Handing In My New Year's Catch-Up Work

Before I get too far into the new year I want to take a quick moment to briefly cover some of the stuff that I watched last year but wasn’t able to review for various reasons.  And by “stuff” I mean anime, since all three of the items below are Japanese and animated.  Shock upon shock!

Planetes (TV Series, 2003-2004) This show details the day-to-day trials and tribulations of a bunch of garbage collectors – the catch being that these are trash disposal workers of the FUTURE, and the waste that they are handling is orbital debris.  This is the science fiction show with the hardest *science* that I have ever seen – things move in microgravity the way they really would (I think… I have never been in space myself), physics are actually respected… the whole thing feels so real.  It’s no wonder that people at NASA reportedly love this show.  There is a real story happening in Planetes, though, so it’s not all real physics and garbage disposal – and the core story is a touching and emotionally involving one.  The only downside I can think of is that there are one or two moments of glurge, and it does get a little to over-the-top dramatically at a few points.  Other than that this show is a winner, with solid animation, good acting, and an intriguing story that is optimistic without being naïve.

Labyrinth Tales (Film, 1987) This is another animated anthology film involving Katsuhiro Otomo (wow… this guy likes these, doesn’t he?).  Three short films are presented: “Labyrinth” (directed by Rintaro) is the framing story, telling of a little girl and her cat who wind up at the titular labyrinth and its circus.  The next tale (“The Running Man,” by Yoshiaki Kawajiri) shows us a future where a deadly car-racing sport “Death Circus” is popular and the current champion will do anything to stay on top for his last race.  Otomo directs the last segment, “Construction Cancellation Order.”  In this story – the longest of the movie – a Japanese corporate drone is dispatched to a South American building project to halt construction after a government coup.  The problem is that the worker robots there don’t want to stop construction….  Labyrinth Tales, like Memories is a film that shows what anime and animation in general can and should be: intelligent and entertaining all at once.  “Labyrinth” is artsy and beautiful, “Running Man” is shallow but spectacular (my god, the animation!) and “Construction Cancellation Order” is smart and funny.  The only thing I can think of that might bring this title down a bit is the short running time (a total of 50 minutes).  No, you know what?  The running time doesn’t matter.  This is the perfect length for this – a nice short snack of anime instead of a large meal.  Sometimes you just need a snack.

Note: ADV released this on DVD in the US under the title Neo-Tokyo, presumably to cash in on Akira, even though this has nothing to do with Otomo's most famous work.  I decided to use the original Japanese title (you know, the one that's actually in the film's actual titles).  Also note that due to an encoding error the DVD is presented in 4:3, even though the movie is 1.85:1.  Basically what this means is:  if you are watching on an old 4:3 display the image is skewed and you're screwed, and if you're watching on a 16:9 you should stretch the picture to fill the screen. 

Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still (OVA, 1992-1998) I have to confess that the reason that I didn’t review this one wasn’t because of computer problems like the others but because I wasn’t sure about my feelings while watching it.  See, I was a little stressed out with various stuff when I watched this and I couldn’t focus on it a lot while watching it – I was too distracted to fully get into it.  I guess this is kind of indicative of its quality – that it couldn’t fulfill its basic function of entertainment (after all, what is entertainment for?).  Or maybe it’s just me.  Anyways, I couldn’t get into Giant Robo.  The animation and music were very nice but the story left me going “meh.”  I get what director Yasuhiro Imagawa was trying to do – combine every one of Mistuteru Yokoyama’s manga into one big homage – but it just didn’t click for me at all.  The biggest problem I think is that it’s so sober.  Oh, there are some light moments, but overall Giant Robo takes itself way too seriously for what it is and is way too operatic and heavy for a series that mixes giant super-robots with ancient Chinese wuxia characters.  Maybe one day I’ll watch it again when I’m in the right frame of mind.  Maybe.

 
I did enjoy the side-story OVA Ginrei Special though.  Seriously, it was way more fun than the actual show - this is what Giant Robo *should* have been.  And I guess Imagawa made up for Giant Robo by giving us G Gundam, which I will be reviewing at a later date.


And with that thought, this post is at an end.  Next time I think I'll review something positive and happy to fight off the mid-winter blahs.  Have fun!