Fortieth Post

As promised, an old-fashioned review to commemorate this blog’s one year of being on the web (and it is a momentous occasion, isn’t it?  ISN’T IT?!).  Today I’ll return to my roots so to speak by reviewing an anime OVA based on a Kosuke Fujishima manga, just like I did with my first ever review.  This one isn’t going to be so nice (or rambling) though seeing as how this show isn’t anywhere as good as Oh My Goddess.  So sit back, relax and enjoy as I review

You’re Under Arrest

OVA, 1994

Director: Kazuhiro Furuhashi

The Story:

You know what?  There really is no story.  Two cute, Japanese female cops meet while one gives the other a traffic citation (how wacky!), they quickly become best friends for life and have a series of (non)adventures while I become bored out of my skull.

The Review:

I wasn’t even that interested in getting this; oh sure, I was a tiny bit intrigued by the fact that it was created by the same guy who did OMG, but the only reason I got this was because it was 99 cents – Animeigo had a special offer on this and I got it to bump up my order of Urusei Yatsura movies to 25 bucks so I could get free shipping (I’m such a bastard).  I didn’t even take it out of its shrinkwrap until a week ago... and I've had this for five months.  Truth be told I wasn’t expecting much (fluff) therefore I guess I can’t say that I was that disappointed after watching You’re Under Arrest.

This show really is fluff.  No, it’s lighter and more insubstantial than fluff; I strongly suspect that if you took  the DVD of this and a rice cracker and dropped them both off of the Empire State Building at the same time, the cracker would hit the ground first (Galileo be damned).    The characters are not only unoriginal but like cardboard: indistinct and unmemorable.  For something billed as a comedy there isn’t even any real comedy.  The situations are so predictable, bland and unfunny that I struggled to keep awake watching this.  Now, it’s not bad.  No, that would be entertaining.  Garzey’s Wing is one of the most horrendously bad things I have ever seen (“I must somehow make sense of our convoluted situation!”  ) but it also made me laugh so hard that my brains flew out of my ears (they haven't returned since).  YUA just did… nothing.

There is no real conflict or drama in this show.  This is a police show, and yet the only real criminal is a speeding motorist that almost smacks a group of kindergarteners (and who would have gotten away in real life considering it took the motorcycle cop in this show about a full minute to get on his bike and give chase).  The other “conflicts” are super-lightweight. I know some people level this accusation against OMG as well, but that show (as fluffy as it was) actually had some semblance of drama in the last few episodes in addition to giving fodder to critics studying gender roles in anime.  This show has nothing in comparison.  It’s like comparing an anorexic teenage girl to a twinkie-addicted sumo wrestler.  Do you know what the saddest thing is?  I’m listening to Beethoven’s Symphony #6 right now while writing this and capturing screenshots for the show, and it pains me to be listening to some of the most sublime music ever made while watching some of the most banal pabulum ever made.

Well, is there anything good about YUA?  Sure, the art and animation are nice – very nice in fact.  There is a sequence in episode two that depicts a typhoon, and the animation of the rain and flooding water particularly impressed me.  The level of animation stays consistent for the rest of the show too, and this was a pleasant surprise.  Unfortunately, as I have said time and time again, well animated crap is still crap.

In the end I can’t recommend this; if you want a light-hearted fluffy comedy get Oh My Goddess.  If you want an animated police comedy get Patlabor.  Or Dominion.

The DVD:

It's a barebones disc from Animeigo.  The video and audio are good but there are no special features.  The Animeigo dub is, as always, awful.  I think it's hilarious how they tout their dub on their website too: "I liked the English dub more than the original Japanese!"  Really?  Personally, I liked neither.  Looking at the cover on this I see that it's labeled "Disc One."  What the hell, you mean there's more?!  Let's check the Wikipedia... holy crap!  They made a TV show out if this?! I think it's a good thing that Animeigo offered this as a sampler for 99 cents so you wouldn't have to pay a full 8 (or more) dollars to find out that this sucked and that you didn't want to buy the subsequent TV show.

Screenshots:

Hmm, a short haired, active, tomboyish girl...

 ...and a more traditionally feminine, long haired, less active girl.  

Where have I seen this before?

Oh, right.

"Psst, have you heard?  We're just a figment of someone's underactive imagination."

Just a normal date in Japan.

 

Don't get used to it.  This is the only time you see a gun used in this show.

Two Fujishima fetishes in one!

Ah, the timeless tradition of overturned fruit.  

Also, how can they run in those skirts?

Well, that kinda sucked – my one year anniversary review and I had to be negative.  Well, to balance it all out I’ll do a positive review next time.  Promise.

Happy Anniversary

Well, here we are...


At Saint Alphonso's Pancake Breakfast, Where I stole the margarine!


AND WIDDLED ON THE BINGO CARDS IN LIEU OF THE –


Where was I? Oh yes.


Here we are at the anniversary of the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre. So much has happened and yet so little has happened in the year since I started this blog. I got a job. I quit my job. I lost a grandmother. I met new people. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was


STINK-FOOT! STINK-FOOT DARLIN', STINK-FOOT!


