#so i’m rejecting that interpretation and returning to my original complaint

[aeide-thea]

was rereading a fic i have bookmarked, that i’m quite fond of, and got tripped up by a passing characterization of a character’s scent as, among other more specific descriptors, “something undoubtedly male”—i know i’m unusually allergic to sweepingly stereotypical gender assertions, and i do in fact get the sort of sexiness descriptions like that are trying to reach for, but i really gotta say, i think it’s lazy unexamined shorthand and cheapens the writing

[xiyao-feels]

Part Four: My thoughts on the effects of these changes on our interpretations of the characters, and some miscellaneous final notes

Intro - Pt 1 - Pt 2 - Pt 3 - Pt 4

Okay, so. That's a list of changes. What kind of effect does it actually have on our interpretation of the characters?

For JGY, it's perhaps more subtle than you'd think. The complaint from JGY stans about FJ I heard most often, prior to watching it, was that JGY involves NHS in his brother's killing—whereas in MDZS, as shown, if anything he functions as NHS' protector. This is definitely obnoxious, but to my eye the worst changes are the perhaps more subtle ones. The JGY of FJ is significantly different from the JGY of MDZS and CQL in two ways: first, he has more options available, and second, without ever making an explicit claim, the text nevertheless sends the strong message that he is /not actually in danger from NMJ/.

What do I mean about more options? To begin with, he teaches NHS the corrupted SoC. This carries some risk of LXC finding out, and a much greater risk of NHS finding out—as, indeed, he does. I don't see how this could plausibly be a risk worth taking for JGY; the narrative's insistence suggests either that he has some way to mitigate that risk, or that he's secure enough he can afford to be so careless. His ability to achieve such strong, immediate affects via musical cultivation, despite his weak cultivation level, adds to the general sense that FJ JGY is much less constrained than MDZS or CQL JGY, as does JGS' complete absence from the narrative; it would be easy to forget that JGY is under any social/political pressure at all, even though this is a constant theme in NMJ and JGY's confrontations in MDZS and CQL, and the pressure and danger from JGS specifically is central to their confrontation at the stairs. The lack of any hint of or history of disrespect to LFZ from the Nie men, given what we see of their interaction in CQL, is yet another example of FJ ignoring the constraints JGY actually has to work with.

And, of course, FJ suggests that he has the option to actually cure NMJ, when the fact that he doesn't is in my opinion central to the morality of the decision, to understanding JGY's character, and indeed to many of the themes of the text. (In fact as a friend pointed out to me it suggests that NHS or indeed anyone could learn the music to cure him, although FJ does not seem to realize the implications of this itself.)

This ties in with point two: that JGY is not actually in danger from NMJ. We never see NMJ attack him—NMJ's violence is reserved for other people. Furthermore, we see him (and later NHS) stop NMJ's violence by the quick application of the uncorrupted SoC; this includes, as I've mentioned in previous sections, a scene where JGY protects NHS from NMJ's anger via cultivation, while in the nearest MDZS scene JGY protects NHS from NMJ's anger very explicitly by being a more appealing target. Watching FJ, it would be very difficult to understand how much danger JGY was actually in, and how much he was a target of NMJ's violence.

Even in CQL, NMJ tries to kill JGY at the stairs, drawing his sabre on him after the stairs kick—and even that first attempted blow, before they exchange words outside, could have caused JGY serious damage. In MDZS, after the stairs—where NMJ would very likely have succeeded in killing JGY if LXC hadn't intervened—though WWX admires JGY's skill in finding the right words to convince NMJ to "give him another chance," JGY is only able to do this by promising he'll do something that would probably get him killed, and then promising NMJ that he can kill JGY if he doesn't do it. Moreover, NMJ ends his own life by kicking down a door to kill JGY on the spot, because he did not like the way he was talking about NMJ to LXC. This is a very, very far cry from anything presented in FJ.

