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Aug 12, 2014
Arise has been a little bit up and down so far, and the series has yet to get into the same league as the films and SAC, but the latest Arise episode succeeds at being its own thing while bringing in classic element from both previous iterations. Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Border:3 Ghost Tears is the first Arise episode to show what the other ones lacked, Section 9 back in action, and this certainly works in favor of this new episode. This is what you should expect from this movie: a SAC style plot with the most intricate storyline so far in Arise,
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SAC style action and operations starring all your favorite characters with their SAC personalities for the most part, for the first time since 2nd Gig the Major's romance, and some themes and references to the original film as well. Before I get into more detail, I have to say this was definitely my favorite of the Arise series so far, and I'm sure you will like this one if you enjoyed the last couple.
I can imagine Ghost Tears being a little bit controversial to the long term fans of Ghost in the Shell. The reason is because Ghost Tears features something that has never really been especially prevalent before, which is romance. Ghost Tears has a romance between the redesigned Major and an original character called Akira Hose. This romance is very direct, mature, and at times a little bit cheesy but definitely more prevalent then the extremely subtle romance in GiTS and the little bit in 2nd Gig. I don't think it was a bad romance at all actually, in fact its making Arise stand out in its own way. Sure its cool to see all this SAC stuff again, but if I want SAC I'll go watch SAC. By having some original flair, this anime is able to call itself a true new incarnation of Ghost in the Shell. Akira Hose himself, is a pretty interesting original character. This is the first time Arise has succeeded at doing this. Although he is in a somewhat similar role, Akira Hose is not quite Hideo Kuze, he is much less of an egoist, must less of an idealist, much less imposing, and much more charming. If Hideo Kuze is a rock, Akira Hose is the water. Now, Akira Hose isn't exactly character of the year. He has one motivation and basically makes a misshapen beeline to achieve his objective while getting sidetracked by his Major love interest. A little bit predictable but a good addition to the cast dynamic which had already largely borrowed from a 12 year old anime.
A little bit more specific will follow. Ghost Tear's plot revolves around a conspiracy involving an illegal weapons manufactor stationed in Japan sending weapons to a fictional arabic country so it can fight its arab spring and what not. Section 9 is called to investigate how they are smuggling these arms, what the arms are, and what the hell it has to do with the exploding dam across the road. Hell yeah, classic Section 9. So the plot had its own share of detail. It is more intricate than the first Arise, it has more plot twists, it does not sacrifice sense for suspense, and it was definitely better than the rather paper thin plot of Arise 2. I enjoyed it well, but that was just one part of this anime that made it a success. All members of Section 9 had their moments, not just Motoko. Batou wisecracks against the Major and gets hacked which was hilarious, and rips someones head off. Borma is still bald and Borma, he threw some innocent bomber to his grave in a action so swift and deadpan I wasn't sure if I should have cried or chuckled. Togusa's facial detail has somewhat gone down, but his personality has not. He uncovers most of the case in this episode, good going Togusa. Etc etc. So it was a pleasant surprise that characters got their due when they were neglected before.
Plot was good, characters were fun, and the action was nice. Arise also has a couple things that are more aligned with the original GiTS (and 2nd GiG to a degree.) For example, Motoko reveals her complex (surprise) about her cyborg body and how she feels alive with it. This is something we see in GiTS obviously, but not in SAC to much of degree. It was interesting, albeit not in the same league of depth GiTS goes to. I give them props for throwing in the Togusa's revolver joke too, that just kind of wrapped the references altogether.
Music was underwhelming and unmemorable for the third time consecutively. Intro and ending music aside, theres nothing you will remember from this movie I am sure. If One Minute Warning and Stamina Rose can get stuck in your head theres no reason Arise can't do the same.
The verdict is: it's good. I gave this episode a 7 not because there were any problems but just because it wasn't particularly outstanding in it succeeding categories. However, I am most definitely pleased with the anime I just watched, definitely the best Arise episode so far!
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Aug 11, 2014
Ghost in the Shell: Arise - Border:2 Ghost Whispers is very similar to the first Arise episode in presentation. That is to say, it is basically a stand alone GiTS story revolving around the redesigned cast as the quirk. I don't think this Arise episode is as good as the first one, but it was good enough in my opinion.
Ghost Whispers is even more bombastic, colorful, and stylish than the first Arise episode, and much more so than the somewhat similar Stand Alone Complex. This episode is about 90% action scenes, and they are all well choreographed and look excellent with this well budgeted animation
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and cgi. It is unfortunate however, that most of the attention went to making the focus of this episode bombastic action. The GiTS franchise is not new to action obviously, but there is always an appropriate depth to the narrative that takes precedence over it. This is not so in Ghost Whispers, which features a rather simplistic tragic war hero plot with a single twist that doesn't redeem it past being made out of recycled 2nd Gig concepts. I may sound a little harsh, but that is because I have high standards not just for the GiTS series but also the Arise branch, because the first Arise was pretty cool.
