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Dec 24, 2022
Chainsaw Man is torn between being seinen and shonen, while failing to be adept at either.
It's as violent as seinen with its body horror, but with nothing remotely meaningful to say or thematically explore that you can't read in stories aimed at young children (killing's bad m'kay? Humans emotions are good m'kay?). It's as creative with its battles and abilities as a shonen, but without the coherent rules of the genre.
The author regularly pulls undeserved plot twists and powers out of his ass during battles, making it seem like we've just seen a pay-off. But pay-offs don't work without set-ups. Visit the forums to see
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people often wondering "how did the character do that?" "why did that happen?" "how is this character not dead?" "Why is that character so strong now?" "Wait, how is that possible?". The commenters are all positive, they love the manga. They're not complaining. They're patiently waiting for everything to make sense later.
They're waiting in vain. Because the author is seemingly a fan of the 'soft magic' system of literature, where anything goes. But soft magic and the shonen genre are not good bedfellows. When you read something like Naruto, One Piece or JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, you are methodically given explanations for every characters abilities and limitations. Characters like Naruto or Luffy can't just sprout wings or teleport from here to there without training first or other some such thing. Or if they don't proactively get the power, then the narrative at least sets-up the fact that it's possible for them to do things under certain circumstances.
Chainsaw Man does not set-up anything, it just makes shit happen for dramatic affect. The main character will suddenly use his chainsaws in a new way in the middle of a tough battle...just because.
Simply, it's not fun when the author can make a character do whatever the plot needs them to do. It's deflating, anticlimactic and quite frankly amateurish.
There are times when the manga wants to aim for emotional resonance, but it's futile. How can I be emotionally invested in the characters and narrative when the author can make up things on the fly? Why can this character teleport, why can that one be mind-controlled? There's no concrete rules established, so if anything bad can happen then the opposite is true: anything good can happen too. The author undermines every source of dramatic tension.
The manga is fun, it's creative in its irreverent humour with good art composition. Though at times it veers (or should I say 'leers') into pervy territory too much for my liking. It doesn't seem to know what its about. If you want to be a pervy manga then be a pervy manga. If you only dole the titillating nudity out here and there, it's not only odd but sticks out like a sore thumb, destabilising the tone of the narrative. Its treatment of women as a whole is arguably problematic as well, though as the manga has not finished at the time of this review, perhaps the author will avoid the pitfall of painting women weirdly.
It's not a bad manga, but it's hindered from being a great one. The colour version is pretty good with its creative usage of colours.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 29, 2022
This has the worst structure of a show I've ever seen. Despite that baffling aspect, Bamboo Blade is a lighthearted irreverent comedy maybe worth your time.
Let's get the negatives out of the way.
First off, the show's premise is that a school's kendo sensei, Ishida, makes a bet with his friend that his team of girls can beat his friend's, with the reward being a year's worth of eating at a restaurant.
This weak hook to the show is resolved in a handful of episodes. Let me repeat: the reason for this show existing is resolved in a handful of episodes.
After some meandering, the show comes up
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with another premise: after a disastrous encounter with an influential figure, Ishida's job is at risk so he decides to win the national kendo tournament to make himself indispensable.
You'd think this should have been the premise all along, considering the high stakes. Regardless, the show's complete lack of urgency, momentum or adherence to sports tropes almost makes this new premise as meaningless as the initial one.
By the time episode 20 rolls around there is no sense of escalation or impending finale to the story. The characters are not knee-deep into a tournament or anything like that, in fact there's no kendo in that episode at all, the show is more concerned with inter-relationship dynamics and characters goofing around.
So if you go into this show expecting the traditions of the sports genre, think again.
There's no explanation for newcomers as to what kendo even is. There's no "discovering a sport via a character new to it" structure. There's no shonen/Naruto-esque explanation of the tournament and its rival teams. All this, despite the fact that there are indeed characters who join the kendo club for the first time and need to be taught the sport, and that there is indeed a tournament with rival teams making an appearance. The show just doesn't have the time to treat the viewer as kindly as it treats Dan-kun (a humorously drawn character who creepily sounds like he's 30 years old).
