Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Video Backlog: “Karigurashi no Arrietty (Arrietty the Borrower)”

Publisher: Buena Vista Japan
Format: Region 2 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English and Japanese Subtitles
Length: 94 minutes
Production Date: 2010
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

I am not all familiar at all with the original series of Mary Norton’s “The Borrowers” children’s books, nor the many film and TV adaptations of the books since the early 1970’s. I had heard of the big late 1990’s Hollywood adaptation and knew there were little people involved, but that was it. It’s probably a good thing I had very little in the way of expectations of this film. Having said that, and with the knowledge that Hayao Miyazaki did the screenplay for the film, I was really surprised that this film seemed a bit of a letdown and not up to the usual standards of Studio Ghibli.

After I saw the film, I read the synopsis of the original novel and was very surprised that it sounded a lot more involved and intriguing than this adaptation. A lot of little plot points seem to have be excised from Miyazaki’s script. The major problem I had with the film is that it takes about an hour of its runtime to get to the meat of the story. During this time everything is set up and the Borrower’s world is explored, but it leaves very little time to build up any drama. And even when the drama finally arrives it’s hardly as exciting or suspenseful as any of Ghibli’s films from the past decade. Even “Ghiblies 2” is more suspenseful than this film.

The other problem with this film is that it feels so damn old fashioned. The original book was published in the 1950’s, and to me it seems rather odd to send a sick child to the country to rest before they have major surgery. It’s a very 19th century or very early 20th century thing to do. I understand that there has to be a driver in the plot to get the boy to the old house in the country (or on the outskirts of modern day Tokyo in this case), but surely there has to be a better plot device to do this. There could have been any number of medical afflictions used or the boy could have just been there for another reason. Miyazaki could have even set this film in an earlier time period, which would have made it a lot more realistic in my books. The character design, which I know is a Studio Ghibli tradition, is increasingly looking old hat. It particularly looks rather inadequate here with the juxtaposition of the human characters and the Borrowers just not looking right. I also felt some of compositions of certain shots didn’t give any scale to the Borrower’s world from their perspective.

There is still a lot of that patented Ghibli magic in this film. For instance the sequence of Arrietty and her father Pod travelling though the wall cavities of the house with their improvised devices was awe inspiring, and end credit sequence was wonderful. I really wished the relationship of the young boy, Sho, and Arrietty had been developed and strengthened more. It feels a bit a bit detached and there is not much emotional impact when the Borrower’s world is turned upside down in the last arc of the film. While first time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi (previously a talented key animator) has done an admirable job on this film, it is in my opinion the least satisfying of last few Ghibli films, and that includes Goro Miyazaki’s “Tales from Earthsea” which was unfairly panned by a lot of critics in Japan. I’ll say yet again that Ghibli should have tried harder to work with Mamoru Hosoda (“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time” and “Summer Wars”) and kept him at the studio. His two Madhouse films are far more interesting than this film (even if his work does have the occasional flaw). To me Ghibli is the now studio run by the old man Hayao Miyazaki who is a bit set in his ways and unfortunately it feels like it’s slowly becoming archaic and bit irrelevant to modern day anime fans. I note that on the Japanese DVD, there is no English title for the film on the cover, unlike the past few Ghibli movie releases. In fact on the Englsih subtitles on the DVD itself, the title is curiously left as romanised Japanese, “Karigurashi no Arrietty”, and not translated at all. The DVD and Blu-ray versions came with a bonus hair clip. Summing up, yes it’s a good film, but not up to the standards I’d usually expect in a Ghibli film, especially in the story department. 7 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Monday, June 20, 2011

Video Backlog: "Let’s Go! Inachu Ping Pong Club"

Publisher: Software Sculptures (Central Park Media, USA)
Format: Region Free DVD (Vols 4 and 5), Region 1 DVD (Vols 1 to 3), NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 25 minutes
Production Date: 1995
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

I first saw a snippet of this show at somebody’s house about 15 years ago. They were showing me their Hong Kong VCD set of the show. It was Chinese subtitled with the optional original Japanese track in one audio channel, and the Cantonese dub in the other. Urg, glad we’ve come a long way since then. It’s funny, but I’ve had the show in the back of my memory since that time. It was only a couple of years back when I decided to scoop up the remaining CPM titles that I hadn't yet got that I actually bought this show.

