All Aboard!

Despite trying my best to watch as many “auteur” works of anime as as I can, there are some creators I've really never grown to love. Rintaro is one of these; I've seen a good number of his films over the years, but none made much of an impression on me. On that note, I'd always respected Leiji Matsumoto, but felt his body of work was a bit of a relic. If I met the guy, would he start ranting about “kids these days” and how things were “in the old days”? I like to think so. So when I popped in Rintaro's two Galaxy Express 999 films, I was unsure what to expect. Didn't expect pure love.

Galaxy Express 999 is a hero's quest in its purest form: young Tetsuro gets whisked away on a journey by some mysterious figure, and changes along the way. It's been done many a time before, but mixing that formula with classic science fiction just hits a sweet spot for me; think the original Star Wars, and you have a pretty good idea of the film's vibe. Locations such as Pluto and Heavy Melder are every bit as imaginative and memorable as Tatooine and the Death Star. Ditto for the side characters. Most everyone Tetsuro meets seems to carry the weight of a well-developed personality and backstory. No, I don't just mean the Captain Harlock carry-overs. Everyone from Count Mecha to Claire to the Conductor was engaging to some degree.

It's these things aspects that keep the film's relatively slow pace from feeling oppressive. I also found myself focusing on said characters and locations rather than Matsumoto's super-conservative and somewhat destructive viewpoints, which until now had kept me an arm's length away from his work. You kinda have to accept that the heroes should never compromise on their beliefs no matter how much it may benefit the universe, and that all the lives and planets they destroy had it coming, somehow. Arguments could easily be made concerning how Tetsuro's and Harlock's actions are incredibly wrong, but I'm happy to push those out of my head and enjoy the show.

How, then, would Adieu Galaxy Express 999 follow up on such a fun, engaging adventure? By blowing the first film out of the water, right from the first scene. Now there's how you animate a brutal, uncompromising ground war against an implacable enemy. Although the plot may appear similar to the first movie in that Tetsuro must board the 999 on an adventure, the feel is quite different. It's shown early on that anyone can die, the 999 itself seems to be constantly in danger, and even the train's route remains a mystery. The strange world of adulthood Tetsuro discovered before is now re-examined, questioned. There aren't easy answers given to us like in the first movie; if Galaxy Express 999 was about finding your place in the universe, Adieu is about what we leave behind, never to be found again.

Generous . . . borrowing of certain elements from The Empire Strikes Back does little to diminish this movie in my eyes, nor do the opening measures of John Williams' Superman theme. Like its predecessor, Adieu Galaxy Express 999 may drag at times and wax melodramatic at others. I for one think these movies earn the emotional weight they go for. They take their characters seriously, do a good job with tried-and-true stories, and there's eye candy of every kind. Galaxy Express 999 is one ride that's definitely worth the ticket price.

Anime Central 2015 Convention Report

For the second time in as many years, my sister and I drove to Chicago for the Midwest's largest convention last weekend. I'd abstained from conventions since June in financial anticipation, and it was worth it; even more fun than the first time around. Here were the highlights, both good and bad:

I got to experience the legendary Anime Hell, having been too far back in line last year to fit in the ballroom. I worried that I might miss it again thanks to what appeared to be a professional line-cutter and the fire alarm going off about ten minutes into the show. Despite high expectations, being tired, and having seen some clips before, I still laughed my ass off.

Seeing the guests I wanted to see was an ordeal. Many panels were left off the schedule, and even the Panel Programming staff were unsure of anything more than an hour or two in the future. I heard rumors of some miscommunication or other, but have not yet heard what went on behind the scenes. I missed all but one of Helen McCarthy's panels, and wasn't even aware that Carl Gustav Horn would be present.

On the plus side, still got to see Helen McCarthy. The icing on the cake to that experience was that she signed The Art of Osamu Tezuka for me, which I'd happened to steal at the dealer's room for just $25. And Richard Epcar signed my copy of The Mystery of Mamo, while admitting offhand which Lupin role he preferred to play.