I already knew enough about kendo personally, so I didn't feel in the dark, but I imagine people who know nothing about it, will feel a mild frustration that the show doesn't take the time to methodically explain the ins and outs of the ritualistic martial art.
So, instead of a structure of a sports show, you're just kind of thrown into the lives of these girls who hang out at the kendo dojo. The show's comedy is its highlight. It's irreverent and goofy, with a pleasant cast of characters.
Tamaki is a standout, and ostensibly the show's protagonist. You'd think that would be Ishida, but he's such a superficial character, useless as a teacher and has no character arc, that the actual protagonist is Tamaki. She's the one the viewer goes on a journey with, she actually has a character arc.
Tamaki is an introvert, and in a show tempered with incompetent narrative writing, she stands out as being authentic. My favourite moment is when she starts a job for the first time. The writers nailed what it feels like for an introvert to do that.
On the negative side, there's a subplot involving a stalker that struck me as very odd. Sure there's plenty of laughs to be had during the storyline, but the victim of the stalking is (accurately) portrayed as being freaked the hell out about it, to the point of paralytic fear, and I don't really find that amusing. The whole thing just stuck out like a sore thumb compared to everything else going on in the story.
Also worth noting that Ishida sensei is beyond useless, he doesn't teach anyone a single technique in the entire show. Near the end instead of taking responsibility himself, he decides to leave a pivotal and stressful decision to one of his students like a coward. Garbage writing for a garbage teacher.
So Bamboo Blade has a baffling structure about it, you keep waiting for the plot to heat up, but it never does. Its stuck between being a slice of life show, and one with stakes. It feels as if it was written by someone completely new to the art of storytelling. If you go in with lowered expectations, you might find the show a good time though because it can be quite funny.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 19, 2022
Oh boy. Re-reading this was eye-opening. It's been on my personal favourite list for decades, it was the first anime and manga I ever saw, so it'll always have a special place in my heart. I rewatched the movie on 4K bluray recently and it holds up well. The Akira Club artbook is also gorgeous. The manga though...
I'd recently bought all 6 volumes (the long-selling English ones by Kodansha), and was excited to re-read them for the first time since the late 1990s, but after reading one volume I was shocked to feel that nothing meaningful had happened. Despite the fact that the story is
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99% fast moving plot. But that crucial and paltry 1% dedicated to characterisation is what's upsetting me.
It reminds me of a golden rule of storytelling that I believe in: you can have the most amazing plot ever, but if you don't have engaging characters, your story isn't worth a damn. People will barely rewatch movies with good plots with unmemorable characters, but people will always rewatch movies with mediocre plots just because the characters are awesome. Character is everything in storytelling.
The movie adaptation works because it's streamlined and razor focused. The characters are not deep, but they're coherent. There is a palpable relationship between Kaneda and Tetsuo. Also, unlike the manga Kaneda is not a repugnant piece of shit in the movie (who likely impregnated a random girl in the manga and abandoned her!). There's a clear rites of passage involved in the movie, set against a broiling backdrop that is rich in symbolism. I even wrote a university dissertation on the movie and its thematic commentary on Japan's relationship to technology. I cited my theories with numerous references to behind the scenes interviews with Otomo and the staff.
Akira the manga however has almost no characterisation whatsoever. Most characters are either just dumping exposition or reacting to explosions and gunfire. If you asked me to tell you something personal about Kei I honestly couldn't. In the movie she takes a life for the first time and is clearly shaken by it, but in the manga there's no reaction whatsoever during the same moment. It's weird how the movie can take the time to depict such a small character moment, but a 6 volume manga rarely stops to take a breath.
I sense no thematic exploration despite the deep cyberpunk atmosphere in the beginning and the post-apocalyptic tropes in the second half, there's barely any character arcs despite the lengthy tale, every character except for Tetsuo is exactly the same personality-wise at the end as they were at the beginning, there's no growth or development to be seen. There's barely any subtext or metaphor to chew on. What is this story actually about? I'm not talking about the plot, I'm talking about subtext and theme, why Otomo decided to put pencil to paper all those years ago.
