LightningComet's Profile - Reviews

Last OnlineJan 6, 10:45 PM
JoinedFeb 15, 2018

Anime List Manga List

All (0)Friends

No friend yet.

RSS Feeds

Recent Anime
Recent Anime by Episode
Recent Manga
Recent Manga by Chapter
Blog Feed

More Reviews

Feb 8, 2022

Blade Runner: Black Lotus (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

Ah, Kenji Kamiyama. Your work since GitS:SAC season 1 has yet to fail to disappoint me.

Blade Runner: Black Lotus is the latest Kamiyama-directed title I have reviewed here on MyAnimeList, following Eden of the East, GitS:SAC 2nd GIG, and GitS:SAC – SSS in exactly that order. At the end of my Solid State Society review, I said I would make the smarter decision and avoid GitS:SAC_2045 based purely on my past experience with the directors’ work. The Blade Runner films being personal favorites of mine apparently superseded my better judgment, however, when it came to Kamiyama’s second outing as the frontrunner for a CGI anime ... series, so here we are.

The pleasure I gleaned from this show only became guilty in the last pair of episodes. For most of the first ten or so, I was pretty genuinely having a good time, but that enjoyment was so obviously in spite of the show’s few attempts at being a serious and thought-provoking cyberpunk story in the same vain as its predecessors, attempts that virtually entirely fall flat. I say this because there is a massive emphasis on action sequences and nailing the audio-visual aesthetic which completely overwhelms any and all but the most barely-dramatic moments that create only the most barebones emotional connection between the characters and audience. Credit where it’s due: Black Lotus pulls no punches in being a series that looks and sounds amazing with design elements and environmental details that are absolutely to my taste, but it’s not a stretch to say I felt basically nothing for these characters. It isn’t even necessarily because they are poorly defined; they just don’t do anything really dramatic. The final pair of episodes are just all action all the time until the narrative weight drained away and I just wanted it to end already. And, make no mistake, I was only referencing the core cast when I said the characters are not that poorly defined. Side characters show up and vanish as quickly as snow on a warm day usually without even half an episode of on-screen presence for the show to utilize their somewhat unique positions to provide new perspective on the setting.

So, if the side characters are mostly relegated to the background, there is nothing done to explore the setting further, the (few) main characters have very, VERY little in the way of meaningful dialogue, and the audience has basically no emotional attachment to anybody at all for the vast majority of the show’s run, then what are we left with? A completely by-the-numbers revenge story with a heroine that is basically invulnerable and targets that are both unabashedly reprehensible and as destructible and threatening as paper airplanes. This is all set to a backdrop involving only the most rudimentary science-fiction elements taken from the Blade Runner films with basically nothing new introduced. Once most of the very barebones drama is ironed out by the end of episode four, the story all but limps from one action scene to the next until the end of the show. Episode ten is the oddball here, being both a brief reprieve from the violence and one of the strongest outings in the series because it actually has some measure of emotion, a pulse of sorts. Unfortunately, it still culminates in a finale that does little to actually end the narrative with any satisfactory arcs for the characters and, having seen Blade Runner 2049, does even less to serve as a prequel (to a film that already had four if you count all the canon shorts).

In the end, the best that can be said here is that Blade Runner: Black Lotus looks and sounds great. Just like its predecessors, it leans more heavily into film noir than science fiction, something of a welcome contrast to the very technobabble-heavy atmosphere-lacking Ghost in the Shell franchise. But, for as much praise as I can and will continue to shower upon the production quality, Black Lotus leaves much to be desired when compared to other shows let alone its own forerunners which have cemented themselves as classics that captured the essences of their respective eras and translated them into the most beautifully-realized dystopian worlds. Perhaps no other work had done so since another Philip K. Dick masterpiece, The Man in the High Castle. It’s a tall order for a series, or any work, really, to match that level of cultural importance or even to be as well-made. I have no doubt that Kamiyama and co. were incredibly anxious and stressed when trying to come up with a story to tell on top of getting all the aesthetic details right. I think, at the end of the day, the overall effort is highly commendable; there was clearly an immense amount of love, passion, and hard work put into making Blade Runner: Black Lotus feel as close to the originals as it could feel, and many people, Kamiyama included, deserve a standing ovation for realizing such an ambitious goal so impressively. However, the fact is that this series is not well-written. Its characters and story are almost entirely uninteresting and the only engaging aspects of the setting are lifted from the works for which it is clearly banking on the audience having immense appreciation and nostalgia. It deeply and truly saddens me that, in spite of having that appreciation, I cannot recommend this show. If you want hardcore film noir and science fiction but also aren’t afraid to encounter the surreal and weird, then I would instead recommend checking out Serial Experiments Lain. Maybe I’ll review that next.

Happy watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Sep 28, 2020

Koukaku Kidoutai: Stand Alone Complex - Solid State Society (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

In my reviews of Kenji Kamiyama’s GitS:SAC 2nd GIG and Eden of the East, I made the case that the director, in spite of his flair for visual presentation, continuity, and aesthetic detail, is a hack writer that crafts intriguing scenarios but frequently bookends them with poor and inconsistent character motivations and overly complicated plots. With Solid State Society, Kamiyama has once again proven his writing hack-ness, but there is a twist this time! In addition to an incredibly convoluted story, this film more prominently showcases his inability to portray his characters with even a modicum of growth or dynamism.

And who better to be the ... poster child for flat and thoroughly uninteresting characters than our leading lady, Major Motoko Kusanagi? The end of 2nd GIG saw her lose someone important to her and leave Section 9 as a result, and it’s stated that in the two years since then, she basically took up the role of the Laughing Man from season one: surfing the Internet and dealing out vigilante justice, although somehow without anyone (not even from Section 9) noticing her actions or even keeping tabs on her. During the film, the Major is her usual stoic self, never talking about anything in her past with anyone and focusing solely on the task of catching the Puppeteer. I won’t spoil the ending to that plot thread, but suffice it to say that, just like the 2nd GIG finale, it rests entirely on the Major being an idiot for not noticing something crucial and laughably obvious. At the end of the film she has a heart-to-heart (in her underwear, of course) with Batou, musing about how she had felt lost during those two years pretending to be Aiden Pearce from Watch Dogs (himself a Laughing Man enthusiast), but began to feel whole when she worked with Section 9 to catch the Puppeteer, implying that she will rejoin the team.

Here’s another million-dollar question for Kamiyama: why don’t we ever see the Major struggle with those feelings of emptiness rather than just talk about them at the end as though they were at all relevant or even hinted at? If this movie is trying to be the first movie from the 90s, why couldn’t it revolve around her intrapersonal conflict, just like that one? The original GitS film was all about the Major’s search for her own sense of self while the villain (the Puppet Master) was someone who wanted to experience humanity and is thus complementary to the Major’s own inner turmoil. SSS’ Puppeteer is clearly cribbing from the Puppet Master, and yet the former’s identity, despite it being a major plot point, has basically no impact on the Major, nor should it for how poorly it’s explained. Couple that with the fact that the only thing tying him to that totally removed conspiracy plot involving child abductions and elderly care is some meaningless sci-fi babble the audience could not possibly understand even if Masamune Shirow wrote a companion manual and you have an antagonist that fails to be either narratively or thematically important. What I am getting at is that this film's attempt at carving a new identity is to lazily mash the first season and the first movie together. We are thus left with a mystery plot that is less fulfilling than the Laughing Man arc and a (virtually) entirely dissonant character piece that is an insult to the legacy of the original Mamoru Oshii film.