We saw much more of the other members of the soon to be Section 9 in this episode of Arise, contrasting with the first episode. Batou, Paz, Borma, Ishikawa, and Saito all make appearances, basically the whole gang. Batou is still Batou basically, despite him being featured as a secondary antagonist in this episode we didn't see much about his character. Paz is kicking ass in his leather jacket, not unlike his previous iteration. Borma is still blank faced and no personality. Good old Borma. I actually like Borma alot he is a straight man just by existing it is kind of funny. Saito was crap in this film, for some reason he is a moneygrabbing Mr. Krabs. I do not like this change in direction from a previously collected, mysterious sniper into a much sillier persona. Ishikawa didn't wise crack even once, nor did he blow up a pachinko parlor, but I guess we can't get everything. This film's length didn't do justice to this redesigned cast, but we will probably see more of them in the next film. I do think however, if they didn't have so much action there would have been more time for some character dynamic. The Section 9 team is an iconic, serious, and interesting team in Stand Alone Complex, and the premise of the Arise series would imply it puts a focus on these guys.
Music is once again underwhelming. Although the intro once again is styled like a sitcom opening like last time which was funny.
The verdict I have on this episode is basically, it was a cool action packed ride but it felt like the new Appleseed movie, its all style, very little substance. It's not that Arise itself suffers from this, its just that this particular Arise episode suffers from it, which is disappointing. Great action and animation awaits you, and not much else.
This doesn't make the whole episode way better but, there is a particular scene towards the end of the movie that is a very obvious reference to the first GiTS film. I got goosebumps when I heard it, but we have no idea of its significance just yet. If you are curious about this scene be sure to check out this, above average but not as good as the first Arise episode.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Aug 11, 2014
I would summarize this movie as a blend of Stand Alone Complex and and an 80's detective movie. It's essentially a stand alone episode you might find in the series with alot more color and the new style that comes with the reboot. In this review I am going to talk of what I think about the first episode of this new GiTS film series, and the direction the reboot is taking.
Ghost in the Shell is not a series that is new to reboots. Almost every other installment in the franchise is in someway a retcon of the original work, or a work based on
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the original work. Because of this, saying "I like Ghost in the Shell" is no longer a very specific statement, the series is very wide reaching in its themes as well as general content. Although both very well done in my opinion, the stand alone complex series and the original film are almost black and white, not even going into the much different manga. When I heard that GiTS was being rebooted into another installment, and I saw the Major's redesign, right away my hipster sense had activated and I passed it off as another modernized money grab and a waste of time. Luckily for me, my quick judgment was quite off from reality.
You can think of this reboot as somewhat of a prequel to Stand Alone Complex. It has been confirmed both internally and externally that is not the same canon, but they are both very similar in presentation and general state of affairs. Due to this, Arise has much more in common with the cop mystery in episodes of SAC then the film series. That is to say, you will not find existential science fiction philosophy and the deep boots nature of the original film. Arise is done under the pretense of a look at the characters of SAC and what they did before they became the elite unit of Section 9. Arise stars the younger, redesigned Motoko revolves around her solving a mystery around the same time that she first meets Section 9. Significant changes to the Major's character became apparent directly and indirectly. Upon starting this film, the first thing viewers will notice is that the Motoko that stars this movie not only looks younger, she also sounds much younger than her previous iterations. The younger voice and stuff is an obvious hint that Motoko is not as strong or as in control as she was in the other mediums, that she is not quite as mature or dominant as an investigator either. This is the first spin on things that makes Arise stand out from what would basically just be a stand alone episode of SAC. At first I didn't particularly enjoy the more girly Major, but 15 minutes in you accept it as the character dynamic the film under its new direction is going for.
The first episode of Arise's plot is something like this. A Lt. Col who was the leader of a special unit has been blown up by a bot, and oddly enough Motoko is part of this "Unit 501." She goes off trying to solve the case, running into Section 9's Daisuke Amaragi for the first time in the process. In lieu of a typical SAC subplot, things are definitely not as simple as they look on the surface. The Major starts to uncover a huge military conspiracy related to herself in the process of the investigation, and the film visits the recurring theme of Motoko's cyborg issues with that. Not going to go into too much more detail with the plot. The story of Ghost Pain left a good impression on me. It was interesting, short enough, and rife with unexpected plot twists, but not deus ex machinas like in Solid State Society. Although interesting, and interesting from the get go to long term GiTS fans, it really isnt much more than a typical mystery. There are mysteries that go beyond what is typical, we've seen this in other entries of GiTS such as GiTS 2: Innocence. It's not a bad plot by any means, its not even really average considering what the average plot is. I just think that, taken at face value, there are some SAC episodes that are more creative. This is just one part of what Arise is though, its not just about what the story was, but how its executed with this rebuilt style, and that was the best part about Ghost Pain. Ghost Pain felt like a super high budget SAC episode. Everything was colorful, action packed, and generally really cool. I want people to know that Ghost in the Shell has not been dumped down from anything Solid State Society was, so if you think there will be vast infodumps, you will not find them. The action in particular was very good in this installment. Cyborg combat has always been fast and heavy in GiTS series, and the animators took it to town.
Its unfortunate that we saw almost nothing of the rest of Section 9. Ghost Pain basically stars Motoko and only Motoko. Other members of Section 9, even the major ones like Batou and Togusa, their appearances can hardly be called anything but cameos. They offer almost nothing to the overall story, and see no character development at all. There is so little screentime to Batou and Togusa I could not even confirm if there were any changes in their personalities over their original incarnations. You would think that a reboot with an emphasis on redesigned and differently presented characters would have an emphasis on said characters, but that does no occur. All attention is on The Major, and unfortunately this doesn't really work out in the character department. We see some bits of subplot over the Major's tragic past that leads into a complex about her cyborg body, but no this is nothing new to the Ghost in the Shell series. Compared to the character dynamics of the Major you see in the latter parts of 2nd Gig, SSS, and of course the original film, Ghost Pain achieves so little it can hardly hold a candle to them in this category. I however, do keep in mind that theres only so much a 1 hour introduction film can do, so there is some degree of holding out you should have before you start to see these things.
