Audience reviews
18 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Hvar
Similar to the manga, outside of its art and visuals, this movie wasn’t engaging for me. Because of that, I actually think the movie is more worthwhile than the source material: the characters are hollow either way, so skipping over all the scenes that are supposedly there to build them up doesn’t affect the story whatsoever. In the end, whether one reads the manga or watches the movie, the point still stands: there’s no discernible logic behind the characters’ actions or goals.
CLAMP’s works — at least as far as «RG Veda», «Tokyo Babylon», and «X» are concerned — lean heavily into sentimentality, almost to the point of becoming mawkish. These stories place immense focus on preordained fate, which is something I both strongly disagree with and dislike seeing in fiction. The idea that ever…
Read at the sourceIrkis
I would say that this film is an example of why you shouldn't try to adapt an entire long work into 1 hour and 30 minutes.
It's not that it's a bad movie; it's quite competent at what it does, the animation is truly beautiful, and it has good sound design. But the fact that it's an hour and a half long means that the story and the characters suffer from having little to no time to develop everything.
I managed to understand the basics of the story, even though it seems a bit confusing; it's basically that old story of good versus evil, those who will destroy humanity and those who are protecting it. However, we have so little time to explain the general motivations that it seems like everyone is just killing each other for no reason.
And it's hard to get attached to a character when you o…
Read at the sourcezettai-jin-stray
Rintaro adapts X by Clamp, and the scenario of the movie is different from the manga which I believed hadn’t continued long enough for it to be a full drama. Rintaro had previously done a music video for X in 1993, so it makes me wonder if Rintaro had an interest in making animations of it because of its similarities to Genma Taisen, psychics in an urban setting saving the world from apocalypse. On all three of these animations, Yoshinori Kanada is a key animator, and his synergy with Rintaro is spectacular. Rintaro was known for having sequences planned for him. Anyway, the resulting movie is one of breathtaking animation sequences and Rintaro’s one of a kind stylism. Rintaro said he wouldn’t have Oshii be the only one destroying Tokyo in theater animation and he certainly had less restra…
Read at the sourceBuba707
Wow…… all that can be said X/1999 the movie is what happens is when you take a shojo manga get one of the best directors in the industry to work on it, and you get one of the greatest animated films ever made that infinitely elevates the source material , This is director Rintaro at his most raw and unrestrained. Every frame and action scene a painting the entire film is the theoretical third act of the X manga and by God it delivers, Scenes can be beautiful and poetic, yet visceral and profoundly disturbing, leading to a tragic yet beautiful ending. I know lots of people throughout the years have hated this film but I implore you watch it in a dark room and indulge in the gorgeous animation and moody atmosphere I promise it’ll be worth it, a 10/10 up with Galaxy express 999 and ponyo for…
Read at the sourceghostbishnu
This was utterly predictable.
At no point was I surprised by any plot element. The narrative leaves no room to develop a reason to care about any of the characters. The main character and his nemesis have no redeeming qualities or possess any nuance that makes them interesting. They are just functions of a 1 dimensional story. The only vaguely identifiable characteristics of the protagonist could be selfishness or cowardice.
Cliches can be useful when they are leveraged to usurp the expectations of the viewer. This was not done here.
-2 oracles gather the chosen spiritual avatars
-The chosen of the light and dark (surprise)
-2 who are close, ultimately oppose each other in 'the final battle for the future of mankind'
-The female lead serves only as a passive plot device
-Those assembl…
Read at the sourceReallyBigMistake
The movie is a much better adaptation than the series. It has excellent storytelling, huge proportions, and one of the best endings of its time. The entire point of the movie is that human actions are ultimately pointless. Keep in mind that I saw the movie before the horrible anime series that was a complete betrayal. The movie is very dark and fatalistic, it is about the future being inevitable and human actions being insufficient to prevent it from coming about. Everyone who is pulled into this cycle of death and destruction in the never ending war between the Dragons of Heaven and the Dragons of Earth is killed, and they are killed simply so that their deaths can have no meaning. The only ones who ever know that some people died to save mankind from the people who died to try ending man…
Read at the sourceStarfleeting
So, I finally found a full version of this movie and I can't say I like it much more than the first time around. The only reason I'm giving this the overall rating that I am is because the animation and art is lovely to look at. If you love animation, this is a great-looking movie.
