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Review: The Violinist of Hameln

Anime/Manga/Game/Fandom

Reviewed by: NotHayama

Title rating: PG-13 for angst, violence, and in the manga a surprising number of dirty jokes

-25 episode anime series (1996-1997), complete
-37 manga volumes (1991-2001), complete
-Movie (1995?), complete
-SNES game
-Drama CD's
-Novels (allegedly)

The Violinist of Hameln will never, ever be bought by an American company. It's one of the weirdest series I've ever seen. It's not weird in a FLCL or Adolescence of Utena artsy kind of way, but in a "what the hell were the creators thinking when they came up with that" kind of way. That's not to say that there's nothing good in this series, though--for a certain kind of person who's willing to look beyond the strangeness of the premise and the extremely low animation budget, Hameln can be a lot of fun.

The premise is bizarre. It's the story of a warrior musician named Hamel who plays a massive, magical violin at people. His pseudo-girlfriend, Flute, turns out to be a princess, and they travel with their friends to take her to the capitol. Hamel also has this weird little horn on his head, which he hides under his goofy hat. That's about all I can tell you about the plot in general, because the anime is done very differently from the manga.

Anime

The Violinist of Hameln TV anime is 25 episodes long. As I mentioned before, hell will freeze over before it gets brought domestically to this country, so you can get some fan-subtitled versions here (or at almost any fansub distributor on the Internet; Hameln's a very widespread title).

This series is like a great big syringe of angst injected straight into your veins. The writers went out of their way to make the story as depressing as possible--they attempted but three jokes at the beginning of the series, only one of them being remotely funny. They must have decided after that point to stick with what they were good at--which was huge amounts of angst and drama--because no more foolish attempts at humor were made again. That's not to say you can't get a laugh out of this series. If you're watching with friends, there are an unlimited number of jokes that can be made at the expense of the animation staff, the musicians responsible for both opening anthems, the character's instrument names, and, of course, the dumb looking hats.

The first thing everyone notices about this anime is that it's not so much animation as it is a slide show. The animation budget must have been about $5 an episode; they don't animate people's mouths when they're talking. Action scenes are usually three or four still shots with action lines flashed one after the other. On the rare occasion the staff actually animates something, they'll more often than not use it as many times as possible. For example, there's one shot of Clari (the guy with all the hair) shooting this cannon. It gets used in the first anthem, the second anthem, and about four times during the show itself. It's pretty ridiculous.

The story is full of small holes and inconsistencies, especially towards the end. This is in part because the series was originally supposed to be more than 30 episodes, but it was cut down because of horrible TV ratings. Therefore, certain subplots were ended very abruptly and some things that were mentioned earlier in the series were never brought up again.

Action lines: a poor substitute for moving pictures.

It's easy to list off all the problems with this anime, but despite that, I still think it's worth watching if you're willing to be patient and look past the aspects that are strange or poorly done. There's a superb voice acting cast, featuring some talented and successful actors such as Megumi Ogata (who does an unbelievably good Sizer). The soundtrack features some beautiful music, some by famous composers and some original to the series. If you have any interest in classical music at all, you should watch this series just for the BGM's (background music). The story itself, while it doesn't always fit together nicely, is original and leaves the audience in suspense. And the angst is fairly realistic and rarely falls into annoying melodrama. If you're in the mood for a real angst-fest, Hameln is an excellent choice.

Manga

The Hameln manga was drawn and written by Michiaki Watanabe. It ran in the obscure magazine Gan Gan Comics (published by the game/publishing company Enix) and ended at volume 37, after running for about 10 years.

When you read The Violinist of Hameln manga, certain things in the anime that didn't make sense suddenly click into place. The manga is mostly a comedy. There are still dark moments and some angst, but these parts are usually broken up by something funny. The character designs are meant to be a big visual joke. Hamel, the main character, is also done completely differently. TV anime Hamel is a kind, quiet, soul-searching character. Manga Hamel, while he has flashes of those character traits every once in a while, is generally a manipulative jerk who likes to take advantage of his friends at every opportunity, usually with hilarious results.