Yoko Kano and Kenji Kawai are out, and the film suffers because of it. No memorable music in this film.
GiTS Arise: Ghost Pain is 7/10 introduction to this new GiTS series. Great action, a good story, and alright characters await new and old Ghost in the Shell fans who watch this rather shiny but not superficial entry. I am looking forward to the next film in the series and have high expectations.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jun 29, 2014
Although I gave the same 8/10 to Urasawa's other manga 20th Century Boys and Pluto, overall I like Monster the most. I think Urasawa is really good at writing thrillers but he has a bad habit at messing up in some areas that prevents his manga from being super classics. That being said Monster is one of my favorite manga.
I am going to assume everyone already has a basic grasp of the premise to Monster, so I'll skip that introduction. The first thing I would like to talk about is the characters, since they were one of the most notable parts of the manga to
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me.
I can't really say the character of Kenzo Tenma is unique, I think everyone has seen the kind of depressed and reluctant, yet still kind altruist at heart on a mean mission. Normally seeing such a character archtype play out is really boring to me, but that didn't really bother me in Monster. I don't know exactly what separates him from Kevin Yamagata, and the main dude from 20th Century, but I think it has to do with how he just kind of darker than those characters. Although like I said he is still an altruist and a nice guy at heart, he never gets on the soapbox giving some tearjerker shit that I've seen like 10 times in Billy Bat, Urasawa's latest manga. So that just made Tenma more likeable to me, the way his character played out was just a little bit more mature and that made the difference. But Tenma is actually, in my opinion, one of the least interesting characters in Monster. As in Urasawa's other manga, the characters are all pieces in a really grand plot, and although theres a main character he is not as influential as Johan Liebert, the main antagonist.
Johan was my favorite part of the manga, because he captured a suspense in me. Everytime he appears you know shit is going down. This is really similar to Urasawa's other antagonists, like Friend in 20th Century, but he started doing this archetype with Johan first. Johan is a complicated character, and the mystery of his past dominates most of the plot. Urasawa humanizes him in the middle of the manga, and progressively more so towards the end, specifically in the beginning of the manga he was less of a character and more of a plot device. The reader doesn't know anything about him until later. I'm not going to spoil big stuff, but I enjoyed the backstory of him as well as his twin sister Anna, another important character. Although I liked the jigsaw puzzle of his past, the way events unfolded in revealing it all was kind of sloppy, but I'll talk more about that later. Anyways, Johan is a huge dominating presence and really gets the blood rushing in the reader. In the end of the manga when the reader gets a chance to pry into his character, Urasawa really excells at making him scary but also a guy you can start to figure out a little, like his complexes start to make sense. I enjoyed being able to put those details together, as I think most readers would. Johan is definitely the most mysterious character in this manga, but he isn't super fleshed out, like I said before just enough to make him interesting but not enough that hes just some bitch sap who isn't cool. Then the manga would lose its thrill.
There are tons of side characters in Monster, and I definitely can't go over them all. Some were really boring but thats what side characters are for. Some were pretty good. I liked Wolfgang Grimmer esepcially, and Anna Liebert to a degree. Beyond those two, almost all the other characters were either really one dimensional, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, or they had a dynamic that basically went: (Character is introduced with an objective, has a revelation about something that CHANGES EVERYTHING, character fades into nonimportance as the plot progresses.) I really don't like that formula and it was used quite a many time in Monster. Karl, the lawyer, Peter Capkek or whatever were all examples of these. Granted, the plot is exciting enough to make you not care if these guys fall out of the limelight in a really boring fashion, even if you do pay close attention to characters, but still it could have been better. Thats what happens when the story gets super big like this, things can go out of control, especially towards the end. I've seen the same thing happen in Pluto, and ESPECIALLY 20th Century Boys, but admittably it was handled better in Monster.
So the characters were alright, some were interesting and mature, with alot of cool depth, and others were really stupid throwaways. But the most important thing in Monster is the story, it is a super thriller manga. If Monster can do one thing right, thats ENTERTAIN. It is really entertaining, thats something Urasawa knows well. I never, ever got bored reading Monster, which is one reason I think so highly of it. It was able to largely keep its style intact while doing so, which was also cool. This manga is a flippin roller coaster. However, its not perfect, but that should be obvious just because its a roller coaster kind of story. The biggest issue I have is how the mystery of Liebert twins unfolded. It's like they jumped from one mystery, and then the manga tells you that mystery was just the tip of the iceberg of another huge mystery, and that mystery was only the tip of another HUGE MYSTERY, blah blah blah. This manga really would have been more unified if it had some overarching foreshadowing. For example, the night Johan was shot as a child did not have huge importance for the first 15 volumes, except of course the first one. But then in the last few volumes, Anna starts having flashbacks that unveil crucial plot points that unfolded that night. To me the reader, it was as if these developments were conceived after the first volume was actually published, such was the lack of foreshadowing and overarching material. This doesn't stop there though, Monster is almost COMPLETELY unrecognizeble from the beginning, compared to the end. It goes from a plot about a doctor chasing down a serial killer to some huge conspiracy that unveils book reading experiment and how Johan isn't so bad after all, or it isn't his fault etc. It was obvious from the beginning the Lieberts had a mysterious past, but to continually pile up new mysteries out of thin air really isn't great writing, and it wouldn't hamper the entertainment much except some of the new mysteries unfortunately aren't as interesting as the old ones. The Kinderheim 511 conditioning subplot was made completely irrelevant compared to the bookreading conditioning subplot, and the birth of the twins subplot, and the trauma of Anna subplot, so on so forth. The only factor that remained constant throughout the manga is that Johan is evil, but the unveiling of the mysteries don't particularly enchance this, nor do they excite the reader.