For some reason Akira and Tetsuo are trying to kill each other almost immediately in the manga. At least in the movie Kaneda's immediate reasoning is revenge for the death of a friend, but in the manga Kaneda is trying to kill Tetsuo despite him not having done anything to Kaneda yet! Literally the only reason implied is that Tetsuo is running his own gang. That's it. That's the reason Kaneda and his friends want to kill Tetsuo. It's beyond stupid.
In volume 2 Tetsuo is intent on finding Akira, and then once he does, there's zero conversation, zero insight into his motivation, absolutely nothing. It's just "ok, let's get out of here".
It's shocking how shallow this manga is. Comments online are always praising the manga as having "such a better story than the anime". What story? There's no story! It's nothing but chase scenes for 6 whole volumes.
The art remains iconic and one of my favourites of the medium, and Otomo's ambition is infectious, which is why I've rated the manga so highly, but I find myself stunned by how little I care for anything that's happening from panel to panel.
As a digression, the popular and long-in-print English volumes of Akira are terrible. I was stunned. There are so many typos that Kodansha have left in all these years. The left to right format had no effort put into it, so all characters are left-handed, etc. In fact, I'm uncertain whether my next issue is because of the flipping, or because of Otomo himself but I was profoundly baffled by the panel progression in this manga. Traditionally you want big reveals or dramatic panels on a new page, so as not to spoil a reader's wandering eye, or even their peripheral vision. But in this translation, all the dramatic panels are on the second (right hand) page. I kept getting spoiled on big moments constantly. Then when you flip the page over, the start of the left-hand page just has mundane things going on.
If you get this manga, get the 35th Anniversary boxset, because it's unflipped for the first time ever.
So yeah, I found this re-reading experience sadly disappointing. Akira has a propulsive plot that has so much stuff happening, so much violence and characters running down corridors, and yet...it feels like nothing meaningful actually happens. The ending is also another huge question mark. No, I'm not talking about what on Earth happened in the climax (which again, is much more clearer in the movie than in the manga), but why the main characters behave the way they do. I won't spoil their inexplicable actions, but suffice to say some characters decide to exhibit emotions resembling nationalism for the first time ever, which almost made me angry with how nonsensical it is. This is not a character arc, this is not thematic exploration, it's just pulling shit out of thin air.
It's been a profoundly disappointing experience rediscovering this manga. I will try to cling on to my memories of the 1990s, reading Manga Mania magazine and learning to draw by tracing the manga as a teenager.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 18, 2022
Hiroya Oku's follow-up to Gantz continues his exploration of nihilism in a hyper-real Japan, with an enticing premise and promising protagonist. There's not enough older folk utilised as main characters in manga, and Oku relishes the chance to shove Mr Inuyashiki into excruciating scenarios and to pull him out in cathartic fashion. He's joined by a malevolent antagonist who has a heavy presence all throughout the tale.
Which is a problem. But more about that later. Let me get some positives out of the way.
Oku really nails the banal cruelty of internet comments that you see everywhere online, from 2chan to reddit to MAL itself. We
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saw this in Gantz, and he continues his skewering of 21st century online discourse to entertaining effect here.
I sometimes see people complain about the backgrounds in his manga, because they seem traced, but the realistic backgrounds serve to immerse you in the story that feels very familiar, despite all the outrageous shit going on. When the antagonist of this story goes on a killing spree, it's all the more horrific to witness when it's set against mundane realistic backgrounds.
The antagonist is so menacing, so obscene in his nonchalant method of dealing death to everyone around him, that Oku himself becomes mesmerised by him, sacrificing the protagonist of his own story. Mr Inuyashiki is relegated to the background at a certain point and becomes super passive, even disappearing entirely from the narrative.
Oku establishes some rules to how technology works in this story, how Mr Inuyashiki can hear people in trouble. And yet, during one of the many shocking massacres in the story, for some baffling reason, Oku decides not to include the protagonist in the ensuing sequence. There is no in-universe reason for why our elderly protagonist would not have heard the cries of dozens of people being shot to death, and rushed to do something about it. But for whatever reason, Mr Inuyashiki is not involved at all.