Though I have considerable experience with Garzey's Wing (and you can see my thoughts in a previous post), I attended the late night viewing party along with my unfamiliar sister, and what a night it was! We both loved every minute of that train wreck as presented by the Bad Anime Group; you can find them on Facebook, apparently, and I'll certainly be keeping an eye on them now.

And how does all this concern you, who may not care about my personal take on this or any convention? Well, I blew about five buttloads of money on DVDs, which means a more reviews in the future. A few titles I've seen years ago and only vaguely remember, like Cyber City Oedo, Project A-ko, and The Dagger of Kamui. But the majority is blind purchases, a big change of pace from my old buying habits.

Black Lagoon, a longtime member of my pile of shame, is now part of my collection. So too is the original TV run of Dirty Pair, since I've had such a good experience with the franchise thus far. I made a conscious attempt to bone up on classic '70s with Go Nagai's Devilman and Leiji Matsumoto's Galaxy Express 999 and Adieu Galaxy Express 999. Isao Takahata's early work is represented with Horus: Prince of the Sun, and I even managed to score Amazing Nuts!, which I expect to be just as pleasantly weird and experimental as its studio's entire body of work.

In short, I had a big fucking blast this year and would love to come back once again. Did anyone else out there attend this convention, and if so, what are your thoughts about it? Any conventions in general you want to share your opinions/experiences on? Now's the time, and the comments are the place!

Hello, Nurse!

As much as I may relish anime with intricate plots, compelling characters, and solid direction, at the start of each new season I usually pick at least one show to watch that looks awful. Sometimes, for instance, I'll pick up a show because of its overused premise in the hope that it'll somehow find a new way to explore it. Sometimes my lizard brain is entranced by big cartoon boobies in the promotional art despite knowing that's how they git ya! If reviewers pan a pilot for being incredibly sexist or racist, I'm intrigued; I can't change that about myself. The thing is, sometimes a seemingly crappy show can turn into a solid guilty pleasure. Like this season's Triage X.

The premise sounds simple enough: Mikami Arashi gives his life as a child in an attempt to save his best friend Mochizuki Ryu from an explosion. Ryu's mad father, Doctor Mochizuki, however, deems his own son as unlikely to survive, and sacrifices him for the limbs and heart necessary to restore Arashi to life. Years later, Arashi works with other resurrected patients as Docot Mochizuki's personal assassin, eliminating the criminal scum that infects the human population. Oh, and every other teammate happens to be a female nurse, idol, singer, or high school student with very improbable figures.

The reason for this is the source manga comes from the pen of Shoji Sato, illustrator of Highschool of the Dead. I'm proud to say I guessed such a connection before confirming it for a fact; something about the over-the-top action and fetishized proportions just gave me flashbacks. Those who go in expecting a retread of 2010's hit anime series will be let down, though. The animation budget is noticeably low, not quite to derpy-face levels, but low enough that highlights and shading are practically nonexistent. More tragically, Tetsuro Araki isn't directing. I get that he was probably too busy rolling in his Attack on Titan money to touch this work, but I'd just love to see what the man who gave us the infamous “bullet time boobs” sequence could do with this material.

Triage X's saving grace is that it doesn't really downplay its own outlandishness in the way Highschool of the Dead did by trying to make to relate to the characters, their suffering, or any similar bullshit. In that show we were expected to believe that your typical high schoolers could suddenly become badass zombie-killing machines. Here's your average teenager turned slayer of a hundred undead freaks; you can relate to them, right? In contrast, Triage X doesn't even try to earn your empathy with most of the cast. Here's Hitsugi, a sexy nurse by day. By night, she puts on an oni mask, punches through walls, and kills people with a minigun. Now here's Yuko, a doctor with JJ-cups magically changing her hair color and slicing through a Humvee with her katana. Turns out the tired character-building tropes Highschool of the Dead relied on aren't as effective as characters so bananas you accept them in spite of themselves.