RATHER, the speculation that these mysteries lead to is the real juice. Although Urasawa's answers don't blow your socks off, the mysteries themselves push the plot forward for more entertainment value for the reader. And since its really fun to read, its hard to be so sharply critical of it. Just things could have been better in my opinion, I would have preferred the plot to take the shape of one, thick plotline from beginning to end, with various sub plots branching from it but always returning to the same plotline. In comparison, it was like the manga started with one plotline, then jumped ship to another one at least 3 times.
So I have given a bunch of criticisms of the storyline, but I still give that category a 9. What gives? Well, I think when people get all up on their soapbox about being a super critic like me, they lose sight of some aspects of the manga that you can't comprehend using a microscope. That would be the fun factor, and this manga has alot of it.
Art is pretty good, I like his style. Having a unique art style is always something I like in anime and manga. The technical detail didn't blow my socks off, but this manga is a bit old. One thing I didn't like is that, for side characters, Urasawa seems to have a set number of archetype for character design and faces. Throughout the manga I seem to have only encountered 4 types female face: the child, the bitch, the crone, and the maiden. For example, the various female children in the series, Eva Heinmann, that old prostitue the Red Blimp or whatever, and Anna Liebert, respectively. Similar something going on with the male characters. So 7/10 for the art.
That's about it. I would recommend this manga to anyone who wants to have a fun read that doesn't make you feel like a dumbass. Forget about the hipsters and the extremists, this is a good manga and you'll have a good time reading it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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May 21, 2014
Before you go into this film its advised you know what you are getting into so you don't waste 2 hours on accident. Inverted Patema is a simple movie that probably wasn't envisioned to be some kind of trump card of 2013 anime when it was being produced. The characters have about as much depth as a children's film (not that much) and there are lots of moments during the story that may strike you as a bit silly or overly convenient, even if you go in just trying to enjoy the film and nothing more.
Lets talk about the characters first. Patema is very
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cute. I guess she would get on my nerves after a while but this movie really isn't long enough for that. She is pretty much a damsel in distress, quintessentially so. She bumbles around, has an accident, gets captured and needs to be rescued. Well alright, everyone has seen this before but there's more to every anime than just its basic tropes. Nonetheless it never hurts to do things a little bit out of the box, but as far as character dynamic goes thats not something Patema accomplished. Every damsel needs a hero, and that hero is Age. Age is a very courageous student. There is nothing else that can be said about him that is of note, literally. Even his appearance is unremarkable, brown hair blue eyes anime man haircut and school uniform. He looks exactly the same as some other students that make an appearance for like 10 seconds as he goes to school. For an anime that has visual design as its strong suit, thats kind of disappointing. Anyways, Age quickly falls in love with Patema so the plot can progress. While films pacing will always lack compared to series, and this they don't have the ability to develop certain subtleties that can be present in them, it still struck me as odd how Patema and Age fall in love so fast. Age risks his life to save Patema several times, after only knowing her for a day or two. It's one of those instances in the film that you may think to yourself, this is a little cheesy. There is nothing else to these two characters besides this romance and the conflict with the villain, so I'll first talk about the villain, whom is your run-of-the-mill, tyrannical governor who commits evil due to semi-religious ignorance. He has no motivation, and is only after Patema because she is inverted and the inverted are according to the history of the surface people "cursed." Not a very exciting villain, by any shape or form. Inverted Patema also suffers from a very run-of-the-mill script, in which characters talk lines that have been said in at least 50 anime previously. Age I understand you love Patema and she means the world to you, but after being cornered by the dastardly villain, do you need to proclaim so 12 times as you wait for the plot to whisk you out of the dangerous situation? Also, although the premise to this movie is cool, that is as far as the positives of the story section goes. The world is not very fully explored, and the only things that held my interest were the two plot twists. Well, if that was the intended purpose of the twists then they succeeded, but it left a bad taste. Concluding this section, I think the majority of Patema's problems come from a very lackluster set of characters, character motivations, character design, and script.
Patema is not without some merits, but frankly they just kind of balance out the other stuff, rather than making up for it and going beyond. The premise of Patema, is definitely cool, and it was what drew me to watch the anime in the first place. I had never watched any kind of movie, anime or otherwise, with the premise of a person with inverted gravity, so naturally I liked the idea. Even in the cocnlusion of the movie, I still liked the idea. What I liked even more, and what I think is a definite plus of this movie is the visual design concerning inverted perspectives. This movie looks pretty good, but I can't say it looks outstanding, not compared to recent films like The Garden of Words which blows technical visual power through the roof. Where Inverted Patema succeeds is in creative and iconic scenes. I was very impressed by the viewpoint of a character that is about to fall into the sky and sees the world upside down, it was fun just to look around in this perspective and eye goggle. This novelty of it wore off eventually, but not so much that these sequences become a burden on your eyes.