Mr Inuyashiki himself is sorely missing for a substantial portion of this manga and it's infuriating.
So much mayhem happens, so much misery, and the entire time you'll be wanting to scream at the manga "where the hell is the protagonist?". The antagonist is so fascinating, it makes you wonder if Oku should have made the entire story about him to begin with. To have a tale about an antihero, like Light Yagami, up against the world, to see his rise and fall.
Anyway, at some point Oku remembers his protagonist and gets him involved again, but his passivity never really goes away, he has to be pushed by exterior circumstances or people in order to do anything remotely meaningful. The last half of the manga is disaster porn, populated by useless characters doing nonsensical things within repetitive and inefficient panels. It's like Oku forgot how to be a mangaka.
The climax of the story is also insulting and without coherent thematic meaning.
Inuyashiki is unfortunately a narrative failure and a disappointing follow-up to Oku's magnum opus Gantz.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 30, 2022
How far the mighty have fallen.
The Ghost in the Shell franchise used to be pioneering. It created new visual iconography, new visual language and cyberpunk tropes. In SAC_2045 we witness a franchise flailing about in a last gasp attempt at being relevant. It's a show that has nothing to say about anything. I found the many references to the Wachowskis Matrix series during the 2 seasons of this show profoundly pathetic.
As mentioned above GitS used to create iconography that influenced cinema and animation, and now it has devolved into blatantly ripping off the Matrix, with no grace about it. Instead we just get straight
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homages to Agent Smith, the burly brawl, the highway chase, along with the obligatory and lazy homages to previous better GitS movies and shows (how many more times will we see a metal claw gripping Motoko's face as she dangles in the air?).
Similarly to the original SAC's Laughing Man subplot, SAC 2045 also has a literary homage which comes to the fore in the second season, but as you can tell by now, it's lazy and superficial. With characters seeking utopia sincerely quoting Orwell's 1984 like it's meant to mean something. It's like the writers have no idea that "War is peace. Freedom is slavery." is supposed to be IRONIC.
I thought GitS: Arise was utterly boring and unpleasant to look at, dropping it within two episodes. 2045 is better looking (despite the naysayers complaints), and watchable as simple entertainment. But as a Ghost in the Shell story, it's woeful, with the ludicrous character Purin behaving like a 12 year old (that we have to see naked for 'reasons'), its typical Japanese treatment of Black characters, and crucially relegating Motoko Kusanagi to a side character who barely gets any attention. We never see her by herself, she has no inner life or character arc. She has less screen time than Togusa and Batou, and is effectively nothing but an exposition device.
Some people will say season 2 is a vast improvement over 1, but take that with a grain of salt. It's simply more of the same.
Shame on Kenji Kamiyama. How the mighty have fallen.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 3, 2013
I caught Samurai Champloo as it aired back in 2004, and though I liked it enough, it didn’t impact me as much as I hoped it would. Though maybe that’s not entirely true, as the soundtrack did indirectly change my life, thanks to the composer Nujabes introducing me to instrumental hip hop and providing a soundtrack to my life for the next few years.
I recently re-watched the show and felt compelled to write a retrospective/review of the series. While watching Jin, Mugen and Fuu traipse around 19th century Japan getting into ridiculous adventures, I realised Shinichirô Watanabe’s follow up to Cowboy Bebop is one of
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the most subversive animes ever made. Taking a staple genre, dressing it up in anachronism, but continually tackling subjects often avoided by the medium.
It takes 25 episodes until a character literally says “I was born in the wrong era.” Champloo is basically saying Japan’s lofty samurai era was actually a shit place to live for common people like us actually thank you very much.
It’s a divisive show that tested the patience of many viewers, drove others away entirely after a few episodes, and frustrated people who were too used to watching a plot move characters forward for 26 episodes. Champloo doesn’t even have characters who move the plot forward. The hook of how the three disparate characters end up travelling together through Edo period Japan is just that, it’s a hook to draw you in.
