Drink deep of my sorrow as I entertain you with tales of Japanese Animated debauchery.


Read more: http://www.blogdoctor.me/2008/03/free-css-navigation-menus-in-blogger.html#ixzz124kU3bQe

Friday, November 19, 2010

Compiler: Fast-Food Monsters and the women that wield them

So I've seen enough mad women in my time (through no fault of my own, mind you) that when they stab THEMSELVES in the head with a little data comb thingy you should already be running.

Let's chalk up another chance for hilarity at the expense of someone's manly pride as we discuss Kia Asamiya's greatest animated work to date, Compiler!




A trio of 2-D computerized female programs are sent to Earth to destroy/enslave it with the spear of their assault being led by Compiler, a program capable of bending our reality to her will. All that went to hell when they decided the food was too good and they got boyfriends, now two of the three girls are freeloading at Toshi and Nachi's house eating food and destroying and reassembling their home.

All of that stuff I just noted is woven into the narrative as the anime is set after the origin story happened and somewhere in the middle of the Manga storyline closing one arc and starting another. And for the record, Kia Asamiya is the pen name of the artist/writer behind cult favorites Silent Mobius and Nadesico, amongst other awesome things.


Watch Compiler_OVA_01 in Animation  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
(Veoh has the first episode... subtitled in Spanish? At least you can SEE some of the stuff in the opening like the assassins being turned into women as punishment for their consistent failure.)

For your viewing pleasure however, you have three episodes in this outstanding OAV that show (according to the culprits) a 37th failed attempt on Compiler's life as they unleash fast-food hell on Osaka, a bungle of record proportions as the girls try to work out their love lives and sleep arrangements and finally a showdown that took a lot longer to happen than you might have expected.

The show itself is already pretty funny on its own as the girls struggle to understand life among humans as they kind of guilt/force themselves on both of the guys. So they live in the house being very complicated guests as assassins drop in constantly to kill them both. There's a third girl, Interpreter, but she's sparsely utilized in the anime as most of the focus is on the domestic awkwardness of affection craving aliens who can/will eat the boys out of house and home.

I was only ever fortunate enough to obtain the first tape, that's right TAPE. As in cassette. I'm talking about a VHS tape I picked up like ten years ago.

Don't go rushing out to find it, ADV Films put it on Tape in the USA, but they never brought it over to DVD for some reason. Then again, they had such a huge library I'm not entirely surprised it got lost in the shuffle... Bummer though.

The dub REALLY shines with an outstanding script and incredible delivery by some of ADV's best voice actors. I had seen it subbed before at a convention and while it was also amusing it was not even remotely as funny as the english dub.

I've scoured Youtube and I'm STILL shocked that more clips of this aren't up there because some of the scenes set up in this show are well beyond perfect. Chaos as breakfast, constant coupon references, fast food mascots fighting in the streets and a romantic dynamic so messed up it's a wonder Dr. Phil and Oprah haven't noted it in their shows. Then again... The could bring up Ranma, too...

I'm really not sure what else I can say about it except that it exists on two cassettes, Compiler 1 has the first two episodes and Compiler 2 has the third. I'd certainly look for the dubbed before I'd recommend the subbed, so if you come across a VHS copy of Compiler 1 & 2 (each of which have a market value of roughly $10) and you have a VCR that still works then give it a shot.

As messed up romantic comedies stacked with cute girls and stuff blowing up everywhere, this stands as a high quality product. I'll update and... probably completely revise this review if someone EVER gets it on DVD. I'm just hoping they keep the dub.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

I'M RANTING!: AnimEigo is a ship of fools?! Well, yeah.


 (LET LUM OOOOOOOOOOOUT!!!!)

So AnimEigo is still way the fuck behind the rest of the world. They stopped padding their anime selection forever ago (losing basically everything except for their most sought after titles) and focused heavily on old Japanese movies, Samurai stuff in particular, but they have this... ISSUE with boxes.

So they have typical cheap dvd cases, cheap (disappointing) dvd extras, cheap (usually shitty) english dubbing, and not an ounce of sanity when it comes to business.

Why is printing boxes or mass producing thinpak style boxed sets so difficult for them to grasp? I know it seems weird, but given the sheer SIZE of Urusei Yatsura they should consider the opportunity they're missing by hoarding it as they are. Sure, on one hand you're paying roughly $2 an episode, but there's 195 episodes so if your like it you'd better brave yourself for over $400 worth of pain after taxes, not to mention the shipping. Oh and for the record that's JUST the TV series, for a complete collector there's about $96 more dollars of pain for just the 6 movies and the six discs containing MOST of the OAVs, just not the most recent one from 2008.

You're basically looking at over $500 worth of anime. Does it make sense? Not really considering the anime is about 30 years old and its distribution method is the same as when they had on the VHS tapes, the primary difference being that they charge roughly one-third of what they charged for each tape back in the nineties.

