Audience reviews
5 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Stephen2D
A belated, yet remarkable directorial debut for the producer Akio Nishizawa is an award-winning historical drama set in the Meiji era and adopted from Kazuo Daijō’s novel. Its story revolves around a young man, Nitaro, who loses his eyesight at the age of eight and later becomes the creator of Tsugaru-shamisen style, through many tribulations and by virtue of his perseverance.
In portraying Nitaro’s zeal and the vanity of his competitors, Nishizawa demonstrates a keen sense of humanity and characterization, as well as the clarity of expression. Simultaneously, he represents the Japanese society of the time – class distinctions, the extent of Western influence and the clash between the modern and the traditional – whereby he achieves a perfect balance of form and style.
Intoxicating, touc…
Read at the sourceNervin
It is the 19th century of Japan, an age where the gap between the poor and the rich were as day and night, and thus having a fully functional body was required to survive. However, when a young boy is afflicted by a sudden illness that leaves him blind, he is left to cope with the struggle on being a drag to his father, and with that, his future. Ridden with insecurity, the 8-year-old child by the name of Nitaro found solace in music, specifically the shamisen, a traditional thee-stringed instrument. Nitaboh ultimately narrates the tale of a blind man and his journey to mastering the shamisen.
The premise may seem uninteresting for some audiences, yet Nitaboh's strength lies in exactly that: a down to earth tale of man, which was based on a real story. With that the anime sets itself apar…
Read at the sourceJolon
Nitaboh is not an anime that will appeal to a general audience. Its fanbase is, indeed, about as narrow as that of the Shamisen music the film revolves around.
Casting itself as a biopic, Nitaboh could have chosen to focus entirely on the life of Nitaroh and his attempts to play the Shamisen, and indeed it tells that story as well as a movie could, but the film does not confine itself to the theme of blind musicians.
Set in a time of great social change for Japan, in a rural area where that change is slow to take root, Nitaboh examines the inequality of societal castes and depicts the gradual changing of the guard. Police of the Meiji State are clad in French-inspired uniforms and sport western moustache that stand out sharply with the rest of the populace. The disorder brought about by…
Read at the sourcefeeq
"Don't just follow the path of others, play your own Music!"
Well, the story is set at 1868 which is the beginning of the Meiji period & end of the Edo period. So you might expect the story to be about political troubles or Samurai conflicts, but that’s not the case. You get to experience that time from a different angle, an angle of music!
Story:
It begins with a boy who's playing the flute as a hobby, until tragedy befalls him and he's blinded, to compensate he dives deeper into the world of music.
He hears a Samurai monk performing and he decides to be just like him, but he's told no because of his lowly social status which was important to play music at the time. Nonetheless he falls in love music & in particular with the sounds of the Shamisen & decides to dive deeper.
The story…
Read at the sourceBeatnik
Nitaboh gives a unique twist on the popular theme of depicting the changes that swept through Japan towards the end of the 19th century. What we're usually accustomed to in media are the lives of the samurai being impacted by the Meiji Restoration; the end of the shogunate and the influx of western influence. Instead of that, here we see the opening up of Japan enabling a son of a waterman achieve his dream of playing the shamisen.
It's not a simple tale of a boy wanting something and setting out to do it. The film begins with Nitaroh and his widowed father living a simple life. The boy has a gift for music; it's nothing more than a hobby at this point. Tragedy strikes in the form of Nitaroh losing his sight, but an inspirational meeting with a wandering shamisen player prompts him to lea…
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