Samurai Champloo is about, and also not about, three characters hunting a samurai who smells of sunflowers. There’s an episode late into the series which features two street gangs having a graffiti battle across town, and though somewhat amusing also served no benefit towards the journey of the three characters. So if you hop into any forum thread you’ll see a multitude of complaints about it. However, the point of the episode is the same as the theme running throughout the entire show: people from a bygone era rebelling against authority and social norms in a way 21st century people do: through counter-culture.
I’ve gained a new appreciation for this show. It’s been so so long since I saw it, but rewatching it I realise how the story is about how incompatible Tokugawa era Japan is with our way of life; all the things we take for granted were rare luxuries back then. This is an obvious fact for anyone with a remote understanding of Japanese history, but still, the show rams it home with stark contrasts. Each episode highlights a 21st century aspect of our lives, a form of freedom (creative, sexual, geographical, etc) that characters in the 19th century yearned for despite the odds.
It’s set in an era ruled by rigid order, social rules and hierarchies. Stifling to the point of causing grief among the downtrodden populace. Yet a populace we should not treat as foreign aliens. The show asks us to empathise with them; they were just like us. Some of them had our modern spirit and ultimately struggled to exist in such a society as a result. Our heroes are a ronin, vagabond, and an orphan. Fighting against their era’s rules with a modern spirit.
One of the things I love about this show is how the three characters hate each other for the majority of the 26 episodes, but their hatred gives away inch by inch. They initially try to break apart, to run away from each other, but situations conspire to brig them back together, until a turning point where they actively make a choice to stick together, grudgingly recognising that they are of the same fiery rebellious soul. This is infinitely more satisfying than characters who automatically stick together from the outset. Another theme of Champloo is that travelling a journey with strangers can bring you together like family.
Champloo is more known for its scenes that are juxtaposed with modern quirks such as people beatboxing to humorous and surreal effect, and scene transitions that look like a DJ playing with their deck.
Episode topics try to cover every area that is barely explored by other samurai-era anime that are more concerned with traditional ‘fight evil’ plots (or even movies for that matter) from the prevalence of the yakuza co-existing with samurai, the tragedy of women forced into prostitution to pay off their husbands’ debts, human trafficking in the art world, existence of homosexuality, persecution of Christians and Ainu, and graffiti gangs with too much time on their hands. There’s even a hilarious baseball game with members of an American expedition that predates Commodore Perry’s by a few years.
Champloo features one of the best soundtracks ever, brought to you by Nujabes, whose life was tragically cut short in 2010. Instrumental hip hop might bring to your mind a certain perception of what to expect, but the soundtrack is a mixture of traditional beats with Japanese influence, floating ephemeral sounds constantly conjure a feeling of melancholy, or ‘mono no aware’, the fleeting transience of things.
The appeal of the show is ‘style over substance’, however that is a great discredit to what Champloo accomplishes. All the modern quirks in historical context are not just there to make the show stand out visually. The show is about entertaining this idea, this hope, that even back in Edo era Japan there were open-minded people fighting for creativity, individuality and basic human rights. Sure, most of them didn’t last long, but they didn’t die without a fight. Banzai!
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Jul 22, 2012
Well that's two lacklustre Ghibli movies under Goro's belt. On one hand I can understand Hayao supporting his son in his career, yet on the other hand this blatant form of nepotism is doing nothing but showing that the Miyazaki magic will disappear when he does.
Goro doesn't deserve to be making Ghibli movies just yet. Maybe gaining more experience doing other things would prepare him for that special of roles, but instead what we're left with is his experimentations and learning process stamped with the Ghibli logo. It's diluting the brand. His two films aren't even pandering to mainstream audiences; that’s
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certainly not a complaint that can be directed at him, but his films are just directorial missteps that don't utilise the tools of animation to their best potential. It’s as if after the drubbing he got for Earthsea he thought to himself “I’ll direct a story set in 60’s Japan, the critics will like that!”
Earthsea was a disappointment on every level. There are some detractors of that opinion, but the general consensus from viewers is that Earthsea is far low on the list of Ghibli films you should watch. From Up On Poppy Hill at least has some modicum of charm and old school aesthetic about it that keeps it from being a complete failure however. The last thirty minutes are the best with more pace, urgency and melodramatic moments, but it’s a slog to get there.