I will be clear about this: Kamiyama has intriguing ideas for conspiracy-thrillers and a knack for capturing suspense with his style of direction, so why not try to marry his skill at conspiracy-thriller writing and high-tension filmmaking with a more personal story revolving around a single individual or small set of characters rather than this Frankenstein’s monster of previous GitS material? Here’s an alternative idea: during her time Aiden Pearce-ing around the Internet, the Major's emotional state gets more and more volatile due to her inability/unwillingness to grieve. This leads to the Major making a mistake in one of her investigations, nearly causing the Section 9 members to be killed (leaving them all incapacitated). She and Batou, who barely escaped, are then branded fugitives (again), and it’s now up to the Major and Batou to clear their names, solve the conspiracy, and find the perpetrator(s) while she strives to finally allow herself to heal, her closest friend helping her along the way. That’s all there needs to be for a standard structure. Fill it in with some introspection, proper metaphors and symbols for narrative-thematic cohesion, give the characters real vulnerability, deepen the bond between the two, complete their respective character arcs, and whammo, you have an entertaining yet emotionally rich and fulfilling action-thriller that, more simplistic story aside, is right up Kamiyama’s alley. He shows his deftness in crafting suspenseful thrillers with SSS, and it really is a genuine shame that the film’s overly complicated plot makes it difficult to follow.

Kamiyama’s good directing is helped along by a production quality that is distinctly better than that of 2nd GIG, even if it’s nowhere near on the level of the original film. Despite that, the character designs are sharp and the coloring is greatly improved over season one (fixing its overly-saturated hues). Yusuke Takeda’s art direction impresses again, giving us some fantastic background work. There really isn’t too much character animation, unfortunately, and, although that face-morphing bit was seriously well-done, the film comes off feeling a little stilted and unmoving outside of action scenes. Additionally, a problem I have with said action scenes is the obnoxiously disproportionate sound mixing that would feel right at home in many a Christopher Nolan film, with sound effects completely overpowering both the vocal and musical tracks. I was lucky enough to get the Bandai DVD from my local library so I could enable the subtitles while still hearing the English vocal track (and I do recommend the dub). This poor sound mixing can, at times, be a disservice to Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack which is a shame. Outside of a couple scenes where the music is just too upbeat and jazzy, the music is both fantastic and well-utilized. Kanno especially nails the suspenseful hospital scene, and I found myself listening to the track "Solid State Society" quite often.

Ultimately, there is enjoyment to be had in Solid State Society, but it would be more entertaining to watch season one and the first film seeing as they both do what they separately set out to do far better than this film does with either of their material that it so callously stole. It may not be the most apt comparison, but I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the last film I reviewed, Psycho-Pass Sinners of the System: First Guardian, and I see some similarities to SSS: good art direction, not-stellar-but-still-solid animation, great music, a conspiracy plot, and Production I.G.’s brand of science fiction. Some things are actually done better in SSS, primarily in how it gives some scenes a much more palpable and nail-biting sense of tension, but it just falls so much shorter of First Guardian from a narrative standpoint. Where SSS, at the end, shoehorns in some struggle the main heroine supposedly went through before the film took place and isn't even mentioned throughout the majority of the film's runtime, First Guardian spends almost all of its runtime exploring the hero’s struggle in a flashback and ends the film with him demonstrating how much he grew by making a key decision. First Guardian is dedicated to making its characters and world more interesting while furthering the overarching narrative of the franchise whereas Solid State Society is content with just taking two highly regarded entries of the GitS franchise, poorly combining them, and calling it a day. It has its moments, but I won’t be revisiting it anytime soon, if ever. As usual, Kamiyama’s writing unfortunately disappointed me, so I think I’ll make the smarter play and not give SAC_2045 a shot.

Happy watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Sep 15, 2020

Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System Case.2 - First Guardian (Anime) add

Recommended

Having seen the Psycho-Pass: Sinners of the System trilogy, only First Guardian stood out to me as being worthy of a rewatch, and I enjoyed it even more the second time around. I think much of that stems from my own predisposition to noir films, because First Guardian absolutely hits that nail on the head, following all of the genre’s cardinal rules: a flawed protagonist, a femme fatale, a less-than-happy ending, and the bad guys getting what they deserve. Genre trappings aside, First Guardian provides a cinematic experience that’s good for the casual viewer but truly great for franchise fans, completing a dark and compelling ... narrative with meaty helpings of character-building moments, all gift-wrapped in an engaging and well-polished 60 minutes.

I do want to stress just how much First Guardian fits the noir genre because, while it’s not for everyone, it allows for a certain brand of market appeal, namely in having strongly motivated, highly emotional, (of course) attractive characters in a suspenseful, often violent plot. Psycho-Pass veterans will immediately see how this formula applies to the first season. However, while First Guardian does well to really capitalize on some of the tropes of the genre, the film does have its flaws.

I’d say that the femme fatale aspect of First Guardian is easily the film’s weakest link. The bond between Rin and Sugou is rather lacking and it’s difficult to even say that they’re friends. All of their interactions indicate nothing more than that they work for the same people, Rin is the wife of a close friend and comrade of Sugou, and they both struggle with maintaining their “mental stability”. Their relationship is definitely dramatic (they have to deal with the loss of their mutual loved one), but that drama is not fully utilized in the context of their interpersonal relationship. It would have been interesting to remark, even offhandedly, that they were instructed to avoid each other so as to not drudge up their emotional distress and raise their crime coefficients, demonstrating and commenting on how adherence to the Sibyl System can strain relationships. But we don’t get anything like that; there’s almost no conflict or tension between them, and her slapping him that one time just felt weirdly surficial given how little time they spend together.

While Rin and Sugou’s relationship is woefully underdeveloped, this lack of interaction between them allows the film to maintain a greater sense of momentum. Specifically, instead of dwelling too much on his and Rin’s emotional turmoil, Sugou has bigger problems to worry about i.e. the military-conspiracy-thriller plot of which he’s caught in the middle, and here is where Sugou’s fatal flaw comes into play: his undying loyalty to his military superiors. I mentioned earlier that the drama Sugou and Rin go through after her husband goes missing did not really change their relationship in an interesting way; it does, however, play into this theme of loyalty to morally bankrupt people. It’s never explored whether or not Sugou would have sided with Rin if he had the same information she did, and I think that was a smart writing decision because it makes the entire incident more impactful on Sugou’s life, causing him to reflect more intensely.

And personal reflection is a core concept in this film; it tells most of the story as an extended flashback. The present time introduces a new recurring character, Frederica Hanashiro of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (with which the military is affiliated; she basically represents the C.I.A. and Homeland Security rolled into one). Her offering Sugou an operative’s position with his previous (and previously corrupt) employers’ ministry is used as a framing device for him to look back on how he lost all his friends, met Masaoka and Aoyanagi of the Ministry of Welfare’s Public Security Bureau, was betrayed by his bosses, and became a latent criminal. All of these aspects influence his decision at the end of the movie of whether or not to join up with Hanashiro's outfit. If you’ve seen season 3 of Psycho-Pass, then you know that his choice really just serves to symbolize his feelings toward the Ministry of Welfare, but it’s an important moment that helps flesh out a character that, both before and after this film's release, is otherwise underdeveloped and underutilized.

And while on the topic of fleshing-out characters, we now get to mentioning everyone’s favorite grizzled, one-armed, kick-butt, old-timer detective, Enforcer Tomomi Masaoka! In the interest of letting you potential viewers experience those juicy scenes for yourselves, suffice it to say that I’m glad his character was done justice. First Guardian truly does function well as a swan song for not just Masaoka, but also for the actor who portrayed him, Kinryuu Arimoto, who passed away shortly before the film’s release. Rest in peace, sir. As for voice acting, there’s nothing new to say about casting and voice direction in Psycho-Pass. It’s totally standard fare for the franchise, that is to say fantastic and top-of-the-line. It was nice to hear Akira Ishida return as Kagari and Kenji Nojima bring out Ginoza’s previously edgy self again. The same can be said for the music; Yugo Kanno’s score kicks just as much butt as in the franchise’s other entries with some notable tracks (see “The State of My Life”, "A World of Contradictions", etc.) returning in full swing. The remixed opening and ending also work for me, but I’m really just a big fan of Masayuki Nakano’s electronica style. BOOM BOOM SATELLITES forever, baby.

