Karas is a six part OVA. The first DVD, Karas:Prophecy, contains the first three parts woven into a single feature length movie. The story is set in the not-too-distant future in Tokyo which is a city populated by both humans and various supernatural beings. The balance between these two dimensions has long been upheld by a young woman called Yuri and her servent the city’s guardian raven Karas.
Karas are armored warriors. Only people who know extreme sorrow can become Karas. When commanded by the spirit Yuri these individuals becomes clothed in impenetrable armour and wield extremely powerful swords. Upon becoming Karas, the individual gains the ability to move with incredible speed and attack with amazing physical and magic power. At times, they can be moving so fast that it appears that everything around them is moving very slowly or has stopped moving completely.
Together Yuri and her Karas maintain the balance by ensuring that demons do not interfere in the lives of humans. But over time that balance was thrown into disarray when humans stopped believing in demons and stopped living in fear of them. During Japan’s Edo period the chosen Karas, disgusted by the arrogance of humans, turns his back on the laws he had once upheld, and takes the form of a human named Eku, while creating an army of Mikura, or mechanized demons, to ready an attack on the human race.
Fast forward to the future and Eku is now a wealthy magnate and his powers as a Karas have grown immeasurably. In the three hundred years or so since he betrayed his calling he has hunted down and killed every new Karas Yuri has trained. In fact the DVD opens with an incredible battle between Eku and another Karas, the fight ends when Eku dismembers and then kills opponent with ease. Yuri leaves and returns three years later with Otoha who we are led to believe is destined to defeat Eku.
Karas:Prophecy is absolutely stunning featuring some brilliant character and set designs and amazing 2D/3D hybrid animation. In terms of sound and visuals I can’t think of any other anime that comes close to this! The hyper-kinetic fight scenes are truly visceral and probably not for the squeamish.
The plot is fairly complex and I can understand why some people might struggle to keep up with it and whilst Otoha is the hero of the piece much more time is devoted to some of the characters and this is at times irritating since we don’t really get to learn as much about him as we might like. Nevertheless it’s still an amazing movie and I thoroughly recommend it!
Also the second DVD, Karas:Revelation, which contains the final three parts is being released on the 23rd October and if the visuals in the trailer are anything to go by the this second feature length movie might very well have surpassed the first.
You can watch the trailer below, enjoy:
Find out more at: http://www.karas-movie.com