Category: Anime Reviews

Yes, you’ve read the rating right. I hardly ever give a movie a rating above 90/100, because of the limited time they have to work with, and this is the highest rating I’ve ever handed out to a movie. I knew that this was going to be a good movie because of the stories I’ve heard about the original novel, but I never expected that it would be THIS good. The Dog of Flanders has left me in an emotional wreck, and I honestly say that it’s been the best movie I’ve ever seen.

The people from Nippon Animation are true gods when it comes to adaptations. They always remain faithful and they always get the best out of their source material. If the source-material is such a tear-jerker as this one, the results really turn out amazing. This movie is heart-wrenching, from start to finish. It never shows any moments of weakness, and when one grievingly sad scene ends, you can be sure that it’ll be followed by an even sadder scene next.

The story makes perfect use of the amazing characters. No character feels incomplete, they all have their own subtle backgrounds, they all well-developed characters with their own well-defined roles. Even the small side-characters have a personality, and they work so incredibly well with the main characters. The only thing that isn’t absolutely stellar about this movie are the visuals. After all, it has been animated by Nippon Animation, and it dates back from 1997, so the art style does look simple.

But that should be no reason to not check out this movie. Over the past few months, I’ve watched a lot of different movies, and I kept nitpicking on how they always came out flawed somehow, and how each movie, despite its good points, didn’t quite make it to become truly memorable. This is why I often prefer TV-series. But a Dog of Flanders is different. It’s a true masterpiece, and it’s a real shame that so little people seem to have watched it. Both AniDB, Anime News Network and MyAnimeList have just thirty people who voted for it. If you’re looking for a sad story, then The Dog of Flanders should be the first on your list to check out.

Piano no Mori can easily be considered as the brother-movie of Miyori no Mori. Both got originally released around the same time, both are slice-of-life movies, both place a lot of emphasis on a forest, and both have a kid of about 11 years old as their main character. In Miyori no Mori, the forest was filled with spirits, in Piano no Mori, the forest has a piano in it.

Both movies have their own strengths and weaknesses. The main characters for Piano no Mori just don’t match up to Miyori, but in exchange Piano no Mori doesn’t have any cardboard-box villain that plagued Miyori. And even though the main characters aren’t as likable as Miyori, this doesn’t mean that they’re bad. This movie portrays quite an interesting rivalry between two polar opposites. Along with the side-characters, they turn into quite an interesting smörgåsbord of a cast.

The major problem with Piano no Mori is the direction. It really felt to me like the creators were going down a checklist of some sorts, to get the necessary developments set up right for the finale. Whenever the creators had to choose between a flowing story and this checklist, they went with the checklist. What’s strange about this is that the director for this movie is top-notch: he’s been behind the critically acclaimed series of Monster and Master Keaton, and his work on the first half of A Spirit of The Sun was terrific as well. While I haven’t seen the first two, I just can’t say that Piano no Mori has been his best work.

Nevertheless, Piano no Mori is a very capable movie, which provided the satisfying ending that I missed with Miyori no Mori. Both movies (or tv-specials in Miyori no Mori’s case) are greatly recommended if you’re looking for a relaxed slice-of-life movie, just don’t expect to be blown away. The tournament at the end of the movie was nicely done, although it would have been better to see more different contestants (some who actually weren’t some kind of reincarnation of Beethoven). Still, this movie did what it set out to do, and that’s enough to make up for two hours that won’t disappoint.

What a charming little OVA. Alien Nine gives the term “Alien Invasion” a whole new dimension. Here, aliens can come in lots of different sizes and shapes, and most of them have no real intention to take over the Earth at all. Instead, they cause small amounts of trouble here and there, especially around schools apparently. Because of that, random students get allocated for each school to be the local alien fighters. Alien Nine is about the three alien fighters for one particular grade school.

The beauty of this anime is that it’s a character-study, and it knows it. Every single scene is dedicated to flesh out the three main characters, and develop them through the short airtime of four episodes. There’s a lot of angst, but the creators never delve into pointless melodrama, and they know exactly when to time the big climaxes for this OVA. There’s no cheesy love-story that gets in the way of what’s really important either, and all in all, the creators made the optimum use of the short time that they had to work with.

