Kenya Boy – A Cinematic Masterpiece of WTF
And so begins the odyssey of WTF that is Kenya Boy . . .
I wish I had the time to give this movie the exhaustive treatment it deserves, but unfortunately, it is not to be. However, I will take the time to outline some of my favorite aspects of this amazingly bizarre movie, while leaving a few secrets for you fine viewers to discover should you take the time to watch it. And you should! This is one fucking crazy ass movie.
First, though, the basic story of Kenya Boy is that this kid, Wataru, and his family are in Africa just before the Japanese officially enter World War II. Wataru and his father go into hiding because the British will be like, “WE MUST KILL ALL ORIENTALS” and somewhere along the way, Wataru and his father become separated. The movie is about Wataru’s search for his father over the course of several years . . . along with all sorts of other craziness.
(P.S. There’s a second page for all you lazy fucks who don’t actually go to blogs themselves to read posts.)
1. Randomly shifting art styles: It’s like this was directed and animated by Natural Born Killers-era Oliver Stone, except without any semblance of a plan or reason. I can’t even really explain the art shifts, so it’s better to show off screenshots. Here they are!
You’ve got pencil sketching . . .
Normal anime style . . .
Black and white scenes with single characters colored in . . .
Soft watercolor type scenes . . .
Characters switching, um, skin color . . . (I’ll get back to this later, and by the way, this is NOT a mistake, as I will explain later.)
Bizarre squished camera angles . . .
Psychedelic craziness . . .
And there’s more than that, but you get the idea by now. Kenya Boy is a kaleidoscope of art styles, and you don’t go more than a few minutes without the animators trying something strange. I guess they got bored somewhere along the way, said “Meh, fuck it” and did whatever the hell they wanted. It’s not boring to look at, at least!
Pages: 1 2
10/20/2011 at 1:46 pm
>> Well, the deal with that is that Wataru smacks these tribesmen so hard that he literally knocks the black off them.
Thank god I read this in my room because I entirely lost my shit after reading this.
BRB WATCHING THIS SHIT RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!!!
10/21/2011 at 9:35 am
keikakudoori.jpg
10/20/2011 at 2:52 pm
Whoops, there’s a page 2. Heads up, it doesn’t show up in google reader (at least not in the mobile version) so maybe you might want to indicate that there’s a page 2 at the bottom of the first page.
10/20/2011 at 2:54 pm
I guess I’ll include an indication for all you lazy bastards! Although, honestly, I think it would be pretty obvious there’s more content since I mention at the beginning that I’ll be talking about a few things, and there’s like one thing I talk about on the first page.
10/20/2011 at 6:39 pm
it’s way less obvious than it seems, and a lot of people only read stuff in google reader. I learned this and always put a notification of page 2!
10/20/2011 at 10:48 pm
bwhahaha so glad you wrote about this movie because it needs to be seen by more people for its delightful wtf factor
glad you enjoyed yet another of my wtf recs XD
that elephant is so boss
10/21/2011 at 9:36 am
Such a BOSS.
10/21/2011 at 8:42 am
How did you even find this movie? Crazy stuff :p
10/21/2011 at 9:36 am
It was reviewed at The Nihon Review, and Kylaran (also of The Nihon Review) also talked about it when I roomed with him during Anime Expo.
10/21/2011 at 10:51 am
Must watch. Acquiring immediately.
10/21/2011 at 8:54 pm
Excellent. *tents fingers*
10/21/2011 at 8:52 pm
Now, imagine Wataru…
…as the lead of Sister Princess.
10/21/2011 at 8:54 pm
He would be a MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better lead, let me tell you.
10/22/2011 at 8:04 am
Oh man, I’d heard stories about this movie but this post seals the deals! DL’ing right now!
Considering how westerners are often portrayed in anime, I suppose it was a bit much to expect sensitive treatment of Africans. Then again, who am I to be judgemental; I’ve been laughing for the last 5 minutes!
11/09/2011 at 3:46 pm
I love your description of this movie! It IS totally WTF. The dinosaurs, the Godzilla-sized frog… The changing art styles sort of add to the awesomeness. Some of the tribes are portrayed as intelligent, others are jabbering buffoons. It’s just more WTF.
12/20/2011 at 9:20 am
[...] Boy is freakin’ awesome, but I’m not sure enough people watched it after I posted about it the first. (Other than good ol’, dependable Digiboy, that is. A true bro.) So here’s something [...]