The humorous scenes of this manga are very creative and well done. Watanabe-sensei has an amazing sense of comic timing, a very difficult thing to pull off in a printed medium like manga. There aren't a lot of simple, one-line punchline jokes. Instead, the characters get carried away by their private fantasies, or Hamel forces his friends to wear ridiculous costumes for one of his horribly mean, yet strangely successful plans. The manga is constantly making fun of itself and of manga in general by taking clichés and twisting them. The serious story is also quite good, and free of many of the plot holes of the anime. Underneath all the jokes is a very sad, very serious story that is for the most part as good to read as the humorous parts. The manga switches between these two moods quickly, without spending too much time on one or the other. This keeps the story moving at a fast pace. The characters are also more interesting because we get to see them at their most spaced-out one minute and at their most serious the next.

The worst parts of the manga are the action scenes--they take the "invincible warrior" concept to a ridiculous level. Toward the end of the manga in particular, Watanabe-sensei is repeatedly trying to one-up the fights from earlier, and this usually equates to more gruesome things being done to his characters--just to the point of "don't worry, he's not dead, a little elbow grease and a firm nap and he'll be fine." Um, yeah. We like to call him Torso Clari.

Hamel? Who's Hamel? You must be mistaking me for someone without a mustache.

Movie

The Hameln movie was the first animation made and is much closer to the original manga than the insanely depressing TV series. The movie is done as a comedy, Hamel's personality is decently close to his manga counterpart, and Sizer is one of the good guys. They also apparently had an animation budget for this one, because the characters actually move. Anime with animation, what a concept!

The humor in The Violinist of Hameln is much better suited to the printed page than to animation--it would take a really great animation studio with awesome writers and animators to really pull off Watanabe-sensei's humor. Unfortunately, there wasn't enough talent working on this movie to do the manga justice. The plot is pretty standard filler material, and there are about three jokes that are done well with the rest being kind of boring and not very funny. If you're a big Hameln fan who wants to see what the characters look like when they actually move, then you'll enjoy this, but it's not worth going out of your way for.

After being thrown at a brick wall, used as a stepladder, and dressed like a frog, Flute finally loses it. Hamel needs 11 stitches.

SNES Game

It's not a huge surprise there's a Violinist of Hameln game for the Super Nintendo, considering Enix (of Dragon Warrior fame) published the manga. The game is highly entertaining, although it's a little difficult to understand for us English speakers as all the dialogue and directions are in Japanese. It's based on the manga, which means Hamel is a selfish b*stard who likes to abuse Flute every chance he gets. In fact, the entire game is based on using Flute as a stepping stool, throwing her to break down walls, and dressing her up in costumes which give her the ability to walk over spikes or jump really high. Hamel can also shoot deadly little music notes out of his violin--which is pretty damn cool. If you're interested in this game, you can download the ROM (game for a console video game emulator) at Under the Kotatsu. Click on SNES on the sidebar.

The fans of The Violinist of Hameln tend to be very hardcore, so there are a surprising number of very good pages out there. My personal favorite is Under the Kotatsu (yes, I know I just linked to that above). The page features a ton of information, fanstuff, doujinshi (fan comics) scans, the Hameln SNES game, and lots more. Of particular note are translations of the manga up to volume 23, and the little English doujinshi that the author herself wrote; it's unfinished, but I think it's pretty funny. There's also The Hameln Archive, which has a huge image gallery, some very good general information, and lots of random downloads. That's also where I got the pictures for this review.

The Violinist of Hameln in its various forms is definitely worth a shot--for those of you who are willing to be patient and deal with something weird, there are some good payoffs. I'd suggest watching the anime before reading the manga, though, because if you start watching the anime and think it's going to be anything like the manga you'll be sorely disappointed. I'd give the anime 3 stars out of 5, and 4 out of 5 for the manga. This averages out at 3.5 stars for the series, math fans.

Obo--stoic, all-knowing, all-powerful. He's probably planning to poop on your car.