Džúza engi: Engecu sangokuden

As an adaptation, this is pretty bad. Cramming a lot of characters, their interactions, and power struggles into a complicated narrative with a running time of twenty-five minutes does not work. The narrative also does not properly explain the past or introduce the characters and their motivations. So a person (me) who is not familiar with the original source material does not have a chance to get a handle on this. Sure, it is nice that they explain where it takes place at the beginning, although the storytelling is pretty bad on the whole. I honestly have to say that even the anime synopsis here or on any other anime database told the story much better than how it was told in the short film. I was too often lost; I did not understand who was who and what they were up to. I did not get why everyone was after Guan Yu, why that insanely insufferable white-haired crybaby had a second ego. I did not know what Cao Cao was up to, and if his relationship with Guan Yu was a love/hate thing or if there was something else going on. So for someone who is not familiar with the premise, it is hard to get into. So who is it for? Well, probably for experts in the subject matter and those who like bishies and especially characters with cat ears. I do not fall into the first category, and I would rather watch Spice and Wolf again because Guan Yu does not come close to the shaggy-haired goddess Holo. In the end, this movie did not do much for me. On the other hand, I did not find it offensive, although I am not awarding it more than 3/10. (05/06/2016)