As for the visuals, Production I.G. did not disappoint. Characters aren’t quite as emotive as in season 3, but there are plenty of fluid action sequences, sharply angled shots, solid usage of CGI (the sounds also worked wonders here!), and some beautiful backgrounds.

Putting it all together, First Guardian makes for an easily digestible and enjoyable watch. Some of its flaws are not exactly surface level, but they are very few and easily overlooked. Seeing as I am not much of a proponent for Psycho-Pass: The Movie or the other Sinners of the System films, this entry in the canon provides a more pleasant and recommendable theatrical experience; First Guardian is, in my opinion, a highlight of the franchise’s release history between seasons 1 and 3. It’s a film I’ll keep coming back to for a long time to come. I doubt it’ll ever get an English dub, but here’s hoping.

Happy watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Aug 20, 2020

Code Geass: Boukoku no Akito 1 - Yokuryuu wa Maiorita (Anime) add

Recommended

Spoiler

This review covers the whole series and will not have any major spoilers.

I remember wondering how Code Geass ever managed to take off considering how jam-packed it is with annoying bullsh*t and ridiculous plot devices. I ultimately thought the whole thing pitiful; it’s a series with the foundations for a genuinely revolutionary political narrative that is unfortunately brought down by its creators’ penchant for truly awful story beats and shoddy writing.

But then I learned that Kazuki Akane, our favorite bird-loving anime director, had made a spin-off OVA series, Akito the Exiled. This was immediately intriguing to me for a few reasons: 1) I really enjoy ... some of his work, 2) political thrillers aren’t really his thing as far as I know, and 3) while he certainly has a flair for aesthetic detail and action sequences, Akane excels at crafting scenes that explore characters’ emotional turmoil and trauma. Clearly, these don’t exactly gel with the politics-dominated stone-cold Code Geass of old, but they really aren’t supposed to. As soon as I had seen his name in the role of director, I knew that Kazuki Akane had not directed the “Code Geass but without all the bullsh*t” series for which I am sure some fans were clamoring, but an intensely emotional character piece encapsulated in a war drama. With giant robots. And lots of blood. Sound familiar? I hope so, because, at its heart, Akito the Exiled is a redux version of Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea, and I kind of love it for that. You can read my review of that movie later if you like, but, for the purposes of this review, suffice it to say I gave Akito the Exiled a higher rating. Also, note that, from this point on, the term “Escaflowne” will refer to the aforementioned film, not the series it retold.

It’s almost baffling just how many analogs there are between Akito the Exiled and Escaflowne. With regard to characters, there’s a Van Fanel, a Folken, even a Dilandau (yay!), and they even got Maaya Sakamoto to voice the main heroine and sing the themes (SUPER yay!), but we can’t forget the similarities of the series’ narrative, especially its ending. Herein lies one of the biggest reasons why the writing of Akito the Exiled works whereas that of Escaflowne fails: pacing. Escaflowne is a film with a shorter runtime, so while it is paced well in terms of action and entertainment, most of its characters don’t have adequate time to be explored and subsequently grow. This runs directly contrary to Akane’s greatest strength of slow, emotional, and cathartic introspection. Instead of leaving Escaflowne with incomplete character motivations and story beats, the attempted solution was to dumb those motivations and story beats down so hard that they became either completely ridiculous or even insulting. Akito the Exiled has its share of cringe-worthy or questionable moments, but, aside from some scenes of sexual harassment, which are, of course, tastelessly played for laughs, I would be reluctant to say the series is insulting to the audience.

Most importantly, though, I would be remiss to not mention the parallels in core theming. Both Escaflowne and Akito the Exiled adopt a message of saying “yes” to life, with all its joys, pains, and everything in between (which Evangelion already did, albeit differently, but whatever). Where Akito the Exiled surpasses Escaflowne is by allowing room for character growth, but also in the conveyance itself; instead of the message just being outright told to the audience (even though it is), there is usage of metaphors and symbolism with the contrasting Geass powers of the characters, thus weaving the themes into the narrative itself. It’s sad that this is where many Code Geass fans were frustrated; read just about any of the reviews with the score 2 out of 10 and you’ll find that those reviewers are hyper-fans of Code Geass that denounce Akito the Exiled as being a garbage fire that betrays the original’s core narrative ideas and power mechanics. While they may be correct in that this series does stick to a more grounded story, distancing itself from many of the more fantastical elements of its predecessor, I can’t help but see that the fans are missing the forest for the trees… a part of that forest being the frequent idiocy of the original series’ writing.

Code Geass was never about creepy eye-superpowers that completely break realism and/or the narrative. It was about societal control, keeping peace among diverse masses, how irrational hatred incites violence, and the nuances of maintaining morality in the face of corruption. That’s why asinine plot developments like Lelouch accidentally eye-zapping Euphemia completely undermine broader, more thematically rich conflicts like Lelouch’s commitment to vigilantism against Suzaku’s law-abiding path, and the ethical debate therein. Code Geass is to anime as Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs is to video games; there are two halves to each of them: one that is full of truly great, intriguing philosophical ideas and another half that actively seeks to undermine the audience’s ability to enjoy the other.

Akito the Exiled actually manages to at least touch on just about all of those grand ideas that Code Geass so poorly spoiled with its annoying bullsh*t. We have a main hero that has lost faith in humanity and the possibility of moral governance to the point that he is damn-near suicidal and resigns himself to being a cog in a machine that is designed to grind people of persecuted minorities like him into dust. Thankfully, he is open-minded enough to maintain the hope that he can be a part of a movement to build something better. Our main villain differs here; his hopelessness causes him to devote himself fully to living a life without any ambiguity, only willing to see black and white, even if that means becoming an agent of evil, chaos, and destruction. Contrast these characters to the main heroine, someone who has unwavering faith and believes wholeheartedly in the value of life’s nuances. She recognizes possibility in the freedom they provide but is willing to risk her life standing against those who would restrict that freedom, ultimately coming to see and respect the ambiguity of concepts such as “moral governance”. What Akito the Exiled does is successfully marry Escaflowne’s narrative beats, (newly-developed) characterizations, and themes with the world and themes of Code Geass. That is an incredible feat, and it’s apparently one that only diehard fans of both Akane’s work and Sunrise’s history can recognize and thus appreciate.

But, obviously, none of this (mostly) high-quality writing would be worth a damn if nobody watched Akito the Exiled, which means it needs market appeal. Thankfully, this series fares well on production quality fronts. Character designs are good, staying true to the long, slender look of CLAMP’s original designs while abandoning the meme-ably sharp jawlines. That said, the characters’ costuming can sometimes be disorienting or even wildly inappropriate, and it’s here where we see the fanservicey roots of Code Geass; skirts, plunging dresses, and (for both sexes, so the ladies have something to look at, too) bare midriffs and skin-tight pilot suits are all prevalent, for worse, in my opinion. It can be difficult to take racist comrades-in-arms seriously when I’m wondering why they’re deriding the characters’ being Japanese rather than making some crude comment about Ayano’s pilot suit being unzipped down past her navel with her entire chest exposed, but, hey, at least it’s not giant robots cooking pizzas or… (gag)… high schools. Clothing choices aside, the character art is, thankfully, very consistent and, while I think other works have better character animation, there are some nice moments of fluidity and very few shortcuts taken. Additionally, outside of a big, sweeping, CGI background shot in the first episode where trees are very poorly rendered, the art direction is pretty top-notch. There are some beautiful still backgrounds that suit Akane’s grandiose and symbolically dense storyboarding style, but also showcase well-detailed, varied CGI environments for the dynamic and frenetic action sequences.

