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Aug 12, 2007
The recommendation to me of the first volume of Akihito Yoshitomi's manga Ray was my first encounter with this series. While implausible, It had a lot of interesting ideas going for it; I could see how it could be really quite amusing, original and exciting. However I never got round to getting any more of the manga, for one reason or the other, before the release of the anime version *, so it was on the strength of only the first volume's limited impressions I started the series.
OOPS.
I wanted to like it. Really I did. I thought maybe its first episode
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was trying to be flashy to hook people, I thought the second might be part of a slightly rocky start. But it was futile.
First of all, this is an absolutely classic example of how different media formats suit different kinds of story. From what I read, in monochrome print, the story can just about get away with Ray, her universe and the various extremely rare, difficult to treat ailments that she deals with; in motion, in colour, there's a world of difference. Presented as animation, these are some of the most preposterous ideas I have ever seen, and that the anime alters various storylines to make them even more preposterous does not help matters. This might be OK if this were full-on space opera style sci-fi, but the whole thing is grounded in what looks like the modern world, yet the things this series would have you believe are real maladies require truly heroic suspension of disbelief. Cancers that hide! Fungal spores that explode at a time calculable to the second! Posession by malicious shellfish! ESP diagnoses! Fungus filled with ant-like insects that...I could continue, but the point is, this is not E.R. - the Animation. This is "zOMG he has Ridiculous Disease!".
The series has an overarching plot, but adopts an on-off attitude to it that leaves much to be desired; mixes of malady-of-the-week episodes and plot episodes is not quite the format, but close. The point is, Ray is after this evil organ farming syndicate that more often than not ends up being the root of the week's strain of Ridiculous Disease (which for some reason is astonishing every time). The why of it all, however, remains painfully underdeveloped, and as the plot develops and "reasons" (read: poor excuses) for various things emerge, it becomes clearer and clearer that diseases are not the only ridiculous concepts we are supposed to simply take on face value; from a reasonably promising early premise the plot goes along increasingly wild tangents. The final denouement and resolution of the plotline in the last couple of episodes is far fetched even by the standards the series has already set. It is truly laugheable, the kind of plotline that resembles a children's make-believe game, full of "And then this happens! And then that happens! And, and then this!", a rush of overexcited, overblown, underdeveloped, ill-thought through ideas.
Characters, too, suffer from the incredible, mixed with the overly familiar. So far as design goes, all the female characters are crafted as extremely sexy pretty much all the time, including the egregious naked eyecatches, which may appeal to some but doesn't really fit the setting, in my opinion. Ray herself is hard enough to take, with her x-ray eyes and vaunted surgical ability coupled with apparent extreme youth and meaningless aloofness, and her pet medical technician Shinoyama is a familiar blend of unrequited lusts and preternatural skills. However the staff of the clinic where Ray works are the biggest problem. The nurses are all combinations of kung-fu masters and excuses for fanservice (occuring at the drop of a surgical cap) and for no evident reason the clinic director is a pirate, complete with peg leg and eyepatch. Villains are all absolute identikit concoctions of mystery, wealth and power, hidden lairs and irrational hatreds. As one might expect from something mixing tired formula with sensation in order to appear fresh, there is a half-baked, bloodless romantic subplot; it escalates appropriately in prominence as the thing gets sillier.
One area that it is reasonably hard to fault Ray on is its visuals. The art style, especially for the characters, is a very good approximation of the manga, sleek and high in contrast, similar to a comewhat updated, modernised Osamu Tezuka (his character Black Jack features a small recurring role) and animation quality is relatively good, although it does drop off somewhat towards the end of the series. Detail work such as cars and weapons are also a little shoddy.
Musically, the score is as overdone as the plotline, seeming to borrow from the likes of Bond films and the like; while this style can work in some situations, it fits epic secret agent action a little better than surgery, and comes across as intrusive and enormously irritating before long.
