Category: Anime Reviews

What a tear-jerker of a movie. I don’t exactly know how this movie compared to the original TV series of the seventies, but damn, it was so worth it. An excellent recommendation if you’re looking for a sad and depressing movie that’s full of emotions.

This is just one of those recap movies that just works: the creators successfully stuffed the story it’s based on in 90 minutes, and they more than gave the lead character of Marco credit. When a recap movie can get such a huge emotional response out of me like with this movie, I really don’t have any complaints.

The story of Marco is an endearing one, as he travels from the middle of Italy to the middle of Argentine in order to see his mother again. The reason why this movie works is his fantastic characterization throughout his journey. He’ such a lovable character and yet he has to go through so many ordeals in order to get to his destination. And it’s not like this is a stereotypical world in which everyone is against him either: some people are nice, others are just tired of street-kids and treat him roughly. Like most of Nippon Animation’s literary adaptations, the setting is very realistic.

As for the flaws… it does make use of the “useless mother”-cliche, but heck: for once it’s central to the plot, so it’s not that big of a deal. At heart, this movie doesn’t just show the ordeals of a small kid, but also tries to show us who he is, what drives him and what he wants to be when he grows up. It’s a movie that has lots of the charms of a regular World Masterpiece Theatre series, cropped up into just an hour and a half. I’m still amazed at how well and complete the result turned out.

In any case, this is the last thing you’ll see of me this decade. Have a happy end of the year, everyone!

Storytelling:	9/10 – Realistic, heart-wrenching and yet not overdoing the drama.
Characters:	9/10 – Marco is such an engaging character.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Simple graphics, but the animation is fluid and the music is powerful.
Setting:	9/10 – Ah, the realism!

Those who liked Summer Wars will probably like the second Digimon movie, because it pretty much follows the same scenario. Seriously, Summer Wars is nearly just the same movie only with different characters and lots of technical upgrades and a bigger scale. Bokura no War Game, along with Serial Experiments Lain, I think was one of the first anime that looked at the possible dangers of the Internet, and having every computer in the world linked up.

I wasn’t too excited about the general scenario, especially the final climax was just drawn out, cheesy and a Deus ex Machina. The charm in this movie, again, comes from the characters. They really make it a lot of fun to watch this movie. My favourite part was where Taichi was fervently trying to contact the other members of the cast on an incredibly short notice.

At heart, this is a movie about how the world is changing, and evolving into the digital age. The Digimon TV-series speculated what would happen if computers would evolve so much that an entire world would be created (pretty much Shintoism in a modern coat), and this movie takes it on a more down to earth scale, making it much more concrete. And I think that in that way, it actually did a better job than Summer Wars. Apart from that, I don’t think I can count any of the movies superior: this movie clearly is smaller, but both have their own charms and weaknesses, depending on how epic you want to be.

I do want to say that I liked the first Digimon movie better, though. It really shined in its simplicity and charms, while this was a bit too much of a “an evil monster is about to destroy the world! Let’s stop him at the last possible moment!”-movie. The evil monster just isn’t as interesting compared to the amount of time that’s spent on it, and that’s where this movie disappointed me the most.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Fun and quick-paced, though the climax could have been better.
Characters:	8/10 – The lead characters are a lot of fun, the villain disappoints.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Pretty nice animation and soundtrack.
Setting:	8/10 – Interesting though unrealistic look at the Internet.

This was my biggest surprise of the past autumn season. It’s just one of those shows that from the outside looks like nothing special: we have this girl who is in love with another girl but that other girl is oblivious to this, hijinks ensue, blah blah blah. It’s been done many times before. But what a good attempt it turned out to be!

The biggest reason for this is the truly excellent cast of characters. Sumi is a wonderful character to watch; she’s fun, exciting, compassionate and her personal issues of always being seen as the strong dependable friend on their own are alone to make the entire series worthwile. She has her quirks, but she’s not over the top or one-sided.

Apart from that, this really is a great slice of life series. It always has fun situations to put its characters in, and even when it goes the predictable way of the beach episode, it still manages to make something creative out of it. This series is so down to earth and yet enjoyable. The drama knows that it shouldn’t drag on forever, and yet it’s built up well.

I really didn’t think it was possible, but Sasameki Koto managed to set itself apart in the lesbian genre with a genuine, fun and very enjoyable series that’s easy to digest, yet very charming. It’s one of those series in which hardly anything went wrong: the pacing, characters, story. It all seems to fit. Well, okay. If I had to mention a flaw, then it’s that at times it looks a bit too much like a harem. But the love triangles all serve their purpose, and do a great job to not get in the way of the other subplots.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Down to earth and charming.
Characters:	9/10 – Sumi rocks, and the rest of the cast is great too.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Pretty nice, though nothing special.
Setting:	8/10 – Decent, though not the main focus at all.

