I’m not the best person to be objective about the Bayonetta anime movie, Bloody Fate, or anything to do with the franchise to be honest. The amount of time I spent on the first game was more extensive than any other I have ever played and I was halfway through a ridiculously difficult challenge (a Pure Platinum run) when either through circumstance or willpower I dragged myself away from it. I can’t look at the movie with fresh eyes and comment on the blatant ridiculousness of it all because for better or worse, it has lifted the game’s style, attitude and story directly from the first game.
The former two of those points are where the meat of a debate is, the latter though will undoubtedly be the biggest issue for newcomers. The titular Bayonetta is a witch with guns strapped to her high-heels and clothing made out of her own hair who fights against masked angels. Having been awoken from a centuries long slumber without any knowledge of her life before her torpor, she is strangely drawn to the reclusive leader of a religious order while being pursued by the tenacious journalist Luka. That’s the set up, the execution involves a motorcycle chase, a chainsaw three times longer than Bayonetta is tall and a whole lot of incongruous, barely censored nudity.
Just like the game then.
There’s the pain point though: the game had perhaps one of the finest fighting systems ever conceived to fall back on, the story was just a rather long-winded vehicle for what you’d be shooting, stabbing or gyrating in front of next. Despite all of my time spent on the game though, many revelations in the movie I assumed were for the benefit of an unsuspecting audience are, in fact, canon. For fans of the game then you’re left with a simple truth: just because it’s canon doesn’t mean it’s any good. The rampant silliness on display - twin bazookas while riding a dragon? sure why not - is in a way refreshing but like the 1998 film Spriggan, it’s all dazzle and no substance; at least none you would care to muse overlong upon.
What dazzle though. Produced by Madhouse the characters share a similarity to the studio’s 2000 movie Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust with impossible proportions and pin-sharp rendering. The sumptuous backgrounds and locations are lifted straight from the game, sometimes down to the same camera angle, but always favour the awe inspiring rather than the mundane. There really is nothing quite like watching two lithe silhouettes shoot and cartwheel in front of a gorgeous paper moon.
Where the money came for such lavish detail is anyone’s guess because even though the game was a critical wunderkind it was a commercial failure, and director Hideki Kamiya has gone on record to say that without Nintendo (who have an exclusive in Bayonetta 2 for the Wii U) another game wouldn’t have happened. All of the money from whomever bankrolled Bloody Fate is up there on the screen though - stained glass windows, strands of hair, the soft glow of a sunset through to the flaming death of a newly born god. Boundless care and attention runs throughout and there is barely a scrappy, half-hearted frame in the entire ninety minute run time.
This does of course extend to the aforementioned nudity that peppers certain scenes. On several occasions the audience is subjected (or perhaps treated depending on your proclivities) to sizeable dialogues with only scraps of hair maintaining Bayonetta’s modesty. At this point you could roll your eyes and elicit a sighing “Oh Japan” however, that might be selling it short.
The first game was, in some circles, seen as a tremendous example of female empowerment which, from a heterosexual male point of view, seemed antithetical to what was on display. The analogies are all there to support it though with Bayonetta becoming more powerful the fewer clothes she is wearing through the death of the final boss coming, quite literally, from lipstick. Her confident demeanour and positive attitude to sex can all be seen in a light that on first glance is just copious crotch shots of a domineering librarian tearing up monsters.
Whether this movie retains that empowerment I am frankly not learned enough to say. The elements are all present if not as cannily utilised as they are in the game, however the presence of an egregious and entirely unnecessary bath scene is the biggest cause for concern. In an interview Hideki Kamiya stated that Bayonetta’s glasses are like her underwear, “never let yourself be seen without them”; it’s perhaps telling then that even they come off in the scene, if only fleetingly.
It’s not the only thing (definitely) different from the game though. Bayonetta herself, sublimely voiced here by Atsuko Tanaka of Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko Kusanagi fame, lacks the same vulnerability that was built up slowly and carefully and in its accelerated form here just makes her seem flakey rather than quietly unsure. Similarly the multifarious angels are presented as cannon fodder entirely without context and their frequent attacks on Bayonetta and her cohorts is left to the viewer to decipher without the knowledge of the Trinity of Realms.
These are all nitpicks though in the face of the biggest omission: no Infinite Climax mix of Fly Me To The Moon. Perhaps zealously guarded by GAINAX since Evangelion’s TV air date it is nowhere to be found in Bloody Fate despite its near iconic use in the game.
In as much seriousness as one can muster for Bayonetta though, if you can turn off the cynical, critical part of your brain for ninety minutes and just bask in a pixel perfect orgy of colour and ridiculousness then Bayonetta: Bloody Fate is a worthy watch; it will almost definitely leave you with as much knowledge as you came to it with. There is that lingering concern though that you’ve just watched the oversexed and fevered scribblings of a out-of-luck writer: this scene with a nun kicking angels in the face needs something… How about a muscly tattooed guy in shades playing the organ?! As a past, present and hopefully future fan of the franchise, this left me with an appreciation for “game” parts of the game rather than the “story” parts, though critically it didn’t sour my opinion of what I had once immensely enjoyed. For viewers unfamiliar with Bayonetta prior to Bloody Fate? Well, let me know.