What the show boils down to is that it is essentially a show for perverted teenage boys (isn’t that ALL teenage boys?). The core plot is a bunch of 14 year old high school students goofing off in their club, the Ping Pong Club. As you'd expect, very little of this series is about Ping Pong. You have two sets of people in the club, those who sort of take the club seriously and those who are the sex obsessed perverts. Initial episodes really didn’t impress me at all. The show was all about being perverted and disgusting. However for me, I just felt it all was a bit strange and wasn’t disgusted at all by the antics of the pervert trio; Maeno, Izawa and Tanaka (call me jaded). The sudden addition of a “manager”, Kyoko, a delinquent girl who smokes and was forced into position by the club’s supervising teacher, changes things for the better. A tentative burgeoning relationship begins to develop between the rather straight laced (well, for this show at least) Takeda. There seems to a bit of a back story between the two of them, but it’s sidelined in this version. I bet the manga tells that side of the story. There's also the mid season inclusion of a shy girl Chiyoko Kamiya, who has an eye on the club's pretty boy Yuusuke Kinoshita. However Izawa somehow becomes her mentor in love (though this is soon forgotten in terms of the story).

Apart from the rather weird fetishes in this show, such as Tanaka getting a bunch of dogs to lick him whist naked, or Maeno and Izawa playing “Lupin and Fujiko”, what got me is how this show pretty much constantly depicts sexual assault on girls. That’s pretty much all you get with this show really. Oh, and voyeurism. I’ve never seen so many breast, nipples, and unfortunately uncircumcised penises, in one show. It amuses me how a section of moralistic fandom goes nuts over certain shows currently screening on Japanese TV late at night, yet this show outdoes them all. Ever seen a guy suck on his girlfriend’s nipple in a current anime TV show? No? Well it happens in this show. The second opening animation is pretty much a orgy scene with tons of nudity (though it's meant to be a humorous fantasy). And remember it was screened uncut on TBS at around 1:30am in the morning. Take that you modern day anime fan wusses! Seeing as every fucking thing now days is somehow related to child porn, methinks the paedophiles-are-everywhere-and-in-everything brigade would also consider this show to be child porn. Cause you know, poorly drawn and animated characters from a 16 year old anime that everyone has forgotten about, need as much protection as a real flesh and blood child (apparently. No, it isn’t a piss weak excuse to ban stuff they don’t like. Really. Just ask Melinda Tankard Reist).

Though the show is so obscene, as well as crudely animated and drawn, that it often just becomes surreal, it does manage to hit the right spot between perversion and being devastatingly funny. Every review I read seems to compare this show with “South Park”, which is absurd. The only similarities are that they’re crude and animated (and crudely animated). CPM’s release is bizarre. The last 14 episodes were released first on DVD, then a few years down the track they issued the first 12. Also despite the various cultural oddities and references in this show which would require some liner notes (such as Izawa’s similarities and jokes in reference to the title character from “Tomorrow’s Joe”), CPM in their infinite wisdom wasted god knows how much money on a “hilarious” commentary by the “characters” for half an episode. “Characters” means the English dub cast, if you didn’t figure that out already. Do these guys really think they’re funny? Look pal, you’re doing voiceovers for some obscure Asian cartoon. If you had the talent to make people laugh you’d be elsewhere. I also note that the dub director is listed as “Agent Zero” which sounds like the anime dub director version of Alan Smithee. So overall, it was a fun show, but there were numerous flat spots. I’ll give it 6.5 out of 10

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Video Backlog: A Whole Heap of Otome

"My Otome"
Publisher:
Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2005 – 2006
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

This is the alternate universe follow up series to “My Hime”, and to be totally honest I have almost forgotten the plot to that show. It’s been more than a couple years since I’ve seen it. That’s how much of an impression the show left on me. But hey let’s face it, a lot of anime shows are pretty disposable anyway. However as I’ve said a few times before, Sunrise hardly ever makes a bad show (“King of Thorn” is the horrible, horrible exception here).

