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Nov 21, 2010
The best way I can come up with to sum up the experience of watching Dead Leaves is as follows: So, that happened.
It is a frantic mess of sex, violence, and would be raunchy comedy. The plot is inconsequential. The characters are completely nuts. The sex and comedy is something out of a deranged 14-year-olds concept of the same. Thematically it's all over the place.
Given all that, it draws you in with its explosive energy, drags you kicking and screaming through 50 minutes of action set pieces, and then lets you go as suddenly as it grabbed you,
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leaving you wondering if it was love, or an empty one night stand after you were given a roofie.
If that sounds like your sort of night out, then by all means enjoy, because you will, a lot. Otherwise, you might want to look somewhere else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 9, 2009
If Jim Jarmusch directed anime, this is the type of movie he'd make. To it's benefit it cuts to the heart of the characters much like a Jarmusch film with slow, long deliberate takes, with a good deal of silence and sadness. I think one of my favorite scenes was when Takuya and Sayuri are riding the train together for the first time and the just sort of stand there, with each other in one of the best and most realistic depictions of thirteen year-old's I've ever seen on screen. The animations is beautiful, and even the framing, catching them off center,
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and from a distance, adds to a slight melancholy that is palpable throughout most of the film.
It has a few really great scenes like that which float around, almost dreamlike in the first half of the film. It's slow, and a bit novelistic, letting us see the reality these three kids inhabit, easing us along at their pace instead of our own.
The problems arise in the latter half of the film, when too much is devoted to voice over narration explaining how each character feels instead of giving us the same sort of interesting scenes in the beginning which showed us how they felt. It loses that intimate feel it had and gives us half realized politics and sci-fi that really doesn't explain anything, a Macguffin that pulls you out of the plot instead of pulling you in like it's supposed to. The sci-fi elements are only supposed to be incidental to these characters, a means to tell a story about love, youth, alienation, and innocence lost. But too much of the story revolves around the tower and the sci-fi alternate reality bits to leave it as completely mysterious and unexplained as they did. Specifically why it's affecting Sayuri specifically (the fact her grandfather built it really isn't much of an explanation, or at least not a good one for a point around which the whole plot is built), is never answered making you feel as if you only really got half the story.
The whole affair loses focus after the three main characters separate and go or are forced to go their own ways. From that moment on it ceases to be a story we are experiencing with the characters on the screen and turns in to a story that's forced upon us in a way incongruent with the simplicity, and focus of the first half.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 1, 2009
This series would have been much better if it was half as long. I understand that it's based on a very popular manga series, but what works on the page doesn't always work on the screen. The story moves very slowly, and for one about a spear welding bodyguard, there is surprisingly little action. If they condensed the 26 meandering episodes into 13 concise ones then I think this would be a contender up there with Samurai Champloo or Trigun. As it stands the more wishy washy aspects of this series, along with it's snail like pace, and too close attention
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to the more mundane details of the fantasy world it creates holds it back from true greatness.
It's not a bad series by any stretch of the imagination, and the production values are high. If you are looking for a leisurely series because you have nothing else to do and have watched all the real great stuff, then this is a fine time killer, but there are plenty other better stories and series you can devote your time to first.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 1, 2009
When it comes to FLCL there are two types of people. Those who love it and those who just don't get it. It inspires love and devotion but like its character Haruhara, it's just waiting for you to turn around so it can hit you over the head again and again and again. It manages to be of all things, completely absurd, outrageously wacky, and also touching, compelling, and ultimately thought provoking. At its heart it is a story about a boy learning what it means to grow up, a coming of age story for the twenty first century.
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Around that is a story of ultimate power, baseball, an evil alien race trying to iron out the universe, love and homework. There really is no single touchstone with which we can define this short series, but that's one of the reasons it's so great.
The animation is to die for, and the music rocks hard. The characters are some of the deepest and surprisingly complex I've seen in any anime, or live action series, and the stories, absurd as they may seem when watching any individual episode, all coalesce in the finale and even if it still doesn't all make sense to you, you realize that they were all a necessary part of the ride and want to start all over again.
This is my favorite anime and I would recommend this to anyone who has a pulse. A love of the absurd and outrageous visual metaphors does help though.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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May 1, 2009
It's been a while since I've seen this film, so this review is just the general impressions that it left and that I still remember, instead of something more definitive in regards to the plot and the characters. But that's really OK because you aren't watching this movie for a strong plot, or even characters that you can really understand and relate too, because that's all secondary. The real reason to watch this movie is the luscious animation, intelligent direction, and sound and effects that boggle the mind. It's a fun romp into the human subconscious that never really gets too deep.
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Many questions are left unanswered, and there are plot holes so big that it would take an entire new movie to explain. To its benefit, most of those are really only after thoughts, and they are lost in the experience of actually watching this movie. It sucks you in with it's inventive style from the quirky and witty opening sequence to the bizarre and psychedelic end.
If you like your movies with a stronger plot, and a sequence of events that make sense, then you might not like this film. If you are open to the idea that a film like this could be a spectacle of pop art, or enjoy sophistry masquerading as deep philosophical insight, then this is a film you can sink your teeth into. Personally, the pop art aspect of this movie is what really appealed to me. Style and wit over true substance, a feast for the eyes and ears, candy for the soul. Tremendous fun, but a bit empty and too light to really take anything away.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 1, 2009
The story revolves around a group of characters whose job it is to get rid of space debris, or other left over garbage still orbiting the earth. It starts off with simple one shot stories that help us get into the daily lives of our protagonists. Slowly revealing their back story and the internal politics of the company they work for and the politics back on Earth in the future. This builds a solid foundation for the series near the end of the arch when everything that happened before, insignificant as it might have seemed, comes back and pays off a hundred
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fold. This slow burn might prove dull for people who like their anime filled with instant gratification, and pointless mystery, but for people who can appreciate a slower, more deliberate and smarter story, then you've found your home here.
