Thunderbolt Fantasy- Early Impressions

In the recent months I've been contemplating on adding a new category to the blog, as quite a few of my regular readers have asked if I would ever entertain doing a sort of "preview section." Normally I avoid doing things like previews as I find it to simply not be my style. I typically like to reserve final judgement until I have all the pieces/info to any situation, but there have been times where I've found myself desperately wanting to share new discoveries with all of you guys, but didn't due to my rule of "waiting til it's done" which has made me procrastinate on quite a few pieces I may have written otherwise.   

With a new, all-encompassing category dedicated to giving my early thoughts and impressions on recent/new geeky things that interest me (but haven't quite run their course just yet to merit a full review) I can give my quick thoughts. Even if it's as simple as me wanting to share something that I didn't even know existed, but now totally want in my life. I shall henceforth christen this new category as I Didn't Know I Needed It. The articles will be fairly short and digestible, while still hopefully being insightful and perhaps even funny.

Having established that, the first thing to be placed in this category is none other than the absolutely incredible Japanese/Taiwanese wuxia puppet show production Thunderbolt Fantasy. It was only recently that I found out about this show, and I didn't know I needed this in my life! To help further put it into perspective, I was pretty much like this for the entirety of the first two episodes released so far:

This is what it's like to watch Thunderbolt Fantasy.

I am by no means a well versed expert on the subject (as there is a metric ton of cultural history that I'm simply not educated on) but I've known about Taiwanese puppet theater and shows for quite a while, and even remember when Cartoon Network tried to air one years ago. It was called Wulin Warriors, which was a heavily edited and rewritten version of the massively popular (in Taiwan) show Pili. I've always been a fan of puppet shows (and yes that means I am a Thunderbirds fan) so getting to see a new show like Thunderbolt Fantasy be given the star-studded A-list treatment for the 2016 anime summer season is awesome in my eyes to say the least.

Absolutely gorgeous puppets!

Written by none other than the famous Japanese writer Gen Urobuchi, and directed by Tsui Hark, Thunderbolt Fantasy tells a classic wuxia inspired tale about magical swords and demon wars. The story begins with a lone maiden on the run from an evil cult that's hell bent on taking the sacred weapon she's been entrusted to protect. When a cynical wandering swordsman saves her from the cult's attack, a journey ensues that will lead both the maiden and the swordsman to the ends of the world, hopefully to save it from certain doom.

There are only two episodes out so far as of this writing (which you can watch in the link provided above) and I've gotta say that this show melts my friggin' brain. Thunderbolt Fantasy has some of the most phenomenal puppetry and fight choreography I've seen in ages, coupled with some gorgeous special effects that only further enhance the action rather than distract. Fans of practical effects will without a doubt want to give Thunderbolt Fantasy more than a passing glance, as 90% of the shows effects are rendered in camera and on real sets too!

For anyone who may possibly be interested in watching this show, I highly encourage you to check out the episode 0 documentary before viewing the show proper. If you're unfamiliar with the art of Taiwanese puppet shows, and everything that goes into creating them, this will definitely help you come to understand (and appreciate) all the effort and craftsmanship that went into making Thunderbolt Fantasy possible. This is easily one of the tightest productions to come along in years.

While I will admit that the plot is a bit cliche by some standards, I feel it's mostly a show striving to tell a more simplistic story that delivers on the action where it counts. The best way I can possibly describe this show is that it's like watching a live action Yoshitaka Amano painting beat itself up. At one point in the first episode a defeated cultist maniacally cuts his own head off in glorious fashion only for a skeletal dragon to fly by, catch his decapitated cranium, and take it back to hell. To some it may be unintentionally funny, but for me, it's pure, unadulterated awesome. How often do you get to say a sentence like the one I just wrote?

We still have quite a few more episodes to come for the rest of the summer season (it's slated for a thirteen episode run) but if what I've seen so far is any indication of what to expect, I think Thunderbolt Fantasy may be one of the best "out of nowhere" success stories in what feels like forever. Suddenly everything that was old feels new again for me when coupling this show with the likes of Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress (which my review for that is forthcoming soon) and I can only hope that this is the start of something amazing for the future.

What a great time to be alive and to be a geek!