The creators have been very clever here. Rather than just repeating the plot of “My Hime” in an different setting, they’ve deliberately changed the roles of the characters and introduced a bunch more and have pretty much ignore the main characters from the old series, until the climax. The show does take quite a while to get to the real meat of the plot. It’s not until the tenth episode that this happens. I’ve noticed this a lot in many anime shows made in the last decade. It’s like they’re using a series dramatic structure template; the first “X” number of episodes introduce the characters, build up relationships and back stories between them etc. It’s mostly all sweetness and light. Until we get to the next batch of “Y” number episodes which the big reveal and horribleness that affects the characters so deeply happens. Naturally this was hinted at in the first section of the series, but never followed up. The last section is the conclusion. This all makes for a rather duller series overall regardless of the content. Often time is completely wasted in terms developing plot and characters as well.

As a result, “My Otome” is a bit rubbish at the beginning. We’re introduced to the naive, bumbling but lovable country girl Arika. Completely oblivious to the social structure of the Windbloom Kingdom and attempts to enrol in the very excusive Garderobe Academy to become an Otome. Naturally the headmistress she has a special talent (and a special gem linking her to the house of Windbloom) and she gets in, she makes friends with people who are her enemies with her cute, good natured, strong social justice type personality. Plus she gets bullied etc etc. It’s all pretty much bog standard and a little dull until we get to the half way mark. The greatest strength of this show is Arika’s relationships with princess Mashiro, Nina Wang and Sergay Wang (bit of a “Daddy Long Legs” vibe going on between him and Arika), as well as the action sequences. The back end of the show certainly makes up for a lot of the lameness of the first third.

However the back end of the show is not without its problems. The main one being the rather confused political situation. It’s very hard to determine which faction is tied or against other factions or the motives behind what is going on. Most confused is the relationship between Schwarz and Aswad, which I initially thought were one in the same until the middle of the series. In amongst this confusion is an absolute ton of characters. There are links between them all, but it’s quite had to keep track at times. Rather than the “happy school girl” first third, I think they should have devoted that time to establishing and strengthening the ties between characters and developing them more. Then again, this a common complaint I make against a lot of modern anime. There’s also quite a bit of fetishism in the first third of the show, but it’s all a bit curious as to the way it’s handled. It’s almost as if they had a checklist and where ticking off the various fetishes (mostly all presented in a subtle way) and then these fetishes didn’t get mentioned again. There was a weird mention of sexual infantilism (if that’s what you’d call it) between two characters which got a good run in the latter half of the show. I also found the whole concept of Otomes odd. It’s like they’re an order of magical battle nuns sans religion.

Summing up, this is a fun show despite its many flaws and fan pandering. The second half made up for the lacklustre first half. 6.5 out of 10.

"My Otome Zwei"
Publisher:
Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 4 Episodes x 28 minutes
Production Date: 2006 – 2007
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

This is a direct follow on from “My Otome” (zwei meaning two in German and a pun on the kanji in the Japanese title of the show which looks like a “Z”). I think the OVA series starts off really well with a fantastic action sequence (involving Arika and a team of Otomes taking out a meteor about to plummet onto the surface of the planet) and then crashes soon after. Again the main problem I had here was the really confused plot in terms of the political machinations. It didn’t make a lick of sense to me. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it. Things soon go from bad to worse with a bus jacking side trip which is in no way connected to anything else in the show.