The animation is not special in any way other than bringing to life 1960's Japan with typical Ghibli detail. The story is a simple coming-of-age tale that lacks any life or bite. There is a revelation that sparks things up somewhat, but even that is ultimately diffused. Hayao himself co-wrote the script with the screenwriter of Earthsea, and I like to imagine he tried to make the clubhouse scenes lively in order to bring life to the story.
The music, like everything else with this film, is inoffensive and bland. Joe Hisaishi is not in sight. There's just nothing here to latch onto and keep in your memory as something to return to. I can recall numerous scenes and musical motifs of previous Ghibli films, but from this all I will recall is the main character pulling up a flag. There are no creative scene compositions, no efficient editing tricks; no passion in the bringing of this tale. The last thirty minutes had developments that could have made a better film by themselves, in a manner similar to Grave of the Fireflies.
When Hayao made Ponyo, you could see his childlike passion for the project in the bluray extras, and you can see it in the work itself, it's bold and full of life, and contains the most amazing depiction of sea waves I've seen in animation. Goro needs to ask himself why he's a director, and for our sake he needs to find the answer on his own time, and not on Ghibli's dime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Jan 13, 2010
Shintaro Kago is renowned for his frank and disturbing tales of sexual perversion. There is a dark wit running throughout all of his manga. I have personally read around 200 manga and 'Suck It' is by far the most disturbing I have ever read.
I didn't know whether to give it a 1 for making me feel disgusting, or a 10 for the balls of getting it published. I settled for a generous score due to its hilarious climax.
To analyse it would take a thousand words and make many assumptions about the author. The premise does it no justice. To talk about
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it more would spoil it. Therefore I have no option but to let veteran seasoned manga readers of MAL do the talking:
'...that was fucked up, man.' - idklol
'Omfg. What the hell was that?!' - Kimia
'that was awesome' - Lith
'Hahaha, what the hell.' - Raidanzoup
'after getting to the animal part I thought it can't get any worse but man was I wrong :/' - Leffy
'God, I think I'm having suicidal feelings right now... fuck, that was the darkest shit I've ever read' - gomu_ninguen
'what-the-fuck' - Rei-Rei
'Cried...' - Pineappledishes-
'Holy shit.' - HooHiraiBunny
Indeed.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 10, 2009
Aired just two years after the end of Mobile Suit Gundam, a show which defined the mecha/space genre in anime, Macross takes the 'humans attacked and on the run in a super ship' template and blazes forward a new path of its own.
Macross is the sexier version of Gundam, the carefree serenading romantic. There is an air of enthusiasm and happy-go-lucky charm to its characters that the Gundam franchise rarely ever allowed on its unlucky downtrodden crew. Whereas Gundam grinds Amuro and company through the emotional wringer from episode one, Macross lets Hikaru and gang regularly let off steam in the interior city
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residing within the Macross itself.
This small city is the show's unique selling point. Whereas most other shows, that might have civilian refugees crammed aboard a ship, will ignore them except when they riot, Macross instead gives them equal focus. They spend so long on the ship that they are forced to adapt and eventually get accustomed to living in an artificial city that incidentally ended up in the bowels of the ship in the most amazing way possible.
Macross is filled with amazing action sequences. Amazing simply for the year it was aired in, the effort and skill of the animators to bring us visually excellent setpieces, featuring awesome-but-underused-in-anime fighter jets, is admirable indeed. The major highlight is an early scene involving a falling jet racing to catch up with a falling human, the camera revolving around the pair seamlessly. The scene is indicative of the ambition of the show.
Gundam is about technology. Whoever has the superior technology wins. Macross is about love. The quintessential emotion that can bring peoples of all race, colour and creed together. Of course these anime are about other things too, but these aspects are at the core.
Macross focuses on other things that mecha fans will have missed in Gundam, such as the affect of media and celebrity in wartime, the clash of two different cultures, and as mentioned before, the society that exists within a ship on the run.