While not perfect, the second Tenchi Muyo movie impressed me. I was expecting a real melodrama of characters overacting, but instead there’s a lot of subtlety in this very emotional movie. That’s something I really appreciated, and I think that this is my favourite installment of the Tenchi Muyo! franchise because of that. But you don’t want to watch this movie as a Tenchi fan.

It’s a bit spoilerific perhaps, but imagine your average harem series: it’s been established that some of the characters are in love with the male lead, but nothing major happens. Then this woman comes out of nowhere, takes Tenchi and the two become full-fledged lovers. There is no action, hardly any comedy, no harem hijinks. It’s completely different from the rest of the tenchi franchise, which always had something innocent in it.

The high emphasis on drama makes it a great movie, though. It’s powerful and yet not overdramatic. The new girl, Haruna, is drawn beautifully, and well developed throughout the movie, and I especially liked the way her relationship developed with Tenchi. The animation is great, and if you watched the OVAs, then it’s a great recommendation if you’re looking for a good romance movie. There aren’t many good romance movies anyway, so it’s great to see one that’s worthwile.

I do have a complaint though. Ayeka and Ryoko feel a bit dumbed down in comparison to Haruna. When the movie focuses on them, they seem to lose their spark a bit, and I just didn’t buy their development at times. They didn’t ask enough questions and it just felt to me like they were somewhat different people from the rest of the Tenchi Franchise. Because of that, this movie seemed to lose my attention a bit, every time they came in the spotlight again.

Nevertheless, the rest of the cast does not have this problem and that’s why I enjoyed this movie a lot. It’s emotional, charming and mature, and shows why Tenchi is much more interesting than 90% of the other harem lead clones out there.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Quiet, subtle and engaging.
Characters:	8/10 – Haruna and Tenchi are great; Ryoko and Ayeka disappoint a bit.
Production-Values:	9/10 – Fluid and life-like animation.
Setting:	8/10 – Adds quite a bit of depth to certain a certain character.

Now this is more like it. Roots of Ambition is the third Votoms OVA, and unlike Big Battle, it decided to go for the Last Red Shoulder route: background. This one happens earlier than all of the other installments of the franchise so far: Chirico’s time as a Red Shoulder. It pretty much ties Pailsen Files to The Last Red Shoulder, and along with Pailsen Files it can be seen as Chirico’s background: here you see the events that shaped him to be the character we see in the TV-series.

I must say that now I’ve watched most of the Votoms Franchise, its plot is definitely impressive, especially when you put everything together (there are some parts at which the creators require the viewer to think for himself, in order to make sense). This OVA for me was the final bit of the puzzle that filled in Chirico’s backstory.

For those who want to watch the Votoms series in its chronological timeline: first watch this OVA, the Roots of Ambition. Then go to the Pailsen files. Then watch the first 13 episodes of the TV-series, then watch the Last Red Shoulder, and then you can watch the rest of the series, with apparently the Brilliant Heretic coming last (don’t bother with Big Battle, it’s just a silly side-story). Standalone this OVA again isn’t impressive, however it does become impressive when put together into the whole Votoms Storyline.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Well-paced and intriguing.
Characters:	8/10 – Extra depth for Pailsen, Chirico and some more of the side-characters.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Decent.
Setting:	9/10 – Extra background fits in well with the rest of the franchise.

I was really hoping that the second Votoms OVA, Big Battle, would be just as good as the first. But meh, this one’s just as cheesy as the title makes you suspect.

It’s quite likely that this is the worst thing that Ryousuke Takahashi has worked on. His series usually are amazing, but I have no idea what he had in mind here. While the Last Red Shoulder did a great job of creating extra background, Big Battle instead is just a silly side-story that even goes against the continuity of the series.

The bad guy is just a joke. He’s a cheesy terminator with a formulaic back-story. This guy should be the villain of an action flick, not a series as complex as Votoms. I also loved how in the TV-series, Fyana (the lead female) was much, much more than a damsel in distress. Now guess what this OVA reduces her to.

Shako’s character is ruined to a personality-less one-dimensional side-character, going completely against his motives in the TV-series. The Balalant army does things in this movie that made no sense whatsoever considering their actions in later.

The Votoms franchise has always had a lot of action, but it was always meaningful. With such a terrible story and cheesy villain who can’t stop smiling, there’s nothing about this OVA that makes it worth watching. Do yourself a favour, watch the Last Red Shoulder, skip this one. Are the rest of the Votoms OVAs like this as well? I hope not.

Storytelling:	5/10 – Pathetic. Just a meaningless action story.
Characters:	4/10 – Destroys once beloved characters by reducing them to silly one-dimensional stereotypes.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Decent, although the main villain looks incredibly stupid.
Setting:	4/10 – Doesn’t care about continuity.