So, as you've gathered, I wasn't a massive fan. However, once I gave up trying to make excuses for it and try to rationalise it, I found that it periodically became somewhat amusing on a "so bad it's good" level. Watch it as a straight-faced parody of things that take themselves far, far too seriously, and it becomes reasonably funny - if you can ignore the fact that it's not intended like that at all - but I'd be far from honest if I said it was a series you can take remotely seriously, and as it plainly wants you to do so, I cannot call it anything other than a general failure as entertainment.
* Another tragedy of this whole business is that I bought another two volumes of manga in my excitement, and found them also becoming equally unsatisfactory and taking the story far from what it seemed to be and what I liked at the start.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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Aug 8, 2007
Given that this is Bubblegum Crisis\' 20th anniversary year, I\'m going to start with some historic background. In 1987, amid the boomtimes in the west, the rise of Japanese industrial and corporate power appeared to be potentially endless and the west seemed unable to match it. Japan, and much of the first world was getting rich quick and advancing technologically in leaps and bounds; but at the same time, other countries were still stuck in a past age, unable to keep up. For the first time socioeconomic concepts like the multinational corporation and the global market became realities, and the division between
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the first and third world had never seemed wider. While some revelled in the abundance, others feared it.
Science fiction, ever the barometer of public fear, reflected this in books and film. Alien, in 1979, brought the world a vision of space travel in the future that for once was filthy and corrupt and run by giant corporations with no morals. The seminal Blade Runner stunned 1982 with the visually amazing concept of a huge, grimy neon tech-sprawl future LA of totally mixed ethnicity and robots that behave more like humans than humans do. And William Gibson’s famed 1984 novel Neuromancer gave the world a fevered, lavish nightmare of clashing technology and humanity embroiled in a tale of global tech businesses up to no good, in the process giving this burgeoning genre a name: cyberpunk.
Where one media succeeds, others will follow. Cyberpunk anime was as inevitable then as live action western versions of anime have become now. Bubblegum Crisis was the leading edge of that cyberpunk anime, taking the elements that worked for the rest and expertly marrying it with many of the elements that make anime unique. Today, Bubblegum Crisis is one of those \'classic\' titles that anime fans need to know about, a Terminator or Star Wars of the anime canon. Even though its popularity in Japan was only a fraction of the reception it enjoyed overseas, it’s my contention that without Bubblegum Crisis there’d have been no Akira film.
But is it any good? On one hand, detractors can say that this is a messy blending of many things that have already been done; a Blade Runner city with a flavour of Neuromancer-come-Alien-come-Aliens dystopian griminess and high-tech evil and full of Terminators and Robocops, filtered through that anime staple, mecha. This is largely true, but doesn’t matter. Outside anime, nothing so ambitious could ever work; but within the totally created universe that’s only possible in animation or CGI, and only really practical in animation, it not only works but excels.
Originally planned as a series of 13 OVA episodes, it eventually ran to only 8 episodes, and some key plot points were altered because of this. Another 3 episodes were released later in an OVA series called Bubblegum Crash, using elements of the 5 unmade episodes that never made it originally. Each is largely self contained, but both multi-episode arcs of storyline and a loose overall plotline are also present. Being an OVA, the time period and hence staff is not as fixed as can be seen with a TV series, the net effect of which being that pretty much every episode is different from each of the others, with different emphases and different priorities. On top of this, half way through, some key decisions were reversed about the planned death in episode 5 of a character who, in hindsight, clearly stands out as the main protagonist. Plus, the eventual premature demise of the series stemmed from the two owners of the franchise, Artmic and Youmex, taking each other to court. DVD releases nowadays seem so snarled in legalities that the horrendous dubtitling is almost forgivable. So, it’s a total mess, basically.