Aside from that, I can't say it does well as a film. Even if I was more familiar with the characters (and had watched the tv show prior to this), I don't think I would be all that satisfied when barely anyone has a decent amount of time. It just jumps from character to character, scene to scene at a speed that feels like mental and emotional whiplash. Characters dying left and right and I'm just "...what the fuck is going on?"
Not really sure why this was made but at least it looks pretty?
Read at the sourceSpiritualWolf
Don't make the mistake I made by watching this before the TV series and manga, which are both so much better than this disgrace of a movie!
The story is squashed up into this 1 film which is an impossible achievement to make it any good, because everything is rushed and there is near to zero on character development as well. The ending wasn't satisfying either.
However, I will say this, the art is beautiful, and seeing as this is CLAMP, that is to be expected, and for it's time it's gorgeous to look at and even today it looks really nice, but that's about as good as it gets.
While I wouldn't say avoid this movie at all costs, it wouldn't be a shame either to do just that. If you liked the TV series and manga, then it may be an okay watch from time to time.
Read at the sourceFlawfinder
You know that maligned Rintaro adaptation of Clamp’s never-ending manga? The one that condenses the entire story in 90 minutes, and thus makes less sense than America’s gun regulations? I really love the thing. The anime. Not the fact that America has bad standards in terms of gun control.
You guys might say that the main reason for me loving this trash is related to how I love the type of post-apocalyptic story that makes up X, but I’ve shown in the past to be really harsh on premises that I like but don’t deliver – insert rant about how White Fox shows suck here. You could say that I know the characters and how things play out in actual story due to my love for the TV show – which I saw prior to seeing this – but I couldn’t get through the Diebuster movie despite loving the original OVA…
Read at the sourceramimanify
To me, X the movie was far more enjoyable than the series, contrary to the belief of many viewers who will criticize on first thought what I just said
But this is true partly due to the f act that the (Shoujo) flair that was so prominent -and in my humble opinion- needlessly abundant in the variety of scenes in the series, was nearly diminished in the movie.
Truth is, I lamented -after seeing the movie- that the series was no so portrayed, but nothing is perfect, had the series been so much as close to the movie, the whole thing would have differed.
To me, it was unfathomable why people favored the series, and not the movie adaptation.
That being said,
Story:
The story represented a big part of the series, the tragedy of one's struggle against his destiny, which comprised two counterp…
Read at the sourceShura-shurato
Yep, another wellknown classic anime movie that gets low ratings from kids that DON´T know about true art dammit! i get sick of it!. This movie was for me the 1st time very unexcpected and twisty by storyline, bought it on tape back in 1998. Clamp´s animation style kicked off with this movie worldwide and was moderatly praised, Good animation style nice 3/d scenes, very interesting charachter development. The internal struggle of some persons and supernatural fights involved are some of the best i´ve seen ever! and the dark turnaround of good and evil. just classic
Read at the sourcecatalysst
Be warned: this review does contain a few spoilers. However, I tried very hard to keep it light.
Also be warned that if you are planning to watch X, you should /not/ watch it as someone who has never /read/ X. You should read X first, then watch the movie. Otherwise you will not be able to understand or appreciate it at all. This review is, by the way, written with the assumption that you /have/ read X – but never fear, for there are very few actual spoilers for the manga and you may still read this review even if you haven’t read X. Now, let us get on to the actual review…
The majority of you are angry that X the Movie doesn’t follow X. But that’s because the majority of you are looking at the movie from the perspective of people who have read all eighteen volumes. You see, when I first…
Read at the sourceclio_selene
It's a classic. My love for CLAMP began with this movie. I saw it in 1997, in the manga con. I was overwhelmed. It's the best start of familiarizing oneself with X. Those who already read manga probably won't be delighted. It certainly lacks depths of characters and between characters - or, does it really? For me, the depth of Kamui-Fuuma relation was obvious from the very start, as well as of some other people, even if it was only slightly pointed at. Apart from this...