On the topic of those action scenes, I’m not the biggest fan of CGI robots, but I found myself quite entranced by the fluidity of their movements and the wild, swinging camerawork. The Knightmare designs themselves are all very detailed; true, the golden centaur robot was completely ridiculous (it even neighs!!!), but it’s not the first giant robot centaur I’ve seen. Looking at you, Iron-Blooded Orphans. That aside, I was pleasantly surprised by how agile the robots are given that I am, as my reference just then would attest, more used to Sunrise’s Mobile Suit Gundam franchise with its often weightier movements (see Gundam Unicorn or Char’s Counterattack). Sure, the very notion that 30-foot robots can do insane backflips, cartwheels, and gymnastics is totally ludicrous, but I found it all quite entertaining once I quickly overcame that realism curve. Also, for some reason I can’t pin down, the robots’ crawling animations just looked cool as hell. Now, THAT is what Leopardon should have been able to do.

Let’s also not forget the music; Ichiko Hashimoto may not have many anime credits, but she does a damn good job with Akito the Exiled. It’s especially in the action sequences where she brings the thunder by letting her jazz roots shine. Ironically enough, the style of music presented here is so frantic that I probably wouldn’t sit and listen to it out of context, despite my love for jazz, but that high-octane, nail-biting, redlining vibe perfectly captures the chaos of the battles, complementing them exceptionally well. It’s like if you took “Bad Dog No Biscuit” from Cowboy Bebop, dialed it to eleven, and made it the main battle theme, only I’d say it’s even better. There are, of course, more melodic, orchestral themes, usually reserved for those quieter moments of introspection, but they too are very well-suited because each piece carries as much weight as the scene’s induced feelings and dialogue, spoken or otherwise.

And that’s a good enough segue to the dialogue. More than a few times, the lines can come off as immature and lacking subtlety, definitely to the detriment of the more serious subject matter, and a couple times it descends into science fiction jargon that doesn’t matter in the slightest, but it’s serviceable for the most part. Characters could stand to crack a few more jokes, but no character ever felt grating, and a lot of that is helped by pretty solid vocal performances. Now, okay, I watched this series subbed, but I did at least sample the English verison, and in spite of some flaws, I can’t fault it for ambition. I like that a few L.A. actors and actresses were cast in this Funimation dub (something of a callback to Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, for which Hashimoto composed the opening theme), and not just in the very minor roles of Suzaku, Lelouch, and C.C. Our main heroine, Leila is voiced by Jeannie Tirado (Carole and Tuesday, My Next Life as Villainess), who does a pretty decent job. What’s more ambitious, I think, is the decision to direct many of the actors to use accents in their lines, and while that occasionally does impede their ability to inflect and employ greater range, the good consistency of their accents is something to note.

So, in the end, do I recommend Code Geass: Akito the Exiled? Semi-surprisingly… yes. I went into this series with rather low expectations as a result of my not caring for the Code Geass of old, but it turned out better than I had hoped, a worthy entry in Kazuki Akane’s repertoire that I would recommend over Birdy the Mighty: Decode or Stars Align. While Code Geass fanboys may not find much of the original show’s spirit here, Akane fanboys like myself will find the Escaflowne redemption he wanted to tell and I didn’t know I wanted to see. That artistic license likely isn't meant to be deliberate hostility toward the Code Geass fanbase, but in my own personal little meta-headcanon, I see Akane writing the script to Akito the Exiled, smiling to himself, and saying “those fanboys won’t know what hit them.” Redemption and open-mindedness are important ideas in the narrative of Akito the Exiled, so while I see the redemption arcs speaking to Akane himself over the literary shortcomings of Escaflowne, I also see the open-mindedness idea intended for those who hyped themselves up for more Code Geass and got a more somber, grounded, and emotional piece instead.

I think Akito the Exiled is designed to be a healthy dose of variety in the Code Geass franchise and, in some measure, an attempt to further diversify the fanbase from the raving lunatics that fanbases for uber-popular works often are. That’s one of the only reasons I can think of for why Sunrise let Akane run wild with this series and make what (I believe) he genuinely wanted to make. It just so happens that what he wanted to make is what I wanted to see, but let’s stay objective for the rating; the visuals are pretty-well polished, the music is great, the scenes are beautifully and smartly crafted, and the voice acting is solid, but the costuming and dialogue could be a bit more mature to suit the mood of the series. Also, the core message, while meaningful and well-integrated into the narrative and characters, is a bit less than original. All of this comes to an enjoyable mid-7 out of 10. It’s not as good as The Vision of Escaflowne, but it’s a definite improvement of Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea, for which I wrote a review. Please read it; I promise it’s not as long as this one!

Happy watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Aug 10, 2020

Kiznaiver (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Well, folks, it’s a landmark moment. We’re finally reviewing an original work written by the queen of normie melodrama herself, Mari Okada. I do think that emphasis on the term “original” is needed; from ToraDora to Blast of Tempest, Okada has done her share of adaptation work in the anime medium, each of them infused with her characters’ token super-charged emotions. However, in the spirit of attempting to truly understand creators through their own creations, here we are with Kiznaiver, which Okada wrote entirely herself. While it isn’t Okada’s first original series, it certainly has many hallmarks of her other work, so that makes it ... a worthy candidate for this case study.

Okada may be known for her style of drama, but a common trend across many of what I have seen of her screenwriting credits is a healthy dose of comedic hijinks, and this is ultimately what kept me from dropping Kiznaiver inside of the first episode. The cast is full of dumb caricatures (including a Kamina knock-off, because Trigger) who can’t think logically or grasp the fact that the drama between them is ridiculous, and herein lies the decently entertaining comedy; they make fun of each other’s idiosyncrasies and personality traits, coming off less like a group of friends (which they most certainly are not) and more a dysfunctional group of complete tools we love to watch fail at just about everything they do. Unfortunately, the strength of Kiznaiver’s comedy is undercut by its most glaring weakness. This series shares its biggest problem with many of Mari Okada’s teenage romance-dramas, and that is an unparalleled devotion to taking its love polygon seriously. And there is ALWAYS a love polygon.

I want to make this as crystal clear as can be: drama only works when the writer deliberately and meticulously establishes WHY the characters feel the way they do. In the case of Kiznaiver, it’s as if the characters’ feelings were just magicked into them upon birth. The biggest exceptions to this are Honaka, who has her entire backstory explored, and Noriko, the main heroine, but the latter’s reasons for her (lack of) emotions are so totally external to her i.e. she had no agency in the matter because of the dumb sci-fi crap that her entire arc falls completely flat. I skipped my way through some seventy percent of the last episode because absolutely none of the setup was even remotely investing, the “payoff” felt so contrived, and there was next to no comedy to carry me through the experience. It’s not impossible to have a tense or meaningful drama injected with lighthearted moments, but what’s seriously odd is that while Kiznaiver absolutely believes the hype surrounding its own drama, its comedy takes every opportunity to undercut that drama’s weight. On no less than two occasions does the show actively make fun of itself, plainly stating how utterly ludicrous and laughable its love polygon is, and, even though I was laughing my head off, it was exactly at the first of these two moments that I knew Kiznaiver was starting to lose me. From episode 8 onward, that feeling only grew; I could practically see a curve showing how the comedy-to-melodrama ratio was nosediving, and my interest along with it.

