Before I get on with the three early reviews of the shows I've been watching, I thought I would see exactly what was happening at the time. Nike forced an unfit Ronaldo to play in their World Cup final defeat to France, Nicholas II was buried 80 years after the Bolsheviks had he and his family killed off, the Monica Lewinski scandal was in full force and most importantly for this the Wakayama Arsenic poisoning case.
So to the shows themselves:
Shadow Skill (Episodes 1-5) - A fairly episodic show with a decent amount of comedy. It was also near the end of the period where Megumi Hayashibara was in nearly everything. Unsurprisingly it looks very dated, but I probably would not have dropped it if it was airing now.
Serial Experiments Lain (Episodes 1-4) - Well I can see why this is considered great by a lot of people. A dystopian world that is not that much different from Japan circa 1998. The post-bubble economy and incidents like the arsenic case pointed to a society that had changed, and this masterfully takes on that feeling. There's already been several murders and suicides, along with a murder-suicide in the first 4 episodes, but the emotional impact of each is minimized to great effect.
I guess I was somewhat saddened by the fact that no one would make anything this adventurous anymore. It's all high-concept anime now.
NightWalker (Episodes 1-4) - Here's mid-90s anime as I remember it. Episodic, hardly serious with absurd plots, and casual frontal nudity. Yes, it was the era before the hovering steam cloud or lens flare or any other effect like that. The show pretty much plays out like a bunch of horror movie plots thrown in a blender with a little bit of Japanese culture thrown in. I probably would not have dropped this either if it were airing now despite it also looking horribly dated.
This week I am going to talk about the new film by the Wachowski brothers "Speed Racer." USA Today had a story about a week ago about film studios turning to anime as the latest material to adapt to the big screen. Citing the upcoming adaptations of Battle Angel Alita and Akira as evidence of this kind of move made me ask a certain question. All of the source material is well before the time of 80% of anime fans, but does that mean modern anime is terrible for adaptation? I'll get to that later. And now onto the review in which I try to not be as Kermodian as possible.
Story: 8/10 - The story is cliche ridden, but what would one expect from an adaptation of a horribly made 60s dub. It's faithful to the tone of the original in a good way. The story primarily emphasizes the importance of staying close to family, and only delves as deep as "Corporations bad" in its social commentary.
Animation/Visuals: 10/10 - I would really give this a 15, but I must stick to a 10-point scale. The Wachowskis have created a stunning world which uses nearly every color imaginable to great effect. I wouldn't say it looks like anime, but it's as close as anything I've ever seen. The effects have no basis in physics or anything in reality, but frankly no one should expect that.
Sound/Music: 8/10 - The score is surprisingly similar to the original series, although that has been improved with the major increase in budget. The song in the closing credits combines the original Japanese OP and the American dub OP combined with the efforts of a rapper who only seems to do movie soundtracks.
Characters: 7/10 - The first 30 minutes of the movie must make no sense to someone without any knowledge of the characters at all. That said, these characters never really had much depth to them at all except Rex Racer, and that was ruined by the end as well.
Enjoyment: 8/10 - At 135 minutes, its way too long. It was enjoyable to find the scenes that were put in solely to boost the rating up to a PG. It was a fun film to watch even if it is kind of half an artwork.
Overall: 8/10 - It gets a thumbs-up from me.
Now back to the earlier question, is modern anime terrible for adaptation to film, declining in quality or none of the above. Part of this was a reason why I went back to the new shows in my Project 1998 (part 1 of which will be in my next blog). Part of me says its just cheaper to make adaptations from older stuff because it won't cost as much to license. Another part says that modern shows have become so niche oriented that it would be almost impossible to adapt them to western audiences. The concept of moé characters would make little if no sense to anyone.
I wanted to start regularly posting something here on Sundays, I don't know if anyone reads it but really it shouldn't matter. Anyway, I'm here to talk about a blog post I saw the other day about horrible animation in particular the 3D tentacled monster sequence at the end of episode 4 of To-Love-Ru. The cut-out episode of Kare Kano (episode 19) came up, so I had another look to see if it was as good as I thought it was originally, or if it was with the general consensus as awful and detracting from the show.
The episode begins with a recap of the events of the series as it did in many episodes. However, this was one for the ages. A short description of post-bubble Japan is spoken over shots of seemingly random objects and places. In effect, a society that has built itself up so rapidly, but now finds itself stagnant, is unable to reflect on how much they have done and changed everything.
The actual episode itself is done mostly in cutouts which provides an amazing level of consistency to this episode above all others. Perhaps in a reaction against increasingly better looking, content-optional shows, it was decided to do an episode that challenges a viewer to look at what is being said rather than how aesthetically pleasing the show is.
As the first episode of the last storyline of the series, all the elements are there to successfully build it up. There's also elements in there that show the Gainax crew are still true to their roots. The tokusatsu sequence, the reuse of shots from Eva and you can't tell me anyone who sneaks "NCC-1701" into a shot can't look back into past.
And fittingly in the end credits, they burn all the cells and photographs they used to make the episode in a big pile, but played backwards. Creating something from trash, nihilist animation, it can be interpreted in so many ways.
To sum this all up in one sentence: Terrible looking animation can only be called terrible animation after evaluation the content itself.