But like I say, this doesn’t really matter. What Bubblegum Crisis does so well, well enough that it relegates these things to positions of secondary importance, is cool. BGC may not have a very sure idea of what it wants to be and do, in a general sense, but it does it with irrepressable style; everything about BGC is very cool. Kenichi Sonoda, who went on to be the man behind Gunsmith Cats, designed the characters impeccably, including their incredible sleek hardsuit armour, which look like what Lamborghinis and Ferraris would look like if they were shaped like women. Various other mechanical designs, by Aramaki Shinji, later to be mechanical designer for Evangelion and director of Appleseed 2004, largely borrows from much of early \'80s sci-fi, and frankly looks fantastic. There’s a very brash, colourful, in-your-face ‘80s vibe also driving the general design ethos, which might sound ghastly but is in fact perfect for crumbling, self-digesting neon dystopias. Much of the visuals are, as mentioned, lifted from Blade Runner and run through a series of anime design quirks. Animation is by no means stunning generally, but gets the job done, and when you factor in the fact that this is from 1987, it really has some very nice touches.
No review of Bubblegum Crisis is remotely complete without mention of the music. BGC is famous for its music almost as much as it is famous for popularising women kicking arse. Synth-rock songs that are as artificial and processed as the nutrasweet in diet coke, tunes painstakingly designed to be catchy and memorable, are the order of the day; it is hard to express how much raw fun it is. It\'s also archetypally \'80s, overblown and brash - and outside of BGC, I generally hate \'80s stuff. The songs especially manage to encapsulate that B-movie feeling; like the irrelevant pop songs at the end of a film that was cheesy but still really entertaining, they are driving, infectious ballads with amazing powers of mood-lightening. Many have noted the similarity between the opening of the first episode and the start of the 1984 film Streets of Fire; but the integration of the music into the story in BGC is much smoother. And, while I love the music, it\'s immediately obvious it\'s the kind of thing that\'s likely to provoke strong responses that won\'t be positive for everyone - a gamble any series that relies so heavily on music must make. Even if you\'re not keen on the sound, though, there\'s no mistaking the skill, high production values and copious amounts of effort behind it.
By having the rock singer character as one of its toughest protagonists is a move that trumps Streets of Fire\'s equivalent role in every way. BGC\'s other characters are far from original by modern standards, but it\'s worth remembering that they set many of those standards themselves. These are archetypes, not stereotypes; those that set the trend, not those who follow them. No-one looks down on Dirty Harry, just because he spawned a thousand maveric cop characters.
It can\'t be denied that there are some fairly major things wrong with BGC. For one, it\'s almost totally episodic, with no real overarching plot and little other than the strong, well rounded characters to link one episode to another. For another, the characters may be strong and extremely charismatic, but they don\'t really change much or develop like they should. For a third, it suffers from the lack of an ending; the last story just stops like any other, and you reach for the last disc...and it\'s just music videos (also real fun). These problems are at least addressed in the 1999 remake, Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040, but at the expense of design, music and general coolness. What the remake did not fix, however, is the basic implausibility of the whole thing. Bloodsucking robots, transforming motorbikes and mecha-tentacle beasts strain one\'s suspension of disbelief unpleasantly at times.
Nonetheless, Bubblegum Crisis, or, to give it its full title, \'Bubblegum Crisis MegaTokyo 2032: the story of Knight Sabers\' (yes, BGC was in fact the origin of the now-common phrase MegaTokyo - another example of its wide influence), remains immensely enjoyable popcorn anime, and remains fascinating for anyone interested in the history of anime. After 20 years, that\'s pretty damn impressive.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 6, 2007
Take Quantum Leap (or Sliders, your preference) and cross it with Excel Saga. That, in a nutshell, is Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade. A couple of kids, a bright but otherwise unexceptional girl and her male otaku neigbour and long-term friend, find themselves tumbling from one lunatic parallel world to another in what begins as simply an attempt to return to normality but becomes an attempt to make things in their own mundane yet beloved reality right. The presence of recurring characters, not only versions of people they know but people they don\'t, begin to clue them in to the method behind the
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madness.
The debt this series owes to Excel Saga is obvious and considerable, and wile I love both series, to me this has the edge in my affections. Sasshi and Arumi\'s efforts take them from one genre parody to another week by week, but unlike Excel Saga\'s scattergun "just because I said so" approach, the whole affair has a coherent and moderately serious storyline running through it, tying everything together. That one can maintain a single overarching plot through an RPG world, a kung fu world, a scifi world, a gangster world, a warfare world and so on is impressive enough.