Perhaps I don’t understand how Okada’s brand of melodrama is appealing or why there is a market for it. Apparently, people want to see characters with completely overblown emotions with no logical basis for why they have them exhibit exaggerated outbursts. Is it supposed to be a vicarious expression of the audience’s own pent-up frustrations? I’d hesitate to say that for a very specific reason: NONE OF THIS LOVE POLYGON DRAMA IS REMOTELY REALISTIC. Regardless of how cheap it is, people want to see this drama because it matches their favorite perfect characters together with a saccharine smile while pretending to be complicated and way smarter than it is. That’s what I find really annoying; there is never, EVER a point to any of this drama. What message is to be found in a four-plus-way unrequited love story? Nobody in-universe cares that these kids are “hurting” because everyone knows it’ll all just blow over. Tween romance, in real life or otherwise, usually has next to no foundation; that is, idiot teenagers “fall in love” with each other because they think the other is at worst physically attractive and at best a worthy friend. Never someone with whom they communicate effectively, never a candidate for a lifelong partner, never someone with whom they can see themselves having a future, and only very, VERY rarely because they genuinely understand each other. Kiznaiver is not an instance of the latter, despite how hard it wants to be.

This series suggests that by understanding one another’s pain we can form lasting bonds, but, again, it undercuts that message at every turn. For example, take the final arc, where there’s so much sci-fi crap that explains the reasons for a character’s pain that it makes the whole “people getting hurt” thing feel almost entirely alien. And even when that isn’t really a factor in the narrative, the resulting bond doesn’t seem to be based off of that mutual understanding, instead still adhering to that tween “liking” of someone of the opposite sex for no other reason than that person is there and fits some kind of attractiveness profile. I’m going to chalk this up to Okada trying to maintain appeal to the tweens by forgoing better writing i.e. having her cake and eating it, too. The resolution to Kiznaiver’s love polygon is entirely unfulfilling because it lacks any dramatic weight; characters shouting and crying loudly about their perceived “suffering” is not moving because the reasons for that “suffering” are laughably underdeveloped and the characters have no discernable reason to find solace in the partners they ultimately choose. The only quasi-exception is Tsuguhito because he made an honest effort to try and figure out what was bothering Honaka, but even then his reasons for pursuing her in the first place never evolve past “she’s pretty” and into genuine empathy.

And that’s what is lacking from Okada’s works: empathetic characters. A cast full of sociopaths and head cases has the potential to be material for good comedy, and to Kiznaiver’s credit, that is well-utilized, but this cast does NOT suit an emotionally super-charged romance, and Kiznaiver is arguably the worst offender of Okada’s repertoire. For a series about feeling other people’s pain, feeling sympathy, there is a staggeringly small number of heartfelt moments where genuine care between two characters is on display. And if you want to read into these situations a bit further, you’ll find that it’s always the male figures who are portrayed as being the saviors, the ones who point out the problems and do all the work to find the solutions. Way to progressively eschew gender norms, Okada.

Kiznaiver is a train-wreck of a romance drama. Its characters have enough life to make for good comedy but are repeatedly killed whenever the show dials up the serious factor. They become hollow shells that only serve to play into Mari Okada’s idealized unrequited love fantasies. In a single phrase, this is bad fan fiction, and that is a genuine shame. A series that had this much love put into its production deserves better writing; the animation is great, the background work is solid, and, while some of the designs are ridiculous, the character art is consistently high-quality. The music is a bit all over the place, but I welcomed its electronica beats, and let’s not forget the English dub, either. Sometimes characters pause when they’re speaking, but I found the voices very entertaining most of the time. This was a now-rare effort by Ocean Studios up in Canada, and although they don’t have the best track record with regard to anime dubs, I was happy with the results.

Do I recommend watching Kiznaiver? Yes, but only for its visuals, comedy, and English dub. There is basically nothing else to enjoy, nothing worth returning to in this show, no deeper meaning to dissect, and no metaphors to explore that haven’t already been hammered into the audience’s skull, either in this show or any other Okada original work. It’s highly derivative, completely contrived, and fails to live up to the quality of some of its parts. I strongly urge you to consider passing it.

Happy watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Mar 29, 2020

Psycho-Pass 3: First Inspector (Anime) add

Recommended

This review is a bit shorter since most of my thoughts are already in my Psycho-Pass 3 review. First Inspector is mainly about wrapping up the story and driving its point home, and I argue it did its job pretty well. That's not to say there aren't some detractors; I've been seeing a lot of fours in the list of reviews and I think that's rather harsh, especially if they're from people who are fans of Psycho-Pass. To be clear, I didn't read any of those reviews, hence the "if" in the last sentence.

Are some characters lacking or even devoid of personality? Most definitely, and ... that is by far Psycho-Pass 3's greatest issue. One character in particular does a complete... okay, not a 180, more like a 120, but it was still a plot development that needed more buildup. It would have been cool if that character had a whole episode (or half, since these are 45 minutes each) to really iron out all the mystery elements from that person's perspective and get a more firmly developed grasp on their motivations and ideology. We still somewhat know this person, but I feel that more could have been done.

That said, the loose ends of the mystery are tied up and mostly explained, something for which I am quite glad. We find out the truths of the man in the mask, Bifrost, Koichi Azusawa, and Shizuka Homura, all of which are welcome. Do we get any mention of Kei's brother's fate? Yeah... the two times, and it's never brought up again, let alone properly answered. That was rather disappointing, but disappointment alone does not a four out of ten rating make. I want reviewers to remember that.

While the plot does mostly wrap things up nicely, I will acknowledge that it takes some 20 minutes to really get going. When your main lead is literally sleeping under his desk at work wearing a goofy sleeping mask while his colleagues are being pursued, captured, and/or killed, that's kind of a problem. However, this leads me to one of the strongest aspects of this show: the setting. This story takes place almost entirely within the confines of the Public Safety Bureau's headquarters, giving a feeling more distinct from other Psycho-Pass franchise entries and closer to the films "Dredd", "Die Hard", or "The Raid: Redemption", all of which I highly recommend. "Claustrophobic" is not really the term that best describes the feeling, for neither this film nor those other ones; I think "controlled" is more apt. Furthermore, while certain areas (especially the hallway leading to the server room) have familiar elements to them and are reused, the locations never felt stale to me. Props should be given to the directing and background design for keeping the locations varied and fresh while still maintaining a careful sense of geographic location for all the characters, especially once they really start to move around inside the building.

I do, however, believe that some characters are given remarkably little to do. Most have some moments to shine (e.g. Shion, Shimotsuki, and Todoroki to name most of them), but others (Sugou, Irie, and Kisaragi) are rather underutilized. Kisaragi in particular feels left out; she isn't heavily involved in any action scenes save for one (and all she does is throw a few grenades) and seems to be more of a spectator. When you factor in her history with the main villain, it's downright idiotic that she has so little to do with the plot. There's nobody to blame but the creative team for that.

Moving on, voice acting, music, and sound design are all on par with their predecessor. I will say, though, that the music is not nearly as good as in season 1; the tracks themselves are fun to listen to, but how the music is used to showcase/accentuate conflict and/or character traits is far less interesting outside of a few key moments. Even so, it was nice to hear "Dominator", "Latent Criminal", and "PSYCHO-PASS Symphony" again in addition to the newer tracks (sorry; I don't know their names).

