Kite

angelsreviews Aug 6, 2013

5

This is… I don’t really know how to explain this one. It’s not all that enjoyable, and yet, it’s got a strange feeling. It’s not even what I would consider a Hentai since there were very few sex scenes, most consisting of story plot instead. The story is actually very easy to understand because it’s actually a plot that has been played out over and over again. Sawa is a rather interesting character as she seems to only have two emotions, mysterious and shouting out. Seriously, out of all the characters, she being a main character should have more then those two emotions. It also seemed that there were more scenes of Oburi or Akai instead of Sawa. The animation is pretty vintage and doesn’t really stand out much from most hentai related anime though it does have a small air of people holding back trying to make some things look too out of proportioned. Sadly, they did not hold back on the large masses that the men have. They feel rather unrealistic and way to big for the body and old man style. The English Voices were hard to hear as I had to keep turning it up to listen to the voices, then turn it down at the sex scenes and fight scenes because of all the screaming and yelling in it. The music didn’t stand out at all and really needed to be turned up a hair. Sawa was actually done pretty well for what it was worth though she was reading most of the lines it seemed.

butya Jan 4, 2012

6

Studio ARMS, OVA(2 eps.), 30min. 25.02.1998 and 25.10.1998  It's not a movie. Update someone and specify a studio pls.

MasterMastermnd Jul 19, 2022

7

Some quick thoughts on Kite: Kite is a grim piece of work, painting the unflinching portrait of a seedy Tokyo underbelly where organized crime and the police department have amalgamated into one unholy entity. A network of assassins and open pedophiles have so thoroughly penetrated the Tokyo police as to have transformed it into a state-sanctioned cabal of power brokerage and murder. This group kills with impunity, supplying abused children with cutting-edge weaponry to do it, then throwing them away when they outlive their usefulness. The film focuses on two of these assassins, Sawa and Oburi. Sawa was orphaned by her parents and initiated into the network by their killers. Routinely abused by the corrupt detective who "looks after her," she exists in a near-dissociative state, greeting the world with a doll-like stare. She only truly comes alive during hits, where she has a penchant for targeting pedophiles, perhaps taking out her anger on the men in her life she hasn't the strength to target, and in the presence of Oburi, a teenage boy with whom she collaborates on a hit. He's the only person she feels could understand her, the only person she feels safe enough around to be herself. Oburi is pretty well-adjusted given his line of work, and realizes a bit too late that having just a few more hits to complete isn't going to give him the easy out he hopes for. The animation in the film is excellent, as is the musical score. An Fu's classy jazz makes for a striking juxtaposition with the brutality and gore on near-constant display. It's only 45 minutes long, and while there is an extended cut according to my understanding this shorter version is the one you want to watch. It's available on Tubi, Crunchyroll, and VRV (which is just Crunchyroll+ really). Kite is a good movie, though it could have drilled even deeper into the subject matter and it's harsh, unyielding, and transgressive nature will make it a tough watch for most. It's vision of a hopelessly corrupt, decadent, and patriarchal power structure is searing and only more relevant in recent years. The ending in particular is a gut-punch, both revelatory and ambiguous. There will be no victory against a cancerous social tumor as big and malignant as the one the characters struggle against. If there's a way out its merely a personal, hard-won peace, and even then who knows if you'll ever really escape.