Shadow Skill was first published
in 1992 as a manga. This is an interesting premise, an interesting world, but
with the 1998 television series excluded from this list, for another day, the
straight to video adaptations only cover a slither of something much more
grander even as a martial arts action premise with a simple structure. There is
also an odd chronology, in that the 1996 four part OVA is set before the first
from 1995, emphasised by how Manga
Entertainment makes the 1996 set "Shadow
Skill the Movie", collected together as a feature as they were want to
do, and the 1995 production the "Epilogue".
These all set up the warrior kingdom of Kurda, part of a fantasy world where
the first female "Sevaar", their title for their most powerful
warriors, is Ella Lagu. A powerful figure in her "Shadow Skill"
style, she is followed by her younger adopted brother Gau, who is being guided
by her and Scarface, a legendary male warrior who sees he as much as her as a
powerful force if nurtured. If he could ever complete the goal of defeating her
in combat, Gau could become powerful, but he also loves Ella as a sister, who
is just as strong and dangerous is pushed.
There is a concern that Gau, as
the male character, is going to over shadow a much cooler female lead, but
there is one catch which thankfully plays in to this, that she is voiced in the
OVAs (and the series) by Megumi
Hayashibara. Most will know her for Rei from Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995),
and she is a huge figure in voice actresses, throughout the nineties, including
the fact she sung many of their credit themes. She qualifies as a bonafide star
in the medium in the nineties, and it helps as well as, whilst Gau is a meek
figure who is tugged and pulled in emotional conflicts, still not the strongest
but capable of inhuman power when pushed, Ella is memorable. There are
prominent differences between the first two OVAs, one of which is that the Epilogue has her as a more serious
figure for its narrative. The contrast, found in a later 2004 OVA, is better,
that she is a capable figure who is serious when she needs to be, but also
allowed Hayashibara, known for
characters like Lina Inverse in the Slayers
franchise as much as a more serious character as in Evangelion. Introduced fighting a monstrous opponent in gladiatorial
combat in the Movie OVAs, an entity
with acid blood and can still fight having had his head decapitated, this is
contrasted by the fact she is also greedy and obsessed with boozing, the later
the cause of unpaid tabs much to Faulee's disbelief.
The Movie provides the most time for the side characters too, even if
sadly not as much still, not even covering a male character who briefly appears
in the epilogue but never seen in any of the other OVAS. Both female, both these
characters would have been more rewarding then they were if there was more stories
to go with, with episodes devoted to them already in the Movie segments. There is Faulee, a former nemesis and a talisman
sorceress whose intentions to kill Ella became a change to admiring her as a
close friend, in spite of Ella's foibles, whilst Kyuo has a really distinct
look due to the character designs by Shin
Matsuo in the Movie OVAs, closer to the source manga, a Robin Hood-like
green costume as the grandniece and apprentice of a beast slayer, armed with
steel rings with wires that cut into monstrous flesh as well as pin them. Her
episode introducing her is the best of the entire Movie OVAs, what one wished Shadow
Skill as a longer tale was, as it matches its action based tone with that
of high fantasy and explicit horror, of demonic entities and fighters even able
to weaponize ones blood and Kyuo out to avenge her granduncle's death at the
hands of the "Moon King", an awesome monster design not just for the obvious,
a werewolf centaur with the ability to regenerate mortal wounds in the power of
the moonlight, but because the design evokes how, like an epic high fantasy
story if remade today, this world has an evocative imagination in its centre. Even
as a video game with a high budget let alone as an anime, Shadow Skill has a world and style which is vivid in its imagination
as it is violent and over-the-top.
Here I admit, whilst both are
distinct from the pre-2000s OVA, that I prefer the Movie's look, which is very unconventional. The Epilogue looks more
"conventional", whilst the Movie
has more angular facial features on the characters and a costume design which,
for me, befits a world that, even in very little, oozes in lore even if never
seen, which neither the later 2000s OVA ever gets to. The world inherently won
me over in its combination of high fantasy, even ancient Greek and Roman
influence in architecture, and Japanese lore seen in slithers, and it is
contrasted by the fact this is a fighting anime, where the Shadow Skill is an unnatural one of gliding in the air if however
contrasted as being entirely about kicking and leg work. Said explicitly in the
Epilogue anime, even the Shadow
Skill as martial arts has a compelling lore as it was created by female slaves,
figures tortured and raped, forced to fight with their hands bound, the show
having a potent world in little details like this. Even if Gou is technically
the lead, and Scarface is there in his machinations moving the players around
for utopian plans, this is a violent action story dominated by women.
