Alright, this is a good episode, and if you haven't seen it, stop reading this, because they're are going to be spoilers, and go watch it NOW! Even if you don't like the Halo series, which I am a tad peturbed with myself (see the subject of my previous blog), this is worth seeing. If you don't like Anime or Japanese culture...um, first of all, how can you be a gamer when it still permeates nearly everything in our niche? Secondly, why not? However, I'm getting off topic, and for a SPOILER WARNING this is getting a little out of hand.
So, I've been switching between Xbox and ScrewAttack this gorgeous Saturday, being a little hungover kinda makes you not want to do anything, but again getting off topic. So I decided to catch up on the Guild and check out the second episode of Halo Legends. It's...yeah, it's amazing in a lot of ways.
If you like samurai films like Yojimbo (or any other Kurosawa films, or even Sergio Leone's Man With No Name series, a.k.a. Fistful of Dollars) you should check it out. That being said, it steals a lot from Kurosawa's type of work, and Japanese Kabuki-style film altogether. The Arbiter of Old is the archetypical samurai general who loses everything and is out for blood as a Ronin. It's not a new concept, but it's done very well in a short amount of time. Returning back to the Kurosawa/Leone comparison, if you've seen For a Few Dollars More, the Arbiter in this is very much the same character as Col. Douglas. If these are references lost on you, go look them up and watch some movies.
Moving on, the art is impressive, but flawed. The first few minutes are set at night, and with the Sangheili (Elite) armor all looking very much like the Arbiters, it's very hard to tell one from another at this scene. While this harkens again back to a Japanese style, here, it's only because of the art direction and doesn't feel like it was done on purpose.
The scenes that break up the fighting are impressively done, giving Halo followers the first look at Sanghelios, the Elite home world. From what was seen, it was a what if there was planet that all followed Japanese Feudal Culture. The relationship between the Arbiter and his wife is short, but long enough to show his affection runs deep enough for her to cause him to go on his spree for vengeance.
The fact that world is set up like it is brings up memories of the Satsuma Rebellion, as depicted in The Last Samurai, with the Covenant Prophets being the United States and the Western Culture bringing advancement to Japan, and the end of the samurai.
If you haven't seen any of these films, and you liked this episode, I suggest you go and find them all. Sergio Leone's Dollar/Man With No Name series and a few of Kurosawa's works can be found on Hulu at present. His more famous ones, Seven Samurai and Yojimbo are part of the Criterion Collections' Kurosawa boxset, and they were both remade into Westerns in the sixties with A Fistful of Dollars of the Leone Trilogy for Yojimbo and The Magnificent Seven for Seven Samurai.
Let me know if you like it or why you don't.
-Sara
Edit: Ah, after the first few episodes, I'd hoped to see something truly great among this series of shorts, but after this and The Babysitter, only Odd One Out were really only it. It's really sad when I LOVED this.
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