Then we get a sequence with the main cast in a hot springs bath house with nudity and nipples they couldn’t show on TV. And what was with the disappearance of the valley. That didn’t make a whole lot of sense. So much lazy writing in this show. The characters are don’t develop any further than what they were at the end of episode 26 of the TV series. In fact some revert. It all adds up to a very disappointing show which all four OVAs barley seem to link to each other in terms of plot. Really didn’t like this one much at all. Totally not impressed. 5 out of 10 for some action sequences and designs only.

"My Otome 0~S.ifr~"
Publisher:
Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 3 Episodes x 28 minutes
Production Date: 2008
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Making more money out of the franchise, here’s the three part OVA prequel. Unlike the rushed and jumbled up atmosphere of its predecessors, this OVA isn’t crammed full of too many characters and too many ideas. However it does suffer that same confused feeling in terms of the way the plot is presented to the audience. It was only when I went online to do a bit of research that I realised that the lead character, Sifr Fran, was Nina Wang’s mother. That was not at all clearly articulated in the OVA (though I may have missed it and was My Otome’d out by that stage). I will say this OVA series was much, much less cluttered than the previous two series. Miyu, Arika’s mum and the Schwarz organisation make welcome returns to the show.

Oddly Bandai haven’t dubbed this part of the franchise. Unsure why, but guessing from some of the reviews of “My Otome” and it’s successors, people were iffy on it and it didn’t sell. I don’t think this show is as fun overall as the original TV series, however is structured a whole lot better and has practically none of that fetishistic fanservice. However I’ve forgotten what happened in the show already, and it’s only been a day or so since I’ve watched it. I’m going to give it 6 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Video Backlog: "Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos"

Publisher: Software Sculptures (Central Park Media, USA)
Format: Region Free DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Subtitles
Length: 15 Episodes x 25 minutes
Production Date: 1986
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

I often wonder how companies come to release some titles. Are they because they’re cheap? Are they forced to release certain titles under contract because of another title they bought? This show is one such mystery. Originally released in 1997 by pre-CPM Software Sculptures, I believe this show got as far as 10 episodes out of 47 on tape before halting. A (then) decade old sub only show based on a toy line that practically no anime had heard of. Boy, I bet sold well. Going back to the history of the show, yes, it is nothing more than a 30 minute advertisement for Japanese toy company Popy’s second wave of Machine Robo toys, and funnily enough the line was called Revenge of Cronos.

The basic story has the planet Cronos which is inhabited by robotic life forms, being invaded by an alien race called Gandora, also robotic life forms. The hero of the story is a robot called Rom Stol, who along with his sister Leina and bunch of other transformable toys, roam the land looking for the mythical energy known as the Hyribead, with the Gandoraians one step behind. Rom’s village was attacked by a bunch of Gandora robots and they killed his father, Kirai, a martial arts master. It’s pretty much the same thing every episode; Rom and company come into town (usually the local village), town is attacked/repressed by Gandora, fight ensues, Rom transforms into a big arse robot and saves the day. Repeat times 15 with little variation.

The obvious problem with this show is me; I’m not in the demographic. That demographic being a mid 1980’s Japanese prepubescent boy who loves robots. The dialogue is pretty woeful. The story is predictable and crappy. However on the whole, the animation is pretty damn good. A couple of the episodes are pretty shoddy on the first disc, but it improves greatly. Admittedly I did buy the first tape of this in the late 1990’s and didn’t like it a great deal. I stupidly bought all three DVDs when CPM bit the dust. It took me a while to get through this, but surprisingly I was enjoying it quite a bit towards the end. This is probably because there was a lot more stories involving more human like characters rather than faceless robots. Surprisingly there was a little bit of fan service in the show, which was a bit weird. I think if you can suspend disbelief with the whole concept of this show (sentient mechanical beings that grow up like live creatures and die and can’t be repaired), then it’s quite fun. The animation is its greatest asset though and really shows that Japan was way ahead of western nations in this regard during the 1980’s. But story and script are what make a show, and given it’s origins it’s no surprise it fails miserably in this regard. It’s fun, but mindless stupid fun. The stupidity of the show does get annoying at times. I can only give it 5.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Video Backlog: The Kikaider Brothers Get Animated