The idea that JGY could actually cure NMJ goes to this as well. NMJ is as violent to JGY as he is because of the sabre curse; JGY's choices are endure this, and hope to survive, or...kill him quicker, and hope to survive. He doesn't actually have a choice that involves not being subject to NMJ's violence. Ignoring this fundamentally changes JGY's character, who is so defined by the constraints under which he suffers, and indeed by the lack of physical security he has until he becomes Jin-zongzhu.

What then about NMJ's character? Honestly I don't even have the words for this; it's a profound insult to his original character. The thing is, it's not just that NMJ doesn't doubt the righteousness of Nie cultivation practices, although he very much does not. It's that NMJ would never do something he secretly thought was unrighteous, never mind /shape his life around it/. If he believed something wasn't righteous, he simply wouldn't do it. This is literally the heart of his conflict with JGY, and it repeats throughout the text again and again.

Further, and less flattering to NMJ: NMJ is absolutely convinced of the righteousness of his own judgement. It's not just that he wouldn't do something he thought in his heart wasn't righteous; he's never the kind of torn he is shown to be in FJ, and he never doubts his own judgement. When NHS challenges him here on whether he's qualified to decide the fate of evildoers, who are after all still evil, part of him clearly thinks NHS has a point. But NMJ absolutely, one hundred percent believes in his right to play—if you'll pardon the phrase—judge, jury, and executioner. It's not just JGY, although it very much is, also, JGY; at no point does he seem to believe anything but that he has the absolute right to kill JGY if he decides to. Indeed, some of his worst violence to JGY is a result of JGY challenging his assertions of righteousness, at the stairs. We see it with XY, both in MDZS and arguably even more clearly in CQL as well: in episode 10 he instantly decides that XY should be executed, and is about to carry out that execution when WWX intervenes—and then he's offended about WWX's intervention! The only reason he doesn't carry out the execution on the spot is MY's argument that keeping XY alive can be used to harm the Wen. And, of course, we see it with his attitude to WQ and WN, although people are so often determined to ignore this. Please note that he argues /against/ JC and LXC's defense of them, both in MDZS and in CQL; if ever there was a single incident that could have changed at all how things came out, it would be the very respected sect leader Nie, whose sect is after the Jin the strongest surviving sect post-Sunshot, speaking out in their defense at the conference convened to determine what to do about the fact that WWX just made off with them.

Now, thematically, I think part of the point of his character is that his inflexibility is...well, inflexible; his condemnation of people who are in bad positions does more harm than good. Returning to JGY for a moment, I also think it's telling that NMJ doesn't take effective action to accomplish his goals re: XY. This isn't even just because JGY killed him—if he had actually killed JGY instead, then he would have found quite suddenly that he'd killed Lianfang-zun, the war hero who killed WRH, his own sworn brother, JGS' beloved son, etc etc etc. It would not have gone well for him. Part of the point is that—in a corrupt system, acting as though the system isn't corrupt will itself lead to injustice. Making NMJ himself knowingly complicit in the corruption of that system rather defeats that point.

I am also, I admit, /extremely/ annoyed that /he/ is offered the understanding that he had no choice because of his position, while JGY's difficulties are ignored, and when a) although from what we see in MDZS it would certainly have been quite difficult, he did actually have a choice b) the movie strongly suggests (with the ready willingness of the Nie men to follow him when he rejects the ancestral method of balancing, their respect for sabre-weak NHS, and the lack of opposition from any other area) that it would not, actually, have been that difficult, socially speaking.

I think in terms of the effects this has on people's interpretations of JGY, probably this makes them think that NMJ at the stairs rejects the specifics of JGY's argument, and contributes to a general lack of engagement with the substance of what JGY is actually saying (and the lack of substance of NMJ's reply). People mostly ignore NMJ's similar stance towards WQ, so I suspect this doesn't have much effect there; I have on occasion seen the claim that he was right to condemn her as well, but I mostly don't think it was coming from an FJ-inspired place.