I'd fork over shitloads of money for UY stuff, in fact I have personally distributed quite a bit of money into AnimEigo's pockets and I'm not fond of being ripped off over shitty products. The anime is fine, but everything coming out of them is almost poison to their industry.

If it's not DBZ, Pokemon or Bleach no one is buying that shit for so hefty a price today. They made something of a killing when they printed awful looking boxes for Boxed Set, which were just flimsy paper sleeves for more overpriced DVDs. The first series of Boxed sets are still worth a bundle because so few were produced, I held out because I assumed they'd have half the mind that other anime distributors had in that they would push their product appropriately with updated boxed sets or DVDs that had more than four episodes.

I wouldn't gripe so much if they had added anything to the entirety of the Urusei Yatsura Library, but all they do is sit on it and let it stagnate trying to soak up as much money from the series as they can before the copyright owners see what they're doing to their products.

Funimation makes shows better every day, it keeps its titles fresh with re-releases and cheaper selling points to save you sanity, money and shelf space. ADV films (before passing) had similar methods of keeping product on the shelves and money in people's pockets.


(UY makes me as happy an anime character in P-p-pajamas!)

Lemme give some comparisons here:

UY has multiple seasons consisting of 195 episodes as well as 6 Movies and 11 OAV episodes.

I know that seems like a lot, but when you look at how Viz released Ranma 1/2 in neat, well dubbed packages arranged by season, you gotta wonder how fucking inept the folks at Animeigo can be when they can't even manage putting out the UY seasons in manageable packages for all this time. When Ranma has its entire library out there three times over! Starting with pricey Digital Dojo in a large $100 set for the first season and then dropping to price and size to a manageable thinpak set for about $20-$25.

It's been over fifteen years, just so we've got a picture of how pathetic this is and how far behind the rest of the industry these assholes dicking around in their garage have gone. The movies are in a PARTIAL boxed set because they turned over the 2nd Movie rights to Central Park Media (making Beautiful Dreamer the ONLY marginally decent dub that UY ever had and leaving the rights to one of its best films floating out in the cold since CPM's bankruptcy), but the OAVs and the series discs still manage to be scattered by AnimeEigo like you're putting together a pricey vase back together.

The Slayers has Numerous seasons itself, the first 3 alone season ran at 26 episodes apiece, it also has a handful of movies as well as OAV episodes. The first three seasons of Slayers have been put into boxed sets every time through their re-releases and they've even been released together in rather attractive book-style packaging recently. Granted, they're not as old as Urusei Yatsura, but their common sense in distibution is vastly superior. ADV had the right to the Slayers OAVs and Movies so naturally they released each movie or set of OAVs (3 episodes per disc) as they obtained them (or managed to put them onto DVD). They also managed to put them out in sturdy boxes when they released the boxed sets of thinpaks which made the formerly sizable stack into a significantly petite collection. Hell, if Central Park Media can put UY in a dub AND release The Slayers seasons in boxed sets what the hell is the excuse for lagging so far behind??

ADV's Guyver: The Bio-Boosted Armor came out in single bits, but it also came out with a large, strudy box for you to collect the discs with as they came out. When ADV went under Funimation took the franchise under its wing and released the show in its entirety with an attractive thinpak style set. There were some complications in Guyver getting to that point on its own, but that was the same style of distribution ADV practiced anyway.

This raises the question though, would someone else be able to sell UY better? The simple answer is: "Hell Yes." I ran across UY discs that Animeigo put out only on occasion and there's no way I was going to pay what stores were asking for so few episodes. So I waited for the rational decision to make a more enticing set that I would willingly purchase, which was hard for me to stave off because I wanted it so badly.

The rational and economically sound release of UY never happened to this day. I own them all now because I went to Amazon and got the entire series used or on clearance. I paid about $140 including shipping. That's for all of the discs, which are impossible to display and even harder to store, so all save for a few live out in the open when I need a slice of Tomobiki.

UY is the most important anime out there for me personally, but even I feel that about 70 DVD cases are really fucking pushing it. Their cases look like an asshole spent 2 minutes in photoshop putting them together, their boxes granted to a precious few of the masses are ugly and look cheap, the DVDs don't tend to have more than 4 episodes on each disc and the most exciting addition you can expect to own when you buy their dvds are the paper cultural files tucked in the case to translate japanese humor to an american mind, that's their forte after all.

I hold Animeigo in great contempt because they've let such amazing titles sit and collect dust without hiring someone like the Ocean Group and Viz to come in and fix up their anime titles so they sound amazing and can pull in new audiences with their classic status and contemporary, acceptable dubbing that might even get their foot in the door for airing on specialized cable television. Split the costs. Whatever! JUST STOP SMOTHERING THESE THINGS BEFORE YOU LOSE THEM!!!!

