Count Me In: "Gankutsuou"

Gankutsuou.  Dir. Mahiro Maeda.  With the voices of Joji Nakata and Jun Fukuyama.  Studio Gonzo, 2004-2005.  Runtime: 10 hrs.

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo is, to put it bluntly, the best adaptation of the Dumas novel that I've ever seen, a great story that is both well-told and a superb adaptation.

This is the series that PBS doesn't have the guts to broadcast.

Gankutsuou is the longest of all the versions of the story that I saw, running ten hours.  As this adaptation has some extreme differences from the others, I will give a few plot details that I didn't give for the other versions.  It is set in the 51st century, and space travel has become normal.  Outer space stands in for many places outside of Paris.  Eastern Space is the Orient, Janina is now a planet, Albert and Franz go to the Moon for Carnival instead of Rome, and the Count takes Albert cruising in deep space instead of to Normandy.  These are merely shifts in location and do not interfere with the actual story.  Nearly all of the story still takes place in Paris and Marseilles in France.  We begin at the Carnival on the Moon and follow Albert for the duration of the story instead of the Count, allowing us to see the story from a new perspective.  Though many science fiction elements run rampant, like space travel, holograms, aliens, and mechanical horses, some 19th century French aesthetics are preserved, such as arranged marriages, class distinctions, opera, and some clothes.  Horse-drawn carriages, 1940s cars, motorcycles, and hovercrafts share the streets.  It all meshes convincingly to create a future that is both exotic and familiar.  Setting the story in the vast future also alludes to the universality of the story: in the future, human nature will be the same as it ever was and wronged people will still want to make their own justice when the system fails to provide it.

Something fascinating happens when the focus is shifted to Albert.  We lose the point-of-view angle on the Count and see him more easily as the villainous man he is.  The Count of Monte Cristo is a classic anti-hero.  We love him and we hate him.  We admire him and are charmed by him, but we are apalled by the things he does to bring justice to those who wronged him a quarter of a century ago.  The audience should never completely root for the Count--we may delight in seeing his enemies go down, but we know that he is not in the right.  Many adaptations suffer from trying to make the Count too nice and completely right in his quest for vengeance.  Not this one.  He doesn't care how many innocents get killed, go crazy, or how much he has to play with their emotions or rip their families apart--he wants vengeance and justice and he will use any means necessary to get it, even to the extent of signing away his soul.

Which brings us to the Count himself.  Gankutsuou's Count is not charismatic.  He is made of charisma.  He makes everyone he meets fall in love with him or at least want to be friends with him because of his money and influence.  Monte Cristo captures everything that Dumas' Count is.  He's an original (carpeting a cave is too tame for this guy--he builds an underground ocean teeming with sharks under the Champs-Elysees), he's sophisticated and charming, he can have barbaric manners to disturb his enemies, he has very strong determination, and he's cooler than ice in dealing with people.  He is also very much a villainous anti-hero--we like him and understand his motives, but despise the horrific things he does for the sake of revenge, and he does some vicious things here.  This Count is, without a doubt, the best portrayal of the Count of Monte Cristo I've ever seen.  The animation and the voice actor, Joji Nakata, whose deep voice is perfect for the Count, combine to make a memorable character that embodies everything that Dumas wrote.  In the book, some aristocrats, like the Countess G---, liken the Count to a vampire because of his pale skin, dark hair, sharp teeth, and cold hands.  The anime gives him an exotic, vampiric visage with blue skin, blue hair, red and green eyes, pointy ears, and fangs.  One can see how people would become instantly attracted to him while at the same time wanting to keep their distance just a little bit.  The character designer did well in preserving the alluring looks of the Count while making him look unlike what Dumas describes.  The revenge schemes wrought by the Count on each of the three conspirators are complex and very close to what they are in the book, and each man is brought down by his own vices, preserving point #4 on my list.  Though the stock market subplot is included, Danglars' eventual fate is altered, but what happens to him is actually quite in line with what Dumas' Count would do.  We also get to see Danglars watch his bank plummet rather than being told.

