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Romeo x Juliet – Anime First Impressions

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Romeo x Juliet is the latest “adaptation” from Gonzo, masters of adaptation. They’re now taking on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and adapting it to anime. Wait, this is supposed to be Romeo and Juliet!? Seriously!?

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Romeo x Juliet is the latest “adaptation” from Gonzo, masters of adaptation. They’re now taking on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and adapting it to anime. Wait, this is supposed to be Romeo and Juliet!? Seriously!?

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Hopefully most of my readers are at least vaguely familiar with the story of Romeo and Juliet. Those two star-crossed lovers who were totally in love, and then they died. Okay, so my Shakespeare is kind of rusty. I’m more of a Hamlet guy myself.

In this adaptation of Romeo x Juliet, Juliet is actually some kind of masked vigilante saving the Capulets from the tyranny of the Montagues. When she was young, the Montagues went to her house and slayed her family. Now, along with the help of a few sidekicks, Juliet rebels against the man! She’s got some pretty nice swordfighting skills, which I don’t remember her having in the original story…

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Speaking of things that weren’t in the original story, I don’t think the setting was a floating island. And the flying horses don’t really ring a bell either. In fact, I could probably say that the only thing that the anime has in common with the original story is the names of the two characters (first and last, at least)…

Anyway, the story starts with Juliet saving a girl who’s been labeled a “Capulet!” Apparently being a Capulet means instant death. After her rescue, she gets chased by the guards. Fortunately, she’s saved by Romeo and her flying horse. Umm, so did she actually save the girl, or did the guards just go back after chasing her and execute the Capulet? Oh well, who cares, right?

Later, by some sort of weird “luck,” Juliet gets taken to a ball thrown by the Montagues. Uh oh! She remembers how she used to live in that mansion, and runs to the romantic fountain. There, she meets her Romeo. And by her Romeo, I mean Romeo! But their love is forbidden! It can only end in tragedy! That is, unless Gonzo rewrites that part too…

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I enjoy Shakespeare. Mostly because memorizing the lines and then spitting them out at social events makes me feel like a real intellectual. I thought I’d enjoy this anime, because I’d be able to hear Shakespeare lines translated into Japanese. Like instead of “Wherefore art thou Romeo,” They’d say “Naze, anata wa Romeo!?”

Instead, I get crap with flying horses. The only good part about the horses is that they’re not rendered in CG. Which I sort of expected from Gonzo. Oh, the art and animation is superb, but the story is just really stupid.

Is the story so stupid that it becomes entertaining? I’m not quite sure yet. I think the anime is trying to take itself seriously, which doesn’t work at all. In trying to “modernize”(?) the classic by adding cool stuff, Gonzo has really just made themselves look incompetent.

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Will I watch anymore of this anime? Probably not. I usually don’t spend my anime watching time on bad anime, unless it’s the enjoyably bad kind.

Oh, and I think Gonzo has hinted about their next anime project after Romeo x Juliet. It’s Othello. You know the one with the mecha pilot who thinks his robo-maid cheated on him, but she really didn’t?

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27 replies on “Romeo x Juliet – Anime First Impressions”

Of course they’re not trying to take themselves 100% seriously. They didn’t stick “Willy” in there so people could feel like intellectual reference-spotters.

When I saw those posters, my first thought was “Hmm, how would you say ‘Even now, now, very now, an old black ram/Is tupping your white ewe’ in Japanese?”

At least Sunrise isn’t doing it. We know we don’t have to worry about Juliet “dying” and then coming back in 10 episodes as a cyborg hell bent on killing Romeo.

All right – another show with ‘X’ in the title! I was beginning wonder where all the ‘X’ shows went lol.

Seriously though, this looks pretty fun.:) I like GONZO’s adaptations, so I’ll probably check it out!

I think it looks kinda cute and interesting. I’d watch it if I hadn’t already forbidden myself from watching any new anime until I finish the zillion seasons I’m in the middle of right now. >.

I think changes are good sometimes. Retelling the same story over and over gets old, how many movie versions are there of Miracle on 34th Street and A Christmas Carol? Too many and I can sadly say I’ve seen them all. But then you take a classic and retool it, like Scrooged with Bill Murry and you get something awesome, fresh, original, and yet the basic theme of the original story is still there intact. They are going for the same thing with Romeo x Juliet. Will it work out? Maybe, maybe not but you can’t truly judge a work by one episode.

this anime is awesome. I belive this is an awesome remake. If they had kept it the same as the story it would have turned into a Branagh version of Hamlet where they keep every line the same, which gets boring with our generations short attention span. The artwork is gorgeous and i believe the first 2 episodes are very well made

seriously this is the best anime IN WORLD!!! its so ROMANTIC… seriously if you watch it, you wont stop looking at it, i saw untl episode 23, in 2 days!!!
it made me cry..