– Sorry.Well, anyways, this blog has itself seen some changes since it's inception. For example, I no longer over-analyze fluffy anime romantic comedies like I did in the beginning with Oh My Goddess (I'm so embarrassed by that now, although I guess if Susan Napier can do so can I, although I'm still not proud of it). I also do less reviews these days and more articles or insubstantial stuff to cover the fact that I'm lazy and can't find the time to write that much while I try to find a job (again). But today is different. Today, the ritual gives no comfort, today.... oh, crap, I'm sorry. No, today I'm posting up a review in the old fashioned style like the very first one put on this site (though not as long-winded).


Also, I'll be going through this week and cleaning up the site a bit: fixing some grammar here, adding a word or two there. I'm not rewriting any articles or making any huge adjustments though – I kinda like reading my blog from time to time and seeing how it's changed (and I'm the only one).


Anyway, to those reading this, and I know that this is a total of three people, probably four if you count me, well I don't know if I should count me

GET ON WITH IT!

Sorry. Anyways, if you are reading this blog because you stumbled across it on the web somehow, leave a comment on what you think of this site. I wouldn't mind having some feedback. This has been mainly an exercise in writing for me, but I am somewhat interested in what others think... it would help me improve my writing.


Plus I haven't gotten any comments yet.


(Tear)


Anyways, have fun and here's to another year of the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man - A Review In Haiku

You might find yourself

living in a shotgun shack

once in a lifetime

An office lady

with metal blob for a hand–

the subway is fun

A modern vacuum

now with front crotch attachment

girlfriend is better

Brand new penis drill

brings new meaning to the words

I want to screw you

I don’t need no car

why take a train or a plane?

I got rocket feet

Sayonara Anime

All three readers of this blog may have noticed that I haven’t reviewed or written about any anime for the past four months. Why is this so? Well, for one I have been busy with other things in my life (fewer blog posts, period) as well as watching other things in my life (mostly watching horror movies for some strange reason recently). But the biggest reason is simply that I haven’t been watching any new anime. Oh sure, I re-watched Martian Successor Nadesico recently, and I got the new DVDs of Project A-Ko and Galaxy Express 999, but I don’t like blogging things I’ve seen before, and I would really have nothing new to say about A-Ko and 999 – there are only so many ways to say “this movie is fucking awesome” before it gets repetitive.

But I have not watched any new anime. In fact, I’m rather burned out on anime right now. There is simply nothing right now that interests me that much. About the only thing that I can think of that I might want to get is the Dirty Pair TV Series but I can wait on that (no money). I even ran into a very cheap copy of the complete series Last Exile at the used bookstore, and I didn’t pick it up even though I was somewhat interested in viewing it about a year ago. I don’t feel like committing myself to a whole series anymore – I just don’t *care* that much anymore. I just can’t bring myself to rabidly watch entertainment intended for Japanese teenagers anymore. Even if that entertainment is very good, which nearly everyone says that Last Exile is.

This isn’t to insult Japanese teenagers, or teenagers in general, or even adults who watch young adult or children’s entertainment (hey, I enjoy a good Looney Tunes cartoon every once in a while). It’s just that maybe, I want something a little more… adult from my animation. And while a lot of anime aimed at teenagers has some crossover appeal with adults (the original Mobile Suit Gundam was aimed at teenagers but found an audience with college students who liked it’s complex world-view, for example) most is just too limited for me to enjoy that much anymore. I even sold off a whole bunch of my anime recently – even shows I really enjoyed but realized I would never watch again, like Nadia the Secret of Blue Water and Twelve Kingdoms.

So how much anime for adults is out there anyway? The answer: not much. A lot of defenders of the art form will say, “Unlike in the West, where animation is something only for children, anime is made for adults too!” This is false. *Some* animation is made for adults in Japan (i.e. it is not completely nonexistent ) but the vast majority of anime is made for children (and there have been *some* attempts at adult animation in the West, but... well, read below). It’s just that most of it doesn’t make it over here to the US (or the UK, or Canada, or….) because we already have animated programming and movies for children. The next largest group of anime is anime made for teenagers, and this is the group with the largest exposure in the West because it fills a niche that Western Animation does not. Animation for teenagers and young adults has been traditionally nonexistent over here for a long time, the reasoning being (as far as I can tell) that when children hit a certain age they’re supposed to “grow up” and stop watching cartoons. Well, in Japan the attitude is that when teenagers become full adults that they stop watching cartoons and “grow up.” What most western anime fans don’t realize is that regular adult watchers of anime in Japan are in a small minority, and anime is not in the adult mainstream. The vast majority of anime that *is* made for adults is hentai – porn. So what most westerners say about anime is ALMOST true – all anime is either kiddie stuff or porn. I say ALMOST because unlike here in America there *is* a minute amount of animation that is made for older *adults* that is not porn. Now, most of this is crap – Sturgeon’s Law states that 90% of *anything* is crap. And most of it, in an attempt to be “adult” and “edgy” employs a lot of sex/nudity and massive violence (not unlike “adult” animation from the US and elsewhere in the west, where “adult” means puerile animated movies with loads of gratuitous nudity and/or gratuitous violence – Heavy Metal and the works of an execrable animator-that-shall-remain-nameless-but-whose-initials-are-RB come to mind). Not that I mind nudity or sex or violence, but one can have adult entertainment without great amounts of both. So, with that in mind, is there any anime for those like me, who want good, adult animation from Japan without the Boobs and Blood? Or, at least, anime made for older teenagers with enough crossover appeal and enough maturity to interest discerning adults?