When it comes to NHS…mmm. As I said, CQL makes him less amoral at the beginning, although it doesn't prevent his total—I'm not even sure you can say 'carelessness towards collateral damage' in the current timeline when from his perspective collateral damage would be a good thing, since it would be blamed on JGY. Not to mention the way he treats QS, what he's implied to do with MS' body... I suspect that FJ!NHS is where you get man-of-the-people NHS, who would /totally/ have built those watchtowers instead of that awful JGY if that awful JGY hadn't cruelly murdered his brother because a) he's Evil and/or b) he's ambitious (and also evil), and what other considerations could there possibly be?

To which I can only say: fucking spare me. I suspect the characterization here of NHS and of the Nie men contributes generally to fandom's idea of a much more gentle and progressive cultivation world than either MDZS or CQL supports.

In summation: FJ is, considered as providing any kind of interpretive light on CQL and/or MDZS characters, a terrible movie. If you are not fully familiar with the relevant portions of MDZS, I don't see how you could come away from this without absorbing significant falsehoods. Although I certainly can't and indeed don't wish to tell anyone what they should or should not consider canon, I do think it's important to know that incorporating FJ into your personal canon is going to result in an extremely different characters than not doing so, and if you want to argue with CQL or MDZS fans about characters' characterizations based on FJ, it's not going to be a very productive discussion for anyone involved.

A few miscellaneous notes:

-The change in the narrative of NMJ's violence extends beyond the replacement of his primary target. In fact, there are three things in particular I want to pull out.

First, and despite his near assault of NHS, FJ!NMJ is portrayed as much less...well, scary, than MDZS NMJ, and even to some extent CQL NMJ. NMJ habitually takes out his anger in undirected violence towards objects—the boulder when he hears his men talking about MY, the boulder(/pillar in CQL) after MY kills WRH, the door he kicks open to kill JGY before he qi-deviates, the table he cracks in his anger around NHS delighting in fans rather than knowing where he sabre is; even, though here at least it is a clear deliberate choice, his burning of NHS' things. In FJ—well, I don't want to say there's none of that, he does at least break NHS' paintbrush and I could be misremembering other things, but it certainly seems a lot less prevalent. And more than that, people simply don't react to him as terrifying! In FJ, NHS after NMJ /nearly hits him/ is still a lot less scared of NMJ's anger than NHS is in this parallel scene in MDZS, where he does not (ch 49):

One day, the moment he returned to the main hall of the Unclean Realm, he saw about a dozen folding fans, all lined in gold, flattened out one next to the other in front of Nie HuaiSang, who was touching them tenderly, mumbling as he compared the inscriptions written on each one. Immediately, veins protruded from Nie MingJue’s forehead, “Nie HuaiSang!”

Nie HuaiSang fell at once.

He really did fall to his knees from the terror. He only staggered up after he finished kneeling, “B-b-b-brother.”

Nie MingJue, “Where is your saber?”

Nie HuaiSang cowered, “In… in my room. No, in the school grounds. No, let me… think…”

Wei WuXian could feel that Nie MingJue almost wanted to hack him dead right there, “You bring a dozen fans with you wherever you go, yet you don’t even know where your own saber is?!”

Nie HuaiSang hurried, “I’ll go find it right now!”

Nie MingJue, “There’s no need! Even if you find it you won’t get anything out of it. Go burn all of these!”

All of the color drained out of Nie HuaiSang’s face. He rushed to pull all of the fans into his arms, pleading, “No, Brother! All of these were given to me!”

Nie MingJue slammed his palm onto a table, causing it to crack, “Who did? Tell them to scurry out here right now!”

Even though he nearly hits NHS, even though he actually kills many of his own men, he is simply not presented as nearly as scary.

Second, and not unrelatedly, in FJ the narrative focus of the consequence of NMJ's violence is on his own pain at his men's death, and NHS' pain at seeing him kill them. In MDZS, this is more complicated. We see, of course, his violence to JGY, and the consequences to JGY of that violence; at the stairs, for example, kicking JGY down the stairs he gives him another head wound to add to the one Madam Jin gave him. Moreover, his increasing rage actually /damages/ his relationship with NHS. We see this notably in NHS' reaction to NMJ burning his things (ch 49):

Nie HuaiSang’s eyes brimmed red. He didn’t even make a sound. Jin GuangYao added, “It’s alright even if the things are gone. Next time I can find you more…”

Nie MingJue interrupted, his words like ice, “I’ll burn them each time he brings them back into this sect.”