Visually, this work looks great. Shading gradients are prevalent, I didn't notice anyone go off-model, animation is sometimes rather limited but mostly fluid, characters are drawn at often difficult-to-draw angles, and (of course) Mika Shimotsuki's expressions never fail to impress :D. Characters aren't quite as emotive as earlier on in Psycho-Pass 3, but Shion's little thumbs-up and wink was adorable and the great voice acting carries the rest. None of the action scenes look like the franchise's very best, but they are still a definite step above most of what Japanese animation has been offering as of late. There's still the chance that Production I.G. will be able to keep themselves afloat given the current animation industry crisis Japan has been suffering, especially in the wake of China's recent outsourcing to Japanese animators. That said, I will reserve my hope for that outcome until I know that Production I.G. treats their animators well and pays them more than a meager 20K in U.S. dollars annually (China is able to sustain nearly 60K, for those who are curious). [Source: "Nikkei Editorial Predicts Gloomy Times Ahead for Japanese Anime Industry as China Puts Focus on Domestic Animation" on AnimeNewsNetwork]

Overall, Psycho-Pass 3 is something of a mixed bag, but still a definite positive in my book (especially after Id:Invaded was a bit of a letdown). It lacks quite a bit of the thematic richness of the first season (although it does retain some) and arguably has more characters than it can reasonably juggle. That said, it's an entertaining mystery that's welcome to both fans of the franchise and Production I.G.'s sci-fi style, and seeing as I fit into both categories, I had a lot of fun with it and would definitely watch more. Some improvements that I think could be made would be to slowly phase the more established characters like Kogami and Ginoza out of the television works and give them their own standalone movies (think Sinners of the System) so that the characters who still have a lot of room to grow can have the time allowed by a TV series to do so.

I can't in good conscience say I was particularly impressed with Psycho-Pass 3, but it was most definitely more than just slightly above the mediocre average I have unfortunately accepted from Japanese anime. For that, and for all the creators' hard work, thank you. If you make more Psycho-Pass, I will be there to at least try it, if not watch it.

Happy watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Jan 3, 2020

Five Star Stories (Anime) add

Not Recommended

Every now and again, I take it upon myself to look through my list of "Plan to Watch" titles to see if anything looks good enough to finally get around to watching. Many of the entries on that list are films, and among them I recently found Five Star Stories. I said, "What the hey? It's only 65 minutes long, I have access to the Blu-ray rendition of it, and it was a landmark project for Nobuteru Yuuki, a character designer and animator whose work I generally enjoy, so it's bound to at the very least look amazing. Let's give it a shot." While I ... was dead-on about the film's art and animation quality, those are about the only things this film has going for it aside from its merciful brevity.

The story has all the tried and true beats of a by-the-numbers origin arc for a by-the-numbers epic in the vain of works like "The Odyssey", but it is also EXTREMELY boring. It is itself an achievement that this film makes 65 minutes feel far, far longer. Nothing of even remote interest happens in this film: minimal suspense/tension and only very weak emotional investment and connection with the characters who themselves are so inactive, so passive with zero explanation for why. Five Star Stories is also rife with dramatic flashbacks, exposition dumps, and uninteresting dialogue that do nothing to make the plot, characters, or world more interesting, all at the expense of ACTION SCENES, NO LESS. For a MAL entry that has the "Action" tag, it's surprisingly dull. Even when the giant robots finally show themselves (and only in the last 6 minutes, mind you), the actual fight shown is totally boring and devoid of tension because the hero is blatantly overpowered against enemies that pose absolutely no threat. Of course, the robots' design and movements all look great, but it's what they are actually doing that is totally lame. I've thought up more interesting action set pieces playing with 1/144 scale Gunpla and Transformers toys when I was seven. Don't try and say that the staff didn't have enough people, time, or money, either; if they could make the other 60 minutes look as good as they do, then they had the time to give us a better action sequence. On the other hand, the ending frame is this pretty spectacular still with super hopeful, triumphant music playing now that the male and female "leads" are reunited ... only to tell us in narration, WHILE THE MUSIC AND IMAGE ARE UNCHANGED, that their reunion, the entire goal of this film, will spell doom for the entire universe. I'm sorry, but... what? If that was the end goal, then, both literally and figuratively, paint it differently. I get that the manga is still ongoing even to this day, but just... come on. There was no excuse for this ending, even back during the initial release. It explicitly tells the audience that they are wrong to feel happy (or at least totally indifferent because I had completely checked out by that point) at the film's resolution in spite of the fact that the director literally could not have done more to bring about the furthest thing from negative emotions. This isn't just absolutely asinine; it's downright insulting.

Amazingly enough, however, the ending of this film isn't even close to its most insulting aspect. This is where I point out the overt racism and misogyny. Basically every antagonistic character in this film has dark skin, except for the antagonists' leader who is, of course in stories like this, light-skinned, you know, to point out that he's the leader and clearly superior to them. Additionally, the heroes of the story are the absolute whitest people you could imagine. I'm not going to hold this against the film's staff, either; I blame the manga's creator, Mamoru Nagano, for the blatant offense on display here. I can also blame him for the Middle Ages-level gender politics shown in Five Star Stories. Men are the only characters with any sense of agency, which is itself a generous concession considering how passive everyone is. Women may as well be body pillows for all the personality and effect they have. The only things women are good for in this film are 1) being put up for auction and sold to pilots of giant robots, 2) co-piloting giant robots, 3) being sexually assaulted (the intention was there, even if it didn't happen), 4) getting hitched, and 5) being a body double for a very effeminate-looking man, who, in a callback to item 3, is himself at one point nearly assaulted by a drunken man (who gets off scot-free and without even an apology, obviously).

As I said in the introduction, the only redeeming quality to this film is its visuals. While I don't find the character designs particularly interesting, the sheer polish, line work, and consistent detail across numerous, and I mean numerous frames, for both character models and backgrounds, is nothing at which to scoff and both demands and absolutely deserves respect. The animation is incredibly fluid, and stills are only very rarely used, the most notable instance being the ending shot. As you can guess I am about to say, it just sucks balls that such high production value and attention to detail was squandered on a story this insulting. Again, the plot may be boring, but that alone would have only garnered a mediocre score. What makes this film BAD is how purely offensive it is.

I didn't find the music nor the voice acting very impressive. If you really want to experience this film, the best way would be to search it up on sakugabooru and look for the prettiest, most fluid clips. You won't have to look for long, I imagine. I think the best light in which I can paint this film is that it proved to be a nice tech-demo for some animators, and you may want to check out those cuts. Other than that, stay away from this film if you value 65 minutes of your time and don't care for racist and sexist views.

Happy Watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Dec 13, 2019

Psycho-Pass 3 (Anime) add

Recommended

If you've read any one of a third of my reviews, you will know that Psycho-Pass' first season is one of my favorite works of art/literature/entertainment/whatever of all time. It's a downright classic. That said, I was not particularly wowed by its second season (I read the manga and wrote a review on that) or the sequel film, which I found rather boring. Additionally, while I have yet to see the Sinners of the System films, I haven't heard the highest of praise for them. In short, I wasn't buying into the idea that the show's producers wanted this franchise to be as successful as ... Ghost in the Shell (and boy was THAT property ever milked...), and I grew to accept that season 1 was really the only entry worth watching (also rewatching twice, apparently!) and buying on Blu-ray; I settled into a state of quasi-indifference toward the franchise, especially when I learned that Tow Ubukata was back from season 2 to work on season 3.

That's not to say that Tow Ubukata is a bad writer; while it is true that Le Chevalier d'Eon did little to intrigue me and GitS Arise was (apparently) disappointingly bad, there is no denying that the man has ideas that are worth exploring. This even applies to Psycho-Pass 2, what may be considered the most hated project to which he was attached. Ubukata has gone on record in interviews detailing many of the problems he and the writing staff faced, most notably the atrociously tight deadlines (they would finalize the script DURING dubbing sessions), and it's clear that said deadlines (compounded by the show's insane brevity and need to copy season 1) was a main reason why it was unable to explore the few unique ideas that it could allow in a more nuanced and exciting way while telling a wholly new story, ideas like the Sibyl System having a direct opposer/rival that wishes to see it destroyed.