In conclusion, I thought this movie was ok. I wouldn't rewatch or recommend it, because its fairly run of the mill film. I was impressed by the concept and the how they implemented the reverse gravity scenes, but disappointed by a really trope heavy story that doesn't try to do anything outside of the box.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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May 2, 2014
Since Genius Party is a compilation anime with no overarching connection, I'll post what I thought about each one in the order of my favorites.
7. Limit Cycle
This one was really bizarre. This is the longest short at about 18 minutes, but struck me as the worst of the whole thing. Basically a man made out of static and moving motifs goes on a very long, fast paced speech about.... literally nothing. Usually if I see someone say something attempted to sound complicated but falls under its own weight I don't believe them, but I see this as one of those cases. The man talks about
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a variety of philosophical, religious, sexual, and biblical topics with absolutely no context, all in one stream. This must have been a nightmare to sub, it was almost a nightmare to watch as well. Maybe the point of this short went completely over my head, I wouldn't put it past me, but if you are expecting any kind of explanation of what is going on or any kind of basic premise on which your interpretation can be based on, you will not find it in this short. If I had to guess optimistically, the point was to be as chaotic and nonsensical as possible, in order to make some sort of "sentence-art" phenomenon to go on. This would work out well with the visuals, which are extremely spectacular, both technically and creatively speaking. A variety of colorful motifs and symbols take up the screen most of the time, and it is cool to see. Not enough to make the short itself fun though, unlike in the Genius Party opening short.
6. Doorbell
This short also struck me as weaker than the rest. The premise revolves around college student looking man, who finds himself unable to walk into places or houses because a specter of himself is already in the house, and no one can see him. This sounds strange on paper, its also strange on screen. Although this short is about 13 minutes, it still felt a bit too long. At least half of the short revolved around the nameless main character walking around town, which isn't exactly a technical marvel or art style or animation I might add. In the end it was rather boring because of this, as well a premise that didn't interest me. The climax obviously carries some deeper meaning, and I won't reveal exactly what it is just in case some are reading the review without seeing it. My interpretation is that the young man is either bipolar, or it has something to do with how people put on different faces and sub-personalities based on their environment. Definitely not strong on that though, as it was an ambiguous climax. I wouldn't watch this one a second time.
5. Shanghai Dragon
The theme of this short is the imagination of children, and the premise is a young chinese boy acquires a futuristic device that allows him to create basically anything using it like chalk, that is he makes a drawing out of something with it on the ground and it comes into reality. Overall I was mixed with this one. Unlike Doorbell or Limit Cycle, I never got bored while watching it, but I wasn't stunned by anything either. The theme of children's imagination conquering the evil robot overlords was cool but, when you think about it, all of these Genius Party shorts already have a theme on imagination to begin with. The visuals definitely had a style to them, but it wasn't a very unique style like the one used in Deathtic 4. The action and chase sequences were both very fun to watch, as well as the finishing scene were the boy powers up into his imaginative toku suit of armor to fight evil. Again, didn't blow me away but its just another addition to the compilation, and is good variety in retrospect. Cool crayon art stuff on some scenes. Salute to Sai and his cuban cigars.
4. Baby Blue
This short is directed by Shinichiro Watanabe, the well known director of Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. A high school student asks a girl to skip class with him and go somewhere. The girl agree and they head off, all the while small talking and reminiscing a little bit. It turns out they don't really know where they are going, but eventually decide they want to make a turn for the beach, and off they go. Baby Blue features very hushed voice acting, which gives off a subtle feel compared to the rest of the compilation, and the banter between the two really complimented the atmosphere well. This isn't one of those shorts that tries to hit you over the head with symbolism, its just kind of a simple story that I can't really describe much further without spoiling, but it works well. There were some funny scenes too, most notably the part where they were intercepted by the bike cop. Bike cop had a cool voice too, good audio experience indeed. I liked the ending too. Another good short and a nice quiet anime to compliment with the crazy action of some of the other shorts. Besides that, not much else to say about this one.
3. Genius Party (short)
This is the titular short of the compilation, the first of the pack in order, and also the shortest at around 5 minutes. It is similar to Limit Cycle in where, you really don't know what the hell is going on. That is to say the events that transpire are without any form of context are background information. Big difference though, it isn't 18 minutes long and full of monotonous nonsense. Instead, its an explosive piece of animation, with awesome art style and spectacular choreography to boot. Everything is colorful and complimentary, it is a huge visual and audio presentation and a great way to start off the short. An animation explosion is what it is. It's so short you could watch it on youtube in a few minutes so I won't say whats going on in the short besides theres these really happy rocks and they love to dance. Great anime.