Anger and hatred suddenly flashed across Nie HuaiSang’s face. He threw his saber onto the ground and yelled, “Then burn them!!!”

Jin GuangYao quickly stopped him, “HuaiSang! Your brother is still angry. Don’t…”

Nie HuaiSang roared at Nie MingJue, “Saber, saber, saber! Who the fuck wants to practice the damn thing?! So what if I want to be a good-for-nothing?! Whoever that wants to can be the sect leader! I can’t learn it means I can’t learn it and I don’t like it means I don’t like it! What’s the use of forcing me?!”

He then runs off the field and locks himself in his rooms, not even letting anyone in to bring him medicine. The next we hear about NHS is in the next scene, not two months later, when LXC describes NMJ's recent troubles (ch 50): "These past few days, he has been deeply troubled by the saber spirit, and HuaiSang has argued with him again." Now, they clearly continue to love each other, and NHS is clearly devastated by NMJ's death; but in the months leading up to NMJ's death, their relationship was unusually strained, not closer than ever.

Thirdly, I think the narrative ends up distorting the way NMJ's sabre rages work. Not completely—the example where he almost punches NHS is actually a pretty good example—but consider his final violence to his men. He kills them, /not/ because in his rage he feels that killing them would be righteous punishment for whatever they have done, but because he hallucinates that they are WRH's puppets. But I don't believe we see NMJ hallucinate anything until he actually qi-deviates—at which point he hallucinates that they are /JGY/, and while in CQL at least JGY has confessed to the corrupted music before he starts hallucinating JGYs, in MDZS his anger is, again, about how JGY was talking about him to LXC. When NMJ is violent to people under the effects of the sabre curse, it is because he is angry, and in his anger that violence feels reasonable. There is not as far as I can tell anything that suggests that his sabre-affected rages feel differently from the inside than his more regular rages—nor do we ever see him apologize for the harm he does in his rages, precisely because, to him, his rage and hence his subsequent violence feel like entirely appropriate responses to the situation. I think this goes to point two, above; it would be harder to induce sympathy for NMJ if, say, he killed his men because they were challenging him, and at no point acknowledged he has been wrong to do so.

-You could probably do something interesting here with considering this movie as splitting JGY's character between NMJ (the man who makes difficult decisions due to his political position), NHS (the weak but skilled cultivator), and NZH (the loyal and extremely competent subordinate), even as it ignores the much greater difficulty of JGY's position, that his weakness is because he lacked NHS' opportunities and his skill obtained despite lacking them, that unlike FJ NMJ he actually does need to make those difficult decisions to achieve his goals and does indeed achieve them, etc. This is left as an exercise to the reader.

-I greatly resent the clear and extensive visual parallels between NHS' bow to JGY, at the end of the film, and MY's bow to JGS after JGS kicks him down the Jinlintai stairs, and the way the similarity is taken as indicating parallels beyond the visual. This is, first, because their positions are not at all the same. I am certainly not saying NHS' position was in any way comfortable or good; nevertheless, he is at that moment a clan leader who is surrounded by men who, from the film, would not hesitate to die at his command. There is not really anything about the presentation of the Nie men in FJ that suggests that if NHS went outside that room with JGY and announced to them that JGY had killed NMJ and they should attack him now, his men would do anything other than try to kill JGY immediately at his command. This was, needless to say, very much not the position of the young teenager MY, far from home, injured, humiliated, and made a public joke; perhaps more subtle is that NHS' position at NMJ's death, though he is politically weak and though he has just suffered a devastating loss, is still more secure than /JGY's/ at the same, as JGY—far from being a clan leader with the absolute obedience of his men—is not even JGS' acknowledged heir. Indeed, in many ways the focus of NHS' enmity on /JGY/, rather than JGS who commands him, is an extension of NMJ's focus on JGY rather than JGS when it comes to achieving XY's execution, and in both cases extremely advantageous to JGS. Certainly NMJ would not have been able to get away with harassing Zixuan as he does JGY on the matter of XY; likewise, JGS would never have risked Zixuan in an attempt to kill NMJ as he does JGY. The advantage of JGY as assassin is that if he kills NMJ, JGS wins; if NMJ kills him, JGS also wins (an incalculable political advantage); and if he is caught, his background makes him both easily severable and an ideal scapegoat. Also returning to framing of the bow—and while this is much more trivial it is a recurring petty imitation—I have seen matched gifsets suggesting that JGY was also swearing revenge on JGS at this moment.

