Unmutual!

I couldn't stay away, but I won't be here long.  Too much personal stuff in my life, my slipping emotional sanity and the mind-numbing quest for an actual life mean that not only have I not written for this blog in a long time but that I won't be writing for it again ever come the near future; I am near done and we are approaching the end of line.  I truly mean it this time.  Cross my heart.

I didn't start up this blog again for the death of Leonard Nimoy, I didn't do it to commemorate Christopher Lee.  No, I am doing it today because today is American Patriotastic As Fuck Day, and as a Patriotastic American I feel like saying on this day celebrating the birth of "The Greatest Nation In The World":  It's a Sham.  Freedom is a myth.  You see, I have finished re-watching what is probably the Greatest Television Show Ever Made, and I had to come onto the internet, on this day, after a prolonged silence, to talk about it.  And it's British.  Ha.

1967-1968

Director: Basically Patrick McGoohan

This is a classic show.  If you haven't seen it, go watch it now.  Don't expect me to do a review in the classical sense and use it to decide whether you want to watch it, I'll just tell you right now.  Watch it now.  Now.

Now.

(17 hours later)

Okay, back?  Good.  Awesome, wasn't it?  And really fucking confusing too, I'll bet.  There's a lot of stuff in this show that makes you think, and makes you think about stuff that's not that pleasant.  Individuality vs the Community is only one facet.  I believe the overall conflict of the show is Freedom vs Control, or alternatively, Order vs Chaos... which ties into the Individual vs Society.  Of course Society stands for Order and Control... without control there would be no order, there would be chaos... and human beings cannot stand pure anarchy.  This is all Sociology 101, but the way The Prisoner star and creative force Patrick McGoohan handles it all is brilliant and nuanced.  From the tone and plot of the show you would expect The Prisoner (I refuse to refer to him as Number 6, after all HE IS NOT A NUMBER) to be the unabashed hero and the controllers of The Village to be absolute, unadulterated evil, but this is not always the case.  The Prisoner can sometimes be just as rigid and uncompromising in the name of the individual as the Village can be in enforcing Control -only near the end of the show does he stop flailing about in self-righteous rage and start to beat the Villagers at their own game. And while the antagonists do some pretty evil stuff in the course of the show it is made plain on a number of occasions that many of them are just as much prisoners as the main character.  You can actually sympathize with some of the Numbers Two (most notably Leo McKern's).

And in the end of course (literally) The Prisoner shows that you will never be free; if society is not trying to control and limit you then you yourself are.  The struggle is never over; we are doomed to conflict with ourselves and each other until the end of time... .. wait a minute, is this show British or German?

And that's why I say what McGoohan once said: freedom, or at least absolute freedom as imagined by most Americans, is a myth.  It has to be.  Or society would just fall apart.  In America you are only as free as you can afford to be.  Or as free as the powers-that-be will let you be.  Or as free as your family, friends, neighborhood or community lets you be.  The United States is no different.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I love living in the US.  As a (barely) middle-class American I enjoy a roof over my head and food whenever I need it (good, affordable medical care on the other hand....).  I am "free" to express my opinions about my government and not be jailed in a gulag somewhere but make no mistake... true political dissenters and undesirables are monitored covertly and often, and those deemed dangerous to the state (whether they are dangerous or not) are dealt with.  Scratch the surface of America's "free" exterior actually, and you'll find a surveillance and enforcement system that resembles a certain Village control room....

The United States (and other western countries) have done some very nefarious things to protect the community and its "freedom", many of them done during the decade The Prisoner was originally made.  Things that were just as nefarious as the "evil" Communist Soviet Union or third world brutal dictatorships (some of which we helped set up and/or maintain).  The East and West were not that different during the Cold War (something the show touches on).

So given the show's message and the state of the world it's all pretty depressing, right?  There is no hope.  Well, no.  The trick, and this is the beauty of McGoohan's message, is to despite all this never let them make you think of yourself as a number (which is difficult today, isn't it, with your Social Security Number, Driver's Licence Number, etc.).  Also, you have to *fight* for the rights you most want and cherish.  Don't let them take everything.  You should learn to compromise, but never just roll over and play dead.

