s Eight Clouds Rising opens, city boy Takeo Nanachi is arriving in the country to meet two of his friends, his classmate Ema and the older Kitano. The three young men, along with Kitano's girlfriend, are traveling to a remote mountain shrine, where Kitano hopes to get inspiration for a new play he's writing. Nanachi, meanwhile, has been tasked with the purification of a treasured old family heirloom, a sword that's supposedly the last relic of his swordmaker grandfather. The shrine is due to host a sacred ritual performed only once every 49 years, and Nanachi and Ema arrive just in time to witness a preliminary ceremony, in which a forbiddingly lovely priestess does a ritual dance.
Later, at the house of their host, the patriarch of the family that tends the shrine, Nanachi and Ema are somewhat shaken to find that the "priestess" was not their host's beautiful daughter Yasuko, but rather his tense and brittle son Kuraki. Family tradition has it that a priestess is androgynous, so both Yasuko and Kuraki cross-dress for rituals. Tasked with showing the newcomers around, Kuraki protests, saying that there are more important things to do at the time of the 49-year ritual, but he ultimately bows to his father's wishes and plays tour guide. In the process, he ends up telling Nanachi some unprecedented things about the mountain valley, which has been laboring under a curse for many centuries. Spirits converge there, especially the evil, angry spirit-energy called nen, which Kuraki is so adept at manipulating that he considers himself an evil shaman.
Nanachi is dubious, even though he's already seen ghosts and sensed the energy of angry spirits. Unnerved by Kuraki's weird revelations and his weirder behavior, Nanachi seems a bit relieved when Kuraki's uncle says that Nanachi's group should leave the area and get out of the family's way. But an accident forces Nanachi to return unexpectedly, and by coincidence he stumbles across the real core of the 49-year ritual: a regime change in which Kuraki is ordered to commit ritual murder.
Serviceable, but not much more
Eight Clouds Rising is a two-part, stand-alone original video animation, a tip-of-the-iceberg partial adaptation of a lengthy manga series. And it has all the hallmarks of that kind of work: A compressed, rushed feel, a ton of packed-in detail, a sense that viewers are getting only the tiniest fraction of the story. Nonetheless, it sets up a story with a beginning, middle and end, and even with some character development and progression along the way. There's barely room for it, what with all the revelations about Japanese history and mythology, including commentary on the poem that gives the anime its name. (Traditionally, that poem is believed to have been the first written in Japan, and to have been penned by a god.) But while the relationship between Kuraki and Nanachi is written in broad strokes, it goes through several significant and serious stages very quickly.
Kuraki and Nanachi, with their pointy faces and long, angular bodies, both look like characters the manga collective CLAMP might have come up with. The animation of Eight Clouds Rising is simpler than that of recent CLAMP works, though, and not as dynamic or colorful. It's fairly basic, serviceable stuff; some of the best potential opportunities for colorful or expressive animation, such as Nanachi's first ghost sighting, are squandered with vague, minimal imagery, and the characters often look weirdly bent and distorted, especially in the face. The background music is more expressive and evocative by far.
Eight Clouds Rising does have a reasonably interesting story, but it blurs through it at Cliffs Notes speed, leaving the impression that it's really just a primer for the manga. The most interesting stuff comes midway through, as Kuraki deals with his manhood ritual and its aftermath; by comparison, the inevitable fight with the powers of darkness seems kind of rote. Still, as a primer, it's an effective one. It opens up a world tinged with complex and intriguing shades of gray. It's more a curiosity than a must-see, but it accomplishes a great deal within its limited scope.
Apart from a few trailers, Eight Clouds Rising skips the idea of DVD extras altogether. This is a bare-bones release, the kind where "interactive menus" are considered a special bonus.
— Tasha
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