Star Crossed Anime

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.