Basically, this show is much more willing to have fun. Almost every mission ends with an abandoned building getting blown up, and the good guys always go to chillax at an onsen immediately afterwards. Sure, Arashi tends to question if what he's doing is right and angst over his Frankenstein-esque origins, but otherwise he's a pretty blandly agreeable guy. Compare that with Highschool of the Dead's combination of great action scenes with borderline uncomfortable perviness and bleak depression (it ends with a quote from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, for crying out loud), and I'll tend to choose the show that promises a less flashy but more unashamed good time.

Is Triage X for everyone? No, and maybe I'm overselling its appeal. It's still a fanservice show, and suffers from the stigma that go with that genre; namely average-to-middling animation and an obvious male gaze. However, the action is creative and engaging, as are a surprising number of storylines. If you're outright looking for a fanservice romp but have been burned by too many shitty entries, I'd definitely recommend this one. Odds are, it'll be just what the doctor ordered.

Busy & Late & Sorry

As the title implies, my posting has slowed down a lot because I've been super busy lately.  And I'm sorry.

A new article is coming soon, but in the meantime you might want to check out this link:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2015-04-24/yoshiyuki-tomino-admits-story-problems-in-gundam-reconguista/.87449

Now that's harsh.  To the best of my knowledge, Tomino never apologized like this for Garzey's Wing, thus cementing my claim that Garzey's Wing is in fact better than his latest Gundam show. 

Oh No! There Goes Anno!

Sorry for the lag in updates, but a big job change is in the works for me. Luckily, there's a semi-recent news item that I have plenty to say about.

Remember how it was announced that we'll be getting a Japanese Godzilla movie in the next few years, no doubt inspired by the recent American one? Well, my heart skipped a beat when I heard who would be the writer/co-director on this film? Hideaki Anno, one of the greatest talents in anime since the 80s. Then the pit dropped out of my stomach when I remembered that he hasn't really used his full talents since the late 90s.

Don't get me wrong; I'm a fan of Anno. He's such a superb animator that even the nitpicky Miyazaki was impressed, though Miyazaki inexplicably thinks Anno can also carry a lead voice acting role. He did great things as the director of Gunbuster and Nadia (no, I'm not counting the infamous island episodes), and of course put his studio in the map with Evangelion. The trouble is, nothing post-Eva comes close to much of his earlier efforts. Anno quit before the completion of His and Her Circumstances and only dabbled in some live-action productions that remain obscure in the U.S. To be fair, I guess the man isn't quite in a position where he needs to work for a living.

The closest he's come to recapturing his former glory is the ongoing remake of Evangelion. These movies were high-profile, financially successful, and examined the original series' still-relevant themes from a slightly different angle. But truthfully, those themes are watered down and compressed, it is till a rehash as opposed to an original work, and the big changes introduced in movie three were rather poorly set up. Now this triumphant return is put on hold because working on the most recent movie depressed him all over again.

Did Anno pour all his heart and soul into Eva, leaving no drive left for his more mature years? Did its overwhelming popularity bing this man for life to rehashing his masterpiece, much like George Lucas? What exactly will his involvement with Godzilla mean for everyone?

Personally, I think it's a good thing for both Anno and the franchise. With no new Japanese movie since 2004, the King of Monsters has seen better days. I wasn't a fan of the pointless, three-hour funeral dirge that was the 2014 American production, and hope that the Japanese movie(s?) will take a different track. A longtime tokusatsu fan, maybe Anno will bring the love back to Godzilla, and maybe this job will break him out of his funk. Of course, this could all lead up to a trainwreck that sends the franchise underground and Anno into therapy, but I'll stay optimistic.

Who knows? We might just get to see Jet Jaguar again.

Winter 2015 Overview

Time once again for a season review!  Overall I'd have to say this was a strong start to the year, although a few series did stick out like a swollen, pus-oozing sore thumb.  So, without further ado, here are my thoughts!

