It's possible you might have talked to someone like Ms. Eguchi before. A
person who has two or three very specific interests and is very
knowledgeable about them. You might know a thing or two about those
things as well, but not at all like that person. You end up doing all
the listening. She goes on talking about the things she likes and it
might be a little hermetic at first, you might even consider coming up
with an excuse to leave, but soon you get caught up in her web and
things get so interesting you end up completely immersed in it. Then,
when you realize it, hours have passed and you were having a great time
listening to that person, even though you didn't think much of it at
first.
That's how I feel about Ms. Eguchi's title, Hoozuki no Reitetsu. She
has a fascination for ink wash and traditional Chinese and Japanese
painting, especially landscapes. But that's just the beginning, because
she also knows a lot about Chinese and Japanese mythology and folklore,
particularly things related to the other worlds. Hells and Heavens.
Naturally she knows her Buddhism as well. When talking about these
fantastic matters, she organizes everything around the type of men she
likes. You can see this is going to get very interesting. Ms. Eguchi is a
fascinating person, but you have to give her time to really enjoy where
she's going.
Enter her main character, Hoozuki. He's a demon working in Hell for
none other than Great King Enma, the ruler and supreme judge of the
underworld. Hoozuki is handsome, quiet, self-contained, strong,
level-headed, master of several arts, from gardening to cooking and
medicine. He's reliant, chaste, organized, focused and can hold his
liquor. Ms. Eguchi loves to talk about how cool he is and of course we
agree, Hoozuki is a pretty amazing demon, he's awesome.
Ms. Eguchi is also very interested in language and her characters
talk in a very literary manner. They don't talk in an old style, in fact
their dialogues are very modern, contemporary business-like style, but
they tend to use literary words, usually with very clear Chinese roots
that nobody else uses. She'll make lots of jokes about it, too, so
you'll have to watch it more than once… maybe thrice to really get them
all.
She loves to think about folklore heroes and mythological creatures
as entities who screwed up at some point and she loves to see their ugly
side. It's hard to tell if she likes to drag those characters through
the mud for its own sake, or if she does it so Hoozuki can fix them up,
making him ever cooler and more attractive in the process. Probably a
little bit of both. I'm not complaining, it's actually quite
entertaining.
As you can imagine by what I've said so far, Ms. Eguchi's humor is
rather peculiar and it doesn't always work outside her own head, but the
atmosphere and the world where the jokes happen are so interesting you
don't even mind. Also, her characters' designs are adorable when it
needs to be and grotesque when it needs to be, everything works very
well. They look good, endearing and cute. Not many people can draw
traditional clothing like she does. Quick but elegant. Her art really
stands out, though the anime may not convey it at all times.
Hoozuki no Reitetsu is a fascinating work and I'm really happy to
find out she still has lots of ideas she wants to express. Soon after
finishing Hoozuki, she began another title, Dekin no Mogura. Let's hope
it's as good as this one.
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