At times the two main characters Ai and Hoshino being more of the stock anime mold, the cocksure, talented, and brash with a chip on his shoulder male lead, and the naive, guileless, impossibly idealistic and forever optimistic female lead wear thin. Luckily their back up cast makes up for some of the leads shallowness with a depth of their own. Be it the back story of their captain and her previous crew to their Russian pilot and his own motivations for cleaning the debris, add a richness to the text and the characters actions.
Another big part of what's great about this series is that it's true science fiction. The reality that it creates obeys the laws of science and physics as we know them. Too often science fiction is a term we use when we really mean science fantasy. This is a series that takes place mostly on a space station orbiting the earth, and when the characters float around in the station (given there is no gravity in space) they must learn how to control their momentum, and inertia as to not spin around out of control. The same goes for the space walks and debris collection. A lot of time is devoted to the way life would actually be in real life, and that flavor of reality, of true science fiction, helps bring a depth to this series that would be lost if done otherwise. It's this feel of reality that makes this series so enjoyable. Too often we look for the fantastical when the reality is so much more interesting and appealing (this series being a case in point).
The fascinating thing, is that this is an actual current concern in our reality. Just this past February (2009) two satellites collided sending debris everywhere, and scientists are trying to determine how the debris will affect the international space station and the hubble telescope.
Over all, for those of you with patience, a love of character and smarter storytelling, as well as true sci-fi, then this definitely is a series you need to check out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 1, 2009
What's not to like?
Champloo means mash-up or re-mix in Japanese, an this is exactly what this show is. It re-mixes the classic ronin samurai story with modern pop references, and a strong hip-hop vibe, and does it brilliantly. It's got action, it's got drama, it's got comedy, strong character development, great music, and solid direction. People I know who claim to abhor anime, still fall in love with this series.
It balances a very thin line of being a serious story with out taking itself too seriously. But like all the best stories in the world, this one shines because
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the characters are well developed, and the story flows through them organically instead of being forced to march forward around them. In addition to the characters, the stories, being a mash-up if you will, uses the Edo period to comment on modern society, from the sex trade, to art, to literature, to religion, and even atomic warfare. And it does so without being preachy, or condescending to the viewer. Instead of just being Important Themes that jump out at you, they work through each episode in a much more subtle fashion, something missing from a lot of anime.
I dare you not to like it. There really is nothing else like it anywhere, (except for maybe cowboy bebop which was made by the same people). This is a unique anime experience, in fact it's just a unique story experience in any storytelling medium and is definitely worth checking out.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Apr 30, 2009
This is quite possibly one of the best Anime movies I've ever seen. I'm not going to give a plot summary because frankly, you can get that from the other reviewers, and from the plot summary listed above. What I am going to do is tell you why I liked this movie so much.
It gives us a rather mundane story, with a lackluster explanation (in regards to the time travel), and tells it with a light touch, filled with charm, and true emotion. These are not the stock anime characters one finds all over the place, but characters with depth that slowly
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reveal themselves organically through the storytelling, instead of us being beaten over the head like so many other anime that I can think of. I got so involved in the characters and the drama (not melodrama, but true drama handled subtly as to feel real) that the time travel seemed almost incidental. A means to explore teenage relationships, and not using teenage relationships to exploit the fun sci-fi device that is time travel.
Time travel, though literal in the story, is really used more as a thematic metaphor to explore youth, friendship, the pitfalls of one's first love, and growing into responsibility. The story isn't about a girl who learns how to travel through time, rather about a girl who learns what kind of person she wants to be and how she wants to live her life through her experiences traveling through time, albeit sometimes only one hour at a time.
It is the light touch, the ease and depth of the characters and their relationships, and the richness of their inner lives that makes this otherwise common science fiction tale glow with life. If you are looking for a film with the standard sci-fi tropes this is not the film for you, but if you're like me, and enjoy the sci-fi to be a means to an end and not the end unto itself, then you'll enjoy this movie as much as I did.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Jan 27, 2009
The movie starts off strong, with an interesting but not quite unique story of two street orphans, forced to protect the town that simultaneously sustains them, and abuses them. They are the protectors and protected by the system that has been created between the gangs, the police, and the Yakuza who roam Treasure town. And like their names designate, Black is harsher, rougher, more prone to violence, while White is up beat, cute, and creative. They complement each other and balance the others eccentricities. With fabulous animation, strong voice acting (at least in the Japanese), and a solid score, this movie
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ambles along enjoyably, until the more surreal aspects of the story kick in.
About halfway through, the movie shifts from two kids trying to protect their home turf from new developers/gangsters into a surreal melodrama about the spiritual separation of the two leads and the physical manifestations of the separation. From Kubrick-esque extra-dimensional visuals, to metaphorical, and not so metaphorical battles in the hyper-reality in to which they are dragged kicking and screaming. And to me that's when it loses steam. It changes from a well grounded story with characters we want to follow into meandering esoteric romp with little but very obvious conclusions that occur between the two leads, while killing off any loose ends and characters that seemed so promising in the start of the film.
Flights of fancy, and beautiful animation aside, the film doesn't quiet hold up towards the end.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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