Hi everyone, Notthony Melontano, the internet’s worst weeaboo bitch, and it’s time for a review of the Sturgill Simpson, fully animated visual album, Sound & Fury. This is the collaborative project from numerous directors and studios, but the biggest name to be found with regards to the project as a whole not only directs several segments, but also co-wrote the screenplay for the film with Sturgill Simpson himself, Junpei Mizusaki, who’s previous work on Batman Ninja led to a thoroughly enjoyable, albeit nonsensical experience. The biggest stand-out feature for Junpei’s directorial style during that film was his unique art style, opting to give harsher outlines toeach character’s design in order to emphasize the fact that it’s being animated even as a fully CGI character model, as opposed to the sleeker look that’s become popularized by much bigger and far more competent studios than virtually anything to come from Japan. This completely unique art style meant that when going into tracks like Sing Along, A Good Look, and Fastest Horse in Town, even without the knowledge that he was working on this project, it became apparent that this was his work. And considering how rare it is to find directors with their own completely unique style in the world of anime today, I can only consider that a good thing.

Visually, this film is not afraid to experiment, not afraid to show different art styles, and not afraid to embrace the freedom that the directors have been given with regards to animating each song. This leads to several memorable segments of the film, as the mere juxtaposition of Make Art Not Friends to A Good Look means that the segment feels very experimental and unique before it even starts.

Unfortunately for the film this experimentation isn’t always a good thing. The uneven distribution of who gets what tracks lead to the film feeling like a 15-minute Mizusaki short film mixed with a completely different amv compilation thrown in to stretch out the running time. Those first few songs set up an epic fight between a samurai girl and two warlords, which is unceremoniously abandoned by the 4th track of the album. The only song prior to that point that wasn’t directed, or at least inspired by Mizusaki is the opening, completely CG segment of the film which, even then only really establishes the world the film takes place in and nothing else. This combined with the PS3 cutscene aesthetic led this to easily be the worst part of the film, and a really horrible place to start things off.

Then Mizusaki comes in and tells his simple, but compelling story until we reach the best animated segment, Make Art Not Friends, where this storyline is pretty much immediately abandoned before being immediately retrieved in Best Clockmaker on Mars which is essentially a series of still shots explaining the samurai girl’s backstory. This is the last we get of the main narrative until after the end credits, which does finally give the conclusion of the only real cohesive narrative throughout the film, so make sure you watch the credits to the end, which should be fairly easy considering how Fastest Horse in Town is a quintessential banger.

Now, while I do like amv compilations, this led to the last half of the film being far less engaging than the introduction. Up to that point a lot of the enjoyment that the film gave to the viewer came down to trying to figure out how all of these different segments fit together with one another, which is mostly abandoned towards the second half because they already showed you how the film ends.

That’s not to say that the remaining tracks are bad as All Said and Done tells a fairly decent anti-slavery story. It’s a pity that I’M COMPLETELY PRO SLAVERY AND ANYBODY WHO SAYS OTHERWISE IS A COWARD WHO’S TOO SCARED TO STAND UP FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN AND DEFEND THE COUNTRY THAT THEY ALL LOVE!!!

Following this we have Last Man Standing which is an animated segment, framed in the first person. This is certainly a new way to present this art style in a portion of the film that, for the most part is a great stand-alone piece. The only problem is that it’s animating what is easily the worst track on the entire album. And while I don’t exactly think it’s a good song, I would never go so far as to claim that I hate, or even dislike it. Last Man Standing is perfectly fine. But when compared to the rest of the songs, it’s very underwhelming, and short. I honestly forgot this was even a segment until I had to write it down for the script, despite thinking that it’s a really cool section. It’s just too short of an underwhelming song to leave any real emotional impact.

Finally, Mercury in Retrograde, what is by far the most unique part of the film, while also being the most visually bring to look at. The segment has this unique blend of 2D and 3D animation that would lead to a great way to present credits at the start of some mid-2000s superhero movie, but as a completely unique piece, it gets really old, really quickly.

All of this culminates in a very disjointed experience and while a lot of this could obviously come as a result of the different directors and studios involved in this project, I think that the biggest reason for this tone comes down to the album that these visuals are based off of. Songs will usually start without the preceding track having a proper conclusion. Does this make the album bad: no, far from it. But I would certainly be remiss not to point it out.

That being said, the songs are the one aspect of the film that I haven’t really discussed and that’s because I am far from a music critic and I don’t want to embarrass myself. The only thing I can really say about the music is that I loved every song on the album aside from Last Man Standing, where I do have to agree with Actually Fantano that the production is trash for all the reasons he cited. However, unlike him, I like what the song was trying to achieve, meaning that while I don’t exactly think it’s a good song, I would never go so far as to claim that I hate, or even dislike it. It’s perfectly fine. Everything else though is pretty great, meaning that while I’ve done nothing but criticise the album for this entire review I still feel like it deserves a strong 6 to a light 7.

This Review is actually the script to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etPW8kgu0hg

Check that out and subscribe to the channel if you want to see more reviews like it.