It's epic. Art. Psychology. Emotions. Despair, choices, fate, love, desire... Shattered glass, sakura petals, feathers, fire and water, holy swords and chosen ones. Dreams, above all. Struggling for a future.
Design is fantastic, much better than intv series. Music is... Well, I've never heard so psychedelic sound in any…
Read at the sourceIceAndCream
Let me be clear: this review is NOT for the 24-episode series "X", or even for the short prequel that was released just prior to it. Both of those are excellent animes. This is for a full length movie version that was released even before that.
Frankly, it looks like a class project done by animation students. Seriously. If a friend of mine was studying animation, and showed it to me as part of his "demo reel," I would be impressed. But it's nowhere near the quality you would expect from a distributed anime made in the 90's.
Secondly, the story is highly altered. Things are changed or scrambled around. If you have seen the series, or read the manga, it's almost unrecognizable. (Imagine those animation students up at one AM, scrambling to finish the script before the deadline.) Even thou…
Read at the sourcepoljaff
I'll try to be objective without stating the conditions, my mood and my preferences when watching this movie. I'll just point out that when I wrote this review, I considered the fact that it is actually a summary of TV series compiled of 26 episodes and made in 1996 by CLAMP, a highly appreciated group of manga-ka.
How to define what is a good anime? You consider the story and its development as a main point, the characters' originality and description, the animation and the drawing (although this can be an subjective point of view) and the sound as a whole - the voice acting and the background music.
The story in this movie, as well as in the series can be viewed only as an average and nothing new, even if we consider that this is an anime from 1996. The (un)conventional view of the ev…
Read at the sourceTeatime
This movie is horrible. It is so bad that it's entertaining. If you've never read the manga or know nothing of the characters then it will make almost no sense. If you have however it's kind of amazing to watch it all pushed together. It's almost like watching a movie condensed into 30 seconds. Only it's a long overly complicated manga plot condensed to movie length with lots of barely explained fight scenes.
It's CLAMP, so it's pretty. This is a given. But that's about all it has going for it when it comes to technical merit.
SPOILER!!!
Someone's head gets cut off practically every ten minutes (or at least dies in some gruesome way). They fit the deaths of most of the cast into the movie. Someone should turn it into a drinking game.
I think my mother summed it up best: "Who are thes…
Read at the sourceKyousukeee
SPOILER WARNING !! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK
Well , as a fan of the X series I must say I was really disappointed on this .
Mainly because they tried to fit all characters and a long and intricate story and character relationship in a 1:30 hour anime . There's only a blink of what is going on in the story , if you aren't familiar with it you won't understand anythiing at all and even if you do know the basics about the series you'll most likely be puzzled on how they shoved the story aside and turned this into a bizarre 'ending' for all characters showing what I believe to be the 'last match' between them and most characters end up dead one way or another . If you like the X series watch the TV and OAV instead .
Read at the sourceAlexius
I really didn't like this anime. I haven't seen the TV series yet, however based on what I've read here, it doesn't seem like that's a requirement. Whether or not the actual series is better, however, is not in question here. What is in question here is the quality and source of enjoyment from this movie, and in that regard I found very little.
The story seemed rehashed, recycled, and overused. Boy comes back home, meets childhood friends (one a girl who he's obviously still enamored with even after the six years he's been gone), has childhood friends taken away from him, and finds out he can save the world. Wow. While some features of the plot may have been original (the Dragons of the Earth and Heavens, for instance), too much of the story wasn't.
The art wasn't very good, and whether…
Read at the source