Aldnoah Zero

I guess this was a halfway decent stab at yet another Gundam-inspired show, but for me it fell short of those heights and landed around the Code Geass level. Great designs and action, but the characters could be just insufferable, especially main rivals Inaho Kaizuka and Slaine Troyard. Both are hard to root for, Inaho because he's perfect at everything while showing no emotions, and Slaine because he's so oblivious to his gradual corruption. Yet we're supposed to be invested in their clash of wills. Also, just about everything with Urobuchi's name attached tends to have a couple annoying plot twists, and this is no exception. However, if you have a weakness for overwrought melodrama, this may just be your ideal junk food.

Gundam: Reconguista in G

Christ. Just read my review in the previous post. I can't do this again...

Parasyte: the Maxim

Remember last season when I implied I'd definitely buy this show when it was released? Well, this season gave me second thoughts about that. Not that Parasyte turned awful, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it did slow. Waaaay. Down. The Tamura Reiko and government infiltration arcs introduced a lot of characters who really weren't very interesting, and took away from the Shinichi/Migi dynamic, easily the best part of the show. Even those two weren't quite as fun to watch as before, as by now they'd smoothed out most rough edges in their relationship. Still, I can't deny that it is a great series with tons of effort put in. There's just a sizable stretch of episodes in the middle I can't really see myself revisiting.

Shirobako

What a treasure this show is. I was a little worried the second cour would be a rehash of the first, but nope! They still found plenty of new things to explore about the anime industry, this time focusing on adapting a pre-existing work instead of producing original content. New characters were fun and interesting, and new depths were revealed in many old ones. I can't recommend this show highly enough.

Ronja the Robber's Daughter

There are actual emotional stakes introduced in this cour, and characters do grow and change to some extent. Granted, the show still has a snail's pace, and all conflicts are of the most basic sort, but not bad for a kid's show. I actually think that Ronja herself makes a halfway decent role model by a certain point. The biggest drawback is sitting through the lump of nothing that is the first half, and the animation, which will probably never look anything less than jarring.

Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei Bu Love!

I expected more laughs from the director of Daily Lives of High School Boys, and I think I know why there weren't as many here: he was too constrained by the Magical Girl formulas. His previous comedy work dealt with finding stupid, dry humor in everyday occurrences with everyday people. It was fun to see a bunch of bored boys pretend a stick was a sword, and really fun to see how far they'd that simple joke. Here? You know someone will get turned into a symbolic monster of the week, and they'll get defeated the same way each time. The personalities aren't nearly as interesting; one of the magical boys' characters revolves around liking money, and another's around liking girls. The highlights would definitely be the show's beginning and ending, because of the boys' reactions to the concept of Battle Lovers and to the eventual “shocking” revelations. The sight gag with their unfortunate teacher is hilarious every single time. Also, some of the aimless conversations that occur are sometimes funny, as well as the puns that result from them. But overall the genre isn't being skewered in the new, creative ways I'd hoped it would be.

Sailor Moon Crystal

Pretty much more of the same with this one. Glad there's only one cour left, because nothing's sucking me in here.

Tokyo Ghoul Root A

A distinct improvement over the first season, in my opinion. Despite being basically another shonen action series, I consider this show a cut above most standard fair from that genre. Sure, there are too many characters and most of their arcs aren't as fleshed-out as I wish, but Tokyo Ghoul isn't afraid to go dark, and it isn't afraid to go quiet. Also, not only are the fight scenes well-animated, they are constant; don't worry about going long stretches without action in this show. I definitely want to see where the story goes from here.

Yuri Kuma Arashi

I was really expecting more from this show based on the director's previous work. My opinion of this show hasn't changed much since I last posted on it, and I can't really shake the feeling that Ikuhara wasn't really trying hard. Here's hoping his next effort is less repetitive and has more to say.

Death Parade

This show fought a long, hard battle to win me over. I disliked the Death Billiards short that inspired the show; it forced us to watch uncomfortably extreme emotions without revealing enough at the end to justify this, sort of a melodramatic cocktease. At first I thought Death Parade would be more of the same, but it added a compelling hook: the Arbiters' system of judgment is flawed, and our eternal souls are probably getting fucked over after death. I warmed to the show as it revealed itself to be competently done; there was nice variation to the games and one-off characters, animation was great, and the aforementioned hook was built up gradually rather than always shoved in our faces. Episode 11 won me over completely, because I've never seen an ice skating sequence depicted so lovingly. Not only that, but it did wonders for a major character's development, and didn't even include any dialogue. How many twenty-three-minute shows have the balls to gamble that their viewers will be that engaged with the onscreen proceedings for a whole five minutes? That was impressive as hell, and I'm really glad I gave this show the chance. It still doesn't give us easy answers by the end, but in a good way this time.