-The last words JGY says to NHS are "Restrain your grief;" in English of course this comes across as extremely insensitive, but see drwcn's post for some cultural context; it's actually a common expression of condolences.

-I believe this is whence the idea that MY's headpiece in CQL used to be NHS', because we see kid NHS wearing it in the flashbacks; let us say, if you don't feel the need to accept FJ as canon, I don't think you need to accept that, either.

Previous

[mirandagoing4baroque]

Agrippina at the Met

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away, back in the before times, I traveled to New York to see Agrippina. I saw the last production in the show’s run, and one of the last operas performed at the Met this year. I returned from that trip on March 9 and entered social distancing March 13, when the guidance came out that people who had been to New York should self-quarantine. I say the above partially as an excuse for why this review is so late, and partially for some context. Agrippina was supposed to be the highlight of my season this year. Instead it was the end.

My father and I bought our tickets for Agrippina as soon as they went on sale, over a year before the night we intended to attend the show. The plans were made, the train tickets to New York booked, the arrangements to stay with friends made. Dinner reservations made. A week before the appointed hour, we got a text from our friend “are you still planning to come? People here are freaking out about the coronavirus.” We talked it over, and determined that if the opera was on, we would go. The opera was on, so we went.

After a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant (also my last meal in a restaurant) on the way to Lincoln Center, we made our way to the opera house. Both my father and I had been to the Met before (I had a particularly memorable trip to see La Donna Del Lago), but we had never been together. We took a tour around the various levels, admiring the history and art, before taking our seats. The curtin was bedecked with a giant painting of a wolf with engorged teats, upon which two human infants were suckling. It was clearly a depiction of the twins and the founding of Rome. 

For you see Agrippina is a story of Agrippina the Younger and her attempts to get her son Nero (in this opera called Nerone), on the throne of Rome. I usually try to race through these, but when there's a lot of distance to cover, there's only so fast you can go. The story begins, she has just received word that her husband the emperor Claudius (here Claudio) has been drowned at sea. She plots to seize the opening to have her son named emperor by popular acclaim. The senate consents and Agrippina and Nero begin to ascend the steps to the throne, but this is only like half an hour into this opera, so there’s no way this is going to work. And sure enough, before they reach their (well Agrippina’s, Nerone is a little more conflicted) goal, a messenger arrives saying that Claudio has survived, saved by the general Otho. The two men arrive in the city and everyone except Agrippina rejoices. 

It is announced that Claudio has named Otho his heir. Agrippina is furious. But then Otho lets it slip to Agrippina that he loves Poppea and cares more for her than the throne. Agrippina uses this info to manipulate Poppea into rejecting Otho, by telling Poppea that Otho gave her up in exchange for the throne. You see Claudio also loves Poppea, though unlike Otho, his love is not reciprocated. Agrippina further tells Poppea that she can get revenge by telling Claudio that she can’t see him anymore because Otho said so. Claudio storms off in a huff. I swear I am trying to do this quickly; I’ve cut several subplots already.  Otho’s coronation day arrives. Claudio, angry about the Poppea thing, disavows Otho. One by one, all the other characters turn their backs on him. He despairs. 