But the fact that you needn\'t follow the plot, if you don\'t want to, is also pretty smart. If you prefer, you can generally ignore the overarching plot and concentrate on the humour, of which there is lots, and it doesn\'t really let up; none of excel\'s recycling here, no "cute animal anime skit number three". The exceptions are a couple of episodes that in fact aren\'t all that funny and are mostly concerned with the overarching plot, a bit of a weakness. Perhaps with a little more polish this element could have been spread across the whole spread of episodes, and as it is, it does require some concentration to fully \'get\' the plot. No matter, I found myself laughing my ass off most of the time anyhow.
Graphically, Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade has nothing very special about it - but it\'s a rare comedy that dazzles the eyes too. Everything is however perfectly unobjectionable, with character design probably the most impressive aspect. All the supporting cast, the familiar faces from around the Shotengai, appear in a new form for every episode; it\'s easy to take for granted the way they all fit straight in to whatever setting, yet are instantly recogniseable, no small feat in actuality.
There\'s a mostly jazz-flavoured soundtrack, the BGM nothing incredible, generic but pleasing, and far from seeming out of kilter; like character design it is easy to take for granted its modification to fit the setting of each episode. The opening theme is infectiously catchy and great fun, one of my favourites among Hayashibara Megumi\'s many, many happy songs. The ending theme is also one of hers, and is gentle and lovely, the sort of music that makes you think of summer sunshine.
Basically, Abenobashi Magical Shopping Arcade is one of those rare things that is as complicated as you want it to be. It can be just a parody humour show, or a more complicated tale with serious points to make about urban decline and the loss of community feeling, and also about genre cliches, if you like, on top of simply being funny as hell. You gets more than you pays for, for once.
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Aug 5, 2007
My flatmate and I are both anime people. There\'s just not enough stuff out there, so every now and then, when a "classic" series surfaces, we\'ll have a look at that. Being big on Macross Zero and Yukikaze, I thought Area 88 might have been an interesting watch - aircraft anime before the age of CGI. I mention my flatmate because it is from him I gleaned the phrase that so succinctly describes Area 88\'s many failings: The Powah Of Cool.
Kazama Shin is a top airline pilot, cozy with the company boss\'s daughter and poised to become a bigshot. So, naturally,
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his best friend hoodwinks him into signing a mercenary pilot\'s contract in order to nick all that from him. But he cannot take Shin\'s Powah Of Cool. Against the odds Shin survives, and his candyfloss-haired squeeze happens to see him and his Cool Powah pictured in a magazine. Given hope by his Powah Of Cool, she tries desperately to save him, but time is running out as the enemies of the Fictionalistan mercenary airbase Area 88 is advancing. Shin must stay alive long enough to raise the $1,500,000 buyout fee. He must learn to kill to stay alive. And so on.
Now, in all fairness, back in 1986 this was probably the cutting edge of animation. The attention to detail was probably groundbreakingly good, with many sleek aircraft faithfully reproduced. Probably. But in 2007, it has aged badly. What we are confronted with here is not dissimilar to the famous car chase in Bullitt, in that this may have been amazing, influential and formative in its time, but most of what it has since inspired has undeniably eclipsed it in every way. Now, it\'s extremely dated, and the likes of Macross Plus and Yukikaze are so far ahead it\'s difficult to take it seriously now. Only the uniquely different aircraft sounds remain even remotely impressive.
Characterisation is also extremely formulaic and by-the-numbers; a supremely skilled yet emotionally vulnerable hero, a sickeningly ultrafeminine, vulnerable and ineffectual heroine, a villain as inept as he is recycled, a clutch of cardboard-cutout manly men of varying morality as supporting cast, the odd spot of blatant racial stereotyping for good measure...even for 1986, this aspect of Area 88 is far from groundbreaking. The development of these characters towards the end defies all logic in its attempts to hammer home ideas about the terribly terrible, tragically tragic things war does to men and the people they love - things we\'ve all heard about umpteen times before, and things that sit a little uncomfortably with the glorification of air-to-air combat.