Well, yeah, although it is few and far between. Note that this list cannot be complete as I have not watched every anime known to man (or woman).

I have already dealt with a few such anime on this blog – Memories, Labyrinth Tales and Planetes – so I won’t go into them again here except to say read my previous reviews for them and watch them.

Cowboy Bebop is a famous “gateway” anime TV show (i.e. it is an anime that gets people into watching other anime, although it does also feature warp-gates) and was really popular back in the late nineties when it first came out. It’s about a group of bounty hunters in THE FUTURE who travel around the solar system and, well, hunt criminals. What makes the show so refreshingly adult is the way the characters are treated and the way the situations resolve themselves – everything does not always work out for the best. And yeah, there is a cute kid along with a cute dog in here, but they are also treated (relatively) realistically and are there (usually) for comic support. And while this *can* be a violent show, it is not excessively or unnecessarily so.

Wings of Honneamise is a great anime movie from Studio Gainax (their first project, actually) about the first steps by human beings into space – in an alternate world. This is great because it not only depoliticizes the story and the human achievement of space travel but gives the animators the chance to invent a whole new world – which they do beautifully. Everything in this world is different from ours – down to the silverware – but it is never truly alien… it is recognizable as human, and the characters in this world gain our sympathy by being like us. The art and animation are spectacular (especially for 1987, which is when this came out) and the story is absolutely gripping. There is a controversial scene involving sexual assault, but it is not gratuitous (despite what some claim) and is not meant to be arousing in any way. Wings of Honneamise is what other anime films should strive to be.

Millennium Actress is a film from Satoshi Kon, a director I really need to see more of (hence the reason there are no more films of his on here). It details (in a very fluid, stream-of-consciousness manner) the life of a movie actress of the 50s and 60s and her lifelong search for a love from her youth. While it does get overly sentimental at a few points, the story is solid, and the imagery is superb. This is a well done, creative, dramatic film from a director that died way too soon.

Speaking of directors, my favorite anime director is Mamoru Oshii (who turned 60 this week by the way – happy birthday, Mr. Oshii). He’s the one anime director who has put out the greatest deal of quality animated material for adults. Some of it does have an excess of Boobs and Blood (*Cough* Ghost in the Shell, *cough*) that will not be dealt with here, but he’s been responsible for not only some of the best adult anime films but best anime films period.

Angel’s Egg is an awesome experimental film from Oshii, but it is unavailable in the US (had to watch it on Youtube – YUCK), so I will highlight the best of his body of work by talking briefly about his two Patlabor films.

Yes, they are movies with giant robots – but they are the two greatest giant robot movies ever made. The reason for this is… are you ready?... they’re not really about giant robots, especially the second one. Oh sure, the first Patlabor movie is nominally about giant robots going berserk because of their operating systems, but you could have replaced the Labors (as the mecha are called) with anything – any machine or tool. The film is all about progress, about whether it is a good or bad thing as well as the status of technology in modern society; you know, fluffy stuff like that. It’s also a good detective movie with a cool twist – we know who is responsible for the crime in this story, but not how he plans to carry it out… and the villain dies in the very beginning, so the whole movie details the protagonists efforts to stop the diabolical plans of a dead man. Brilliant!

Patlabor 2 is even more brilliant on a filmmaking level, although I personally like it a little bit less because it’s not as fun as the first. It also deals with heavy issues like the role of a military in a modern society (especially a society like Japan that has formally renounced war), terrorism and the complicity of citizens in modern democracies with violence in the third world. This is anime that makes you think, and it’s a damn shame that there isn’t more anime like this. The story, the acting, the visuals are all superb. If you were to stick a gun to my head and make me name the greatest anime film ever made I would probably name this one, although again it’s not my *favorite* (there is a difference).

Although he didn’t direct it, Oshii did write Jin-Roh, a fascinating drama set in an alternate 1960s where the Germans won World War II and occupied Japan. I won’t go too much into the plot – it gets pretty twisty – but I will say this this is a well done anime film made squarely for adults. There is quite a bit of blood but it never approaches stupid levels, and there is no cheap titillation or fanservice. If you watch this movie and still think all anime ever made is either for the kiddies or porn then check into a mental hospital because your sense of reality is seriously skewed.

Well, there you go. Some adult anime for your enjoyment – without the buckets of sex and violence. Because you shouldn’t need sex and violence to enjoy something made for adults, right?


Next Week: Sex and Violence.