-OH: Movie FULL LENGTH Reaction! PATREON COMMISSION!
Added 2025-04-11 17:00:05 +0000 UTC*MUSICALLY BONDED HEADPHONE WARNINGS*
I had NO idea the steamrolling this movie would do on my heart - EASILY one of my favorites this year so far! The music? The animation? The character work? Everything builds, comes full circle, and emotionally grabs and holds onto you the entire time - THIS is definitely my JAM when it comes to a story!
Now, excuse me while I obsess over the main characters until the end of time. Thank you, Sunspots, for commissioning this AMAZING film!
LINK TO PIP REACTION: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/QYbo4f3Y7RQVVkbecoUBJc
Thank you for watching with me and for all the support!
Comments
Thank you SO MUCH for this commission, the comment, and the kind words! SERIOUSLY, I was in LOVE with this movie! I don’t blame it for being your favorite, it’s up there for me! The idea of reclaiming identity, expression, memory and legacy, and YES! Art as resistance! They’re so applicable to now. I’m still so endeared to the timing and with this being around the same visual style as Ping Pong! And yes, Hokusai prefacing this one for the historical anime - the stars aligned! And yes, they both have some similarities, I can definitely agree! I love the conversation about endurance vs. detonation, though! Yes! I at least feel that Oei and her father have a much more CHILL relationship despite the trauma than Inu-oh and his, hahahahaha!! But I know what you mean! The shipping of Tomona and Inu-Oh - MY HEART. Seriously! I just can't get enough of them in this film!! You know, I thought of Tomona as an observer during that “reveal” but if you told me he had a hand in saving Inu-Oh and that having a hand in Inu-Oh’s final “form,” I wouldn’t dismiss that at all! I’m a big fan of “full circle” moments in stories, especially when they’re done cleverly, and this film did that so well, indeed! The artistry and music were just *chef’s kiss* throughout! There were some fun references to Dororo which I really enjoyed in this and yet, some to TGCF as well – it’s fun to see it make references but also be its own unique entity. “Effortless Empathy” is a great description as part of the theme. I love how much work and love went into this as well. And to bring up gender fluidity as well in such an effortless manner was an accomplishment! I do recommend Dororo for sure and it’s fortunately not too long! 😀Yay! Thank you so much for the kindness of your commission and support! This is one of my new favorites!
Romaniablack
2025-04-22 19:17:18 +0000 UTCSo happy to hear you got to see it for the first time and had a great time with it! And yes, big fan of the dub, as well. 🥰
Sunspots
2025-04-19 06:38:27 +0000 UTCInu-Oh-mazing! Floored, 10/10 movie! Knew nothing about it, and loved it, favorite one to date (and that's saying something, been some incredible picks)! Glad you commissioned this Sunspots, and thank you Romania for the great reaction and discussion! The commissioned movies are a little tricky for me to keep up with as I watch them once blind and then second with the reaction, but so, SO worth it. I'd highly recommend anyone add them to a list to watch if they haven't seen them! The art style, animation, colors and everything are so incredible in this! And the songs! THE SONGS! That damn biwa! <3 Also love the way it illustrates blindness, removing out everything that isn't a source of a sound, while keeping it mysterious and colorful even if it is. The opening is such horror and chaos, the birth of Inu-Oh delivered horribly mis-figured and monster-like from the womb - reminded me a little of the birth described in The Vampire Lestat, gave me shivers reading it! "What the fudge is that!?" you ask? Why it's our very much not-a-dog, dog king gourd-masked protagonist you'll undoubtably end up loving! Just a typical, ordinary shonen hero you know, like you see all the time, right? 🙃 I was enthralled, enthralled by this movie's songs! Chart topping concert level vibes, from the first actual performance with Tomona and Inu-Oh, it felt like a cross between a Metallica song, perhaps Iron Man in the way the riff repeats over and over, with narrative lyrics between it, I couldn't shake what it reminded me so much of, and it really feels like that! Then the Broadway production feeling to the performances, how captivating the once-in-a-lifetime shows are, and how they just kept going and going and going! Amazing! On second watch, I was amused at how the red outfit Tomona wears at around 34:45, really reminded me of Hua Cheng from HOB, and they both have similar hair too, only Tomona would be more like Xie Lian while Ino-Oh would be more the Hau Cheng I think! And yes, ship please! The gore at the end for the father being greedy, that goes hard! Just like all the songs! Also loved that it ends full circle with many elements, and we get a happy and satisfying conclusion 600 years later! The dub is worth checking out the first 60 seconds of for sure, as they sing a couple of the songs in English, and it's crazy to hear it translated in song! Thankfully they leave the bulk of the main songs in Japanese, because the singer in it, Avu-chan, sounds amazing!