"Kikaider – The Animation"Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 13 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2000 - 2001
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

After watching both 1970’s live action series of this franchise, I decided to see if the very out of print anime version that Bandai released a couple years back was avalible through third party sellers at Amazon. Unlike the last time I looked, I was lucky this time with plenty of second hand copies available for reasonable prices (because I'm not paying US$100 for this show). There was a real push in the late 1990’s and into the very early years of the 2000’s to revive a number of properties. I think this was mostly due to the success of “Evangelion” and producers insanity of flooding the market with tons of shows.

The anime version of this show is quite a different beast to its early 1970’s tokusatsu counterpart. Right from the start, Mitsuko’s role has changed. She doesn’t work with her father nor knows about Dark. Also Jiro is much more of an innocent. He knows nothing of the world and is continually making mistakes when he comes into contact with humans. Surprisingly the detective Hanpei Hattori makes a return as well, though he’s hardly as bumbling as his live action counterpart. He also gets a female assistant in this incarnation of the story, but she doesn’t get much worthy screen time. Mitsuko and Masaru ask him to not find their father (presumed dead in the anime version), but Jiro instead who feels he belongs nowhere after a misunderstanding. Other significant changes included Professor Gill’s flute which now sends orders to all his androids, not just a device to send Jiro crazy. Also making a welcome return is Saburo/Hakaider, but he is plainly more evil this time around.

In this version, the much more empathetic Jiro has something called a Gemini Conscience Circuit. I think the translation here misses the connection with the Pinocchio story which is being read to Masaru in the first episode. Jiminy Cricket is Pinocchio’s conscious in the story and there is an obvious pun being made on Jiminy/Gemini (though maybe Bandai don't want to get sued by the Mouse). Surprisingly the plot of this show is pretty damn good. It’s certainly a lot darker than the 1970’s show and naturally made for an older much more sophisticated audience. In early episodes not much is revealed to the audience about the evil organisation Dark or their plans. I’m not sure if the staff were assuming the audience had familiarity with the original story. Gill’s motivations and the appearance of his androids are rather murky and confusing. Being a very early digital painted show, it looks a lot brighter than and not as nice as modern day animation. There are some quite noticeable lower resolution shots with lots of jagged lines. Despite what some reviewers say about the animation frame rate, it’s not abysmal. It’s pretty much standard for the time period for a low budget late night anime. It’s more than adequate, but you can see corner cutting for sure.

Overall this is a rather decent series. It did start out a bit slow but soon built up to a rather nice finish (and that annoying recap episode was totally unnecessary in a series this short). Also the new material, especially involving Mitsuko and Masaru’s family and Jiro, was unexpected and rather good. I’m unsure if this adaptation is a direct port from Ishinomori’s manga or pulled out the series’ staff’s heads. I thought it was strange Jiro’s guitar was underutilised, seeing as it is the character’s trademark. Not quite as good the original, but quite a fun show. 6.5 out of 10.

"Kikaider 01 – The Animation"
Publisher:
Bandai Entertainment (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 4 Episodes x 30 minutes
Production Date: 2001 - 2002
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

While this is practically a remake of the 1970’s live action series, in the end it’s more like a sequel to “Kikaider – The Animation”. Basically what they done is here is taken is core plot of the show, and pruned it down to the bare minimum and made Jiro the centre of attention. Again I think the staff of the show assumed that those watching had knowledge of the 1970’s show as Hakaider’s organisation and Shadow seem to working separately in the first scene, then mysteriously have joined forces the next time we see them together. Ichiro is a bit of a dill in this show. He’s a bit unlikable. There’s also the addition of another android named Rei/Kikaider 00, created by a monk named Fuuten from a spare android made by Dr Komyoji, who looks a lot like Elmer Fudd. Again I’m not sure if these characters are taken from Ishinomori’s manga (or if he did a manga for this show) as they’re not in the 1970’s show.