And how it just loves to glorify that. Here, in the aerial battle scenes, the Powah Of Cool is most in evidence. Shin and his buddies have so much of it that they barely need twitch to destroy 10, 20, 30 enemy fighters; the number of planes downed must run into hundreds of thousands every year. A brief burst of cannon fire will bring down an enemy, yet they never come close; enemy missiles are dodged or evaded, but Shin\'s missiles always strike home; Shin dodges and jinks like a hoverfly with Parkinson\'s, but enemies drift across his gunsight as if he were in a shooting gallery. Flying a fighter jet is apparently as easy as a stroll in the park, at least for Shin.
Yet despite his Powah Of Cool, Shin has never been able to reconcile himself to the killings he must commit in his role as Area 88\'s number one combat pilot. Now, you may be wondering at this point what precisely is stopping him from just getting in his plane and leaving, blowing away anyone who tries to stop him with his Powah Of Cool. Me too. All the way through, I wondered why he didn\'t do this; but this idiocy is as nothing to the way things progress in the final story. Suffice it to say this becomes a characteristically classic Japanese tragedy, in a way few people who claim a modern mindset will understand, let alone sympathise with.
Overall, this is one for history-of-anime completists or the most determined old-style anime fans only. Modern aircraft anime has this beaten until it cries in every way. I found I really had to force myself to watch all the way to the end, and I was counting the minutes until that moment arrived.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Aug 5, 2007
Ninja Scroll was one of the first examples of anime I ever saw, and it made a lasting impression on me - a bad one. Luckily, I was already convinced of the ability of anime to stand up to anything that live action could throw at it. This, on the other hand, went a long way towards making me realise that, as with anything else (I now realise - I was young and had no sense), not all anime is superb.
So, what's wrong? Well, ninjas. I await the day when I can see a ninja character that I can even begin
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to believe in. However, it seems it is illegal to have ninjas that you can actually believe in; they all have to be supernatural and/or sublimely skilled, to an order of magnitude above and beyond your garden variety trained killer. Ninja Scroll is the very epitome of this attitude. They're not just sneaky guys with throwing knives, they turn to stone and have steerable mystic claws on endless chains and can hold off their own deaths until they deliver that one vital message. All the most hackneyed and OTT things you can imagine ninjas doing, in all the most trashy b-movies and cheesy games, they happen here. It's also, to my eye, unnecessarily nasty in its graphicness, tone and inference - I'm not squeamish, but I would rather gore had some point. Think Naruto meets Urotsukidoji, but with rather less sex and filler episodes, and zero lightheartedness or charm.
Everything in Ninja Scroll is resolutely (tediously) grim and opressive all the time. It's actually quite tiring. All the characters are also gratingly simplistic. There's a hero, a heroine who is not allowed to be strong enough to look after herself in order that our hero Jubei can save her from a nasty fate, assorted sneaky buggers and of course all those supernatural ninjas. No-one is remotely credible as a character. Of course, they're not supposed to be, really, Ninja Scroll is clearly a very long way from realism. The point is, this is a genre piece, and if you're not enamoured of the stereotype of ninjas, well, this'll not do anything to persuade you. Then again, if Magikal Ninjery is your line, I'm sure you'll think I should rate this way higher.
To be fair, it's not the worst thing ever in the history of ever. The art style isn't really my cup of tea, but is distinctive and unique, with bold outlines, solid colours and overall a very stylised look. Some of the ideas, if you can get past the basic ridiculousness to suspend your disbelief, are inventive and unexpected. However, I was unable to make it that far.
I'm not going to pretend to be objective or anything, this is what I think, and I think Ninja Scroll is terrible. There are likely many who will disagree, but there it is, it's the kind of thing that polarises opinions.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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