Category: Anime Reviews

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.

My favourite kind of cat-people is definitely those from Kenji Miyazawa’s stories. For as far as I can recall, they’re the only ones who don’t try to act cute and moe. I was looking forward to his adaptation of Spring and Chaos, because aside from the cat-people, the stories that I’ve seen from him all had something unique. And indeed, Spring and Chaos isn’t what you’d call your average anime-movie.

The movie basically follows a writer with the name of Kenji Miyazawa (autobiographical?), who is rather eccentric and has rather trouble to fit into society with is idealized views and ideas. This movie sees him trying out various things in order to relieve him from his frustration. The entire thing is quite thought-provoking at times, but I don’t know… it seems to be missing the spark that I saw in Night on the Galactic Railroad and Gauche the Cellist.

After I finished watching the movie I still didn’t quite know what this movie wanted to be, or what its point was, and it just didn’t hit me like some of Kenji Miyazawa’s other works. The creators hop from one thing to the other without much coherence or logic, and I think that that rather spoiled this movie. I think that this was another case of too much ambition on the creators’ side: they wanted to do Miyazawa justice, so they tried to stuff too much in just one hour. It’s a shame.

One thing that did turn out interesting for this movie is its graphics. They’re quite pretty to look at, both the “usual” scenes and the CG-scenes that basically all happen in the main character’s mind. Still, I think that Kenji Miyazawa’s stories are better off with a quiet, down-to-earth approach like with Night on the Galactic Railroad or Gauche the Cellist. They don’t need to be so spectacular and ambitious to work.

When I originally looked at the promo-art, I thought that Area 88 was another one of the works of Matsumoto Leiji. Turns out it wasn’t, though I can imagine how the creators did get their inspiration from him. Area 88 is a realistic war-story about war-mercenaries in a poor African country. Make no mistake; even though there are only three OVAs, the total amount of airtime for this anime is over three hours. Due to this relatively long size, this turned into one of the least rushed OVAs I’ve seen in a long while.

There are a lot of battles in the sky for this OVA, but the real purpose of the movie is to show the fighter-pilots themselves. What goes on in their mind when they fly? Why do they fight and kill? How does the war change them? All questions get sufficiently answered, and are nicely packaged around the story of one of these pilots, who basically gets blackmailed into joining the mercenaries. There are a few coincidences here and there, but overall Area 88 has turned into quite a memorable OVA for me. I can understand why fifteen years after the original production, a television-series-remake was made (seriously, more movies and OVAs should get that treatment. Battle Angel Alita, Akira, Please Save my Earth, etc)

While I haven’t seen anything of the original Gundam Universal Century-storyline, I can imagine how anyone who liked it will like Area 88. Both the main and side-characters have been sufficiently developed, considering the length of the OVA, and there are no overpowered teenagers who stand in the centre. I must say that after seeing more and more of the genre of realistic war-stories, I’m beginning to like it more and more. It’s OVAs like these that show that you can be manly, even if you don’t pilot a mecha that throws galaxies.

This is rare: Hyper Future Vision Gunmm, or Battle Angel Alita (two titles of which I have no idea why they were given to this anime) is a two-episode OVA, based on a much larger work of nine volumes of manga. Most movies and OVAs in the same situation don’t seem to care about explanations and leave huge holes in the characters and storyline. But Battle Angel Alita is different: I only spotted one or two moments were more explanation was needed. Apart from that, this movie felt surprisingly complete, despite its relatively short length.

And that’s not all, because it’s not like the plot and setting are simple. There’s quite a large, varied cast of characters that all are developed a bit and especially the main characters are developed a lot, considering that this OVA only has two episodes to work with. The storyline also keeps getting pushed forward, and the combination between plot- and character-development is excellent. I must praise the scriptwriters for this OVA: they had to face a lot of difficulties, were extremely limited, and yet they pulled it off to put such a storyline in just two episodes.

The characters are also more sympathetic than you think, and especially the second episode is quite emotionally charged, but therein lays the problem. If the creators could already do so much with just two episodes, then just imagine what they’d be able to do if they were given an extra episode to work with. The few holes in the storyline that were left would have been easily filled, and there was more than enough potential for the characters to be more even more sympathetic than they already were. Simply enough: I want more, but there’s no way there’ll be more. Still, despite this, Hyper Future Vision is an excellent recommendation for if you’re looking for something short, yet good.

In 2003, four episodes of Black Jack were produced to celebrate the 30th birthday of Osamu Tezuka’s creation. After watching The Two Doctors of Darkness, I was looking forward to seeing more of this franchise, though unfortunately some bad decisions on the creators’ side turned this Black Jack Special disappointing. I definitely don’t hope that the rest of the series and OVAs are as annoying as this one. I’ll probably end up watching the TV-series in the very distant future, but for now I don’t feel like watching more of this concept.

Lest me start with the thing that by far annoys me the most: Pinoco, Black Jack’s daughter/assistant/wife. I can understand why Makoto Tezuka decided to cut her off in the Two Doctors of Darkness, because the more she appears on the screen, the more annoying her whining becomes. I really like the concept behind Black Jack, but Pinoco serves no purpose at all apart from lightening the mood a bit, though there are much better ways to do this.

Then there comes the storyline itself, and it just doesn’t live up to the Two Doctors of Darkness. Instead of a continuous storyline, there are just four random stories, probably taken from the manga. The first and fourth story work, and give some interesting background to Black Jack himself, though the second and third episode are pointless, far-fetched and way too disappointing for me to recommend this.