The central core plot with Akira and Rieko has survived this adaption, but Misao and Hiroshi have been jettisoned completely. Akira’s relationship to the weapon he holds the key to is also quite different. Making a very welcome return is Bijinda, but her human form is perplexingly called Mieko rather than Mari. We also see the return of the various Hakaider brothers, Shadow Knight and Zadam, though most of these are reduced to mere cameos. We also see the Shadow minions appear, but strangely not Big Shadow (or Waruda unfortunately). Being a very short OVA series, I felt there wasn’t much time at all to develop Rei, Bijinda or Ichiro. But right from the start to almost the end of the series, it just feels like one big action scene. This works pretty well most of the time, but at the expense of a lot of character development. The animation became pretty dire in the final episode. I’m not sure what happened there, but it did reduce a lot of enjoyment for me, mainly because this was the climax of the story and it was in the middle of the biggest action sequence of the OVA series.

In the end, like the animated TV series, it’s a nice adaptation. It’s much darker and aimed at a more sophisticated audience. I think I would have like a bit more meat to the plot, however the action sequences where good. It’s fun, but rather forgettable. 6 out of 10. Bloody amazing the stuff which companies released during the US anime bubble, eh?

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Friday, June 3, 2011

Video Backlog: "Clannad: The Motion Picture"

Publisher: Sentai Filmworks (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 94 minutes
Production Date: 2007
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

After trying to give the VisualArt’s/Key/Kyoto Animation series (Air/Kanon/Clannad) a chance, and a very good chance at that, I finally decided with “Clannad After Story” that almost all of them were vapid otaku bait with very few redeeming features. The main female leads in all three are infantile women that a lot of men would steer clear of in real life and all three have the exact same key elements (no pun intended). Then you have some of the most unsubtle, annoying and blatantly emotionally manipulative writing in any anime show I’ve seen. Add in the fact that it’s quite lazy writing as well. But then again I can’t see why anime fans go nuts over show like “Nanoha”, which I thought was a soulless magical girl show, and “The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya”, which is rather mediocre once you take away it’s out of sequence gimmick. The show also shuts out viewers who haven’t read the novels with its references to things which only happen in the books. I remember criticising “Clannad After Story” on a forum and got a right bollocking for it. I was accused of not understand the show. Uh huh. Cause it’s a deep and complex series huh? Seriously, there’s a subset of fans that’ll defend any old shit show to the death and won’t take any criticising their favourite little show. Sigh…

It’s amazing what the very same material looks and feels like in hands that are more experienced, and dare I say it, better storytellers than those of Kyoto Animation. This film adaptation of the original Visual Novel came out a couple of months before the TV series aired. Believe it or not, the late, great Osamu Dezaki directed the film. From the very beginning, the first thing you notice is the animation (by Toei) is many steps down from the gorgeous animation that Kyoto Animation is famous for. The film covers the same territory that both the first series and “After Story” covered. I think this is probably was a bit too much to cover in a film that runs just a bit over 90 minutes. The first hour pretty much covers the events of the first series, with the focus strictly on Tomoya and Nagisa with Sunohara playing a bigger role than in the TV series. Most of the secondary characters are virtually ignored with the exception of Nagisa’s parents, Yusuke and the teacher, Kouko Ibuki.