Points #1 and 4 on my criteria for a good adaptation--the preservation of the Count's character and the complex revenge schemes--have been fulfilled.  #2--vengeance can't bring happiness-- is too.  Much of the remorse from revenge is transfered to Haydee, whose name is spelled in the subtitles as "Haidee."  The book never addresses how Haidee feels about having revealed Fernand's treachery.  In the series, she is shown afterwards to feel sad and empty; she is sure that she has done the right thing, but still cries and doesn't feel happy.  She then wants to save the Count from the emptiness that she feels, deepening her character and giving her more to do than simply be a Chekhov's gunwoman.  Haidee finally gets her moment to shine.  She goes through the same emotions that the Count does in the book, preserving the theme of "vengeance is a hollow victory" while still showing what happens when vengeance runs unchecked.  The Count also does feel remorse, but it's done in more subtle ways than in the novel.  After Albert leaves him in episode 15, the Count despairs over what he's about to do, because he's come to care for Albert and doesn't want to ruin his life.  Then, in 17, when Mercedes comes to him after he's revealed how he's used Albert and has accepted a duel to the death with him, we can see that the Count has been crying.  He might want to give up his revenge, but his deal with Gankutsuou will not allow him to do that.  He has to see his revenge through.  He even enjoys most of it, though not the parts the involve hurting those he loves (though Gankutsuou sees to it that he doesn't feel pity for them for long).  In fact, omitting the death of Edward as the reason for his epiphany strengthens the reality of his feelings and conversion.  In the book, he grieves because his revenge causes the death of a small child, albiet one he didn't really know.  Here, his revenge causes great pain for several people that he truly cares about, which strikes a deeper chord than the death of a child he hardly knew.  The Normandy trip (here a deep space trip) gains more significance as the Count tells Albert his own story while passing it off as something that happened to a friend.

(SPOILER WARNING) In this version, there is no Faria to dig through the walls.  Instead, the spirit Gankutsuou appears to Emond in his despair to offer him a way out of prison.  The spirit is responsible for the radical change in Edmond's appearance.  The deal Edmond makes with Gankutsuou allows Edmond to have Gankutsuou's power and knowledge; in return, Edmond has to sign over his body and soul to the spirit when the revenge is complete.  This means that Edmond will not get to live the rest of his life once he has finished dishing out retribution.  He will have to live in his body not being able to control it for the rest of his life.  Alternately, as Noirtier suggests, his very soul might disappear.  That is definitely a fate worse than death--very little to enjoy there.  So, in this way, Edmond does get revenge partially for justice, but it's a lot more subtle than in the book.  Revenge in the moment is all he will get, and after that, his life is effectively over.  No more life of luxury, and certainly not with Haidee.  In addition, he partly does all this to avenge his father's death, as one line at a crucial point, right as he's losing his hold on humanity and letting the demon take control of him, tells us that he still knows that his father's death is a catalyst for his behavior.  That's point 3 to a degree.

The ending is purely bittersweet.  It takes place five years later and shows us how the survivors have gone on with their lives.  Those still living have succeeded in various ways, but their families are dead, crazy, and/or scattered.  It was also refreshing to see an anime give a series an epilogue episode instead of just ending and rolling the credits while the epilogue plays out underneath them (Romeo x Juliet, I'm looking at you).  This series deserves a proper finale and gets one.  Life does go on after a disaster.  Episode 24 is leisurely after the intensity of 23 but still packs a wallop in its final scenes when someone finds something behind the painting we had been seeing throughout the whole show.  The ending doesn't make you feel good like 2002's or 1934's films do--it makes you see the continual impact of betrayal and revenge.  And that's point 5.

The music wonderfully matches the story.  It combines classical music, like Tchaikovsky's "Manfred Symphony" and Giacomo Meyerbeer's "Robert le Diable," with original compositions.  The pre-existing music matches the story, as the characters attend the opera Robert le Diable in the novel, and Monte Cristo is compared to Manfred.  A series that is so operatic and epic should have grand music to go along with it, and the score obliges.  This is one of those series that I wish had an isolated music track as a special feature on the DVDs.  I would gladly sit through this series with only the music and visuals.  I guess the original soundtrack and classical music companion CDs will have to do.

... ...

..Don't look at me like that.