Well, thanks to Tow Ubukata, a similar idea is in season 3. But, really, that's the least superficial difference between seasons 1 and 3; let's take a look at something more broad, like the show's genre.

Season 1 was not a mystery series. It's got elements of neo-noir, dystopia, science fiction, police procedural, and thriller, but NOT MYSTERY. Season 3 is most definitely a mystery; we don't see how crimes are committed, characters' intentions are really only ever hinted at until the big reveal, etc. This show is more like GitS:SAC season 1 than other Psycho-Pass titles, and I think this was exactly the direction the producers' meetings took: "We need to stay true to the roots of why we wanted to make this franchise in the first place. What about its writing style made GitS:SAC so popular and how can we incorporate that style into Psycho-Pass?" "Well, it was more like a police drama you would typically see on TV, not anything revolutionary; just with cyberpunk."

Did they only then realize that there was a gaping bullet hole in their project's foot? Probably, but I also wouldn't think it beyond them to realize that it was Gen Urobuchi, the season 1 head writer, who pulled the trigger.

The problem with Psycho-Pass for so long has been that it simply wasn't sustainable. You can't take a fictional world so tightly constructed to be self-contained and revolutionary in just one season of television and make a franchise out of it, that's just not viable. They tried, but it was never going to work because a setting can only be geared toward a very specific set of themes, and season 1 covered that set very well already. Rather than attempt to recapture that same exact lightning in a different bottle, they finally started doing what I have been thinking they needed to do for a while now: change the setting. If the fictional world doesn't serve the purposes you need it to, change key details about that world so it does. Season 3 is the first entry in the franchise to do just that; the newly-incorporated anti-isolationist policies in Psycho-Pass' Japan has caused an influx of refugees from all around the heavily war-torn globe, and this adds a sense of tangible progression to the timeline as well as allowing for new stories with new themes to be told and the introduction of more problems that have been affecting us in the present, namely the rise of isolationist movements and more overt racism/bigotry and hate crime throughout the world. Also, Japan is absolutely notorious for their homogeneous society and staunch isolationism, so its sure to garner attention from at least some of the Japanese populace as well. On top of all of that, the writers also portray a solid understanding of why the Sibyl System is so well-received by the fictional world's populace and subsequently satirize the pursuit of convenience, comfort, and security over personal freedom. Episode 4 did that the best with the elevator scene.

Is this show perfect? Well, no, of course not; some characters stay rather underdeveloped relative to others, but as the show is progressing, more is learned about each of the new cast. Additionally, I enjoy how the plot and mystery further thickens as we learn more about each character, and this is especially true for episodes 4 and 5. That aside, I'm not a big fan of how one of the main characters basically has a pair of superpowers considering how more-or-less realistic the rest of the show is. I also think that the pace is a bit slow in some scenes; if this show were in a more anime-standard 23-minute format, I would definitely feel that some episodes (excluding episode 4) were less action-packed than others. Perhaps the 46-minute format, in addition to even further evoking the feel of live-action TV police dramas, was meant to counter this, but because the characters are consistently entertaining and develop while simultaneously making good progress in their investigations, I'm not really bothered by how there are often long stretches of time with nary an action scene in sight. This isn't new to Psycho-Pass, either, as season 1 had interesting philosophical discussion in addition to its stylized and entertaining characters. Season 3, I think, suffers from only having some philosophical discussion, but what is present, verbal and nonverbal alike, is well-received and make the show more worthwhile. I just wish there was more of it. Its biggest problem for me, however, is that it is FAR, FAR from complete. The final episode brings in a lot of new plot elements and, while I totally saw the post-credits scene coming, it still had me wanting to see what would come next. Too bad we have to wait God-knows-how-long to see a 4th season.

Getting back to more positive aspects, when we do see action scenes, they tend to look very, very good, although, to be fair, episode 4 was rife with action to the point where some of it looked good, but other parts were a bit rough. In spite of this, it was clear to me since first seeing that list of the key animators' names in the opening theme that this was a work that the staff were proud to present, because key animator names basically never appear in opening credits. They didn't even do that in Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Freaking... KABANERI didn't do that!

The music and sound design are also as good as ever in the franchise; Yugo Kanno is back on the soundtrack with an almost completely original composition. Don't worry, though; they aren't afraid to play season 1 music when it's right for the scene. Also, the voice acting is as solid as in previous entries; newcomers Yuki Kaji and Yuichi Nakamura feel right at home in this show, and even Junichi Suwabe and Mamoru Miyano join the cast! I was pleasantly surprised to find them here. I am, however, a bit disappointed that Funimation could not get the license to this show and dub it. I can only guess who they would cast in all the new roles. Oh well. Maybe someday. And before you raise your pitchforks and scream "dubs should die", remember that some people are dyslexic and have trouble reading, or are unable to read as quickly as the subtitles demand them to; please be considerate of these individuals.

All in all, in spite of its problems, Psycho-Pass 3 was a rather bright spot in a season that has left me rather disappointed for the most part. You don't NEED to have seen season 1 or the film to watch this show, but the juicy details and moments are present and fun to appreciate, even if they blatantly reskinned the famously climactic scene of "Saint's Supper" from season 1. This season did its job in engaging me and getting me to want more, but I can't help but feel a bit dissatisfied by how things didn't shake out at the end. Who is the man in the mask? What happened between the super-inspector's dad and the violent-inspector's brother? What proof does Sibyl have that Akane Tsunemori isn't criminally asymptomatic? All right, that last one is from me alone, but the point is none of these are answered. I don't know if there will be any kind of payoff in the future, and so I can't give this the original 8 out of 10 for which I had it pegged. A high 7 out of 10 (as opposed to a low 7) is in order: solidly entertaining, a slightly disappointing ending, but enough smarts to make it worth one's time, at least for one full watch.

Happy Watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Sep 18, 2019

Escaflowne (Anime) add

Mixed Feelings

The Vision of Escaflowne (or TVE aka Television Escaflowne lol) is more than just a good show. It's borderline great, providing a coming-of-age story with a heartfelt message about being conscious of the consequences of one's actions and the ramifications of pursuing one's selfish desires. Not only is this exemplified in our main heroine, Hitomi Kanzaki, but it's also demonstrated in the story's hero, Van Fanel, his antihero brother, Folken, and especially the series' villain, Emperor Dornkirk. Throw in a pretty decent story, some stellar production values courtesy of Sunrise, and amazing music (from composers Hajime Mizoguchi and Yoko Kanno, hell yeah!) and you ... have a classic of the isekai genre and of anime as a whole. I give it a rock-solid 8 out of 10.

So where does Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea, a film reboot of the series, go wrong?

Well, to give some context, TVE was kind of like Sunrise combining The Lord of the Rings with Mobile Suit Gundam to make something slightly fantastical, scientific, and epic enough to have giant robots. However, I guess that when this film was in development, Japan was more taken with a mecha franchise different from Gundam, so the developers decided to shift things up a bit, taking away a lot of the science fiction and replacing it with straight fantasy (which I wouldn't mind, but the green magic farts are pretty lame). And blood. Lots of blood. This movie is not for young teens, people. Be forewarned.

If TVE was a love child of LOTR and MSG, then Escaflowne is a combination of LOTR (with more Asian influence) and Neon Genesis Evangelion, and not always in ways that are as freaking awesome as that sounds.