The thing about the characters is that they would have failed horribly if they weren’t developed as well as this series did. There’s a cry-baby, a strong girl and a perfect girl. They’re all pretty clichéd when you first see them, but the storytelling is so refreshing that you hardly even notice this while watching. Do note that the cry-baby can get on people’s nerves at times, so that may be potentially off-putting. Her interaction with the other main characters is excellent, though. 😉

Unfortunately, and I’m afraid to say it, but Alien Nine does suffer from the “TOO SHORT!!”-syndrome, which I’ve seen on many other movies and OVAs. Some anime try to solve this by omitting important character-backgrounds, others don’t bother to explain their storylines properly, though Alien Nine manages to avoid this. Instead, it just stops. I assume that it’s based on a manga, and only the first X chapters of this manga made it into the OVA. It’s a darn shame, because I feel that yet again this series deserves so much more episodes.

Thankfully, this flaw never got in the way of the characters, and they make sure to keep this OVA interesting till the end. The creators know how to build up properly, and try their best with such a limited amount of time. You’d be surprised at how intense the drama can get at times, considering that we’re just dealing with ordinary grade-schoolers.

Mamoru Oshii may have his problems, but I like how the guy has continued to produce adult-movies through the decades, away from all the teenagers that we see in 90% of all other anime. His movies are always very well-written; heck, the guy has an absolutely terrific sense of dialogue, rivalled by only a handful of people. It’s a shame that none of his movies so far came out perfectly flawless, though. He often gets too enthusiastic with his dialogue, which makes many of his works memorable, but missing that edge to truly become a great movie. Thankfully, after watching Jin Roh, I’m glad to say that this doesn’t count for all of his movies.

It’s here where Oshii throws away all his pretentiousness, and he deliberately keeps the pacing slow for the entire run, and for once he doesn’t mean to confuse his viewer with tons of dialogue. Instead, we get the character-study of a member of a special division of the police. Expect lots of realism here, this isn’t a story where a heroic warrior will save the world from terrorists. The plot is much deeper than that, despite what you might think. This movie was especially refreshing after watching A Tree of Palme. Nothing feels forced. Nothing feels out of place.

The real star of this movie is the main character, though. He’s so far away from your standard hero, and the depth of his character is immense, especially considering the limited length that this movie has to work with. This makes it a pity when the movie switches to the side-characters. They’re by no means bad, but they’re just not as interesting as the main one. This is just a minor flaw, though.

I’m really glad to see that Oshii did manage to produce one movie that doesn’t have any major problems, and the result is absolutely terrific. I can’t say this enough times, but a movie has a limited amount of time to work with. If it wants to be something memorable, it needs to know how to build up properly. Mamoru Oshii does know this, but he often gets ahead of himself. Thankfully, this isn’t the case for Jin Roh. Jin Roh is a definite recommendation if you’re looking for a slow and serious movie.

A Tree of Palme is from the same director as Fantastic Children, so yes, I was eager to watch this movie. Don’t be fooled by the childish character-designs, because just like Fantastic Children, A Tree of Palme is a dark and twisted story. Unfortunately, I’m missing the same brilliance.

Don’t get me wrong, A Tree of Palme is a good movie. The first half is absolutely stunning and imaginative. Seeing the nervous wrecks of the two main characters was a delight, and both of them are fleshed out really well. Palme’s desires become gut-wrenching at one point. But yeah, I wish I could say the same about the second half…

In the end, this just turned into one of these movies which are just too short for their own stories, and this becomes all too apparent in the second half. The biggest problem is that the character-development feels really awkward. Okay, I know that Palme is a puppet and there were actually some reasons given for his strange behaviour, but even that was really pushing my suspense of disbelief, and I haven’t started talking about the other characters yet. One time, a character scared to death, and a moment later she’s happy and acts like nothing ever happened. The plot also has its issues, and huge holes start to appear as the movie goes on that are never cleared up. It feels like entire scenes have been lost on the cutting-room floor.

It’s a shame, A Tree of Palme definitely had the potential, as shown by the first half. But the creators really needed to put some of the subtlety of Arete Hime in this movie. It’s like I said in my Mahou Tsukai Tai-review: a movie has a very limited amount of time to tell its story, but if it knows how to build up properly, it’ll turn into something memorable. A Tree of Palme just didn’t have what it takes to really stand out from all the other movies. It’s a good watch, but not a great one.

Romantic comedies and I haven’t had the best relationship. Sure, there have been a few gems among them (for example Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge and Code-E), but there is just so much crap amongst the genre. For me, the gags are often lazy, the characters uninspired and they rely way too much on moe stereotypes. The few series that do put a bit of effort into their storytelling also have a large chance of not knowing how to balance the romance and the comedy properly (Magikano, anyone?)

