Tailenders

I never thought that a single 27 min episode would be good enough for a movie.. stunningly enough Tailenders broke the record in this case, utilizing a meager half an hour this movie gave me an unexpectedly good and entertaining experience.

The story is set in future when mankind plants Terraformers on planets in an attempt to colonize them. By going haywire Terraformers produce disastrous consequences of tectonic shifts, environmental changes and 'stampede'.The protagonist, having an engine as his heart, must now participate in a precarious race with the Terraformer as the final destination risking his life to achieve what the Loser King couldn't 100 years ago.
A rapid plot development and simple sci-fi imagination about racing form the core of the movie. The plot is fast-paced but not rushed and doesn't seem to have missing/skipped parts, I'm saying that most people can easily comprehend the plot and all its sci-fi inventions and appreciate it. Though its mainly focused on racing other aspects are also glimpsed at nicely. The fiction introduced is nothing extraordinary but original enough. However sometimes too many elements are introduced all at once in a not so impressive manner, the racing course also didn't impress me much.
I hope you notice the use of contradictions.. 'Loser King' as a hero and 'Tailenders' as great racers.. its amusing

The art and animation are good if not great. The art and graphics have been done really well with minimal use of CG. The action scenes are somewhat lacking in both depiction and direction, what is expected is sometimes skipped and the focus, angles and timing do not come out so well in some racing scenes. The rest of the animation is much better and impressive.

Sound.. what to say , your usual noise of engines revving up, tires screeching and the like, nothing more, nothing less..

I'd rather not comment on characters cause 27 minutes is hardly time enough to define and develop a character. If I had to say, I suppose the main cast are introduced pretty well even though they don't have an air of originality to them.

All in all I think it has a decent plot which is skilfully executed with nice animation, for a time pass its really good. The sci-fi touch given is also nice and improves the potential, if developed further it can turn out to be really good.

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I spent a couple of minutes trying to find info on Tailenders but came up with very little. This 27-minute short movie has often been compared to the phenomenal full movie Redline, either favorably or derisively for being a copy. Oddly enough, Tailenders aired a mere month after Redline’s debut at the Locarno International Film Festival. It would’ve basically been impossible for it to have been made in that timeframe even as short as it is. It’s much more likely Tailenders took inspiration from what little they saw in the Redline pilot in January 2009, because if they went completely without encountering it than this is surely anime’s greatest coincidence because of all the similarities. I also couldn’t even find the purpose of Tailenders’ creation. If it’s a movie for the sake of making one then I find it odd it’s Picograph studios’ only work. Perhaps it was a pilot to secure possible funding for a full movie or TV series. Whatever the case, Tailenders is here and it’s all we got.

Personally, I couldn’t care less about the Redline similarities, intentional or otherwise. Actually, I couldn’t be happier. Redline is possibly my favorite anime movie ever, and anyone who feels strongly about it wishes they just had more of it. Imitation is the best form of flattery, and if the people behind Tailenders saw greatness in Redline then I applaud them for recognizing what worked and doing an impressive enough job at emulating it. All art has a genealogy somewhere.

In the Tailenders universe, mankind and other various creatures have been forced to live nomadic lives on gigantic moving cities due to a malfunctioned terraforming machine that’s been going around wreaking havoc on the environment for years. High speed racing has been glorified, as these “Tailenders” scope out the constantly changing Earth as they race. Among these drivers is Shiro, who gets into a life-threatening accident just as he’s about to overtake the simulated ghost of his hero and rival, “Loser King”. Shiro is revived by the mechanic Tomoe, with his body changed and heart replaced with a new special engine. Shiro himself has now become the vehicle, and he and Tomoe aim to be faster than ever in the upcoming race. But Tomoe has her own grander goals in mind…

The premise and reasoning behind a dystopian future that has forced humanity to constantly move is clever and an appropriate ideology and backdrop for the high speed breathless thrills. There’s also a simple theme of human and technology evolution that’s possibly inspired by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann when taking a look at the lightning-struck animation style that bears similarities to that Gainax work and studio Trigger. Despite this setting construction almost no time is spent showing these moving cities and other than Shiro and Tomoe’s meeting practically all other time passes on the road.

