Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
in_situ
The last one of Project Itoh's adaptations. Technically it's one of the most beautiful anime movies out there, taking place in a gaslight-lit steampunk world with rich color palette, with lushly detailed enviromental and character designs - all whilst the complimentary 3D vfx enhances the technology presented in the film, it's along the lines of something 2017's Blame! for Netflix had going for - a similary cutting edge, but hollowed-out plot-wise adaptation.
Once again, Ito tried to grasp a different type of epoch with a wide cascade of influences surrounding it, not sticking to the same guns as a sci-fi writer. There's not only steampunk, but undead and grabbing Frankenstein, one of Карамазовы brothers, doctor Watson and even Nautilus submarine! It makes me wonder if Rasputin himself ha…
Read at the sourceTery1015
I saw this a year and a half ago yet the memory stays with me, not because it's so good but because it could have been.
The world built around this anime film is pretty vast and there is so much that happens in its runs through to the point it feels too fast or rather too perplexing when things happen to certain characters, or when the plot develops into a new phase.
The characters and setting as well felt derivative. Just taking the sort of character you'd find in sherlock Holmes novels and shoving them into a steampunk Frankenstein type world. A world that doesn't have too much going for it besides zombie helpers, and philosophical questions about the nature of life
Watching this was like a sober trip on weak Mary Jane. It's having it's effect but I'm still underwhelmed.
Read at the sourceLifuLifu
Alright, took a dive into this steampunk-zombie-ish flick recently, and let's just say... it's a mixed bag. First off, if you're thinking of giving it a whirl, do yourself a favor and avoid the DUB like it's last year's expired milk. The accents they attempted? Yikes. Felt like they were juggling too many balls, dropped a few, and decided to keep juggling.
As for the plot, imagine Swiss cheese. You got it: holey. I mean, there are moments when you think it's onto something profound, and then BAM! It throws you a curveball that has you thinking, "Wait, what?" It's like the movie itself is on a wild goose chase trying to figure out what it wants to be.
All in all, it's not the worst way to kill a couple of hours, but if you're setting your expectations sky-high, maybe lower that bar a smid…
Read at the sourcekillloop
I don't normally write reviews, but I wanted to throw in a positive one for this anime. Seems like it's pretty heavily underrated here and I'm not sure why. The story is a basic one: MC seeks to bring his boyfriend back from the dead and goes on a road trip with companions in pursuit of his goal. He gets caught up in the political and philosophical struggle of other groups attempting to obtain the 'bring-people-back-from-the-dead' technology for themselves. Pretty standard stuff; not sure why people are tripping up on it. Except for the ending, which I'll mention below.
General:
The-- I'll call it a movie; I think it was originally released as an OVA, but it fits the movie format better-- was way above my expectations. I watched it because I thought it might be bland fujo-bait with light…
Read at the sourceSara_ray
Absolute unique story!!!!! and sadly underrated anime it was based on fantasy therefore I don't understand why some are criticizing it for not being realistic and philosophical whereas it gives the chance to audience to think outside of the box and despite the fact that not all of the parts have a legit explanation, it still has a mysterious cozy winter vibe which takes you into that world and because of that its a pity that people have dropped its score and we don't see this style of art anymore :(
the sense of fashion of all the characters are very iconic and memorable.
The emotional side of the story is as well very heartwarming
Characters and background scenes are designed very beautifully and specially ahead of the time that this anime was released!
I truly recommend and wish it had b…
Read at the sourceNihtantuel
I have an interesting history with this here work of art. The first time I watched it was without hearing any sound/dialogues. I was sitting in a bar with friends and it was playing on one of the screens. So I was periodically looking up and that was how I watched entire thing for the first time. It seemed quite interesting. The art was decent and whatever was happening on the screen seemed very intriguing. But then recently I've decided to watch the whole thing properly. And God knows that was a mistake.
While the premise of the world it is set in sounds interesting - the writers did absolutely 0 with it. It seems as if the story and characters where written by a complete and utter amateur (probably drunk most of the time), who wanted something 'meaningful and philosophical' but ended wi…
Read at the sourceAlexander100bob
TLDR Version: Great animation with a very interesting first half but stale final act (with things just happening for no reason) makes this movie at a, "yeah watch it if you have time."
