CinemaSerf

“Gudo” is tasked with taking the recently deceased to the great waterfall where they are to depart for their reincarnation on it’s other side. That’s really only possible, though, if they are clear of knots on the threads of their lives. These are caused when a person has some source of resentment or anger accrued throughout their lifetime and the benign Goddess “Mira” has assigned him a particularly difficult task with “Yuri” whose history is intertwined with events from a life that has been fraught, at times difficult and left her angry. Only by working together to face down those demons can “Yuri” ever hope to be born again. As their story unravels, the relationship between them transcends the usual boundaries between helper and helped and it soon becomes clear that “Gudo” and perhaps even the Goddess herself might be at risk if their other world becomes contaminated. The story isn’t the easiest to follow, I found. We start amidst a dynastic struggle with a princess unsure whether a general or a minister was responsible for the death of her kingly father, but that story rather peters out as we travel across timelines and the promising adventure elements become rather more subsumed into a more soapy story that I didn’t find so compelling. There is some lovely detail to the animation, especially the graceful Goddess and the symbolism of the seeds of pain that corrupt the souls so readily, but I couldn’t quite get into the story as it darted about. Maybe that’s because it’s been through something of a cultural mill as it incorporates Hong Kong, Cantonese and Japanese elements into it’s presentation, but though it is a good looking production I just wasn’t gripped by the plot.