I'lll go into how the characters feel like they belong in Evangelion later; first, I have to address how much I love the Eva-like redesigns of the mechs in this film. Yes, there basically is only one scene with any Guymelefs, and they don't even call them that, but my God is that scene a ton of fun to watch. I can gush for a whole paragraph about how the armors suck the pilot's blood and give them a Pacific-Rim-before-Pacific-Rim-like control scheme and all that, and about how the machines move and sound weirdly organic with shiver-inducing Eva-like squelching sounds and UUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! It' so freaking cool!!! Visually, this may just be one of my favorite works by Sunrise/Bones ever for both the character/mech designs as well as the sheer quality of the art and animation on display. Shading is intensive, animation is almost always very fluid, and while it is true that some background characters are not always drawn super-well, they move and emote frequently (especially in the scenes outside Gaea), and they definitely look better than in a later Bones original film, Sword of the Stranger.

Also better than in Sword of the Stranger is the music. Goddamn, this music is incredible. Some tracks do find there way here from TVE (same composers and all), but for the most part, the score is original, with a few insert songs here and there and some truly mesmerizing pieces. Some of my favorite tracks are "Into GAEA" and "Black Escaflowne". You can find both of them, as well as most if not all of the soundtrack, on YouTube. I highly, HIGHLY recommend you check it out. While we're in the sound department, I'll mention that the Japanese voice acting is pretty great. I didn't watch either of the English dubs, but while I prefer the original Ocean dub over the Funimation dub for TVE, neither really hold a candle to TVE's Japanese dub, and while the Ocean dub may be better than the Funimation dub for the film, I didn't bother finding out if that's entirely true. Unlike with TVE, there is actually a Blu-ray release of the original dub. Funimation has their own release now, but the Bandai Blu-ray is, if I am correct, cheaper to buy than the Funimation release. However, it won't be around forever, which makes it even more tragic that Funimation didn't do a great job with casting for their dub. If you do want to buy TVE, I would recommend buy the Funimation Blu-ray for the sole reason that you can watch it in 1080p, but the original Bandai DVD releases (in 480p) can be found in a nice collection as part of their "Anime Legends" imprint for a price that is an ABSOLUTE STEAL. Seriously, less than 17 dollars for TVE? Sign me the hell up. However, if you reeeeeeally want that sweet HD, just ignore the Funimation dub, because they totally screwed up the voices of Van, Folken, Dilandau, and Mole Man, even if all-around line delivery is better than in the Ocean dub.

To backtrack a bit, with all these comparisons to Sword of the Stranger, one would think I was getting a similar vibe when watching Escaflowne, and while that is definitely true, I am happy to say that I was never really bored with this movie (mainly because it's half an hour shorter), at least not until the end which certainly drags its feet with a too-long epilogue sequence. It's here that we can dive into the negative parts of this film.

I get that Evangelion is popular and that it's a landmark franchise of animation to the point that Bones would try again to make a series heavily influenced by it with RahXephon just a few years later (their first original project, if I am correct). I also understand that Escaflowne could have worked with Hitomi being a version of Shinji Ikari (i.e. anxious, depressed, uncertain, and very, VERY lonely), but unlike Shinji or her small screen counterpart, Hitomi is extremely passive and acts more as a damsel in psychological distress than being an active character in the film. In fact, the handling of Hitomi's angst and near-suicidal tendencies is executed extremely poorly, both in conception and resolution. While we do get some actually decent scenes with her before she teleports to Gaea that demonstrate her mental state, nothing establishes exactly why she feels the way she does. Shinji Ikari comes from a broken family that he barely even remembers, so it makes sense for him to be angsty and insecure. Granted, TVE Hitomi's family life didn't have any real development either, but were shown to be loving and kind; why not just go all the way with her being a knock-off Shinji in this film and do it right by giving her a similar backstory? Say something like "her parents got divorced and she didn't take it well" or, if you don't want to mention her family at all, say "she was mercilessly bullied in school because she liked performing tarot card readings and inadvertently pissed off a queen bee". Actually, I like that second one. It relates the film further to TVE. In my own headcanon, I'm just going to pretend that's the film's explanation for her mental state and why she has no tarot cards, because it's certainly better than the nothing that we got. Perhaps there was more originally, but they got cut from the film.

Hitomi aside, Van and Folken are, unfortunately, also quite poorly developed, despite the fact that they are central to the drama. The story is this: because Van was found to be destined to become Fanelia's king, Folken murdered their parents and destroyed the entire country, believing that the only way to end suffering and sorrow was with utter, absolute annihilation. Pretty dumb and absurd, right? Yes. Van has dialed the edginess to freaking 15, convinced that his only purpose in life is to avenge his family and country by killing Folken. Just one-note characters all around (although Dilandau is the kind of one-note character I love). The setup is equally simple and dumb; Folken wants Hitomi to summon Escaflowne (which is her superpower in this film, not divination, hence no tarot cards) to allow Folken to pilot it and destroy everything, and Hitomi has to overcome her own mental hangups in order to... tell Folken "no"... (sigh, really?)... and help Van through his problems in order for him to pilot it instead without destroying Gaea. This may work on paper, but there is no real transitional phase, no key series of events that brings Hitomi out of her depression and makes it inevitable, not obvious while also out of left field, that she would help Van work through his issues. Additionally, I don't buy their relationship for half a second; while TVE Van actually expressed human moments, vulnerability, and kindness toward others, this Van is only edge, only violent outbursts (he even draws his sword to kill Hitomi when they first meet and ends up raging against Allen). The relationship is no less than borderline dysfunctional; while they are similar in that they have both been hurting for a very long time, Van shows no positive emotion, no redeeming qualities, and does nothing to give Hitomi the mental and emotional aid she needs, just saving her life at one point. And that heals her just fine. Remember that scene in Parasyte, when Tamiya Ryoko (a murderer initially devoid of empathy) sacrificed her life to protect her baby and teach the hero, Shinichi, that he actually can still feel, care, and cry for other beings? That empathy is essential to living a fulfilling life? You know, the one (EXACTLY ONE) scene in any anime where I legitimately almost cried? Yeah, nothing like that here, and Escaflowne desperately needed something similar to even come close to working.

Escaflowne: A Girl in Gaea is not a good film. In fact, one would not likely be hard-pressed to find someone who is legitimately insulted by how they handle Hitomi's mental health problems. I'll spell it straight out in all seriousness: Hitomi does not need Van, a violent sociopath. She needs a therapist, someone who is patient, able to feel for her, and is willing to guide her to a better state of mind. Insulting as this film is, though, I still appreciate the level of craft and passion that went into making it, and I did in fact find it entertaining, even if it is absolutely, unequivocally a dumb movie that thinks it's way smarter than it is. In my book, that's even worse than something that fundamentally misunderstands how to explain what it wants to say with characters that make sense (see Eden of the East), but at least Escaflowne is shorter than a TV series. I can see myself rewatching it for some scenes, but the writers missed the mark big time. Stick to the TV series, The Vision of Escaflowne. It is a classic, and it has stood and will continue to stand the test of time.

Happy Watching!
- LC

Open

Gift

Sep 15, 2019

Koukaku Kidoutai: Stand Alone Complex 2nd GIG (Anime) add

Not Recommended

In my previous review (on Eden of the East, please read it :D), I provided a long explanation and list of arguments that detail why director Kenji Kamiyama is a hack writer. I have nothing against the man on a personal level, I have never interacted with him, I currently have no reason to believe that he is not a kind person, and I have quite a bit of respect for his directorial style, but I do not find his writing very appreciable. So far, the only work of his that I thought was actually good was the first season of Stand Alone Complex (I ...

Open

Gift

More Reviews

Back to LightningComet's Profile LightningComet's Profile

All (0)Friends

RSS Feeds

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters