Friday, November 9, 2001

Yoma: Curse of the Undead (Blood Reign: Curse of the Yoma)



Genre: Dark
Parental Guidance Recommended
1989 TOHO / MPS. Screenshots from Nightfall Curse of the Undead Yoma .




SHOPPING:
Yoma DVDs
Other Yoma Items

Cover Description:
To avenge the woman and friends he loved, one lone warrior must seek out and slay his former comrade in arms. But how do you kill someone who's already joined the army of the undead? A solitary Ninja must find the answer to that very question, and the ancient secrets of the world's oldest clan of professional assassins are pitted against the forces of evil.

From the internationally famous Toho studios, producers of such legendary epics as THE SEVEN SAMURAI and YojIMBO, BLOOD REIGN tells the story of two young Ninja whose friendship has been forever broken by the chasm that separates the living from the dead.

Set against a backdrop of flesh-eating stallions, shape-changing man-spiders and nightmarish battle sequences in which the blood-soaked earth becomes a feeding ground for the dark creatures that lay in wait beneath its surface, the struggle of life against death has never been so vividly portrayed.

Oh, gawd! We love intestines! >>> by Darth Paul and skysenshi
No, d-uh! The artwork and animation are quite stale, even for its time. This is why we wondered how come they put more effort in drawing the intestines more than the details of the parts that actually matter. The colors aren't bad, but definitely need improvement. Perhaps they need to be darkened and reddened a little bit more for effect?

The flow of the story is a bit dragging, which is probably why they need to slap you awake with ocassional blood and gore here and there. Death isn't what is vividly portrayed here. It's carnage. To what end, well...now you know. The entire time you spent trying to hold on to the storyline, you'd have felt you were undead. The plot only got interesting in the final part when the supposed best friend finally revealed who he really is, and by then you'd have felt that you've spent the last hour wasting your viewing time.

There is one wacky element that had us rolling over the floor with laughter, though. It's this morbid background music sugar-coated with an angelic voice and an enchanting melody. Another good point worth noticing here is that the character design is something else. If you want to watch Yoma, at least watch it for the interesting personalities of the characters and how they interact with one another.

Individual Rating: Art/Animation 6; Story 8; Characters 9; Sounds 5

No comments:

Post a Comment

Copyright 1997 - 2010. The Kraiders Otaku Fridge. All content, except screenshots, belong to the webmaster.