All this coming from a Brit, no less.  Wait, actually, Patrick McGoohan was born and died in... America.


Go America!  Woo!

Happy Fourth.

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–

 

A Not-So-Mini Who Review

Today I do a shorter review for one of my favorite TV shows, Doctor Who. A “Mini-Who-Review,” if you will.  This time I’m watching a story from the early days of the show in the sixties, when adventures with Time Lords where broadcast in black-and-white!  So come with me back into an age when the girls where groovy, the monsters where made of aluminum foil and racism was perfectly acceptable on television as I review

Television Serial, 1967

Director: Morris Barry

The Story

The Doctor (Patrick Troughton), Jamie, and new companion Victoria land on the planet Telos, home of the feared Cybermen who are believed to have been extinct for hundreds of years.  An Earth expedition has also landed on the planet in search of the Cybermen’s lost city.  When the Doctor and the Earth expedition join forces and enter the city they find (after a lot of work) the titular Tombs of the Cybermen.  Will the Doctor be able to keep this threat from rising again?  Or will a traitor (or traitors) in the group’s midst conspire to bring the Cybermen back to life for their own nefarious purposes?  Is the sky blue?  Do Time Lords regenerate twelve times?  Do Doctor Who Girl Companions^™ scream WAY too much?

Review

What I love about Doctor Who is that you can jump into any story and not have to know much about the show as a whole to enjoy it.  For those of you who have not seen the show, here’s the basic premise:  An alien travels around the universe and has adventures with his human friends.  That’s it.  The whole setup is so basic it’s brilliant.  Unfortunately, the writers of this show wasted this format as often as they took advantage of it.  Episode quality on Doctor Who varies wildly, from pure genius to televised garbage.  So where does “The Tomb of the Cybermen” fit?

Well, I’m sort of torn.  I will say that this serial is definitely not bad, in fact, it’s pretty darn good.  I just don’t know if I would put it near the top of the list of best Doctor Who episodes ever made.  There are too many flaws keeping this from being an all-time absolute classic, even if it is a very entertaining story.  I’m just gonna go through and say what I like and don’t like about “Tomb”.

First, I like the direction.  At a few points in the story I felt that the camerawork was almost cinematic, which is refreshing to see on television and British television in the sixties in particular.  Kudos to Morris Barry on this.  I also like the electronic music (thanks Radiophonics Workshop!)  The sets are impressive, and the Cybermen themselves are suitably creepy with a real hint of menace.  One thing that the producers of Doctor Who have always known how to do is bring out a sense of danger from a man in a rubber suit.

The story is a mixed bag.  On one hand it is genuinely suspenseful in some spots with a real feeling of peril from the titular cyborgs, and it is fun to see the Doctor and the other scientists try to work out the mysteries of the Cybermen’s control room before making their way to the tombs below.  On the other hand, too many of the characters do way too many stupid things, like leaving guns lying around when they shouldn’t have thus allowing the villains to pick them up.  Now characters in a drama are allowed to be dumb and make mistakes sometimes (God knows I do), but I don’t like it when the stupidity of the characters drives the drama itself.  The acting is also mixed.  Patrick Troughton puts in a good performance here, and most of the other actors are adequate as well.  The best scene is the exchange between the Doctor and Victoria about their families.  This is a nice quiet and touching scene, and the series could have used more like it.  However, some of the other acting is not so good.  Deborah Watling as Victoria screams a lot and stumbles over some of her lines (not to mention goes to sleep in the most unrealistic manner I have ever seen).  And the “American” space captain sounds like he practiced his accent by watching Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The worst part of “Tomb of the Cybermen” for me though is the racism and sexism.  You would think that the sixties being the Age of the Civil Rights Movement there would be more positive portrayals of non-whites and women on television, but I guess Britain was even further behind in this regard than America.  Hell, they even continued with the unabashed racism and sexism into the seventies – just look at the Doctor Who serial “The Talons of Weng Chiang” (a serial I absolutely loathe, detest and despise by the way, and will never review on this blog because I never want to see it again as long as I live).  The sexism in the Doctor Who of this time period is pretty self-evident: if a female character isn't a villain then she's completely useless and screams a lot... and remember, even hundreds of years in the future men will insist that women stay out of danger, being, you know, frail little girls and all.  The racism from this period is pretty apparent as well.  All of the heroes in “Tomb” are not only white but WASPS (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) except Jamie (Scottish, but it almost counts as he’s still British) and technically the Doctor (Gallifreyan, but acts awfully English).  All of the good-guy scientists are English while the rocket ship crew are all White Americans (with really, really bad “American” accents) of English descent.  The villains are: a middle easterner, a German (I think?  Klieg sounds like a German name but hell if I know what accent he’s speaking with), and a big & strong, dumb black dude.  Yes, you heard me.  A Big Scary Black Man who hardly speaks, has limited intelligence when he does and is slavishly loyal to his “mistress.”  Progress! 