Macross is probably more famous now for its music than its war hijinks, and this first series shows that it was all part of the master plan from the beginning rather than something that evolved later on in other parts of the franchise. The character of Minmay will probably annoy most viewers with her witless selfish ways, but she is the epitome of a teen idol and acts like one. Her cousin Kaifun is the one most deserving of your unbridled hatred, one of the biggest scumbags in all of anime! But anyway, back to Minmay. The role she plays in the story is important despite her ditzy manner, and alongside Hikaru, a main character in a mecha show who is more average and easier to relate to than most others. Although he does for some reason, get increasingly dumber as the show progresses.
Amazingly enough Hikaru is not the best pilot in the story either, and neither is one of the manliest characters in the anime medium: Roy Focker. A man who lives up to his name, let’s just leave it at that. Genre stereotypes are subtlely subverted in Macross. For example there’s a staple bespectacled genius character, Max, but he's not a cliché, he’s not unapproachable and coldly analytical. He actually has a normal personality and is even a hit with the ladies. Macross characters are a genuine treat, much like everything else with this show, always keeping you on your toes. And a disclaimer: half the cast ARENT killed off in the last episode, how refreshing! Not only do characters unexpectedly die in this show, they unexpectedly live too!
What is great about Macross is that it doesn’t heap misery on its characters constantly, but when it does, the characters move on quickly. It never feels like a copout, they're still affected by the changes around them, whenever comrades die for example, but we're thankfully spared five episodes of them moping around like stroppy teens.
Instead we get a ship populated by a plucky group of women who belong more on a playground than the most important part of a warship. These women gossip away and yell out "yada!" when things don’t go their way. At one point the ship gets a new barrier system, called Pinpoint Barrier and it consists of a room somewhere in the ship operated by a couple women who have to roll balls around their table in order to move a mobile barrier around the ship's exterior to absorb enemy attacks. Yes, it really is as ridiculous as it sounds, you can only laugh at the image of cute girls rolling balls furiously in the middle of an attack, yelling "yada!"
Macross is entertainment through and through. It's not going for weighty philosophy, but at the same time, it decorates its carefree nature with worthy topics and doesn’t so much explore them as it acknowledges them. Midway through the show the ugliness of politics, discrimination and the sacrifices that must be made rears its head leading to dramatic, yet ultimately always uplifting stuff.
It's not perfect, the second arc towards the end of the show is a bit of an extended epilogue that may feel like it drags to some viewers, but I appreciate how it resolved dangling plot points and developed characters more than the entire first arc. The love triangle between Hikaru, Minmay and officer Hayase heats up and leads to an excellent climax, and it’s all the more beautiful because the anime doesn’t manipulate you into rooting for one person by making the other a complete bitch, you can see why Hikaru would want to be with either of them.
The art is the show's biggest flaw, it's not pretty. Character designs are fine, but sometimes their eyes go wonky and you wonder if the animators were high on something at the time. The animation itself though as mentioned earlier, constantly surprises you in random episodes with how seamless the 'camera' revolves around setpieces. Though in the second arc the animation suffers and sometimes resorts to US 80's cartoon level quality, but thankfully the attention to characterisation makes up for it.
The music is obviously awesome, and I'm not even talking about Minmay's pop ditties, but the actual score soundtrack is very memorable and funky.
I really loved the characters of Macross and their voice acting, it's a very different approach to the Gundam template when it could have been a simple rip-off. I want to give it 10 out of 10, but will show restraint as the antagonist race weren’t developed well, even if their origin was very interesting. Macross’s strength revolves around just a handful of characters who get ample characterisation and attention, and both a perfect ending to the series and perfect beginning to the franchise.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Sep 30, 2009
This is the story of how one young kid has everything taken from him, but vows to take it all back and then some. With the loyal childhood friend Kircheis backing him up, Reinhard Von Musel's rigorous climb to the top of the empire food chain begins in this OVA; a prequel to the 110 episode Legend Of The Galactic Heroes OVA.
