She has center-split, ear-length, voluminous curtain bangs that flow down to frame the sides of her face, with two slightly thinner chin-length locks of hair in front of her ears below them. She has shoulder-length wavy hair that fades from black into dark purple, styled at the back of her head into a flat yakai-maki bun, fastened with a white, turqouise and light purple butterfly ornament. Also the parody of the Yakuza, as inferior guys who get beaten up by the school kids.Shinobu is a petite young woman with a pale complexion and large, compound-like eyes that lack pupils, only a haze of gradient purple, making her eyes appear similar to those of insects. This is all staged, and that's clear to us, and it's OK. Different moments in time, and different places on earth, and an important element: this film doesn't take itself seriously, as the others do. In a way, this is no different, in root, of series like Rambo, the filmography of Chuck Norris or the urban hip-hop acting pose. The director knows a few things about framing and pace, even though he doesn't take many risks (or none at all) in how he shoots the fights. This film gets away with that single thin notion because it is able to support it visually. This is a thin notion, which probably will appeal to a teen mind (with 24 i'm not quite sure yet if i've ever been a teen). To underline this, we come to understand that in fact the strongest guy in the school was in fact away from the main disputes all the way, probably because he is not cool, in the notion of the cool guys (he is cool in his uncool way). The fighting is a fundamental issue of that coolness, the best fighters gain admiration, not for their physical skill but for the coolness with what they get out of the situations - even when Genji is defeated after fighting dozens at the same time, he falls in a cool way. In fact, whenever we hear about wanting to 'rule' the school, what's in fact at stake is being the coolest there. Everything here is designed to look cool. It's an exploration of what it means, in a certain moment in time, in a certain culture (arguably global.), to be cool.
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