Poppea is moved by the despair and wonders if her beloved might be innocent. She sets up a trap, and discovers Otho’s innocence. Agrippina convinces Claudio that Otho is still plotting against him, and implores Claudio to abdicate in favor of Nerone for the Emperor’s own safety. Nerone declares his love for Poppea because why the hell not. In a scene in which three people (Nerone, Claudio, Otho) are hidden in the closets of her bedroom, Poppea rejects Nerone, and convinces Claudio that Otho is not plotting against him. Nerone, in a fit of rage forswears romantic love in favor of political ambition. Claudio calls everyone together and announces that the throne will go to Otho and Poppea will wed Nerone. Everyone freaks out, as this is the opposite of what everyone wants. Claudio changes his mind. The end. (Deep breath).

Agrippina was the first major operatic work that Handel wrote, and it definitely shows. I mean, that plot, am I right? But there is a lot to like, musically, here. The orchestra was excellent, though frequent readers of this blog will not be surprised that I lament the lack of period instruments. But Harry Bicket can do no wrong stylistically and the orchestra acquitted themselves admirably. I found the second act much stronger than the first. I think this is just that the first act is mostly set up (it takes up more than two thirds of the summary above) and the emotional pay off mostly comes in the back half, which is where Handel can truly shine.

I was a little nervous, because the reviews of this production had been mixed. It appeared that the staging was a “strong flavor” and the reactions had been intense, with some loving the somewhat madcap, updated staging, and others finding it distracting. I was somewhere in the middle. Overall, I think the staging was a value add. The director seemed to be on a mission to see how far he could stretch the original libretto to accommodate new situations. There were times when it worked (turning the racing clouds in Nerone’s final aria to cocaine), and times when it did not (setting Poppea and Otho’s reconciliation in a bar). The secondary mission of the director seemed to be to make things as difficult as possible for the singers, who by and large rose to the challenge with aplomb.  Kate Lindsay was given a particularly hard row to hoe, and my lord she triumphed. 

The cast not only surmounted the acting challenges laid before them, they were all quite capable vocally.  As I have mentioned before, when it comes to roles originally written for castrati I am generally in the camp of sisters (mezzos) before misters (countertenors). Sorry guys, it’s not personal, some of you are quite lovely. And with respect to the thumb headed henchmen, I would have rather had mezzos in those roles. But Otho was played quite capably by Iestyn Davies. I had the great fortune of hearing him sing Eustazio at the Lyric Opera almost a decade ago, and he was an exceptionally winning Otho. My heart broke for him when he was rejected by all his friends one by one and was left alone. It was one of the most moving moments of the opera for me.  Matthew Rose was a capable Claudio, neither particularly distinguishing himself, nor giving me any cause for complaint.

The true standouts of this production were the women. As you may remember from my trip to the Lyric opera over a year ago, Brenda Rae is not a new name to me. She was a highlight of Ariodante, so I was very much looking forward to her performance as Poppea. Her voice was lovely, but at times seemed too small for the house. I quite enjoyed her interpretation of Poppea though: a savvy, good hearted woman who is doing her best. Hashtag relatable. (Especially in the scene where she eats a whole box of chocolates in an oversized sweater).

I’ll get to Joyce DiDonato in a minute, but you all already know that I’ll think she was awesome. I want to talk about Kate Lindsay. Who took every curveball the director threw at her and said “Yeah I can do that; I can make that awesome.” Her tatted up, bad boy Nerone channeled Beiber, and did coke, and moonwalked up stairs while singing arias. And after all that, when most of us mortals would be curled in a small ball, she sang an aria WHILE HOLDING A PLANK. Sang the aria beautifully, loudly, as if she were standing in her shower. I don’t know what supernatural creature got bored and decided being an opera singer on earth would be fun, but I’m super glad one did. I had heard of Kate Lindsay, but I had not heard her, and, friends, I was missing out. Her voice had pop. It had feeling, it had control, it had everything. She is doing Sesto next season (god willing and the creek don’t rise), and I am ready to cry my eyes out when she sings Cara Speme.