One last thing that bugs me, then I’m done.  Whenever anyone dies in this story (and people die, this is Doctor Who after all) everyone else just leaves them laying there.  This is especially noticeable at the end of the last episode – I mean, I know it works for a dramatic shot, but come on.  No funeral?  No burial?  Nothing?  Wow... y’all are a great bunch of “friends.”

Okay, wow, I guess I lied when I said this would be a “mini-review.”  I wrote too much, why does this always happen?  Well, to sum up (then I’m done, promise): “Tomb of the Cybermen” is a good Doctor Who episode and worthy of your time but a few serious flaws (mostly stemming from the time in which it was made) keep it from being one of the all-time best Who stories.  Still recommended.


Screenshots

"I think Victoria might find that dress impracticable if she's going to join us in our adventures.  

Jamie, go find her a micro mini-skirt and some high-heeled go-go boots, would you?"

"And the bold British explorers brave the treacherous gravel quarry...."

The Cybermen... really big on impressive looking logic controls, not so big on actual art.

"I'm sorry, I'm mistaken.  You're right, Sgt.Pepper's is TOTALLY the greatest album EVER."

"All...your...base...are...belong...to us."

"Shut up, knucklehead!  I'll moidah yah!"

"Heeeeere's Johnny!"

Brain Powered = Brain Dead

Okay, now I can do "Brain Powered."

It's very difficult for me to write this, because I'm still angry about this show three days after finishing it.  I still don't really have my thoughts together on this... but I'll try anyway.



Brain Powered 

TV Series, 1998
Director: Yoshiyuki Tomino
26 Episodes (approx. 25 minutes each)


The Story:

Orphan is a giant alien spaceship resting at the bottom of the ocean.  Most of Earth's scientists have determined that it subsists on "organic" energy, i.e. the life force of the living things on this planet.  When Orphan rises from the ocean to return to the stars, it will supposedly kill all life on the planet as it sucks all of the energy out of the planet. The Reclaimers are a group of people who believe in reviving Orphan and sending it into space, thus causing the Apocalypse.  When this happens, a select few of humanity (guess who) along with other biological specimens will go along with Orphan in it's galactic odyssey.  Still with me?  Good.  Meanwhile mysterious "plates" (thin metallic saucers) have been appearing all over the world and have been giving birth to bio-mechanical humanoid giant robots called Antibodies.  Apparently whoever finds a plate first influences what kind of Antibody will be born in this "revival."  The Reclaimers' antibody of choice is the Grand Cher.  The type used by the UN, which actively opposes the Reclaimers and their agenda of universal genocide, is apparently the Brain Powered.  Got all that?  Yuu is a young Grand Cher pilot who happens to be the son of the scientists in charge of running the Reclaimers.  One night while out plate huntin' he runs across a plate reviving in front of a young orphan girl named Hime.  Hime takes to the newly-born Brain Powered like a fish to water and becomes its pilot.  A year later, Yuu decides that worldwide eugenics is a bad thing and decides to leave Orphan.  He steals a Brain Powered and makes it to the Novis Noah, a UN warship dedicated to stopping the threat of the Reclaimers.  And five minutes after meeting Hime again kisses her.

Whew.