First, the animation in this movie is very good. 3D models almost blend in the scene. The effects and movements are smooth. Nothing is wrong with this movie animation and sound wise. The story is what really matters. The movie has 3 acts. Act 1 takes up nearly half, while act 2 takes around 20 minutes and act 3 takes 1 hour. Acts 1 and 2 are the best parts of the movies and you can enjoy the story in these parts without being confused all that much (at least I was.) Act 3 is the main problem. If I can show a graph on how confused and how many questions it'll be from 0 to 100. Things just seem to happen for…
Read at the sourceAh-hey-go
I first became aware of The Empire of Corpses before the film was even released, back in around 2014, as this was a feature film made by the same studio that created Attack on Titan. I was genuinely excited for this film to come out, then it did and I never watched it, and the longer I put off finally watching it, the more I noticed that very underwhelming average score it had on MAL.
Upon finally watching the film, I feel relatively confident in saying that if I were to describe the plot to you, you’d probably laugh at the shitty fanfiction I was describing. Dr. Watson, who the film confirms is the same Watson as from the Sherlock Holmes novels via a post-credit scene that takes place four years after the film, turns his best friend into a zombie called Friday based on the technology cre…
Read at the sourceTheHeroL1
How the hell did they waste such a great opening sequence.
Plot is absolutely convoluted as if they were baffled on how to finish the movie.
Characters are just impossible to get to attached to because of the pacing and general lack of character development. Animation is solid though. No idea why they chose the typical direction of saving the world when there were almost limitless routes the movie could of gone into.
Some of the character designs peeked my interest other times they looked incredibly typical just like the direction of the movie.
The 4 minute opener was the only redeeming quality.
Read at the sourceJaDe_Bay
The premise to this is so good even the animaton and voice acting is superb yet this film fell flat on its face. Ive never seen so much potential in something that could've had so much depth wasted. The film has an inability to focus.
It tries to do too much in a small time frame with too many characters and story lines that are either unnecessary or somewhat intresting but never explained and leaves you standing there like what was the point. The best thing about this film was Friday's and Watsons relationship that's what made the first 15 minutes of this movie good and grabs your attention.
The relationship was complicated. Friday is the corspe of Watsons deceased friend. And Watson has been trying to return Fridays soul and or find out if it still exist. You'd think that would be a…
Read at the sourceAppleDangani
Shisha No Teikoku (The Empire of the Corpses)
By: Ryoutarou Makihara
Dated: February 26, 2019
Overall: 6
Plot: 5/10
"This one looks great, I'm going to watch it." That's the first thing I uttered when I saw this movie. It looks interesting, and magnificent. It looks like a whole new idea that comes to life. But nah, not all expectations come true and it is reaLly disappointing. I don't know if I'm just stupid not to understand what this movie is trying to say. Watching this movie, I can't count the number of times I hope that all the questions will be answered in the end. All the disturbing, confusing statements will be explained, but it left me hanging. Well, there is the fact that the story tackles an economy where the main source of manpower is zombies. Interesting, isn't it? The de…
Read at the sourceLokiHer
I have come back to this two hour movie more than ten times now, trying to understand the movie as a whole. I first came across the movie as "The Empire of Corpses" and I dare say that my brain burns from trying to understand from scene to scene. Probably thinking that it is just me that does not understand, but man, I give the show a nine overall. Watching it more, I changed it to a ten.
Alrighty! So starting off with the story:
RATE: 8
The story seen as a whole is great but then watching from beginning to end is a brain exercise. Perhaps it is a challenge of intellect. In the beginning, a brief idea is told to the fourth wall about the empire of corpses. I would presume because, by giving a brief intro, the info gave light to what exactly am I supposed to hope of what happens and happ…
Read at the sourceIts-Maki-kun
Today, I have decided to check a new local anime streaming site and picked one of their anime to watch. Knowing that this anime is having an EGOIST song as their ending, I quickly clicked for this anime movie. This is an anime produced by WIT Studio, Empire of Corpses or Shisha no Teikoku
While the premise of this anime is very unique and the progression is pretty good, I found the ending is a bit disappointing. The ending is not as grand as what I have thought in the beginning of the movie and left me with a feeling of "What? Why?" just because it is a little bit rushed in their way to the major villain's reveal. Most maybe caused by the travels that supposed to feel a little bit longer in that time feels too much fast like they were travelling with planes which was not invented back the…
Read at the sourceResetButton
Skip to the last sentence if you want to know my overall opinion of the movie
This is spoiler heavy because I give no respect to this movie:
Instead of writing a review based on my choice of scores, I will just write about the things that annoyed me throughout the movie and some things I like. My choice of scores are pretty much the same as the people who rated this a low overall score. Also, this is my second time watching this after a year because everything that happened in the first viewing went over my head.