Animeigo's one claim to fame is that they are exceptional english and japanese speakers. Their translations are so brutally accurate that even THEY get subtitles for their subtitles that explain the cultural significance of a distinctly Japanese action or saying making you almost worried that watching their stuff might make you learn something. I appreciate that and I swear by their accuracy, but they are supposedly a business as well and they can barely keep the roof from leaking or so it seems back at their website.

Back in '91-'92 their catalog was very impressive and they kept a lengthy, updated list of their movies and series in stock which followed one or two lengthy trailers that led to many purchases on my part. Their anal retentiveness almost seemed prudent back then, but when the market changed to accommodate things like the INTERNET AnimEigo decided to dick around and let most of its titles dissolve while they pursued shoddy old Japanese movies.

AnimEigo, get your shit together. Please.

You don't have enough titles to be so indifferent about protecting what little investments you've made. UY is your flagship series and alongside Bubblegum Crisis they stand as your only connection to today's market. Sure, that keeps people coming back after taking Japanese class or seeing Project A-ko, but you should give them something to come back for and something to draw new people in so that you can stave off dying a coward's death and instead make a practical financial decision to FIX your mess.

If you don't want to, someone will come in and eventually fix it for you. Why not do so in a way that actually keeps you afloat and food on your plate? Do you truly fear success?

Monday, November 15, 2010

Catgirl Nuku Nuku: Hilarity, Sadness and Catgirls

It should be noted that some things become popular for a reason. An enduring premise as simple as the loving bond between a boy and his pet have been the driving force behind many pieces of popular fiction.

But let's be honest, a catgirl is much more enticing.


(A fun AMV using mostly clips from the OAVs, Nuku at her finest.)

So I recently completed my All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku collection and my gripe meter just spiked from irritation to pure fucking rage.

When I decided to stop being a stick in the mud, I picked up the TV series and shortly before it arrived I bought Nuku Nuku Dash. In my elation, I held off on Dash so I could watch the series in production order and... that was a mistake. In fact, everything past the OAV was a mistake.

Let's go over why this particular franchise spins around in my guts like glass shards...


(ADV Films Trailer for the Nuku Nuku OAV series)

All Purpose Cutural Catgirl Nuku (OAV)

Trial separations can really hurt a family dynamic. It puts a strain on the bond between the parents and creates a conflict over control of the children. Sometimes their necessary to find common ground and let love heal any wounds or gaps in their relationship.

Sometimes you need to drive faster when an attack jet is chasing your car.

In this case, the harm is pretty obvious when Kyusaku, a scruffy scientist escapes the clutches of his death merchant wife, Akiko, with their son, Ryunosuke, and his latest invention: a nearly indestructible combat android. On Christmas Eve Ryunnosuke adopts a friendly cat while the guys take a short break while on the run from Akiko, but her thugs cut the kitty's life short when they hose down the Kyusaku & Ryunosuke's car with machine gun fire. Or do they? Kyusaku, in order to appease his son, installs the brain of the fallen kitty into the unbelievably powerful cyborg body.

Some time later, the cat now calls herself Nuku Nuku, but her "legal" name is Atsuko Natsume and she's clearly become their maid and sole caretaker as neither Ryunosuke nor Kyusaku can function without her. Her casing is unusually attractive, a point that Akiko keeps pointing out with alarm and jealousy, it's also worth noting that each and every boy she encounters becomes smitten with her.

At it's core Catgirl Nuku Nuku is a poor man's Project A-ko featuring a hopelessly demented specimen of snaggletoothed, eccentric jailbait who is really a deadly battle robot that a well-meaning, but clearly deranged scientist cobbled together to placate his mourning son after the murder of his newly adopted pet kitten by jet-flying thugs sent by the boy's mother.

That's right! It's a cat brain transplanted into a powerful robot body coated in the attractive shell of a buxom teenage girl and when she's made into a determining factor of a violent custody battle between a mad scientist (Kyusaku, Ryo's Dad) and the cutthroat owner/manager of a global death machine manufacturer (Akiko, Ryo's mom), hilarity ensues! The classic image of a diminutive, attractive schoolgirl dismembering giant robots and sneaking off make mischief and eat fish sets the tone for the OAV's entirety and when you see it, you'll understand why this series endured for so long and why they were able to green-light two awful spin-offs.

The best part is how it stayed true to its origins in Yuzo Takada's one-shot manga, he's the mind behind 3x3 Eyes and Blue Seed. My favorite aspect of that is his artwork is beautifully represented in the original OAV. It takes some mild artistic interpretation, but it's magnificently consistent in its visual style, storyline and provides a consistent delivery of laughs.

It's legendary in Anime nerd circles and Nuku practically defines an Otaku dream girl with a body she's not shy about showing off and a ditzy, sweet personality that's hard not to like. Just like Blue Seed and 3x3 Eyes, this is another essential part of any worthwhile anime collection that Yuzo Takada masterminded.