IKR!!! this series is amazing i saw the whole series in i think 2-3 days…and i cried 20 times….so beautiful…

I thought the same thing when I saw the trailer…and about the new Battlestar Galactica when it first came out. It’s not often I’m glad when I’m proven wrong.

This anime is now up to chapter 6, and the story is getting a lot interesting, amouny all the news animation in 2007, romeo and juliet is one of the animation I like most, the story and characters setting are awesomes, highly recommended!!!

Just watched the first episode, and I think this anime is making Shakespeare more popular again on the search engines..

Nothing like an anime adaptation for people to get interested in the original right?

I personally hoped that it would be totally different. I hated Romeo X Juliet and reading shakespeare. Sorry, but I’m not just that interested in old english…

Also, the opening song is You Raise Me Up in Japanese which is pretty nicely song.

Waiting for the full version to come out in June.

I have to agree with Nashikage and Langknow. If they keep re-telling the same thing Shakespeare wrote over and over again, it’ll be so boring. And I swear, I’ve seen way too many Romeo and Juliet adaptations where they keep doing the same thing, and saying the same lines. I mean, I loved the original play, and even one of the better movie adaptations of it, but then after a while it gets boring, you know?

And also, you can’t really judge the entire series based only from one episode. =/ I’ve actually seen up until episode 7, and it gets really intriguing later.

The show interest me, because I am a hopeless romantic. And the action is done well. What bugs me the way they use Shakespearean lines randomly, and most of the lines are not from Romeo and Juliet.

But the dragon horses are great.

I’ve really enjoyed this series. Honestly, i’m a huge fan of the original Shakespear play of Romeo and Juliet, one of my favourite pieces of english literature. But, i love the fact that gonzo is ‘seriously’ not taking Shakespear’s romeo and juliet seriously. Baz Luhrman’s already done his take on it, that’ll be enough. For now, i love the fact that RXJ is so completely removed from the original (apart from the names including good ol benvolio and tybalt) that their version is becoming a story of its own. Seriously, if the japanese re-did the play, everyone would know the end…boring (for anime anyway). Now that we know the story is completely different, who knows how it’ll turn out to be. I’m just hoping that romeo and juilet stay well clear away from any poison, i want a happy ending this time. And really, it’s just the name, “What ‘s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.” LOL, looking forward to the next ep!

i agree with Tama Sempai. Anyway, this anime “Romeo x Juliet” is an APPROPRIATION of Shakespeare’s version. It isn’t meant to follow the original storyline as Gonzo is only taking the main idea and transforming it into our modern context in which viewers won’t find things too predictable. Another reason i think that Gonzo is doing this is because mostly everyone already know the original storyline. It would be bland and boring if all they did was stick to the original. This way, unpredictable events will happen and this will obviously engage the audience twice as well.

I have to admit though, when i first heard this title, i thought it would stick the original stoyrline and i had doubts on whether or not to watch it. but as i continued, it got increasingly interesting and unpredictable.

I know that some people would rather watch the anime as the original, but i don’t think it’ll be as sucessful as it is now.

OMG I love this anime any romantic anime I love especially my number one favorite sailor moon not too much the fighting but the whole love connection between usagi and mamrou-chan I love it.

This anime is not just based on romeo and juliet, but many other shakespeare plays.

Juliet being hidden for sixteen years is a reference to the character of Hermione in “The Winters Tale”.
There also is a character called Hermione in the anime.

The character’s name Cordelia comes from King Lear.

Juliet dressing up as a boy to shield herself from danger comes from plays “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night”

There may be some more references from The Tempest and other plays, but I need to read them again (I haven’t read some in about 8 years).

Romeo x Juliet is based on many shakespeare plays, and in order to truly appreciate what the creators are doing, perhaps reading several of Shakespeare’s works again will make the viewer of this wonderful adaptation appreciate it even more

I just want to say i believe the more one knows about theatre history, particularly Shakespeare and Greek theatre, the more one can appriciate and understand the absolute brillance of this anime. Gryffindorah is compleatly right. So it is great fun for a Shakesgeek like me to watch.

moi aussi j’ai adoré ce manga, je ne connaissais pas la pièce de shakespear, mais je savais ce qui s’y passait, et je trouve que cette adaptation en animé est génial!

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