It's already a month into the new season of shows, but its never a bad idea to look ahead to what may be coming up in the summer. But first I'm going to take a look back at the shows that debuted in July 1998. Fortunately, things were much simpler then and there are a mere three shows. Let's take a little look at the series I will be subjecting myself to in the coming weeks:
A show about a vampire with no memory going off the summary. Sounds like it could be a bit cliché, but the rating seems to make me think it is pretty good. Anything over 7 for a ten year old show has to be good right? I hope I don't regret typing that.
God knows how I've managed to avoid watching this at any point. Pretty much a classic must watch show based on that rating. Should be an interesting watch and hopefully I don't end up like a guy who first watched Star Wars 25 years after it was released.
The least popular of the three in viewing numbers, Shadow Skill may also prove to be the hardest of the three to watch. It's definitely not my kind of show, but I will endure for the sake of this project.
I probably forgot another 1 or 5 shows, but I could at least find these. And look forward to some updates on this in the near future.
I had a rather strange thought earlier today about anime blogs which happened to coincide with a comment about a show on a Nova Scotia radio station:
"That reminds me of this college radio show based in Halifax Nova Scotia, where they get all sorts of huge indie-rock musical guests to come in cook their favourite vegan recipes without a mention of who they are or what album they're about to release. Apparently it's quite popular with the guests because they don't have to talk about music"
The idea I have is this: What if you had a blog written by anime fans that discusses anything but anime?
I present to you my internal commentary as I watched episode 3 of To-LOVE-Ru (speaking aloud to no one would be somewhat strange after all.)
00:30 - It's only the 2nd time I've seen this OP, but the fan service is just meh. The single of the song will probably sell loads, but it's not particularly good.
01:29 - There's almost no indication that there's supposed to be comedy in this going off the OP. SD characters are supposed to be enough I guess.
01:38 - Would anyone pay attention to the sponsors with what was going on behind their logos.
01:55 - Lala has transferred to the school because she wants to be near Rito, how wondrously cliché.
03:11 - Art teachers should really be encouraging that kind of outside the box thinking. God I hate that expression.
03:25 - Anyone who could throw a pitch that breaks upward like that would be a legend. Physics getting in the way again :(
04:11 - Rito has no idea how good his life is. The service shot 25 seconds ago is so tired it isn't even worth describing.
05:08 - Haruna has near absolute power over Rito and manages to get him to go somewhere with minimal speech.
05:54 - And she hits Rito's question about Lala over cover for four. Can Rito recover?
06:10 - No chance.
07:11 - Lala goes for the absurd outfit for shopping, the men there seem almost too happy to see her out there.
08:05 - I could have seen this coming from miles away. The execution seems pretty standard as well.
08:15 - Snow White?
09:02 - Sidewalk jewelry stand -> Tragedy. Where have I seen that before?
09:16 - That was a really, really poor date montage.
10:30 - Disintegrating clothing. Symbolic of an attack on traditional Japanese culture, or an easy way to describe this episode's plot?
11:40 - That was too easy. I blame rushed writing on a scene that for once could have used more fan service.
12:12 - Rito's morale level seems to be proportional to the number of lines Haruna has. Fairly typical of this genre to be fair.
13:30 - A trip to the aquarium, I predict loads of uncomfortable and adult situations for Rito ahead only to be foiled by Mikan.
14:32 - Conversation with Haruna has boosted Rito's morale, but Mikan is looking for an opportunity to break up Haruna's counterattacking move.
14:59 - Rito's in real difficulty here. He can't find anyway to break the ice with Haruna, morale is dropping like a stone. Get this guy some charisma stat.
15:28 - What the hell is that? Cutting there is just disgraceful. If this had a high level of artistic merit maybe the director could get away with that. Unfortunately, this is To-LOVE-Ru.
15:40 - It's nice to know this aquarium doesn't believe a concept like security or even locked doors. Lala's odds of ending up in the water with the fish at this point: 2/5.
16:04 - That was unexpected, now back to Rito's struggles with forming simple words when conversing with a member of the opposite sex.
17:41 - The flower story from episode 1 is revisited, then another absolute travesty of a cut back to Lala's strange adventures behind security.
18:28 - Getting water to those fish is nice, but is the accidental death of an employee really worth it?
18:48 - He's not dead, I wish he were. I guess that's the best this show can do for plot twists.
19:03 - Yay, my bet pays off. Oh wait, that wasn't real was it?
19:13 - A shark in the tank with normal fish. It only makes sense if someone were to jump it. Is this the fastest instance of a show losing the plot entirely this season?
19:35 - The progression of the Haruna x Rito relationship is going to come to an end in a title wave of lazy writing water.
20:21 - Haruna's question of why Lala is naked is a very valid question in their predicament. Would this scene work if she had something on? Probably.
21:06 - Mikan's playing both sides, eh? What is she going to get out of Haruna x Rito?
21:46 - The 1-cm tall stone in the road. An enemy of all men who wish to avoid awkward situations.
21:53 - How is it even physically possible they landed like that?
23:20 - The ED may be mediocre as well, but at least it seems to have a level of honesty the OP doesn't have.
24:16 - The next episode preview has me lost and scared.
24:25 - Those poor, poor sponsors.
Final Thoughts - After trashing it mercilessly for the last 25 minutes, I'm actually going to give the episode itself a 7.5/10. It's fairly straightforward and never tries to do too much, except for those disgraceful cuts away toward the end. Ultimately, its just okay.