Scarlet (2025)

[Drunk Monk]

Scarlet is the princess daughter of King Amleth of Denmark. Flip that h to the front and it’s the cipher. This is a surreal take on Hamlet where Scarlet is the child looking to avenge the murder of her father by his brother Claudius. The story is changed but the names remain the same.

Claudius poisons Scarlet and she wakes up in the otherworld, a wasteland purgatory. She meets a 21st century medic Hijiri and they travel together in the land of the dead. Claudius is there too, guarding the gate to the infinite land behind a massive army. It’s dazzlingly abstract with several hallucinatory dives into trippy animation. The anime style is astonishingly detailed and textured. This must have been stunning on the big screen. Ultimately it’s a tale of forgiveness. 

Lots of sword fights and they are quite good for anime. The overall scope is visionary with panoramic landscapes, massive crowd scenes, a gargantuan dragon and a few Bollywood dance numbers. 

When I started watching this, I was thinking ‘Am I still really watching cartoons in my sixties?’ But halfway through as those visuals start to really kick in I thought ‘Hell yeah! This is awesome!’

D00M recommeded if you’d like to see something fresh in anime.