Seelie Reviews: Romeo X Juliet

One snowy night, King Capulet and his family were killed in a savage coup by Montague, who then usurped the crown. Fourteen years later the only surviver of this bloody deed is patrolling the streets disguised as a boy, righting the various wrongs of the Montague regime. Her name is Juliet. One fateful night, she meets the butcher king's son, Romeo, and the two fall in love without realizing that they are natural enemies. The situation becomes all the more dire, when the surviving retainers of house Capulet reveal Juliet's past to her and enlist her help in the rebellion. However, Juliet's confusion over romance, and even the approaching battle, may be the least of her worries, as an ancient and mysterious power threatens to tear her world apart.

Clearly this is not the story you remember.

Romeo X Juliet: The story of a young woman and the exact same person with different hair and eye color

Once you throw in the flying horses, magical trees, and a character named WILLIAM, we sure aren't in Verona anymore. If you approach this series expecting it to resemble the source material, it will be impossible to enjoy it. However, many of Shakespeare's favorite elements are alive and well, such as cross-dressing and plays within plays (two of them, although sadly neither of them was in the round).

Art-wise this is one of the nicest things Gonzo seems to have put out. Sure there are occasional animation errors, but you really have to be looking for them. The cities are beautifully drawn, although some of the design decisions are questionable. Apparently, going three miles to the next city completely changes the architectural period. Also curious is the CG. It is minimal, but used in the strangest places, like in fluttering flags... why?

The music for this series is truly exquisite. It supports and sometimes rescues the action, and is memorable to boot. The opening theme, a japanese rendition of the Irish spiritual "You raise me up," is thoroughly delicious and is incorporated later into the series. The first ending theme is a very dark, gruff rock number which will either feel like a reminder that Romeo and Juliet was, in fact, a very bloody story, or will just seem out of place. The second ending theme is a little too pre-teen sounding for my tastes, and I skipped it a fair bit.

The dub and sub are both solid, but the dub comes with a bonus. It uses a ton of actual Shakespearian quotations which makes for a fun game of spot the reference. To some people, however, this is just going got come off as silly. Still, the voice-acting itself is nothing to sneeze at. Brina Palencia makes for a really believable and versatile Juliet. Sean Hannigan also puts in a good performance as Montague, even if the character himself was... lacking.

He'd be stroking a white persian, if he hadn't already set it on fire.

But I'm afraid the love-fest has to stop here.

Let me point out that there really is no reason that a lack of similarity to the original should immediately damn an adaptation. For example, Juliet is a much more interesting character in this version of the story. She is aware that romance with the enemy can only mean bad news, and she does her absolute best to avoid it. Romeo, on the other hand... Well he's very pretty, and endearing, and noble, but, bless him,  he hasn't got a thought in his pointy little head. It takes him several episodes to recognize Juliet as even one of her alter-egos and he only gets more dim as the series progresses. For example, one of the later episodes features a conversation on roughly this pattern:

Tybalt: (piece of exposition no one bothered to tell you yet)
Romeo: Are you implying that ( exactly what you just said verbatum)?

It's pretty bad. And the worst part is that his frankly dumb decisions often get played as really noble and self sacrificing, when in reality very single one of them has logic holes big enough to drive a semi through.

This brings me to a major problem. While this story is based off of and is marketed as a tragedy, this is the farthest thing from it, as it is missing a few key elements. That's not to say all tragedies need to follow a classical format (the characters do not need to be high-born), but there is one thing missing from this series that prevents it from being a true tragedy. The horrible things that happen to the main character or characters have to, on some level, be their fault. The ending must stem from inherent character "flaws." ("flaw" being defined rather loosely. Excess kindness, for example, would fall under this umbrella). In the original, Romeo's inherent flaw is his impulsiveness which causes him to kill Tybalt and later commit suicide. Juliet's flaw would be harder to pin down, but it might also be impulse, or maybe loyalty. The anime? Would have had a perfectly happy ending if it weren't for a deus ex machina thrown in at the end.

You will learn to hate this tree

Now you might be wondering what this means for the series as a whole. After all, it shouldn't matter if the category is just wrong. The problem here is that because the source of our "tragedy" exists solely outside our characters there is no amount of foreshadowing (and believe me they try) that would make this ending seem anything more than forced and pointless. If it had been a forced, corny, happy ending it would have been easier to swallow, because we're used to that sort of thing, and deep down, lots of people secretly crave them. But a sad ending makes you ask "why?" and the reason why just doesn't make enough sense to justify itself.

Another, but lesser, problem with this series is the romance. I can understand why Romeo likes Juliet. She's strong, good, smart, and beautiful. Romeo is just good, and his lack of defining, interesting characteristics sometimes left me scratching my head as to why she liked him so much. For a lot of the series, he's just kind of there. It's funny too, because there are other, more interesting characters who like Juliet. But you can't exactly root for them either, since by my calculations they're approximately twice her age. (I know that this would be more loyal to the period, but this hardly seems like the detail I would choose to keep.)

So with the two aspects of this story you would expect to be strongest gone, is this still a good show? Well, it is enjoyable, or at least can be so long as you aren't expecting much sense. If you, like me, are the sort who can often be fooled by pretty art and music into caring about a show, than I absolutely recommend it. What's more, the beginning of this anime is extremely interesting.

Plot: C
Characters: B+
Visuals: A
Music: A+


Overall: B+


The way I see it, there are two ways to watch Romeo X Juliet. You can watch it seriously and just ignore some of the silly bits, or you can watch it to pick out all the things that don't make sense. Either way, it can be an enjoyable experience, despite its not being a brilliant work.

Sheep... Why.