There is a deep philosophical discussion that can be made of one of the themes: what makes us human? Or in other words, what makes a soul? They explicitly say that if anything has language, it has a consious ( I disagree but that isn't my point in this paragraph). I just hate…
Read at the sourceFear_the_Reefer
We’ve all heard the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creation, which often gets mistaken for him. Some versions tell of his monster dancing to Puttin’ on the Ritz, some versions tell of his monster battling an ancient order of gargoyles, and some versions tell of his monster’s daughter attending high school with other Halloween Bratz rejects. But what no version of this classic story has ever told you is that the old doctor was only the first person to successfully reanimate a corpse. His creation could move on it’s own, it could speak, it could make decisions for itself, it could promote strawberry cereal... But aside from the doctor, nobody could replicate this feat. By the 1800s, technological necromancy was so popular that the soulless, silent husks of the departed had been relegat…
Read at the sourceRickcir
The first half was great. Original, good story, decent characters. Then it started to fall apart. This screams "We read history, but don't know the culture!" It's just plain idiotic in many places. Second half: Some of the animation is just terrible - it looks like they switched writers and animators midway. Example - noses look like boulders. Hadaly Lilith's chest profile when she's at the helm looks like a 12 year old was the artist - literally sticking a foot out from the front and resembling Hot-Wheel ramps. So idiotic it was distracting, and not in a good way. It soon becomes "Forrest Gumpish" - let's see how many famous names and people we can stick in this crumbling mess.
Why the change from almost believable technology to friggin all out magic? What's with the battle between Burna…
Read at the sourceWykiLoki
I loved the gritty, dark premise of the movie. The execution, however, was extremely lackluster.
Objective Review:
Usually, any story is driven by either the characters, story, or some underlying theme that seems to work (for example, comedy). All these driving factors tend to work hand-in-hand, the best stories incorporating multiple and sticking with one main driver.
Shisha no Teikoku is definitely story-driven. What brings it down is the unsatisfactory character thought processes and disappointing lack of personality depth. It also suffers from not being able to convey its main themes to the audience on a personal level. The movie brings so much potential to character development, themes, and consequently the story, but fails to deliver due to spreading itself thin over time and pri…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Empire of Corpses depicts an alternate interpretation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein mixed with several characters from other notable Victorian era stories. Set in an alternate Victorian era England where technology used to reanimate corpses has allowed for England's quick technological advance, corpse engineer John Watson illegally reanimates the corpse of his close friend and former partner, Friday. To avoid punishment for his crimes, Watson is given the mission of retrieving the journal of the famous Victor Frankenstein, whose records have information on potential advances in reanimation of corpses that could allow them to gain free will and the possible restoration of their original soul.
Empire of Corpses offers off a great balance of adventure and philosophical dilemmas in its focus…
Read at the sourceNeed_for_Steed
Pros:
The animation was good.
Cons:
This is yet another movie that attempts to mask its lack of direction with impenetrable philosophy, pretending to super deep when there is actually nothing there. The use of fictional historical characters is just an attempt to be super edgy and is little more than a cheap hook to fool viewers into thinking that it goes somewhere (hint: It doesn't). If you ever wanted to think to yourself, "WTF am I watching?", or "I could be doing something productive instead," then this is the perfect movie for you.
The only reason it keeps 3 stars is because the whole animated corpses in society concept is just engaging enough.
In the words of /u/kuddlesworth9419:
"The first half of the film is pretty good but it falls apart in the second half. Nothing is explained…
Read at the sourceLDT-A
The idea that someone could speak ill of this is unfathomable. You will only fail to enjoy this movie if you come in with wildly inaccurate expectations.
This is perhaps not the MOST cerebral flick around, but it isn't like there is nothing to chew on from that angle. As a tale of one man's search for an almost philosophers stone-esque ideal, it's explores its chosen intellectual premises quite thoroughly.
Don't waste your time watching this solo. Some of the historical references are just a touch on the obscure side, enough that having some extra manpower around to increase the chances someone knows what is going on will increase your enjoyment. While there isn't strictly any actual comedy in the movie, you'll be hard pressed not to burst into laughter at times.
MOSTLY though, this fil…
Read at the source