Assassination Classroom

There was a lot of hype for this show, but it still blew away my expectations. Not only do the jokes have a high hit ratio, but nearly every new character introduced (and there are a lot) is funny and endearing to some degree. Plus, in spite of the palpable respect for students and teachers alike, there's some brutal criticism here against certain teaching methods. Definitely looking forward to developments next cour, though I'm curious how they'll end this since the manga is ongoing, and unlikely to stop soon given its massive success.

The Rolling Girls

If you've read the write-up I did on this show a while back, my opinion hasn't really changed. If you missed the review, I didn't hate the show, but wished I liked it. Imagine taking an extended road trip through a string of neat, beautiful locations with a bunch of companions who kinda piss you off. Does the exceptional animation and music make up for the lackluster characters and plot? The choice is yours, but for me they more or less canceled each other out.

Maria the Virgin Witch

Really torn on this one. On one hand, it has some ballsy commentary on religion you don't see a lot of, commentary I happen to agree with. On the other, it gets preachy, which I tend to dislike. This show sometimes feels like the reverse of some preachy Christian movie; you know, the ones that always include some borderline miracle of a coincidence that we're supposed to interpret as divine intervention? Here, you see people getting mercilessly killed in battle right after expressing faith in God's protection, and it rings just as false. After all, the director can show whatever they want onscreen, but that doesn't mean it's an accurate depiction of how religion or faith works in the real world. Also, it's a little insulting in that it presents Maria's worldview as the 'right' one that most of the smarter characters get 'converted' to. Apart from these complaints, I was quite impressed with how many of the characters had a fully-fleshed story arc; remarkably few were dead weight. I'd recommend this because at the very least it gives us all food for thought (and that beautiful Production I.G. Animation).

Yatterman Night

This show was stronger than it had any right to be considering it's geared for kids, but I still don't think it reached its full potential. While the switching of hero and villain roles made for one of the season's best premises, some of the reveals towards the end can be seen as cop-outs. On top of that, the final episode's battles were some of the worst-animated I've seen in a while, screw what Anime News Network's reviewer said. Really not sure how they could've missed the prodigious use of repeated footage, and the choreography was incredibly hard to follow. Overall, though, the show was a fun jaunt into a franchise I've always neglected to examine.

And that's it!  Anything good that I missed?  Let me know in the comments!

Tomino, Your Soul May Be Held Down by Gravity

The thought didn't hit me until episode 9. Up until then, I'd thought of Gundam: Reconguista in G to be just another bad anime. The beginning was different enough from most other Gundam to interest me in the plot, before I discovered the plot was a tangled mess of aborted ideas. I continued watching only through obligation, since I rarely drop shows after starting them. Eventually episode 9 staggers through its final part, and I'm listening in irritation to the characters talk about Gondwan, the Rose of Hermes Blueprints, SU-Cordism, and the Nick Space. Have these things been mentioned before, or are we being informed of them for the first time? Will Tomino choose to focus on any of these at any point, or will they just be thrown into conversations to make the show sound political? Then, like a key turning in a lock, it finally clicked for me:

Gundam: Reconguista in G is one very special dub away from being Garzey's Wing.

I mean, of course there would be similarities between the two since Yoshiyuki Tomino directed both, and his many shortcomings have been brought up by plenty of reviewers in the past. But Garzey's Wing was such an infamous turd that Tomino himself reportedly doesn't want to talk about it. And this particular Gundam incarnation comes not only right on the heels of the wildly successful Gundam Unicorn, but is set in the same timeline, presumably retconning other works like Gundam F91 and Victory Gundam (no great loss, according to many). One would think the man would avoid tainting his flagship franchise with literally all the same mistakes again, but I'll be damned if I can watch each new episode without hearing a ghostly voice instructing me in the art of gun-making. Let's take a few minutes to review this brand new trainwreck, shall we?

