Recently, the progressive metal band Dream Theater released a music video featuring their newest single, “Forsaken”. However, instead of having five guys jump up and down while lipsyncing, the band decided to take do a Linkin Park and produce an anime-themed video. Heck, they even hooked up with the same director, Yasufumi Soejima of GONZO. Yes, GONZO. All you animation freaks out there, I know you’re groaning, “Oh, why didn’t they pick BONES or Studio Ghibli”, but it’s not as bad as you think. Soejima was part of the production team that made one of GONZO’s better works, Gankutsuou, and the unique style found in Gankutsuou is prominent in the video. The hybrid combo of comic art and animation is also very reminiscent of the Award Winning series, Broken Saints
The song’s premise originated from a short story “Phantoms” by the Russian author, Ivan Turgenev. The story is set in the 19th century, and it is about a man who is haunted by a vampire girl as he travels around the world. However, in Dream Theater’s interpretation, the world takes place in the far future and the vampire girl has been changed into an android chick. She still drinks blood though, so I guess you could call her an Android Vampire. Additional information about the production of the video can be found here for those interested.
Personally, I preferred Soejima’s work in Linkin Park’s video better. Although the artistry and detail is unceasingly phenomenal, at times the characters themselves are awkwardly static while everything else is in motion. It is most likely that he meant for it to look that way, but I found the constant animation and the “shuddering” effect in ‘Breaking the Habit’ to be much more compelling and effective. Nevertheless, don’t trust my judgment. I probably didn’t see the “deeper meaning” behind the video being the shallow 17 year old that I am.
Oh, and Happy Valentine’s Day. What did everyone get?
6 Comments
I think this video isn’t suited for the song; it doesn’t seem to match the changes in the music very well. The animation isn’t very fluid (I understand it was probably made that way, but it doesn’t look very good). In certain moments, the video did creep me out.
The “Breaking the Habit” music video seems much better in terms of animation fluidity and the matching of video events and the song itself. But maybe that’s just my pro-LP bias talking, heh.
My small vocabulary and lack of knowledge of specific terms makes this comment seem kind of awkward; I hope you understand what I mean =P
I have no problems with the video.
But I thought the music wasn’t good. At all.
It says the video got removed X_x
Can’t watch it D:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C7oH6Ku27Us
working link ftw!
Woot! I’m a big time fan of Dream Theater (well, not so much as of recent since their musical style has changed, so maybe “was” is a better word) and wow -shock- they has anime video -/shock-
I don’t particularly like Linkin Park but yeah i think their video was better than this one. O well thx for the news, i would’ve found out a few months later that it was by the same director, had you not done a post about this
@Icystorm: I don’t know what you’re talking about. Your grammatical prowess far surpasses the majority of people in the US right now. I also like Breaking the Habit better, I guess most people do. I think the video is supposed to be a bit creepy though, gives it a dark effect.
@korosora: NO! HOW CAN YOU HATE DREAM THEATER!! <3 PORTNOY!
@Sleepy: It should work…maybe youtube was down?
@Drew: YES! GOT MY BACK!
@Hiyuu: Although I do admit their old stuff was better, their new stuff isn’t bad at all. Glad that this entry affected someone haha. I don’t think many readers listen to anything aside from Jpop and Jrock ;D. Just kiddiiinggggg…