This is where the action is, and the prime time to talk about what draws people to Tailenders. If you’re looking to things similar to Redline, the subject of racing doesn’t matter as much as the art style and quality of animation. Tailenders features the same beautifully bright solid colors contrasted with heavy outlines and pitch black shading covering most sides of characters and objects. It’s absolute sugar sweets for the eyes, and the jagged character designs that all look drastically different from each other keep the environment constantly fresh and always bring out the stark coloring.

The animation is generally smooth but is not nearly as fluid as Redline, which reveals a handicap of time, budgeting, or talent. This is where the similarities start to become differences as it’s clear where Tailenders falls shorter. There’s much less movement in scenes than Redline, and many shots attempt to draw less frames to portray movement more simply. This leads to a lot of frames of just straight traveling cars and moving backgrounds, and basic cockpit angles. The vehicles are CG, probably because they’re easier to reuse on frames. Although the cel-shading look to them with the solid color textures make them cohesive enough to the world’s general art style, the clear detachment the CG has from the 2D backgrounds further makes them look like objects being dragged across a screen. There just isn’t as much going on in each of Tailenders’ scenes as Redline. The music is hardly adrenaline pumping with just about only an average main theme and many scenes of silence, even behind the wheel. Sound editing is occasionally weak and combines with the simple display of movement to create scenes that could do better to have more impact. A particularly shocking example is the cheap slashing sound used when Goodspeed lands on top of the missile shooters that has almost no punch behind it. It dials down the excitement.

Still, these are by no means too significant flaws when being compared to one of anime’s most technically visceral achievements. Other than audio, Tailenders is still an impressive visual piece that carries a light but likably eccentric enough storyline, world, and characters. For 27 minutes it meets an all-around quality that’s high enough for it to not run out of gas and be an easy recommendation for anyone looking for more anime with bright, sharp, and kinetic art direction. It may be carried by those things since Redline also has a more empathetic main character and even a more believable romance, but I would’ve been fine watching more of Tailenders as it is. It’s a pity things stopped here.

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Back in 2009, when Redline was released, it got a lot of praise and attention for it’s fantastic animation and artstyle as well as it’s great fast paced action and colorful characters. But there was another similar highly stylized and fast paced racing anime that was released around the same time. That went relatively unnoticed due to the attention that Redline was getting. That anime was Tailenders, released only two months after Redline.

The plot takes place on planet Terulus, long after terraformers were used to try and repair the environment, only for them to go haywire and ravage the surface of the planet for centuries, creating mutations to the wildlife and devastating earthquakes. Because of this, giant cities that could drive around the planets surface were created to house what was left of the population.

One of the biggest past times is a racing competition. The dream of every racer to beat the track records held by Loser King, who disappeared a century ago. Shiro, one of the top racers, is horribly injured by a stampede. A mysterious woman walks in and offers him the chance to race again by replacing his heart with the engine from his own car. Soon, Shiro finds himself trying to win the Planet Redevelopment Race and try to beat the Loser King’s record times.

Even though it’s not much longer than the average episode of a TV series, Tailenders tells a satisfying enough story in it’s run time that i didn’t really mind it’s length. Sure, it’s not going to have a lot of character or story depth, but Tailenders wasn’t trying to have that. The characters are well defined enough within the constraints of the short that all of them are enjoyable despite their simplicity.

The short’s world definitely feels like a world despite simply being a setup for it’s plot. Tailenders wants to tell a simple fun story and it does it pretty well. I wish it was slightly longer so it’s pacing could be a bit better, but it’s a minor issue. I can’t really talk about the plot beyond the initial premise since it’s less than 30 minutes, but it was satisfying for what it is.

The art and animation is top notch. The artstyle is a little more over the top than Redline’s, which helps differentiate it enough from Redline that you won’t mistake them from each other. I could see how it could grate on someone more than Redline’s artstyle, as it seems less refined. But it comes down to personal preference, and i had no problem with it.

Tailenders didn’t have the budget or development time that Redline did, and it doesn’t quite reach the peaks that Redline did, but it does fit a lot into it’s scant 27 minutes long running time. It also didn’t recieve quite the same attention either, which is a shame, because Tailenders is definitely worth a watch, as it’s can be just as fun as Redline.

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