Utilizing his typical surreal style of character design and animation, Masaaki's short film tells a "love story" with two typical and one odd participant. Pro wrestler, Masked Man M (real name: Romeo) has an established and successful career as a masked wrestler. His secret: he's a masochist who loves getting the shit beat out of him in the ring. This element alone is a fairly unique one for a wrestling story as I've never encountered a fighter who engages his art for his love of pain.
Romeo finally finds the peak of his pleasure when a mysterious female wrestler joins the ring; going by the name Lady S (Juliet). While Romeo desperately wishes to fight her, (if only to be subjected to her rough and powerful fighting techniques) it's interesting to wonder if Romeo's true love lies with her or the pain she's able to inflict. To this end, Masaaki creates a twist on the typical love story that simply uses wrestling as a medium to convey it.
It's also worth noting that Romeo is fighting for a cause! He wishes to obtain money in order to help supply funds for an orphanage he personally grew up in (run by nuns and a priest). While his fetishes are odd, Romeo at heart (or Kick-Heart) is a good man who has not forgotten his upbringings and is trying to bring joy to the children whom are now in a position he once was.
One thing I personally found interesting was the stylistic choice of a constant censor bar placed over Romeo's eyes when he is not in costume. Perhaps this was meant to bolster the idea of protecting the identity of a masked wrestler. While the children at the orphanage know who Romeo really is, the town he lives in may not. This was a cool an interesting take on this concept (shielding Romeo's identity even from the audience of the film) and to see it visually represented in Romeo's scenes out of the ring add an extra layer of detail that makes for an enjoyable film.
Lastly, It's worth noting that Kick-Heart was put out by well known anime studio Production I.G. It was also the very first successful anime project from a major commercial animation studio in Japan to use crowd-funding (via Kickstarter) to finance its production. The success of Kick-Heart spearheaded the way for other creators in Japan to create a new wave of projects via crowd-funding (something that is still remaining strong today).
Final Score:
Strengths:
-Tells a cohesive and entertaining story in only 12 minutes
-Fans of Masaaki's character design and animation style (such as myself) will be right at home
-Contains cool scenes of masked wrestling
-Showcases the "love story" from an interesting angle
Weaknesses:
-Some people may not buy into its animation style
-The film's music isn't its strong suit
-The ending of the film feels like it was meant to be the first part of other 12 minutes films.
Score: 8.5/10
Overall, Kick-Heart is a fun and short watch, that really had a lot of love and thought placed into it. I highly recommend it to everyone! Thank you so much for reading and have a wonderful day.
-Nights Off
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