The Review For Those Who Haven't Seen It (Count Yourself Lucky):

This show sucks.  The plot synopsis I just gave covers the FIRST TWO EPISODES.  And all of the explanations that I gave regarding the basic setup and terminology are not all given in these two episodes - in fact some aren't really given at all.  Which doesn't bug me that much really because I don't need everything laid out on a plate for me as I do actually have a small modicum of intelligence.  It's just that this show is so clunky and horrible in how it goes about telling it's story that I could scream.  It's all so half-baked.  New terms and concepts are introduced without any explanation or even clues as to what they are.  For example, about halfway into the show a character in their giant robot is caught in the "World Vital Net" and blown to Siberia.  What is the "World Vital Net?"  It's never explained.  I deduced while watching that it is some form of transportation grid covering the world, but exactly what it was was beyond me.  Was is made by Orphan?  Was it man-made (this does take place in the future after all)?  Does it teleport people or just blow them somewhere with a wind current?  GIVE ME SOME IDEA, SHOW!

The art and animation for this show are substandard and ten years out of date.  Looking at this you wouldn't believe that it was made in 1998 - compare this with Cowboy Bebop which came out the same year.  What's worse is that the outdated cel animation is mixed with primitive computer graphics.  The character designs are pretty good, but the mecha designs are pretty bad.  The giant robots of the protagonists and antagonists are so similar to each other that it took some time for me to tell them apart.  This made things confusing, and this is bad - in a giant robot show you should be able to distinguish one type of mecha from another.  A Gundam, for example, and a Zaku look nothing alike.

What's even worse is that this show has hideous dialogue.  I have known for a while that dialogue was never a strong point in a Yoshiyuki Tomino show.  There's usually too much exposition and characters sometimes do not talk the way that real people do, in addition to the occasional moments that I call Tomino What Moments - where a character will say a line of dialogue that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever and makes me go, "what?"  And this is in shows where there are actually people other than the director writing.  For Brain Powered Tomino both directed AND wrote the script, and this is a perfect illustration of what happens when he is allowed free reign on the dialogue in one of his shows.  Luckily he backed off on the writing duties for his next two shows.  Overman King Gainer is actually a watchable show (I don't know about Ɐ Gundam yet, but it's just been licenced for a US release.  I can't wait!).

All of this really, truly sucks because Brain Powered had great potential.  It has some good themes buried underneath all the garbage - like the theme of parents opposing their offspring and the concept of the male vs the female.  It has good character designs, great music (more on that later) and a good idea behind it all.  Tomino has always had great ideas in all of his shows as well as great settings - the man is truly a world-builder.  From the Earth Sphere of the Universal Century to the fantasy realm of Byston Well, Tomino has made different places and times that you can truly wrap yourself up in.  And the same could have been true for Brain Powered.  Which makes watching this shit even more painful.  I mean, Garzey's Wing was bad, but it was so bad that it was fun to watch in an MST3K kind of way - especially if you were watching the English dub, which is one of the funniest things I have ever seen.  Brain Powered is just bad.  Personally, I hope that I never have to sit through it again for the rest of my life.

So is there even one glimmer of hope, one salvageable jewel amongst the sewage that is Brain Powered?  Yes, and it is the music.  Never have I seen a show that is so unworthy of its score.  Yoko Kanno's music is truly wonderful (as many people will tell you).  The opening and ending songs are very good (and the opening infamously features the entire female cast nude).  My advice is to buy the soundtrack. Do not watch the show.


Analysis For Those Who Have (And You Share My Pity):

Something Yoshiyuki Tomino usually excels at is great characters: likable but flawed people who the audience can identify with and root for.  The problem in this show is (once again) that Tomino takes potential and chucks it down the toilet.  Take Yuu.  He's nominally the main character.  I say nominally because I don't think the director could quite figure out who he wanted his main character to be - Yuu or Hime.  I guess for the purpose of this review we can consider them both the main characters - they main couple if you will.  Anyway, Yuu is a really whiny, angsty teenager.  I know, shock upon shock.  A Tomino show with a hormonal emo-fest teen as a protagonist, it can't be!  But the director really tops himself this time.  Remember Camille Bidan from Zeta Gundam?  He's been the epittome of the whiny, angsty teen hero in Tomino's shows for years.  Well, he's now dethroned.  Because at least his whining was somewhat justified - both of his parents are killed and he's sucked into a war against a brutal totalitarian organization (if I just spoiled Zeta Gundam for you than I am truly sorry, but don't worry, all that I just described occurs within the first five episodes so I haven't spoiled too much).  Yuu does admittedly have problems - his parents used him as a guinea pig in their experiments and his sister is a total psycho bitch - but his whining I think is disproportionate to the amount of suffering he's endured.