2. Deathtic 4
CGI oh no! The CGI is really cool though because it has something many CGI anime lack, and that is detail to the art. Usually because CGI isn't meant to look like art i.e drawings in the first place, thats for the modern traditionally animated anime. This short features a bunch of zombie dudes trying to send a frog who fell into zombie land through a tornado in the sky or something (Uzu Uzu.) They get embroiled in some shit on the way. Plot is straightforward. Fantastic art though seriously, its like some kind of woodcut style thing. I usually hate CGI but I really loved the style of the background and the art. The style was particularly cool, everything is dead and zombieish, character designs fit the bill and they are all very unique. Props to the zombie police and Posse. This was one of the most entertaining shorts for me, mostly due to the reasons above, I really like when the shorts feature experimental animation or art or cool design, this one has all three. Details on the CGI, its basically like the characters themselves are computer generated, but they have a caricature style that you usually don't see in CGI anime, although you see it in western CGI alot. The backgrounds were mostly drawn in though. Anyways its a short with a simple premise but its unique because of some really funny scenes and cool style. Also all of the characters speak in some kind of bizarre, incomprehensible Scandinavian/Russian which only adds to the out of worldness of the environment.
1. Happy Machine
This was my favorite short in the compilation, and is directed by one of my favorite directors, Yuasa Masaaki who directed Kaiba, Kemonozume, and The Tatami Galaxy. If you had to relate this short to anything complete he has worked on, it would be Kaiba. In a sense, Happy Machine is a visual prototype for the style and the atmosphere featured in full on Kaiba. The visuals and the design of characters, creatures etc. are very unique, in fact they are my favorite of the entire short, even more so than in Deathtic 4. I love how chaotic and enjoyable the director can make a short with such a simple premise that it goes without words, but will go with words for the sake of the review: A baby is taken care of in a bizarre machination of a day care center, only to leave it on a combination of impulse and accident, and ends up venturing out in a world that really doesn't have any laws of physics to speak of. The short is made up of several main scenes, like parts where the baby encounters a flame who burns his crackers, and riding a gigantic horse plant thing. It is not reliant on detail to add to the experience, instead more so on really cool atmosphere, music, and funny scenes. This is a kind of anime that you can just turn your brain off too and go wide with wonder, kind of like the baby. I wonder if this was the intention. Happy Machine has a theme about the cycle of life that only really makes sense at the end of it. It is really entertaining, an animation and style experiment that eventually matured into Kaiba, which was also one of my favorite anime. A great one to watch with friends.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Mar 29, 2014
Right off the bat I will say this manga is extremely similar to two others of note, number 1 Death Note and number 2 Sanctuary. Akumetsu is at its core, a vigilante story starring the protagonist Shou, and his somewhat superhuman exploits. Shou wants to change Japan for the better, and does this with a series of assassinations against politicians and the like who he deems within reasonable thought that they are corrupt, but outside the normal law. Sounds in theory similar to Death Note in the assassination aspect, and Sanctuary in the reform part, but in my opinion Akumetsu is better than both. To
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start off I like the main character Shou, who is a shit eater to his very core, always smiling in seemingly ever horrible situation only for the audience to find everything going to plan (most of the time.) Maybe I am just naturally inclined to like the trouble maker protagonists, although Shou is not an immature character, in fact he takes his job very seriously. So serious and entrenched in his personal justice that he will literally DIE for it..... somewhat literally.
Beyond Shou there are some other characters, most notably the fictional Prime Minister of Japan. Besides that there arent alot of recurring characters, but there are a few. Akumetsu always has an audience though so it is not quite like he stares his enemy down and tries to morally break them in a 1v1 converation, there are always other characters around. Recurring characters are found in flashbacks as well. However, Shou is absolutely the star of the show, and he is just a really fun character, everything he does is interesting. If you are a thinker reader, you might find yourself questioning the validity of Shou's justice and logic, rest assured the author was prepared for this, or rather Shou himself was prepared for this. While Shou may seem like your typical Machivillineastic excuse me spelling, character a la Light Yagami, this isn't quite true. I wouldn't be fooled by the smirk, to put it simply.
Shou drives the entire story of course, this is not a saga following a plethora of perspectives, its definitely Shou's story and he is at the center of everything one way or another. The story is, basically, his long attempt to reform Japan in a bloody way. The chapters are heavily driven by dialogue, in fact Akumetsu has more words per page on the high actions pages than I have ever seen on a manga, sometimes something like 70 words on a page, you can see the translators need to use a narrow bold font to make up for this. There is some sarcastic banter on Shou's side, but during his engagements it usually involves him revealing the very, very extensive crimes of his targets. He doesn't mince words, but he also makes sure his speech is never under 1000 words, HOWEVER, its not a bore by any means. In fact, since the political crimes of his targets are usually very realistic in nature, it is interesting just by it's factual accordance, or rather its attempt at looking like a factual accordance. It's always interesting to hear what Shou, or Akumetsu, has to say, and what bizarre and corrupt crimes his target really did. He doesn't choose his target without a reason for sure. Moving on from his explanations, the presentation of his explanations are always absolutely absurd and entertaining, I thought every single one was awesome. There is always some ridiculous infestation of the host building he is doing this in, whether in the form of him hiding himself in a funeral casket, or bombs wired to windows for dramatic effect. There's a reason he is capable of all of this though. There is also alot of action in Akumetsu though, particularly toward the end where things get a little closer to warfare. In the beginning Shou is unstoppable and it is hard not to have fun on the ride. To pull it off to such a degree without going into the territory of thoughtless entertainment, which Akumetsu obviously is not, is a feat of sort. Good fun.
Art is nice in Akumetsu. Nothing out of the world but you even the most fervent manga art critics can't find a substantial issue here. The scenes are creative in what I would call, "scene choreography" and you will find your epic and overwhelmingly cool spreads here as well, which most manga of note have at least a few as well.