Combined with the action content,
very well animated, both the nineties OVAs are good. In 1998, there was a
television series for twenty six episodes, but unfortunately, we also got in
2004 another OVA from Tandm, a studio
created to having only made this production and nothing else1. They made
a very ill advised technical decision, entirely rendering it in CG created by ToonShader technology2, the
technology itself and cel shading, in animation and video games, capable of incredible
work, but here a huge obstacle. This is a weird creative choice and not the
only time this happened, as Dominion
Tank Police, another OVA franchise from the nineties based on the Masamune Shirow manga, got a one-off
2006 OVA which was designed in polygonal cel shaded animation called TANK S.W.A.T. 01, one where looking at the screenshots alone shows
it was a bad decision. In this case, the technology itself had the full
potential, but in context here, the time needed to perfect it involved a budget
this did not have. The follow up went the wrong direction entirely in many
ways, including from the get-go with this animation change. Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style,
to give the third OVA its proper name, is an attempt to continue the franchise,
with key cast members returning, and Megumi
Hayashibara significantly back as Ella, but completely within an aesthetic
choice that is not suitable for the production at all before you get to the
plot.
A man named Death Wind wishes to
acquire a MacGuffin of an unknown "Genesis technique", challenging
the sevaar and her brother Gau who go to protect the land from this. Everyone
looks like a doll from a different animated series I might have watched on a
Saturday morning as a kid. This is not an insult to those types of shows, but
here it is a really crippling creative decision, especially as you lose the
elaborate onscreen world building and the character designs, alongside the fact
you cannot have the elaborate fight sequences as the form makes it impossible
to do. The production has its own obsolete mood, least in the environment
designs evoking a Myst adventure
game clone, or the music having an esoteric mix of tribal ambient and
electronic noise experiments, but it comes in mind of its style being an absolute
disadvantage.
There is some creativity in the
art style, which shows what could be done, specifically that all the
flashbacks, even if evoking graphite (or Microsoft
Paint graphite) painting, are done in silhouettes with an imaginative style
that I will praise. It is still an art style, with its clear budget and
production restrictions, for an entirely different type of work, like a horror
story with minimal kineticism and lengthy dialogue, which is pertinent as this
sequel's other huge problem is that, with lengthy discussion scenes, the story
even next to the simple ones of before is not good. There is interesting ideas
here, such as a training golem, built with the skull of the founder to train
the secret techniques, but alongside this falling into the danger of the
premise's structure, of maligning Ella for the far less interesting Gau, who
Death Wing wants to tempt to his side, but this became a slog. Alongside the
style undercutting it, the golem not looking remotely as good as the Moon King
as before, this has lengthy and tedious dialogue sequences to compensate for
the restrictions, including Death Wing using arguments to win over Gau, about
punishing sin before it happens, so loose a college critical thinking coarse knowledge
could destroy it. This even rewrites the lore of the Shadow Skill, no longer
explicitly the martial arts style created by female slaves but
"slaves" in a generic way, which does fully reveal how even the
simplistic plot gets everything wrong as well. The side characters only have a
cameo, and even Megumi Hayashibara,
the big voice actor of this production, feel maligned as well.
Sadly, this closed the book on
this era of the Shadow Skill
franchise, as when the manga ended in 1998, there would be no animated
adaptations in the rest of the 2000s and the 2010s. Just from the OVAs from the
nineties, there is a tantalising world here I wished would be remade to show
its virtues. With Shadow Skill: Secret
of the Kurudan Style, there is a reason few may even know it exists, and it
is a damn squib to end the world on.
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1) Tandm's Anime News
Network page.
2) Shadow Skill: Secret of the Kurudan Style's Anime
News Network page.