On a more amusing note I noticed that Yuu's main rival Jonathan was basically a nastier version of Todd from Aura Battler Dunbine, right down to the same hair/eye color.  Because when you need an Evil American only a blue-eyed blond will do.  Speaking of evil Americans, the way the United States is portrayed in this show pissed me off.  Not because they side with the bad guys - I'm not that patriotastic - but because they do it in an illogical way and with no real explanation whatsoever (there's a shock).  As I was watching the first part of this show I wondered "If Orphan is such a supposed threat to the world, why doesn't the US just nuke it when it surfaces?"  Jonathan even brings this up at one point, and I felt happy that maybe some common sense had come to the show.  That feeling was dashed though when America decides to annex Orphan as the 53rd state and take the side of the Reclaimers.  No, I think we would just nuke it.  Oh, and the US Navy is willing to nuke a shipload of refugee children and make war on the United Nations.  How does the United States in this time work, anyway?  Geybridge is able to basically get the USA to do whatever he wants.  Wouldn't annexing an alien spaceship require an Act of Congress?  Does the President rule everything?  Is America a dictatorship?  A theocracy?  You have to tell us these things, Tomino!  Ow.  My head hurts.

Another thing about this show is that it is predictable.  When Baron Maximilian appeared in the latter half of the show it only took about two episodes for me to figure out who it was.  Who could this mysterious masked figure mysteriously helping Jonathan be?  Hmm, let's see, Captain Anoah went crazy and disapearred while chasing a plate earlier in the show.  Hmm... Baron Maximilian shows up after this happens... let's see... Captain Anoah is Jonathan's mother and has a guilt complex about her son joining the enemy, Baron Maximilian seems to be fixated on helping Jonathan... hmm....  I also wasn't surprised when I found out who the Governor of Orphan was.

One last thing that pissed me off about this show, then I'm done: the ending made no sense.  Look, I've seen The Prisoner.  That show had an ending that made no sense (literally, anyway) but it was a brilliant show and the end worked as a metaphor for personal freedom and whatnought.  I've seen Neon Genesis Evangelion and that show had a whacked-out ending (which again makes sense only as a metaphor considering that Eva was basically Hideaki Anno's self-therapy session).  Brain Powered  just has a sloppy ending, an ending that makes you yell, "what the hell just happened?!" and not in a good way.  It just ends.  Nothing is explained.  Did Orphan take organic energy or nourish it, i.e. the plants?  It didn't kill everything on the planet when it went into space, did it do that on purpose because Hime talked to it or was it not going to do that in the first place?  Everyone on Orphan is sent back down to Earth and the spaceship just flies away.  What triggered this?  Was is Yuu and Hime?  Was it Jonathan finally (maybe) returning his mother's love?  Hime said that what Orphan wanted was to not be alone, so why send everyone back to Earth?  Why not keep a few people on board to keep it company?  So, what?  Orphan didn't really need long-term companionship, it just wanted a one-night stand with Earth?  Argh!

The DVD:

Since I don't recommend watching Brain Powered at all, I'm not going to talk about the DVDs that much.  The show is out-of-print (no big loss) but you can find it for pretty cheap if you really want it, though I can not imagine why.  The Anime Legends complete set compiles the previous volumes into one box.  There are extra features mainly consisting of interviews with Kanno and Tomino (who says that he's pleased with how things turned out - I hope he's lying) and credit-less opening and ending sequences, so you can see the naked chicks in all of their glory.  You know what?  Just go to Youtube so you can see the opening sequence instead if you absolutely need to see the naked chicks.  Do not waste your money on this.



Screenshots:

Because I really don't want to waste valuable image space with pictures from this show I'm only going to show two.

"Behold, His mighty hand!"

But is it more collectible than "Cheeses of the World?"