Ranked #611

Memories

Due to a sudden restructuring of the MAL database, what you're reading is a review of only episode 2 and 3 of the Memories OVA: Stink Bomb and Cannon Fodder:

STINK BOMB:

Directed by a guy who has been involved in plenty of great anime, Stink Bomb is a gloriously insane depiction of what not to do in the face of a bio-threat in the shape of an utterly witless Japanese salaryman with a cold and penchant for surviving military strikes.

The set-up is simple: dude takes wrong medication at his workplace; everyone around him starts to die. The brilliance is in the farcical nature of the anime, the Dr Strangelove-esque incompetence in handling the national crisis. Wherever the poor bastard goes, he wrecks havoc and has no idea why; he doesn’t question it, and he shouldn’t because this black comedy would never work otherwise.

The music is light-hearted and quirky, totally in sync with the irreverent style. The animation is decent, pleasant to look at whether we're watching characters interacting with each other or landscapes being destroyed by attack helicopters and tanks. The direction is solid, with lots of hilarious pay-offs.

A comedy classic, with an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation who doesn’t help matters by escalating them for our unbridled pleasure. Thanks must also go to the countless numbers of soldiers and generals who died in the name of comedy. I salute them all.

CANNON FODDER:

Cannon Fodder. Literally. Humans are made to fire cannons. That is their life, their purpose, their reason for being in Katsuhiro Otomo's brilliantly directed tale.

By this point we can successfully call him an auteur; his creative stamp, his identity, is clear in all his works. The unconventional character faces, the extremely detailed backdrops to his stories. The physicality of the technologically advanced society, draped with heavy duty cables and dirty pipes everywhere; bikes and bullets in Akira, steampunk in Steamboy, no clinically clean and sleek holographics in Otomo's worlds.

And its like so in Cannon Fodder. A military-minded society where every human being's life revolves around the habitual firing of gigantic cannons into a far-off indistinct target. Yeah, there's shades of dystopian literature at play, like Orwell's 1984 poking its head. It's not forced or clichéd though; Otomo has made this dystopic nightmare his own creation for us to marvel at.

His direction is brilliant, so good that it might actually pass you by without you even realising it. He's not into blowing you away with over the top theatrics, he doesn’t fling his camera about like a hyperactive child. This is a master of cinema at work here; he follows the action like he was born with a steadicam attached to his hip. We revolve, flow, and pan around his military industrial complex in service of the narrative, not just for style.

Some scenes just go on for over a minute without a single cut. It's like he's channelling Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, or to be more current Alfonso Cuaron, into the anime medium, always keeping the visuals fresh, inventive but never sacrificing narrative coherency in the process.

All this is never more clear than in the firing of the first cannon. Watch and marvel at the flawless direction. Pay close attention at the movement of the camera, it refuses to cut away, everything is staged to service the story, Otomo makes this long sequence look easy. It's probably one of the greatest scenes in the history of anime.

Then I realised something. After this scene, the camera never cuts away all the way to the end. I went back and watched the movie from the beginning and realised the camera never cuts away during the entire movie. Not one of the greatest scenes in the history of anime after all. Cannon Fodder is the greatest one-take in the history of anime, and if it were in live action then it would be the best in cinema, period.

It's nothing but one ingenious transition to another, creating the feeling of being immersed in a city swarming with life at every corner. Katsuhiro Otomo is one of anime's greatest directors, tragically underrated or brushed off as just 'the guy who made Akira', but he is so much more than Akira, he's a visionary filmmaker continually striving to define anime as a brilliant medium to show us all the wondrous possibilities of the animated moving image. read more

Probably the most underrated anime piece of all time.

Magnetic Rose really shows how far animation can go in terms of direction and perfect pacing. Some of this was probably the inspiration to much of Cowboy Bebop, redefined space sci-fi anime by allowing music to take a much larger role in the story telling. There is some nice CGI that doesn't distract from the film.

STORY/CHARACTER
The story, which I heard was co-written by Satoshi Kon, is very memorable and well-plotted. It's obvious that much work has gone into perfectly balancing the scenes and using them wisely to help develop the characters in such a short time.

ART
The artwork and animation are almost unparalleled. I rarely see animation so fluid, detailed and beautiful, in either anime or western animation. The characters are always doing something, even while they are talking, albeit subtly, it helps to develop who the characters are. I think the animation rivals that of Akira, Wings of Honneamise and Angel's Egg.

SOUND
The music is beautiful, fully orchestrated and operatic. It's very well paced with the progression of the scenes to such a high degree, it is a work of technical expertise. Even if you dislike opera, you will still probably enjoy how it fits with the scenes, the story, and the plot. It gels nicely.

OVERALL/ENJOYMENT
Overall, Magnetic Rose is my favorite sci-fi anime. I wouldn't really consider the short length a flaw, since I consider that this film is a piece, and makes good with the time it's allotted to. Had it been longer though, we could learn a bit more about the characters, which could increase its lasting appeal. However, I firmly believe that this beautiful piece of art is a masterpiece.
read more