L Freya
2025-04-18 20:41:29 +0000 UTCThank you so much! I LOVE that the same people with Ping Pong did this movie - I was having the time of my life watching it so thank you for the comment and kind words!
Romaniablack
2025-04-16 16:24:34 +0000 UTCLoved the reaction and discussion! I cannot overstate this. So happy to see the film worked so well for you. 🥰 A preface for everything below: Inu-Oh may be my favourite animated film. I will give it a decade before fully making that proclamation, I may even decide to remove the ‘animated’ qualifier. It is definitely the animated film I’ve seen more times than any other. It has latched onto my brainstem and not let go, so any time I’m not quite sure what I’m in the mood for – I will put it on (though most times I skip about 10-min of the ending bit and go straight to the time skip 😅). To me, so much of this film is about reclamation of one’s identity, about expression and memory (especially for those erased from history). Art as resistance. The timing with this commission worked out wonderful, you just finished Ping Pong (which I think works very nicely as a primer for Yuasa's preferred visual style). And then having Miss Hokusai last week – to me these films are absolutely of a pair! In both, the protagonists are expressing their truths through their art in ways that the society they are in does not want to allow. I think they both also speak to a reality that it still unfortunately current – where someone’s mere existence is seen as some form of 'rebellion.' To my mind, Oei endures this ‘status’ forced upon her and Inu-Oh detonates it (until he reaches a point where he has to endure it, as well, for Tomona). The other parallel to me is their relationship with their fathers, the themes of inherited trauma and the way these parents steal their children’s lifeforce (quite literally for Inu-Oh; through lack of acknowledgment and taking advantage of an enforced/inescapable social status for Oei). I absolutely agree with you with regards to hardcore shipping Tomona and Inu-Oh! 😆 They are probably my biggest new ship from the past few years. Always love stories of bonds which transcend time and space. And the story of how they reshaped each other through their work and art, the tenderness and emotional vulnerability between them are just the sweetest. I would be interested to know how you view the ‘reveal’ during the final performance, when we fully see what happened to Inu-Oh. Do you think Tomona was purely observing or did he also influence the event? It may be my shipping goggles, but I now view that moment as - Tomona’s pleading with the spirits of the Heike is what kept Inu-Oh from dying, the strength of Tomona's emotion moved across time and space. I don’t have any narrative evidence for this view, but it is the one I think I prefer at this time. It then also pairs nicely with the final coda – where Inu-Oh ‘sacrifices’ his final form. I really enjoyed the discussion around narrative threads and structure, how things aren’t wasted and are brought full circle so well. 🥰 The absolute artistry of the film needs no further endorsement, I think. I’ll highlight my favourite element – the view of the world to Tomona, the way they visualised him getting more information from what he hears. The white with orange highlights when he meets the biwa priests. The black and bright pink of meeting Inu-Oh. My favourite moment was Teiichi saying ‘we are also blind’ and all the biwa players immediately know to show themselves to Tomona – adore how effortless this display of empathy was. Maybe ‘effortless empathy’ is the true core of the film in terms of its creators – from the excellent representation to a very clear celebration of gender fluidity, to the focus on erasure throughout history and reclamation of existence/identity. The creators are so clearly kind towards their creations, even when they make terrible things happen, and I find that that can’t often be said about media (especially within ‘historical’ settings). Your notes about Dororo in this were the show’s biggest endorsement, it has been on my list a long while and now once I’m finished with Great Pretender – it will definitely be up next! This was absolutely a stellar reaction and discussion and is immediately going on regular rotation! 🥰 Cannot wait for next week! 💙
Sunspots
2025-04-12 15:08:21 +0000 UTCMore Masaaki Yuasa greatness! So wonderful to return to him after Ping Pong so recently. Loved this reaction and movie.
Muz
2025-04-12 12:45:11 +0000 UTC