The OVA format was introduced in 1984. A year later, in 1985, Armored Trooper Votoms was one of the first series that made use of the format, to add in extra episodes for extra background and stories. The story for the Last Red Shoulder was probably cut from the series due to time constraints (apparently, when it started airing it wasn’t even sure whether the entire series would make it to broadcast).

The Votoms franchise is a bit of a puzzle in continuity. This OVA fits between the first and the second arc, and I now realize that Pailsen Files was a prequel, instead of a sequel. The Last Red Shoulder really is a background OVA: standalone you’ll be wondering what the heck it is that you’re watching, and you really need to have seen at least the first 13 episodes of the TV-series in order to make sense of it. And even then there are things that are only explained later on in the series.

When put into context, however, this OVA does a great job of adding in extra background for a ton of major characters. Chirico and his past gets fleshed out as we meet some of his older friends, we see more of Pailsen, Ypsilon gets some considerable development and various of the side-characters also get fleshed out more.

In terms of storytelling, this OVA is pretty much similar to the TV-series, only on a less epic scale perhaps. The reason you want to watch this is really for the background, because I really managed to make more sense of the Votoms setting after watching this.

Storytelling:	8/10 – Pretty similar to TV-series
Characters:	8/10 – Quite a few get some extra depth.
Production-Values:	7/10 – Not really that spectacular.
Setting:	9/10 – The setting makes a lot more sense now.

Here’s one that surprisingly flew past the radar when it first aired. Furusato Japan (or Japan, My Homeland) really surprised me with what a powerful movie it turned out to be. Seriously, at first sight it’s just another one of those movies about grade schoolers, which starts out with slice of life and eventually introduce tragedy that the lead character has to cope with… and in a sense it is, and yet somehow this movie hit me more than most other movies with this premise.

I believe that the key is subtlety and realism. This is no story with the simple message of “war is bad, pity our lead character”, there is no evil bad guy running around, and neither is time wasted with a silly love triangle. There is no moe, no emo excessive crying. There is no unrealistic amount of tragedy, and the bad stuff that does happen is gripping, yet in no way exaggerated. This is a movie about the stuff that could have happened to anyone who grew up in japan in the 1950s.

This movie chronicles the lead character and the class he’s in, and it shows how they get shaped throughout the various events that happen in the movie. The development is realistic: the characters change, but only slightly and subtly. It’s a movie about forgiveness; about coming together and doing something instead of just letting time slip by.

The only part where this show isn’t realistic is when characters start singing. For some reason, every kid gets the voice of a fully trained professional singer. In real life, you’d hear them screaming at all sorts of pitches (I don’t want to know how horrible I sung during school musicals). However, in exchange the final parts of the movie are a joy to listen to. The finale in this movie is basically a long string of singing children. When you know the context that gets explained throughout the movie, it really turns into a powerful experience.

it’s really slice of life at its finest. This movie is so far away from anime cliches and stereotypes. The songs in this movie have great singers behind them. Its a really underrated gem.

Storytelling:	9/10 – Ah, the realism! The subtlety!
Characters:	8/10 – Simple characters that don’t try to pretend that they’re something they’re not.
Production-Values:	9/10 – Excellent songs.
Setting:	8/10 – Great depiction of Japan in 1956

The second Tenchy Muyo Movie is a step back from the first. The action is fun, the comedy is good, but the drama is cheesy. It jumps from one thing to the other without much subtlety, and it becomes a bit hard to care about the characters when they just keep overacting to the slightest things. I would have given this movie an extra half an hour and much more subtlety to make it work properly.

This movie focuses on a completely new character, and doesn’t really contribute to any existing character other than one line of background for Tenchi’s grandfather. The new girl’s back-story is interesting, but at the same time also feels too much like a recycled plot from the second OVA!

Nevertheless, this is an enjoyable movie because of the quick pacing and existing characters. They become hard to buy during the melodrama, however during the fun and upbeat parts I really have no complaints. It’s really one of those movies that’s great to watch if you’re stuck at home on a rainy day and have no idea what to watch.

The visuals are pretty good for an anime, but a bit rushed and unrefined for Tenchi Muyo. the new girl in particular probably has the worst character-designs of any Tenchi Muyo character I’ve seen yet. The soundtrack however is the best of the Tenchi series I’ve seen so far. Outani Kou really did a great job with it.

Overall, this is a movie that didn’t impress me. It did, however, entertain me.

Storytelling:	7/10 – Fun, but the dramatic parts don’t work.
Characters:	7/10 – They overact too much during the drama parts.
Production-Values:	8/10 – Good, though not the best for a Tenchi Movie
Setting:	8/10 – Nice background story though.