There's really only one thing I'll say against the series: the art style.  I've seen nothing else like it.  The first time I tried to watch it, I cut out after seven minutes, unable to take it anymore.  While it is dazzling, it is also very hard on the eyes at first, dizzying, and a little nauseating.  It screens in various textures and patterns which remain stationary as the characters move.  If you've seen the show Kablam! and remember Tommy's plaid jacket from those "The Offbeats" segments, that is what this show is like for everyone's hair, shirt, pants, scarf, dress, coat, cloak, and various other objects like tables, cups, and guns.  A character could turn around and the design that was on the back of the shirt is now on the front.  A cape could blow in the wind but appear not to move at all.  I think I finally figured out why the art is like this: most of the characters are aristocrats and have detailed clothing, so screening in patterns is the best way to demonstrate that wealth without the company going into bankruptcy trying to hand-draw those patterns.  Some patterns are subtle, like Valentine's clothes and Franz's hair, which match their personalities.  Others are loud: Danglars' clothes and house boast eye-bleedingly intense patterns and colors to underline his luxurious lifestyle.  The color palette of the show also looks like someone threw up Skittles at Acid Disneyland.  Nevertheless, once you get used to it, it's very unique and even pleasant at times, and you notice it less.  I will never again let an unusual art style be the reason I don't watch hand-drawn animation--I just might miss one of my favorite shows.
I have to make a defence of the use of mecha.  I was very surprised when mecha (giant person-piloted robots) showed up in episodes 18 and 23.  I actually thought that I'd stumbled into another series.  However, by the end of 18, I was sold, and I'm not a mecha fan.  It works because the show treats the mecha with respect and sincerity.  The combatants use them just like Frenchmen of the past used sabres and pistols.  People of the future use mecha to fight duels; there's nothing special about it to them, it's all they know.  The drama in the second half is also something special and would never work without the mecha.  Kudos to Gankutsuou for making giant robots sophisticated.  Episode 18 is also where the story takes a departure from the book with a what-if scenario: What if Mercedes hadn't been able to persuade the Count to spare her son?  It allows us to take a look at what happens when revenge runs unchecked while still keeping in line with the spirit and tone of the book.  Though there are sword duels, they're not particularly thrilling to watch, but instead horrific and gut-wrenching--you could not imagine Donat taking part in these duels. (There's the rest of point 5.)

The show's pacing and structure are perfect: there is not one single wasted scene, the plot elements are exactly where they need to be for the greatest impact, and the show moves at a fast pace, but not too fast to understand what's happening.  Every scene pushes the plot forward in some way, with no long scenes or episodes where the characters sit around talking about their flaws.  We see their personalities emerge and develop through their actions and reactions to strange situations, which is the best kind of development to have.  Despite the fact that we have a lot of characters and subplots to keep track off, all of them are neatly, but believably, resolved by the end of the series.
Mahiro Maeda seems to be the only director who's latched onto the fact that The Count of Monte Cristo is not a children's book.  Funimation effectively gives this series an NC-17 rating by making you confirm that you're 17 in order to watch it on their website.  The show has little violence (most of it unseen--the context is what's so disturbing), implied off-screen sex, an attempted rape, and very brief nudity, and that's about it.  But the themes of the story are very adult ones: betrayal, murder, manipulating young people, the past, revenge, love, trust, doubt, insanity, loss of identity and innocence.  That's what makes this anime mature--not the violence, but the seriousness of the themes and the sophistication of the storytelling.

This series is superb both as an adaptation and as a work on its own.  It fulfills the criteria I set down for a successful Count of Monte Cristo adaptation and is a marvelous piece of classy storytelling.  It brings something (many things, actually) new to the story while remaining faithful to the spirit and tone of the book, and that's exactly what you need to do if you want to adapt a story that's been adapted dozens of times already.  If you haven't seen it, seek it out and enjoy it, whether you normally watch anime or not.  You are in for a real treat.  If your eyes can handle the static patterns.  See it in Japanese; it preserves the French spoken by Gankutsuou, though it takes a few episodes to get used to Albert being called "Aruberu."

Final note: "Gankutsuou" means "king of the cavern" in Japanese.  It is the title of the novel in Japan.

Next: I wrap up my series with a list of general observations of and comparisons between the versions.