The last 30 minutes fast forward to the end of “After Story”. Dezaki makes a lot of changes to the material in terms of structure here (and for the first two third of the film). It’s certainly a lot less melodramatic and I don’t feel I’m being manipulated emotionally, which the Kyoto Animation version does in a ham fisted way. In fact I would probably say Dezaki has toned down the fate of Nagisa too much. It does feel a little bit cold, unattached and uncaring. The transition from the couple’s high school days to the aftermath is a little jarring and doesn’t work too well in my eyes. The relationship between Nagisa and Tomoya should have been strengthened and developed more in the first hour. I also had problems with Nagisa. She’s the typical infantile teenage girl who appears in these VisualArt’s/Key shows, and to be frank, she shits me to tears. There was also the rather unbelievable leap from shy infantile girl to her brilliant one woman existentialist play she performed from memory without a script. Is she an idiot savant or what?

The film is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. However I think a film like this just shows how different the end product can be when a very experienced and talented director is at the helm. Oh, and of course it looks so Dezaki with the lighting, split screens and the infamous pastel freeze frames. Gotta love that. I think there is a lot of problems with the basic story and its characters and I think a bit more time should have been allotted to the film’s run time to help flesh out the core relationship in the story, so I can only give it 6.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).

Video Backlog: "Cybuster"

Publisher: Geneon (USA)
Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles
Length: 26 episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 1999
Currently in Print (as of writing): No

When you look at a Geneon’s catalogue they put out in the US, it’s not hard at all to see when they went broke. Here’s yet another bad release (instead of the usual commercially unsound, but good anime they released like “Master Keaton”), “Cybuster”. This is one substandard show. Back in the last 1990’s, the mega success of “Evangelion” brought about a virtual flood of new anime, and with it “Late Night Anime”, which is as it sounds, anime aired in the wee hours of the night. With so much product, there was a lot of shite. In that environment, you could almost forgive this show for its lameness. But I won’t.

The plot of “Cybuster” deals with a post mega earthquake Tokyo and the efforts by one private company, DC, to restore and clean up the mess that is Tokyo in the year 2040. However the company is a front for two aliens from a planet called, La Guias, which is in an alternative dimension. Our two baddies fell to earth after being put into a nether region between dimensions, sort of a “Superman II” style prisoner disposal kind of arrangement. A spanner in the works arrives in the form of a giant robot. This is actually a robot from La Guias, piloted by a man with the oddly Japanese sounding name of Misaki, sent to investigate odd pieces of debris falling from the sky in La Guias. This is actually the result of micro black hole tests by the leaders of DC in an attempt to return to La Guias which they were banished from. Eventually one of the DC recruits, Ken, your typical teenage ne'er-do-well, end up piloting the robot...

Pretty standard fare for robot anime. There’s elements from Gundam, but the main bulk of the story is a lot like Dunbine. A really bad reverse Dunbine without a soul. What makes it even worse, a lot worse, is the awful animation. It’s pretty dire in most episodes. Aside from most of the characters being off model for most of the time, a lot of bland action sequences and characters who look rather awkward when simply walking or moving, there seems to be a lot of timing issues. More than a few times we see characters talking and their mouths not moving. There’s also a number of very static scenes. More than once I thought my DVD player had frozen up. Another odd thing is it would seem that some of the animation was fixed up using video effects. It looks as if single broadcast quality frames were captured then animation elements like mouths were matted on top to make sequences go a few frames longer. This is really odd and I’ve never seen it done in any other show. It’s noticeable if you’re looking for it, but not too distracting.

Elements of the plot are absurd too. The big one is how the hell a private company, DC, was allowed to build a virtual army of robots without the government knowing for so damn long and how they can get away with hiring mercenaries who hassle civilians and fire RPGs into their houses. The period were DC went from benign clean up company to evil orgibsation was pretty daft too. Then you have the little things like why did Ken feel the need to still hide Cybuster under a deep lake when he already had a hidden hanger? The sub plot with the mercenaries discovering the hidden base was odd too. Why did they seem to forget about it in the very next episode? I could go on for a couple more paragraphs about the absurdity of various plot points, but I don’t want to waste too much more time on this show. Some of the designs, though a bit generic, did look good and the show was decent in spots. However it was pretty bad overall. It manages to get a 5 out of 10 from me.

Remaining Backlog: 25 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).