One last thing I want to mention is that this manga is pretty funny at times too, the nature of Akumetsu's exploits in detaining and executing his targets are intentionally absurd and over the top. And although there is no breaking of the laws of physics etc, this manga is fiction, albeit realistic fiction. There are also a frequent amount of references to Tezuka era anime/manga.
All in all, one of my absolute favorites, I am really glad I read it. If it means anything its a top 5 for me. Definitely give it a try if you are interested in it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 29, 2014
A series of anime shorts by Robot/Oh! Productions who have also produced some similar, unrelated shorts. This series has 6 episodes that are all no more than 3 minutes. It is basically a very short quaint, episodic story with no plot whatsoever and no overarching story. The shorts usually place Tortov Riddle travelling to some location with his gigantic camel pig, and doing or seeing something for a few minutes. The art style is fantastic, a picturesque, surreal, somewhat French inspired look that fits the tone of the short perfectly. It makes every short enjoyable and is basically the most unique part about the series.
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The music is also quite nice, use of the accordian, piano, and violin. Goes well with the art style and the tone the shorts are setting, making the actual watch more enjoyable. The stories don't have alot of symbolic meaning, although there could be something I missed. But I think they are just meant to be rainy day stories and not supposed to be overthought, if anything it was a style experiment. All of shorts are worth a watch at some point, you can torrent the whole thing for like 300mb.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Feb 28, 2014
Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa is an outstanding manga by Nokuyuki Fukumoto of Kaiji and Akagi fame, telling a story about a man named Kurosawa and his quest to find his place in the world. Throughout its 70 something chapters it gives some of the most touching and bizarre moments, all revolving around the titular strongest man. I begin the review by saying that this Legend of the Strongest Man is one of the best manga I've ever read.
Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa, or as its known in English as The Legend of the Strongest Man Kurosawa, tells the story of Mr. Kurosawa, a 44 year old single, overweight
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man who has been working the majority of his life as a construction worker. One day while feigning interest in a soccer game with coworkers, Kurosawa has an epiphany that people should be able to cheer for their own success, not just that of other people, which he finds he has been unable to do. Depressed over his underachievement throughout his life and depressed simply about being depressed, Kurosawa sets it upon himself to find his success, though he does not know exactly how to do so himself. He begins his journey by attempting to make friends with the coworkers at work, yet his forced attempts only bring about disastrously cringe worthy consequences. From there on, Kurosawa finds himself in one bizarre situation after another, all while trying to find his place in the world. While I don't want to spoil the story, I can say that Kurosawa's adventure covers everything from finding a new philosophy in life, to achieving his own personal success, to an all out war with the young punks in the area.
Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa's story is a myriad of genres, although most notably is drama and comedy, and both affect the plot. Underneath it however is a story packed with realistic expectations and doubts, with some of the best development of its main character, Kurosawa. Kurosawa himself is fantastic, he is, unlike many protagonists, extremely stupidly normal. Kurosawa has nothing special about him at all, literally, he is overweight, not very good to look at, and has no talents or quirks about him. He is a complete anti-thesis to a myriad of other manga protagonists, for better or worse. Of course, whether or not this necessarily makes his character superior, doesn't matter because he is a fantastic character beyond that. Kurosawa's personality has no real abnormalities to it, in fact his simple desires to make friends among other things, are boring objectives! Yet his unwavering determination throughout all of the depressing circumstances drive this manga to never before seen locations. The story of Kuroawa is unique, unique because it takes things that are taken for granted not just in other manga but in real life as well, and puts them to measure. Kurosawa is a depressing character, because he is depressed himself. Depressed that he has barely any money, no success, no family. But he sets himself to change it all, and it is a fantastic quest indeed. Development of Kurosawa in this manga is of course exceptional. Character development is to put it simply, a flimsy and especially subjective standard, but Kurosawa's changes are both noticeable and real. They are very real, they feel natural to an amazing degree. Kurosawa comes to his own realizations in his life, and about his circumstances, something that becomes admirable through the manga pages themselves and into the hearts and mind of the reader. For this and among other things, he is just extremely likable, this is the first thing that comes to mind when reading his exploits. He is just fantastic, and a perfect lead to the story. There are of course, some other characters, but none of them share the same length of development as Kurosawa. Kurosawa's journey is for the most part solitary, and thus he is the star of all events one way or another. Through this great story we are able to see all the facets of his personality, and the rigors of his quest. The realism of it all, and I use this term with good measure, is very noticeable. To put it in more detail, Kurosawa takes the little things other manga may touch on, like people's place in society and zooms on it completely. It is never pretentious in the slightest, in fact it is so dramatically crazy on something so seemingly insignificant that it can be called the opposite of pretentious. Kurosawa doesn't preach, he shows his resolve through his blood and samurai spirit, his fear and emotions run through the reader. One cannot help but cheer the pitiful Kurosawa on, with his good meaning nature and admirable conclusions, he reaches a synergy with the reader and the story that many manga can only dream of, same genre or not. Kurosawa learns his lessons through vigor, and is far from perfect. If he makes a mistake and reaches a conclusion, he will make the mistake again! And yet even a third time, Kurosawa is a fool, but that is why he is fantastic. It's so difficult to express just how written the entire thing is. Beyond the story itself, there is also alot of comedy, however its not quite the goofball shenigans that the premise may at times suggest. Unlike a manga like