Late Work Can Be A Bitch

More catch-up, more mini-reviews, more anime.

Dreamy, but needs to learn to keep his hands to himself.

Vision of Escaflowne (TV Series, 1996) High School Student (it’s an occupation in Japan!) Hitomi is transported one day to the mystical land of Gaia, where she finds herself caught in a fight between Lord Van, the ruler of a small kingdom and the mighty Zaibach Empire, which is hunting her for her emerging psychic powers as well as planning to conquer the world and find the Secret of Atlantis.  Will Hitomi be able to elude the grasp of Zaibach?  Will she be able to help the inhabitants of Gaia find peace and prosperity?  Will she ever be able to go home again?  But most importantly, will she ever be able to choose between the cute but troubled Van and the dreamy (but also troubled) knight Allen Schezar?

Escaflowne is a very good fantasy show.  It moves quickly (no filler), has complex characters and it has good action and an intriguing story.  Watching this I was hooked, and watched multiple episodes in a row to see what happened next.  However, I can’t call it one of the absolute best anime shows ever, because there’s… something… missing.  I can’t quite put my finger on it.  Maybe for me it was missing the sense of life that the best of anime seems to have.  I don’t know.  I do know that it’s not that original.  “Japanese Schoolgirl Falls Into A Fantasy World Where She Is Special And Gets To Meet Cute Men” had been done before lots of times (it was a popular theme in the 90s); Escaflowne just merged that storyline with !GIANT ROBOTS!  And in fact, this show wasn’t even the first medieval-fantasy show with !GIANT ROBOTS!... that would be Aura Battler Dunbine, from 1983 – although admittedly Escaflowne is the superior show.

Sorry, Cham.

Escaflowne: The Movie (Film, 2000) A visually spectacular reimagining of the TV show; the story is completely different as are the characters (Princess Millerna is now a badass redhead, for example).  Only the basic setup remains the same.  And this is not a bad thing.  You could not tell the story of the original 26 episode TV show in one theatrical film.  Many fans do not like this movie.  I kind of liked it – it’s interesting to watch because it is so different from the original show.  Plus I liked the darker look and the different character designs (no pointy noses).  

If they start stripping I'm calling the Tank Police.

The only thing that keeps it from being a really good movie is that it’s too damn *short*.  This thing needed to be 2½ hours minimum to fit in all of the storyline and character development.  As it is it’s way too short and feels really rushed.  There’s some great art and animation though so I still recommend it to fans of the show or even anyone who is unfamiliar with the TV series – since the story is so different you don’t really need to know anything about Escaflowne going in.

Adolescence of Utena (Film, 1999) I’m not going to even try to describe the story of this one here, because I’m not sure that it’s even possible.  Suffice to say that it involves sword duels, weird architecture, odd imagery, strange private-school marriage rituals as well as more lesbianism and sexual symbolism than you can shake a stick at.

Or sword.

In fact the whole thing is basically a big metaphor for teen maturation as well as gay liberation.  And these are just two interpretations – part of the fun of this movie is just trying to figure out what it's all about.  The other fun part about Utena is that it’s so creative and different from everything else.  And the artwork and animation for this movie are nothing short of *spectacular*.  Seriously, check it out:

And the weirdest part is that this artsy piece of shojo cinema is brought to you by Kunihiko Ikuhara, the same dude who directed the majority of Sailor Moon.  So the guy who gave you this

Also did this

Anyway, this movie is gorgeous, wildly creative and will actually make you think.  As in, “What the Hell did I just watch?!”  Highly recommended.

Steamboy (Film, 2004) Remember when I said in my New Dominion Tank Police review that if I ever saw another Evil-Murdering-Weapons-Manufacturing-Corporation-Who-Tests-Their-Weapons-By-Making-War-On-An-Industrialized-First-World-Nation in anime again I was going to scream?

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Five Star Stories (Film, 1989) Again, I’m not going to describe the whole story to this one as it is based on a manga that is more than 10 volumes long (and still running!) and has over 5000 characters (and I just might not be exaggerating).  In a nutshell though it’s about Ladios Sopp, a !GIANT ROBOT! mechanic (or, as this anime calls him, a “Mortar Hedd Meister”) who lands on a planet in the Joker Galaxy to try to free a genetically-engineered-giant-robot-pilot-girl named Lachesis (or not – the whole movie seems to be him being indecisive on this point) from the foul clutches of a fat and greedy planetary governor.

Our hero, Ladios Sopp.  Yes, gentle reader, he is a man. 

I really liked this movie, even if it ran at an incredibly short run time of just over an hour.  I guess director Kazuo Yamazaki just wanted to conserve the budget though because the artwork in this thing is great – very stylish.  The animation is pretty good but nothing to write home about (it’s above average movie animation for the 1980s).  The main thing going for it though is that it has a unique mood.  This is one of the few sci-fi films that truly make you feel that you are in a strange, almost alien future culture (kind of like David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune, really, only not quite as disturbing and freakish).

I definitely recommend it for those that can look past its short running time (A LOT of story is compressed into this) and the fact that it’s from the Eighties.  For the love of God, though, if you get the DVD DON’T LOOK AT THE BOOKLET THAT COMES WITH IT BEFORE WATCHING THE MOVIE BECAUSE IT WILL SPOIL THE ENDING OF THE FILM FOR YOU.



Next Post: Something that is not anime, I promise–

 

Um, Cham, what are you doing?  Okay, Cham, I know you're probably upset over what I said earlier but that's not the way to express your–

Alright, Cham, I'm sorry about what I said earlier.  Let's just please talk about this like rational–

Cham?  Cham?  No, Cham, don't–