What does a person wear if their bodies are possessed of supernatural abilities that allow them to dart up and down delicately painted skyscrapers or conjure enormous, lapping flames out of thin air? In writer-director Rintaro's X: The Movie, the answer is, essentially, whatever they want. Rather than pull on coloured spandex or create some other kind of on-brand iridescent costume, a character like Karen Kasumi, voiced by Mami Koyama, simply walks around in the clothes she feels comfortable wearing. In this case black lingerie and a pink robe de chambre. Many of the characters in X take a similar approach to their presentation, projecting the archetypes that both exemplify their position in society and belie their importance to an unfolding apocalypse. Hideyuki Tanaka's Aoki is a stable salaryman, and so he dresses in a smart but increasingly distressed two piece suit. Similarly, Emi Shinohara's Arashi and Yukana Nogami's Yuzuriha remain in their school uniforms. Whereas an American superhero might feel the need to compartmentalise or obfuscate the part of themselves that wields incredible powers, in Rintaro's film their Japanese counterparts don't have the energy for that kind of pantomime. They are knowing props in a cosmological shake-up that cannot be averted, only experienced.
These champions have therefore accepted their place in these proceedings without protest. The heroes and villains of X meet their ends as they are then, proudly blasting holes in each other while dressed in their civvies. Preceded by CLAMP (an all-female collective consisting of writer Nanase Ohkawa, as well as artists Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi)'s unfinished manga and followed by a twenty-four episode television series, this X is incredibly truncated in its storytelling. We are instantly at this story's conclusion and all drafted parties must scramble to keep up. Given this expedience, there's a palpable sense of impatience, or even callousness, in how enthusiastically these super-beings are pruned. This effect is only amplified by CLAMP's beatific character designs: teenagers with flowing hair and enormous eyes would seem to be a better fit for the more romantic end of the anime spectrum, as opposed to the eviscerations depicted here. This enjoyable sort of dissonance carries over into how some of these characters are portrayed, particularly Ken Narita's Fuma, a subordinate (or subordinated) player who eagerly embraces his role as a sword-wielding Antichrist. Fuma's backstory is paper thin, the childhood playmate of Tomokazu Seki's Kamui, the teenage wunderkind that the film's various factions battle to win favour with. Fuma's place in the story is that of a cosmic counterbalance, a tuned-up shade for Kamui to duel atop a collapsing radio tower.
Quite why Fuma is so quick to accept such a despondent, bloodthirsty calling is something of a mystery, especially since the weapon he will use to confront his pal must be drawn from his sister Kotori's dying body. Our only real insight into whatever thoughts or feelings bubble inside a tight-lipped Fuma is a repeated snippet of dialogue, a lingering memory of an innocent promise made in childhood. Kamui, presumably prepared from birth to assume the role of planetary saviour, promises to protect this beloved brother and sister. Fuma counters by saying if Kamui can keep Kotori safe, he will then act as his friend's shield. Does it chafe Fuma to be considered lesser then? The assumption that he will need his friend to defend him seems to sting this young man. Perhaps Fuma is also jealous that his sister is so clearly in love with Kamui? Certainly, Fuma's envy does not seem to be specifically incestuous in nature, given that he happily casts Kotori aside to assume a state of violent equality with Kamui. Perhaps he views her as his property then, for him to do with as he pleases? The presumption then is that the energies that Fuma wields are separate from any specific feelings regarding Kotori. They are instead a demand to be noticed or feared by those who would presume to think of him as someone who needs to be sheltered. Although reserved before his activation by Atsuko Takahata's Kanoe (who looks very much like Vampire Hunter D illustrator Yoshitaka Amano interpreting Elvira), the aloofness and placidity that Fuma projects actually conceals a person desperate to be as powerful and pivotal as the boy who has stolen his sister away from him.