Watamote, which Kurosawa has mutual circumstances with in the beginning, Kurosawa has conclusion to its facets. If one said that Watamote was a monster of the week type of comedy when it came to social situations, Kurosawa would be the Illiad of them. But most importantly, this does not drive the entire manga, it reaches conclusions. These conclusions are the driving part of the story, they are pivots to keep the momentum. More on the comedy though, this manga is truly hilarious. Frequently I found a smile on my face of the bizarre situations that occurred to Kurosawa, linked to a haphazard decision. There are times when you can just laugh at it, its great. It mostly comes from how likable Kurosawa is as a character, in addition to the situations he comes into. It just all works out very well. The themes of this manga frequesntly deal with place in society, something that this manga shares with Fukomoto's many gambling works. But with this theme comes real conclusiveness, an ending and meaning that is unparalleled. There is weight to this manga, it is not to be underestimated for any reason. If I hear how someone doesn't read this because of the art style, I want to kill them and flush them down the toilet, please don't let that stop you from reading this. This is a personal 10/10 and something I would recommend to any fan of any kind of genre of manga. It is a fantastic outlook on aspects of depression in life and real situations. It is hilarious, touching, and at times, tragic. The determination of this Strongest Man knows no bounds, and neither does the excellence of it's manga. I implore you to read it.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Feb 28, 2014
Holyland is a martial arts manga about a first year high school student Kamishirou Yuu. When Kamishirou is introduced to the reader, he looks like an extremely beta and timid main character who is about to be beat up and robbed by some thug on the street. Interestingly enough, Kamishirou quickly beats the shit out of him using a one-two punch, all the while looking extremely scared and about to cry, while a suave man voices conveniently timed information about the one-two punch. Kamishirou is introduced to the man, whose name is Masaki Iwaya (known as the charisma of the streets), who makes an impression
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on him. After that we start to be introudeced to the character of Kamishirou. He is a boy with a history of being bullied and recently pitied with his parents. Depressed and alone, Kamishirou stops going to school and almost kills himself. Returning to his drull lifestyle, Kamishirou happens to check out a book on boxing. Kamishirou practices a boxing jab to an incredulous degree, doing it in shadow boxing 5000 times a day for who knows how long, leading him to have the ridiculous, yet severely unconfident power he shows in the introduction. After that, Kamishirou gets involved in street fighting through a series of circumstances, and meets a bunch of characters along the way. Most people have seen this kind of scenario before in manga, but don't let that detract you from the story thinking its cliche, as the news will show this happens all the time in real life. Small details are ever present in this story, paying close attention to the atmosphere and attempting to understand the characters on a deeper level rewards readers with a fantastic and realistic story about youth, violence, and finding a place for yourself.
The first thing I will review in depth is the most important part about this manga, which is the story aspect. The plot is full of small mini-arcs revolving around a particular foe to face in the first half of the manga, all the while the overarching themes come into play mainly through the main character Kamishirou, but also through several important side characters. Characters are where this manga really shine. Character writing does not get better than this, all characters are realistic portrayals of different personalities which shine in multiple different ways. All the characters have their own problems, all have their own views on the world, all have their own motivations. They have a dyanamic philosphy on the events around them, but they are never preachy. Their is a healthy dose of angst in this manga, almost exclusively from Kamishirou. Angst has become a buzzword for stereotypical teenage character development, but don't dismiss it. It's a realistic portrayal of a teenager constantly being surrounded by pity, shame, and bloody violence. Howver, the manga is certainly not just about him. The deurtagonists really stand out and are argueably more in-depth than Kamishirou himself, particularly Masaki Iwaya and Shougo. But not all characters need to have a complicated past and personal issues to be great, Iwado and Tsuchiya particularlly are funny and give quirks to this manga to keep the energy. The charisma of the whole thing is perfect, it never feels out of place and the pacing runs true throughout. The ending left me surprised yet satisfied, thinking about the characters afterwards even more so. The bottom line is this story is a great introspect on violence, youth in society, and confronting realistic personal demons.
The martial arts in this manga is very COOL. I use the word cool on purpose, as its an accurate way to describe it all. These fights are not ridiculously over-the-top like the ones in Sun Ken Rock, and they aren't creative fantasy battles like the ones in Shin Angyo Onshi, this is a very down to earth martial arts manga. In fact, its so down to earth, that this manga constantly explains the mechanics of real martial arts and street fighting. Needless to say, the fights themselves are realistic because of that. Kamishirou is mainly a boxer, but throughout the manga you see details on not only boxing and street fighting as a whole, but also karate, judo, kenpo, kendo, and werestling, as well as their competitive aspects. The author frequently breaks the 4th wall in context by explaining these martial arts and their techniques in a personal way, sometimes with his own little anecdotes. While I am not an aspiring street fighter, if you happen to be, you might want to take some notes as its pretty interesting. Art is nice considering this manga's age of 10 years or so, there are really no particular issues with it that ruin the experience. It has a unique style and is able to convey the energy and expression of any situation, which is all thats needed to enjoy the story and the fights.Coming off of this, it is definitely one of my favorites. I'm sure this isn't too convincing as I tend to say that about all the things I review here, but don't let that discourage you. This is an amazingly well written martial arts drama, with a great atmosphere and significant tweest to make you want to read more. It under no circumstance, drags on or goes to slow. It's hard to label Holyland as anything besides underrated, it's truly fantastic and I'm sure you would think so too.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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