The cream of the crop in the romantic-comedy-genre has to be Mahou Tsukai Tai for me. The television-series made the mistake in going on and on about the major villain, but none of these problems return in the OVA. This is really what a romantic comedy should be. There is no minute wasted, every single character is meaningful and the story manages to fully utilize the format of six episodes. Basically, if you liked the television-series, you just have to check out the OVA.

The strength of Mahou Tsukai Tai is that it takes a cast of characters who would have been incredibly cliché on their own, and turns them into something memorable. Unlike series as Kanon and basically 90% of all other series, the characters don’t feel randomly thrown together. They all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and they use their strengths to make up for the weaknesses of the others. The cast just fits perfectly. Unlike the television-series, this is also one OVA that keeps an excellent balance between comedy and drama. The final episode manages to close off the OVA very nicely due to the build-up of the first five ones.

I’ve seen a lot of movies and OVAs now that don’t know how to build up properly, but those who do understand this have turned into really memorable watches, and this is exactly what makes the difference between a memorable OVA and just a forgettable one. The time that movies and OVAs have to work with is considerably smaller than compared with television-series, but if it’s used well, then the results are awesome.

Oh, the irony. The wonderful irony. The Wings of Honneamise is Gainax first major production. While I haven’t seen all of their works, I have seen quite a few, and I must say that Wings of Honneamise is Gainax’s only production without any reliance on moe-stereotypes, there’s hardly any useless or stupid fanservice, and it also has a pretty good chance to be one of their most down-to-earth work. I’m not certain whether one thing comes from the other, but for me, it also was among the best that the studio has ever shown me. Oh, the irony.

Basically, The Wings of Honneamse is about space-travel. Sending the first man into orbit, to be exact. The main character feels real and likable and not overly GAR for his own good. He’s pretty stupid at times as well, but make no mistake: the script is very clever at times. There’s lots of symbolism, and this is one movie that makes you think without trying to shove its message down your throat.

While it isn’t a comedy, there’s plenty enough to laugh at, and especially for major part of its airtime, this movie knows exactly when to be funny and when to be serious. The side-characters also do a wonderful job in supporting the main character. For a movie, there’s also a relatively large amount of character-development. Regarding the bad points, well, the creators seemed a bit too keen on making the climax as perfect as possible, and didn’t quite get it right. The result feels a bit weird, but by no means bad.

One thing that should be noted is that you do not want to go into this movie, expecting standard Gainax. This is absolutely nothing like their other works. The pacing is slow, the characters are nearly all adults and none feels out of place. There’s no outrageous animation and everything feels much more life-like. It’s a shame that Gainax went into such a different direction after making The Wings of Honneamise, as this movie is a pretty damn good one!

The original Sky Girls OVA was just a tasteless fanservice-fest. Needless to say that I wasn’t that keen on checking out the full-length-series for the concept. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the creators had no intention to make this end up as the failure that was the OVA. Sky Girls is definitely one of the surprises of 2007.

The show does have its issues in the beginning, though. In the first half, it just doesn’t succeed in making its setting believable. A giant war against invaders called WORMs in the past caused a lot of deaths, especially for adults, so because of that under-aged children have been allowed to join the military as well. Fair enough, though at the same time you see enough fully grown males parade the screen as mechanics and other similar jobs. You’d wonder why they didn’t do the piloting as well, as the bodies of young girls just can’t take that much strain when compared to fully grown adults.

The world was also supposed to have been nuked years ago, in an attempt to get rid of the WORMs, and again we hardly see any of the damages of these nuclear attacks. The first half of the series also consists out of a string of random episodes without much coherence; at one point, the characters also have nothing else to do besides comparing breast-sizes.

Still, as the series went on, it becomes clear that the creators knew fully well what they wanted with this series. Sky Girls isn’t about seeing cute girls in questionable outfits pilot mechas against giant invaders. It’s about living in the military, and how people deal with the relatives and loved ones that they leave behind. The main characters all have family, and they all have different relationships, and this anime does a very fine job of portraying this.

The series really picks up its pacing once the second half starts, and the characters start boarding a ship that was specifically designed to take care of the WORMs. With every character far away from home, and without much contact to the outside world, there are quite a few episodes dedicated to the characters, trying to brighten up their situation and trying to forget about the loneliness. What surprised me the most about this series is the final quarter, though, when the plot starts to kick in. Believe it or not, but the entire setting gets satisfactory explained and developed.

