This epic tale of love and tragedy takes on a new form in Gonzo Studio’s Romeo x Juliet with an adaptation into Japanese animation.Romeo x Juliet is as distanced as possible from Baz Luhrmann’s modernist take on Shakespeare’s arguably most well-known play, and instead of a Mexico City-esque Verona Beach, we have Neo-Verona, a fantastical city with pegasi and wondrously-designed architecture.

Shakespearean purists will be livid at the artistic liberties taken in this adaptation because other than the character names, little else of the story remains intact. While I have not studied the play, little of what I’ve seen so far indicates any faithfulness Fumitoshi Oisaki (director) has paid to the source text. For example, in the first episode, the Capulet family is decimated by Lord Montague, leaving only Juliet as the last living Capulet. The anime fast forwards to Juliet in her teens, who has resorted to masquerading as a boy to conceal her identity and expresses her rebellious angst as a masked vigilante known as the Red Whirlwind.

It is clear that the anime is targeted at teenagers. The lovers are wide-eyed with awe as they first lock gazes; nothing like the passionate intensity between Di Caprio and Danes in the aquarium scene of Luhrmann’s adaptation. Juliet here is little more than a girl caught in the first flush of infatuation, displaying a familiar anime character archetype that flits between feistiness and feminity. Romeo is the perfect gentleman, burning with youth’s idealism and hesitancy, while being disdainful enough of his privileged aristocracy to suggest a nobility of heart.

What we have here sets the premise for ‘love at first sight’, but what should have been climactic in a manner which dictates the motivations of the two star-cross’d lovers for the rest of the series, is swiftly lost. Juliet here does not, unlike Claire Danes, express the character as both strong yet fragile (though it has been implied in the first episode with Juliet’s facade of bravado and swordsmanship). Romeo does little better, looking like a slack-jawed male entranced by a pretty face. Fumitoshi tries to amp up the drama with cascades of flower petals (or leaves) but the scene falls flat; I am thinking: Where is the earth-shaking, mountain-moving love that will drive these lovers to their deaths? I am unconvinced.

Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

I remain divided about this anime, which might not be too surprising considering I am ten years older than the target demographic. However, let not what I’ve said so far detract from the obvious qualities of the film.

First, the opening (which for me, reflects an anime’s overall quality). Lena Park sings in Japanese You Raise Me Up (popularised by Josh Groban, and sung as a church item before). It is ambitious and a display of bravura; elements of which persuade me to continue watching the show.

View the opening here, while you can download Lena Park’s Inori ~ You Raise Me Up here (only available for those in my Multiply network).

Furthermore, the high production values of the anime are among the best I’ve seen among the spring anime releases. Lingering landscape shots allow us to be wooed by the towering, magnificent structures of Neo-Verona, a city of renaissance. A sense of magic and wonder is imbued into the city’s veins, enchanting and drawing one into its spell.

Romeo x Juliet is at best an indulgence, an adolescent love story based loosely on an essential literature classic. Yet it goes down like a delicate confection, a nostalgic reminder of our own tales of love and loss and the people we used to be. We all know how the story ends, but don’t let that distract you from the delightful journey you will have getting there.

Rating:

Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents’ strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark’d love,
And the continuance of their parents’ rage,
Which, but their children’s end, nought could remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.