It is always a delight to return to Thunderbolt Fantasy. The production’s puppet theatrics are genuinely entrancing, and Gen Urobuchi is to my mind one of the greatest writers to ever work in anime. His stories of mankind rallying against brutal architectures of despair, be they oppressive governments or supernatural phenomenon, are always brimming with thoughtful arguments, hard-tested themes, and engaging characters. But as a show like Thunderbolt Fantasy demonstrates, Urobuchi is also perfectly comfortable outside of those questions of human nature and utilitarianism, weaving thrilling tales of swordsmen and wizards that are also enriched by his intelligence and wit.

Having essentially made his formal arguments regarding human nature through the course of shows like Madoka and Psycho-Pass, Urobuchi now enjoys telling rip-roaring adventures with as much humor as sorrow, and Thunderbolt Fantasy has proven itself a robust template for many such tales. Bewitching Melody of the West serves as a firm indication that Urobuchi is still brimming with fun ideas for Thunderbolt Fantasy, and moreover that he cannot help but imbue even the tale of a supernatural musician with his restless thematic wandering.

For our supernatural musician is indeed the subject of this film: the life and times of Lang Wu Yao, as he rises from a childhood of continuous labor and subjugation to the heroic stature of his season two self. From its opening scenes, we can already see Urobuchi’s preoccupation with utility versus human nature being considered anew, this time through the unfortunate tale of a boy with a gift for singing so profound that his mother sees no purpose in his life but to nurture that voice. “I do not think of you as my son,” she declares, “what I carried and gave birth to was your throat!” At what point does a gift become a duty, and how much beauty is worth a human life? Though his questions are no longer framed in terms of social good, that fundamental question of “how should we spend ourselves” remains.

Lang Wu finds a variety of people who wish to spend him in a variety of ways across the course of his adventure. After his mother dies when his voice changes (true to her word, that voice was all she loved), Lang Wu takes up shop in a disreputable restaurant, where his profound musical talents reap wondrous rewards for his employer. When that restaurant is raided by the hunting fox Xiao Kuang, Thunderbolt’s most conniving character senses opportunity, and presents Lang Wu as a gift for a psychotic princess. Genuine compassion is hard to come by for Lang Wu; all he sees are people weighing those same scales that his mother did, and concluding his life is worth far less than his voice.

Fortunately, as in all great Urobuchi stories, this cynical framework of value is persistently tempered with glimmers of sentimental humanity. In spite of Lang Wu’s painful relationship with his mother, he still finds comfort in her memory, and in returning to their former home. None of this serves to justify his mother’s actions, but rather to demonstrate how humanity and love can germinate even in the most unforgiving soil. These fond memories of his mother even result in him meeting a new confidant: the mysterious Mu Tian, who helps to brighten his days as a den of thieves’ court musician. The contrast is classic Urobuchi: in a world defined by cynicism and suffering, the enduring shards of compassion and hope shine all the brighter.

Alongside its reflections on utilitarian value, Bewitching Melody also finds time to muse over Urobuchi’s usual moral conundrums, exploring the inherent mutability and personal nature of moral judgment. Our naïve Lang Wu tragically suffers the worst of this: after his mother falls to her death, Lang Wu blames himself, and begins to view his voice as a curse. With the power to entrance and corrupt contained in his beautiful sound, Lang Wu consistently finds himself in a position shared by many Urobuchi protagonists: staring down at his hands, and wondering what condemnable evil he has wrought.

Of course, Lang Wu is only so tormented because he chooses to be, or rather because he desires to be a good person and feels he is not living up to that standard. Inspector Xiao Kuang embodies the opposite perspective of Lang Wu, seeing all morality as simply a tool to achieve his ends, and effortlessly adopting the guise of a victim or hero. Upon first meeting and accusing Lang Wu after the restaurant raid, he states that “those people were driven to villainy because they were smitten with your songs.” It’s a perverse twisting of cause and effect, and a rhetorical weapon often exploited by Urobuchi’s antagonists. Characters like Xiao, Kyubey, and Makishima delight in subverting our limited, often unconsidered perspectives on morality, examining the world from angles that expose the limits in our philosophy, or simply playing rhetorical games to confuse and torment their enemies. 

With his inherent feelings of guilt and monstrousness further nurtured by Xiao Kuang, Lang Wu submits to the (admittedly awesome) task of performing for an evil princess, all while that princess’s guards attempt to murder him. It takes the return of Mu Tian and arrival of our old friend Shang Bu Huan to prompt a change in his circumstances, as he is swept away and for the first time addressed as a person first, rather than simply a vehicle for his talent. Explaining his sword-stealing quest, Shang reflects that while his quest has a definite endpoint, Lang Wu is cursed to forever be dangerous to himself and others. And with these words, a potential way forward emerges: to harness his voice for the pursuit of those swords, thereby giving himself and his voice a noble purpose.

“With your razor-keen sensitivity, what did you witness in the world of man?” Xiao Kuang poses this question to Lang Wu as a condemnation, sneering at Wu’s idealism in the face of mankind’s inherently contemptible nature. But Lang Wu is not the first innocent Urobuchi hero, nor is he the first to fully comprehend the cruelty of mankind, yet still believe we are worth saving. “There is not that much good in the world, therefore what good remains is all the more precious” – it’s a sentiment I relate to well, and I imagine Urobuchi also sees his ragged heroes as kindred souls. Xiao Kuang is not necessarily wrong in his perspective, but that’s the thing about perspective; as Kuang well knows, what seems abominable from one angle might reveal itself as sympathetic from another, even if only the viewer has changed.

It is thus a victory of perspective that ultimately assuages Lang Wu, and gives him the strength to carry forward. From his friend Mu Tian, Lang Wu receives the gift of forgiveness for his mother – in spite of her torturous training, she “took the blade of your voice, and gave it a handle in the form of singing.” From the terse Shang, he learns that power cannot be denied, and that it is up to us to employ it judiciously. Between the two, both Lang Wu’s alleged “squandering” of his gift and fear of misusing it are resolved, allowing him to declare in a full voice that “if I am a sword with a handle, then the question lies in how I am used.” Flying into battle with burning resolve, Lang Wu truly embodies a sun-speckled sword, glimmering in the light as he pursues the justice he has found. For as wretched as they are in defeat, Urobuchi’s heroes are incomparably glorious as they rise.

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