Overall, the pacing may be quiet, but this is one series that’s a pretty good recommendation if you want something light, yet engaging and thought-provoking. The first few episodes may not seem that much, but they’re building up pretty well for the second half of this series. It may not be the best, but it’s a great example of how you don’t need to have the hugest storyline in order to be good.

Before I start with the review, I have a small announcement to make. Anyone who’s looked at my blog for the past two weeks will probably have noticed the heap of movie and OVA-reviews. Well, with the review of Arete Hime, this special holiday-schedule has ended: every show should be getting out of their hiatus by now, the Winter-season has started as well, and tomorrow my studies will start again as well. I must say that it was a great way to spend the past two weeks, and this was probably the largest amount of activity you’ll see from me in like, ever (according to animeblogger, I managed to churn out more than fifty posts over the past two weeks ^^;). I also managed to greatly reduce my movie-watchlist, in fact, there are only nine titles left of movies and OVAs that I still want to see (three OVAs and six movies, to be exact), and I should be finished with that list in about two months, depending on how busy my studies will become.

Anyways, onto the review. For the past two weeks, I’ve seen a lot of good stuff, but the definite highlights for me were Tokyo Godfathers and this charming movie called Arete Hime, or Princess Arete. This movie really restored my faith in Studio 4C. Every thing has its bad points, and I guess that for Studio 4C this was Spriggan. Still, Arete Hime showed me that these guys remain a bunch of very talented storytellers.

Let me get one thing straight, though: boredom is a major theme of this movie, so yes: it’s slow. Don’t even dare to expect any action in this movie. Still, one flaw that I found in a lot of movies is that they tend to rush things along a lot, while forgetting to build up properly. Arete Hime delightfully avoids this flaw, and makes sure not to rush one minute of its storyline. Of course, the premise of a princess, locked up inside a tower has been done many times before, and yet the creators managed to create a setting with this that stands apart from the rest. The storyline and setting may be simple, but that makes sure that they’ve gotten sufficient development. It was definitely interesting to see the customs and habits of the people who live in a fantasy-influenced medieval setting, without any clichés or stereotypes.

The cast of characters is also well-developed, from the main characters to the side-ones: everything fits, and most of them are smarter than your average anime. You may not suspect it from first sight, but Arete is quite clever for her age, and the major villain too has one of the most interesting back-stories I’ve seen in a long while.

To be honest, if I were asked about the best movie-creating company, I’d answer Studio 4C instead of Ghibli. Sure, Hayao Miyazaki has made some great movies, but they all felt like they were missing something. That final spark to become truly interesting. The works from Studio 4C feel complete, varied and nearly all of them have a terrific sense of storytelling. Both studios try to be different and don’t care about popularity and mainstream. Princess Arete is yet another great example of this. Sure, I can imagine how it’ll put people to sleep, but the storytelling definitely makes up for all of the slow pacing.

Card Captor Sakura, when it was aired on the Dutch TV, was basically along with Gundam Wing and Digimon the series to really make me interested in anime. Looking back, it was really the best amongst these three. It was like Jigoku Shoujo: repetitive, but a great premise with great execution. I also saw the first movie a few years ago, though I never got around watching the second one until now. Turns out that this is the conclusion of the series, even though I ended up only watching the first half of it (blame the Dutch broadcasting-companies who’d rather show Sailor Moon than this gem). Still, I figure that anyone who got to the first major climax of the series will have no problems following the second movie.

First up, I must congratulate this movie for reminding me what made the series so great. Especially the first half has an excellent combination between light-hearted quirky characters and serious scenes. The cast for Card Captor Sakura is a really memorable one, and I especially loved Tomoyo, one excellent supporting character.

Then the second half kicks in, and the comedy takes a step back for the story. Overall, it formed a very nice ending for the series, though unfortunately there were quite a few convenient plot-holes, including a deus-ex-machina-ending. Something also tells me that the creators overestimated the acting- and singing-abilities of mere grade-schoolers. ^^;

Still, despite this, The Sealed Card is a must-watch for any fan of the original series. While the first movie was basically a glorified filler, the second movie gives a nice conclusion, and it has enough elements of what made the original series great. Surely, this is along with xxxHolic the best of what I’ve seen from Clamp.