It’s a shame. I read somewhere that the Black Jack Special captured the essence of the original manga, though this only strengthens my point that Osamu Tezuka’s material may not be much in his own hands, but can be turned into gold when handled by the right hands. If you want to see examples of this then you should go for Hi no Tori or Metropolis. I can indeed see how much Osamu Tezuka has meant for the anime today: his works may have their flaws, but as a source of inspiration, they were more influential than even Ghost in the Shell. In a few years, I’ll probably watch the tv-series, but for now I’ve seen more than enough of Pinoco’s whining.

One thing that I’ve been noticing with Osamu Tezuka’s works is that whenever it’s adapted by someone else, the result turns out great, but when he directs a movie of his own work himself, the result turns out much less spectacular. Metropolis was awesome and Hi no Tori turned out brilliant, while Unico had a lot of potential, but its major villain made no sense at all. The Marine Express also had some great storytelling, but the plot-twist in the middle was just entirely ridiculous. The second Black Jack movie shows the same. While it’s level of quality is nowhere near that of Metropolis or Hi no Tori, it remains a very enjoyable movie.

Anyway, The Two Doctors of Darkness is basically the first thing I’ve seen from the Black Jack-franchise, which consists out of two movies, two tv-series (totalling a staggering amount of 78 episodes), an OVA and a tv-special. After watching it, I can understand why the premise caught on so much: it’s been a while since I saw an anime that toys so much with morals as this one. It’s really one of Osamu Tezuka’s many trademarks.

This movie looks at death at a totally different perspective compared to the usual. Black Jack is basically an incredibly talented surgeon, who can cure almost anything that’s curable with ease. And yet he doesn’t spend his days into a hospital like most other doctors and charges ridiculous fees for his clients. I like how, even though this isn’t the first Black Jack-movie, it does a fine job of introducing the viewer to the concept and main-characters, although I guess I need to watch the television-series for the development of the side-characters, which were just too bland and pointless, making me wonder why they were included in the movie in the first place.

It seems that the one who was given the task to direct this movie was Osamu Tezuka’s son, Makoto Tezuka. For the job, he did a very fine job, like expected of his father. The movie feels complete, it doesn’t drag on and it makes fair use of its ninety minutes. If there weren’t numerous surgical-scenes, I’d recommend this for the younger audiences to watch as well. The fact remains that Makoto does have a lot to learn. The major problem for this movie that it gets a bit too far-fetched at times, and there are a few convenient coincidences at times that spoil the mood that the movie has been building up for. Yet, while knowing nothing about the source-material, I can imagine how the guy could have done far worse than he’s shown now.

Okay, I’m just going to refuse to give this movie a rating. I went into this movie, expecting something similar to the original Ghost in the Shell, but instead I got something very different, though I can’t really describe this. All I know is that this movie went into my mind, did stuff and left again, looking very pretty while doing so.

This really is one movie that wants to play with your mind, and for me it accomplished its mission. The best way I can describe this would be if you unleashed the strangeness of Angel’s egg upon the original Ghost in the Shell-movie. The first half of the movie cleverly starts out as your regular cop-show, but as the second half kicks in, Oshii Mamoru unleashes a wave of complicated script-writing and mind-games, chockfull of biblical and philosophical references. At one point, I just stopped caring whether some plot-events were explained or not and just let myself get carried along with the things that went on on the screen.

I know that there are a few things that were unexplained in this movie, and I know that a lot of things didn’t make any sense when I watched it, but I really don’t know how much of it was indeed left out, or just turned out to be something I just missed. This really is a movie that you need to watch over and over if you want to understand it.

There’s one thing that I’m certain of with this movie, though: even for a movie, the graphics look awesome, and I honestly can’t think of any other anime that has better-looking visuals than Innocence. Kenji Kawai (Seirei no Moribito, Ghost in the Shell 1) also returns for the soundtrack, and it sounds better than ever. I’ve seen my share of confusing movies (Tamala 2001, Cat Soup, Mind Game), but this one seriously tops them all in this department.

While Ghost in the Shell is probably the most famous anime-movie of the nineties, Akira is the most well-known one of the eighties. It was this movie that opened up the anime-industry to mainstream America, though at the same time it’s also received some harsh criticism. When I started watching this movie, I couldn’t understand why. It doesn’t happen often that a male main character of fifteen years old is likable, right from the start, and the movie quickly starts with some character-development. But, unfortunately as the movie went on, it became clear that Akira indeed has its problems.

The biggest one being that it’s based on a large manga, which just doesn’t fit into a two-hour movie. Because of this, the movie ends with huge gaping hole into both the storyline and character-backgrounds. Thankfully, some development did make it into the movie, but when a fifteen year-old kid suddenly turns out to be proficient with various kinds of guns without any reason whatsoever, you have to start wondering whether you missed something.

It’s a shame: the potential is definitely there. Especially the characters have been very nicely developed during the first half of the movie, but they unfortunately lose their spark when the storyline gets more and more out of control with superpowers that just become more and more over-the-top. Akira would have been just as fine without the huge amounts of one-sided superpowers. The much-needed background for the two main characters also arrives much too late.

In terms of production-values this series shines, though. Especially for a movie that’s twenty years old, the animation looks gorgeous and there are absolutely no still frames. I also loved how the cast of side-characters is rich and varied, and even the most unimportant roles are more than just paper bags. The soundtrack also consists out a number of excellent tracks. If this were a tv-series, it would have rocked, but unfortunately it had to be compressed into such a tiny movie.