Joyce DiDonato. I don’t have a lot to say I haven’t already said before. To quote Hamilton “Look around, Look around, How lucky we are to be alive right now.” Right now being the time when we have the privilege of hearing Joyce DiDonato sing Handel. I am so, so, grateful to be able to type the following: this was not the best Handel I’ve heard her sing. The role is just not as good as some of the roles in his other operas. But Joyce DiDonato singing Handel is like pizza. It’s just gonna be good. And this was. As always, she had the highlight of the show for me. It wasn’t one of the big showy arias though. It was the small quiet moment Agrippina has with her husband at the very end of the show. She sings:

“Se vuoi pace, oh volto amato, l'odio reo fuga da te!...

“If you want peace, my love, Banish hate from your mind!...

[My best attempt at a translation aided by three years of Latin and Google Translate]

Yes, as per usual, Agrippina is manipulating him. But Joyce DiDonato is such a master, and she paints such a lovely and peaceful image that it’s hard not to want to live there. May everyone who wants such a place be able to find it in these trying times.

[ramblesandmumblesofanerd]

Rambling Reviews: Sherlock Hound

Warning: Lengthy Post Which Contains Minor Spoilers

When people are reminded of the name Hayao Miyazaki, one tends to remember his career in cinematic Japanese animations. This man has quite a lengthy resume of films, including Ponyo, Porco Roso, Nausica, The Cat Returns, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, and my all time favorite of his films Spirited Away. But beneath the piles of films that have made their way to the US, there is one lesser known project Miyazaki worked on that I have come to enjoy immensely. From 1984, created from the combined efforts of Hayao Miyazaki and Kyouske Mikuriya, I present to you the Italian-Japanese animated series “Sherlock Hound”.

Now, from the title alone, this sounds like a silly idea. I mean, come on, it is literally Sherlock Holmes, the iconic detective of nineteenth century London made by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a dog. It sounds like it is going to be a silly cartoon with tons of elements to appeal to kids. And to be fair, you wouldn’t be blamed for thinking so, but you would be only partially right. While it is true that this series does feature a cast of anthropomorphic characters, all of whom are some breed of dog, it is surprisingly not that distracting and doesn’t take center stage. They don’t have Sherlock sniffing the ground for clues like a dog normally would, but they do utilize his heightened sense of smell whenever the story requires it. They have legitimate mysteries in each episode, but they also have goofy bad guys with gadgets. The characters use actual guns with actual bullets, but no one gets hurt. So, what I’m saying is while this show does have a child friendly concept with colorful imagery, it finds a way to balance things out by having more mature elements like thought provoking mysteries and memorable characters.

Speaking of, let’s get acquainted with those characters, shall we? We first have the titular Sherlock Hound, voiced by Larry Moss (the Elder from “Happy Feet”). Unlike his human counterpart from BBC’s Sherlock, Hound is a bit more warm and caring in spite of his eccentricities. He enjoys the company of his friends and colleagues, such as the headstrong Doctor Watson (voiced by the late Lewis Arquette) and the sweet Mrs. Marie Hudson (voiced by Patricia Paris, aka Kanga from Winnie the Pooh), and can even tolerate children, playing along with most of their games. Also, you won’t find him in his a depressed demeanor, unlike his namesake, nor will you find him partaking in drugs unless you count the tobacco pipe constantly in his mouth. However, in spite of these changes, he remains the ever dedicated detective capable of solving any mystery that comes his way either by the request of the bumbling Detective Inspector Lestrade (voiced again by Lewis Arquette) or by sheer chance.