Now, I didn't start this show with a checklist of what MUST be included for it to TRULY be considered a REAL GUNDAM SHOW; honestly, fans that hardcore tend to irritate me. So when plot elements like the space elevator and strange religion centered around said elevator were introduced right alongside military cheerleaders, I was curious about how these would be developed instead of raging about their inclusion. If the creators wanted to go lighthearted with the material, that was their right. No, my misgivings first took root a bit later as I realized that none of these things mattered. And that almost everything else introduced in the series would share the same fate.

Take antagonist Captain Mask, the Char Aznable look-alike no doubt included to appease old-school Gundam fans. He shares none of the moral complexity that made his predecessor interesting to watch. Though apparently he fights to honor his race which currently faces prejudice, we never really see much evidence of this prejudice, never mind the effect his actions have to dispel this informed hatred. The character himself acts more like an attack dog than a human being, charging his enemies without a thought for who they are or why either of them are fighting, only certain that this time he'll shoot those guys down right up until he needs to retreat in disgrace yet again. Again, this isn't me hating one series because it isn't another; this is just an example of what you expect to be important, of what is presented as important, but isn't. Hey, the protagonist's mother is one of the planet's most influential politicians! That'll sure influence events, right? No? How about the Earth military's internal conflict between those pushing for a more aggressive, borderline dictatorship and those that oppose them? No? Well, shit, what are we supposed to care about?

Let me first say that it sure as hell isn't the characters. They suffer from exactly the same bizarrely disjointed feeling, sometimes even appearing to suffer from mental disorders. Exposed to the most massive loads of bullshit the plot can offer, hardly an eye is batted. At other times, a character will go from laughing in joy to crying in mental anguish over the span of seconds, often at the prompting of dialogue that would leave any normal person cocking their head in confusion instead. The show becomes a sort of game, one where you watch each scene and try to figure out what Tomino wanted you to feel in it, rather than grasping the intention instinctively as you could with any halfway-competent piece of art. The one shining star of brightness in the entire cast is Raraiya Monday. She takes the normally boring archetype of mysterious eccentric girl to such extremes that she can more accurately be described as pants-on-head retarded. Her antics are a completely stupid yet enjoyable reprieve from . . . everything else, at least until her temporary space-induced mental disorder cures itself one episode, and she becomes just like everyone else. The other characters take this development in stride, of course.

No relief is found in the fight sequences, despite being technically well-animated. There's enough shouting to make anyone's ears go numb, be it long-winded exposition or your standard mecha staples of “I'll show you!” and “Take this!”. Enough factions are introduced that half the time you're not sure why any given characters are fighting. The other half the reasons are completely inane. For example, on different occasions, at least two different girls will attack someone simply because they want Captain Mask to like them. They are far from the only ones to act so stupidly; particularly eye-rolling is one female captain who exists solely to love a certain man who soon dies in battle. Rather than relieve her from duty for her obvious insanity following this, the crew keeps her in charge and they all get blown up shortly after. Dear God, this show kinda paints most women as pretty irrational things, doesn't it?

 Honestly, there's only so much I can write about what a soul-sucking chore this show is and still remain coherent. In direct mockery of its bright colors and rounded, friendly designs, Gundam: Reconguista in G feels like the proverbial abyss that gazes back into me. I'd recommended this to no one, not even those who, like me, consider Garzey's Wing so bad it's good. First, there's no terribly-performed English dub of this (yet) to mock; all the terrible dialogue you'll have to read for yourself. Second, it craps on a franchise that is loved by many and at least respected by most. Finally, whereas Garzey's Wing drags even at three episodes, this is twenty-six episodes of hell. Do yourselves a solid and stay far, far away, because honestly this is a show that can't even be laughed at. Only pitied, and feared.