TEST STRIKE

The restraint in pacing made the final strike even more disturbing. It’s a meditation on power, honor, and brutality - stripped of sentiment.

There’s a danger in dramatizing tsujigiri without contextual nuance, but this film does something unexpected - it shows the banality of the act. Not ritual. Not epic. Just cruelty. That’s powerful.

There’s a sterile elegance to the violence here. The AI aesthetic adds a layer of artificial detachment - almost like history generated by a machine without empathy. And that might be the most damning commentary of all.

A very precise and hard-hitting film. Beautiful, emotional animation. Despite being in black and white, it is incredibly vivid and piercing. Thank you!

I’ve read about tsujigiri, but I’ve never seen it portrayed so coldly. No fight, no glory - just execution. The AI visuals felt eerie, almost too real. Was that uncanny realism intentional to unsettle us?

Man… I thought it was just gonna be about a sword. But that ending? It really shocked me. The way the poor guy trusted him, even smiled… I wasn’t ready for that.

The moment the man’s wife spoke… it broke me. It wasn’t just a test. It was a life. And we saw the whole arc - hope, trust, betrayal, grief - in silence. I cried without even realizing.