But every Sherlock cannot function for long without their personal Moriarty, the criminal who discovered personal freedom by rejecting societal norms. But how does Sherlock Hound handle the iconic villain? Well, I will say that if you are looking for a Victorian criminal mastermind, you will not find him here, sadly. What you will find, however, is an amusing if not cheesy display made by the late Hamilton Camp, a veteran voice actor/songwriter/composer. Clad in an all white get up consisting of a three piece suit, cape, top hat, cane and monocle, he is the epitome of campy bad guys, proclaiming his genius at the beginning of every episode only to be defeated in a variety of embarrassing ways. With the questionable help of his bumbling henchmen Smiley and Todd (voiced by Larry Moss and Lewis Arquette again), he plans to steal whatever riches he can get his gloved hands on through the power of gadgets and trickery. I do have to admit, this is an amusing interpretation of the character, in spite of him being a polar opposite of his original counterpart. He is always so sure of himself, and, to be fair, he is quite brilliant in his brand of villainy as he does get away with a lot of crimes right from under the nose of the inept Scotland Yard until Sherlock Hound inevitably corners him.

Which reminds me, there is one aspect of the show that might seem formulaic at first glance. Most of the episodes seem to follow a similar flow of events: Moriarty commits a crime, Scotland Yard is too incompetent to catch him, Sherlock follows the clues to the inevitable encounter between him and the villain, and a defeated Moriarty runs away with Scotland Yard at his tail. While this may seem a tad repetitive, the real content comes from the mystery and build-up to it’s conclusion. Each mystery is different, with some not even having Moriarty as the main villain (though these episodes are admittedly somewhat rare). My two favorite episodes which break the conventional mold are “Mrs. Hudson is Taken Hostage”, which features Moriarty obviously taking Sherlock’s housekeeper as leverage, and “The Bell of Big Ben”, a Moriarty focused episode featuring the Professor trying to prove to all of London that he has indeed stolen the bell straight from the iconic clock-tower. Sure some pieces of the formula are still present, but the occasional divergence certainly livens up the show from time to time.

But a cartoon is nothing without cohesive, proper animation, and Sherlock Hound is no exception. I must say that the animation done by Tokyo Movie Shinsha is pretty well done for the time Sherlock Hound was released. The characters are colorful, yet the palette is not so bright that the audience is blinded. The animation feels solid and less rubbery than most modern day cartoons. The backgrounds range from lush and warm to dark and terrifying whenever the story demands it. The only nitpicky complaint I would have to make would be the sometimes dodgy lip-syncing seen in the English Dub. Sometimes random noises will come out of character’s mouth when there was undoubtedly dialogue in the original Japanese Dub, but I’m willing to overlook this due to the time when this anime was dubbed.

Speaking of which, how is the dub? Well...it’s hit and miss to me personally. While I do enjoy the voice acting of the main characters, a lot of the background characters sound a tad awkward, and I believe I know the reason why. Sadly, it seems that the studio only had a few voice actors, and thus numerous background characters will have the same voice actor as Sherlock or Moriarty. While this is not too much of a problem for characters like Todd and Smiley (again voiced by Sherlock and Watson’s voice actors), other minor characters have voices that are too similar to the main cast to ignore. However, I feel that the sheer campiness of the dialogue, especially from Moriarty, makes up for this admittedly minuscule complaint. There is also the fact that the equipment used to record all of the voice acting at the time pales in comparison to modern day technology, but this doesn’t bother me too much personally either.

All in all, as a fan of Sherlock Holmes and anime, I cannot recommend this show enough. While some features may feel a tad dated in comparison to modern day cartoons, the antiquity actually helps in making this show feel like a genuinely unique viewing experience. The basic premise of Sherlock Holmes as a dog goes from being a silly idea to a well executed concept within the first episode. The characters are fun to watch, the villain is riot, the mysteries (while not complex) are amusing, the animation is spot on for the time period, and the voice acting is, for the most part, passably enjoyable. If you want to watch Sherlock Hound, you can watch it for free at the TMS Entertainment YouTube channel (though, for some reason, the episodes are out of order, as you can see on the official Wikipedia page).

But in the meantime, never stop rambling, TM

Thanks to @sherlysthougths, a massive fan of Sherlock Holmes, for introducing me to this show.

Reblogs are always appreciated. YouTube version: Yet to be made.