The setup, as fans already know, is epic defined. Having had his sister sold to the empire's ruler by his deadbeat dad, Reinhard has vengeance in mind, but coupled with his genius intellect, it’s a vengeance that spans the galaxy, rather than
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through crosshairs via an assassination. This man wants to dispose of his nemesis in as grand fashion as possible, to not only save his sister, but to ensure it's not a suicide mission, to prevent his tragedy from ever occurring again to any other. To do this he needs to usurp the ruler himself. His personal desire is dressed in a noble mission of reformation, which adds to the fascination of Reinhard's character.
Prequels are generally designed to be viewed after the work they're meant to be set before, this way the viewer can gleefully spot foreshadowing moments and discover insight into characters they think they already know. A Hundred Billion Stars OVA is no different in this regard. Though lacking in any big revelations for the first 13 episodes, it is admittedly more of an exercise in filling-in-the-blanks. However that's not to say there's nothing of worth here, because although the first 13 episodes have not much bearing on the main story of the saga, there is still quality writing involved when it comes to character and dialogue.
Seeing how Reinhard began his military career and observing him in the front-lines of the war, dealing with numerous death threats from pissed off aristocrats and embarking on a murder mystery as a member of Military Police is all very entertaining. It's like constantly dodging bullets, what could have been terrible filler that betrays everything that came before, ends up being a work that is in honour of its predecessor, a supplement; more nourishment for the fans and viewers of anime in general.
The anime is interestingly, and successfully, split into segments. There are a total of four arcs of varying lengths, each with its own chapter numbering. This avoidance of one long narrative is successful because it prevents the anime from hitting slumps where the TV writers make up meaningless 'filler' type material to stretch the show to its allocated episode count. Instead we simply jump from one point in Reinhard's life to the next; a greatest hits of his youth, if you will. His first battle for survival on a harsh planet, a stint in the Military Police, and then what we're really itching for: a full-on naval/planetary battle against the Alliance with cameos galore. This last arc is what justifies the OVA.
But ok, I just lied about the anime avoiding hitting a slump. The third Kircheis-centred arc is extremely boring, clichéd, has the weakest link to the franchise (replace all the character names and you've more or less got a different show) and is populated by irritating characters. Reinhard has about five minutes screen-time, which kind of defeats the purpose of the OVA. It is the only time I have been bored in the entire LotGH viewing experience, and that includes the Golden Wings movie so that's saying something!
Back to that last arc though, the longest segment and the one to introduce big revelations and become something more than an exercise in filling in blanks. It’s a character study that reveals aspects of a few characters and their relationships to others that we only had a hint of in the main OVA. It cements their mythology for good. What you thought you knew about them before isn’t turned on its head, its instead unabashedly celebrated in this arc, and even better that every aspect of the arc is of the highest quality. The direction, visuals, pacing, and plot, all superb. The biggest antagonist of the arc is a guy you really hate, but for all the right reasons, because he is generally a well-rounded character with intelligence and motive.
The animation isn’t drastically different from the main OVA, but being that it was produced in 1998 it's smoother; with nice flowing hair moments. Character designs and scene composition is slightly higher of the standard the original OVA set. It’s all acceptable and does the job. It’s not going to win a lot of awards for its looks, but the story and characters are so strong, it doesn’t need to. The music also remains similar to the main OVA, all timeless classical bombast.
What this OVA also asserts is that Reinhard can’t form relationships with other human beings unless he is deemed, or feels, superior to them. This fact is extremely fascinating about the character, and the fact that he's so damn charismatic and honourable means we simply accept this narcissistic character-flaw of his, whereas in any other anime we'd feel repelled against the character.
Sometimes it’s easy to be swayed by Reinhard's superior attitude and presence, it’s easy to forget his struggle against the nobility. The OVA reminds us that the character had to fight his entire youth and early career against an entire system, a way of life. And this OVA contributes to his mythos in showing just how difficult and dangerous it was to ascend the ranks by dodging bullets, persecution, intrigue and insults to his dear sister all the way. It makes him one of anime's greatest characters because he didn’t have everything given to him, he had to earn it.
He also had to earn our respect and admiration via a great voice actor, character design and most importantly characterisation, all of which are in full force in this OVA. I give it a 9 and not a 10 because you need to see the original OVA to complete the experience, and plus one arc wasn’t up to standard, but for all fans of LotGH this OVA is essential viewing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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