** Warning: Spoilers ahead.**
So, I got a request to talk about the animated movie, The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf. While arguably not officially an anime, I am a fan of The Witcher series, and it’s animation, so fuck it. Let’s do this.
For starters, let’s get some background info. The story revolves around a character named Vesemir, a witcher with a love for money, who gets wrapped up in a strange event (strange by witcher standards, apparently) involving something controlling monsters. The start of the movie jumps back and forth between the present day and Vesemir’s childhood and becoming a witcher. Throughout the movie, we explore his motivations and relation to the witchers.
As with most things, there was a mix of good and bad. Let’s start with the good.
The Good
A solid plot is crucial to a good movie, and the plot for this one was pretty interesting. I thought it did a good job of contextualizing the events. Nothing felt particularly out of place, and the story flowed nicely. This is despite hopping back and forth between past and present. I will say, though, that I have some basic knowledge about The Witcher series, so I already understood things like witchers aging slowly which could confuse people unfamiliar with the series.
The battles were pretty cool too. It had some good animation that was clean and smooth. Reminded me of another Netflix animated series, Castlevania (which arguably deserves a post too, but maybe another time). The monsters were well-designed too, which isn’t an easy task.
I liked the soundtrack too. The music was appropriate and fit the mood they wanted to set. I didn’t have any complaints with the voice acting either. Some parts felt off or like the lines weren’t pieced together properly, but typically they did a good job. The cast was picked well for their respective roles too. Always a good thing. In all, everything audio-related was solid.
The Bad
Remember how I said there’s usually a mix of good and bad? Yeah. Let’s get into it.
Generally, the plot was good, but there were moments that I didn’t care for. Some instances felt rushed, most notably toward the end. Wasn’t as bad as some things I’ve watched, but still felt hurried. It probably would have been better served to extend the length to almost two hours, rather than keeping its length as is. Parts like when Tetra works out a deal with Kitsu just felt out of place, even if it worked in the overall plot.
The intrigue dulled for me also when we got to see the truth behind all of the events. “What? The protagonist’s organization is the cause? What a shock!”… I feel like I’ve heard this before. It just seemed to cheapen the world as a whole and all the monsters residing within it. Not sure what else would have worked with the stage they set though, so I guess I can live with it.
While I liked most of the fights, the battle at the end wasn’t as good. Not only did their use of monsters feel kind of lame (not that it didn’t make sense, but again just kind of cheapened the monsters themselves), the choreography seemed to suffer in a large-scale battle as well. Earlier, one-on-one fights felt right, but this grand battle felt all over the place. Maybe it was intended, and it did have some pretty cool parts, but overall it just didn’t sit well with me for some reason.
The Ug- I mean, The Conclusion
Despite having some gripes with The Witcher: Nightmare of the Wolf, I’d say that I enjoyed it overall. The bittersweet ending was a bit sad, but I kind of expected it so I was able to brace myself in advance. If I heard this team was going to make a full series, I’d watch it. The production was good quality, and the story flowed nicely. It was worth the roughly hour and a half I spent watching it.
And there we go. What’d you think? Do you agree? Disagree? Is this even anime? Let me know in the comments. And if you have a request yourself, shoot me an e-mail. See you all in the next one!