(Opening for Nuku Nuku TV)

Nuku Nuku TV

A terrible mistake made horribly real.

Off the bat you'll notice they threw out the Yuzo Takada's character designs, but borrowed heavily from them (the same Character designs find their way into Dash as well). You'll also notice the massive divebomb in visual quality from the OAV, this also carries over in Dash.

The basic framework of the original story is... sort of there except that there's inadequate strife within the home to draw you in. In fact there's NOTHING to draw you in like the OAV did. Ryunnosuke is now a mean, spiteful little shit who picks on Nuku Nuku all the time, Akiko is living with the family and works for a new character called "Hell Mishima" wherein she works late nights dressed up as a villainous power ranger bondage queen. Nuku is borderline retarded and has an origin akin to Megaman; essentially, the TV show claims she was made to fight Mishima Industries... making the cat brain a conscious decision in construction rather than an endearing fuck up by  Ryo's Dad who dresses up similarly to Tuxdeo Mask to foil the plans of his wife's employer by cover of night.

They aimed for laughs, but the problem is that they aimed too low, too fast. The whole thing feels like it was produced in a hurry and edited heavily post production so they could bleed out introductions to fill airtime. They don't build up anything and can barely focus on the gags they try to set up, it's like they stack up Jenga blocks and then intentionally walk away. I've watched its entirety and I have gotten a few laughs out of it, but there's no room for timing and as a result the comedy burns itself out before it can find closure to a gag.

In an unusual twist for ADV, the Dub is actually kind of painful to endure, it mostly has to do with them trying to keep with the super fast dialogue erupting forth constantly. It's not like Excel Saga where the dialogue has meaning as part of ranting character or fast-paced dialogue that some clear meaning to both the scene and story as a whole, most of the dialogue is actually a means to keep track of which characters are in a scene akin to taking attendance in class.

By comparison, the Japanese audio is comparatively palatable, but it doesn't make it funny or interesting when the literal parade of B and C list characters crowd Nuku off the fucking screen. Seriously, the biggest detriment to the show is the new cast of characters tacked on for no reason AT ALL. Their appearance basically requires much of each episode to be dedicated to their moments of being accounted for in a scene that NONE of the chatty extras can resolve. The other students appear spouting a tagline or spew some awful blathering befitting their stereotype (folk singer sings all his lines, spoiled brat spouts rich brat lines, creepy fortuneteller spouts ominous fortunes, etc.) and through about half the series they actually put the brakes on the scene for a few seconds while seizure inducing characters fill the screen introducing the same character... again. And again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.

By the time they're done re-introducing the characters who have no bearing on the overall story (such as it is) and they've belted out their pointless lines, they've actually eaten up a substantial run time of the episode. Nothing is developed, EVER and the methods used to introduce an issue and then completely resolve the same issue could have been done in five minutes and still have as little impact on the episode (and the series as a whole), but instead they're bled out dreadfully as the main cast (mostly Nuku) gets interrupted as much as humanly possible by these cardboard cut-out caricatures on their way to unsatisfying closure.

I watched in horror wondering how this got funding and I still writhe in agony over how something so awful could be produced. Worse still, how the same asstard behind it was signed on for the Dash series...


 (Opening for Nuku Nuku Dash)

Nuku Nuku Dash - So the same rat bastard who messed up the TV series suckered his way into making ANOTHER TV show into a Power Ranger-ish bastardization.
 In this short series you'll find the same trademarked title idiocy from the TV series (Son calls his Dad Mister Kyusaku and his Mother Miss Akiko, what the fuck is that all about?). Also the term "androbot" comes back along with members of the awful TV show's cast, but the BIG difference is that young Ryunnosuke is now a hot-blooded teenager who is horny as hell for his family's amnesiac houseguest, Nuku Nuku. While members of the original cast populate their original roles... mostly, the show is heavily populated by a generic mishmash of the original OAV characters and the TV characters.

On the plus side, there's a story in play. I'm not saying that it isn't a horrible pile of shit, but I am saying that unlike the random, and pointless nonsense that comprised the TV series there is a clear story that flows through the show. The evil Mishima corporation is now run by a trio of sinister old men that search the company records for fodder to throw at luring out and collecting a missing robot: Nuku Nuku, who is staying incognito as a young woman with amnesia by day and fighting the unfortunate idiots sent to smoke her out by night. Nuku stays under the same roof as the Natsume family (Akiko, Kyusaku & Ryunnosuke) where Kyusaku tries to hack into her programming in the basement when no one's home and Ryunnosuke simply lusts for her at all times, but is unable to make a move on her due to being a unusually pathetic Japanese loser who actually cries when she willingly walks in naked to scrub his back in the bath. For those of you wondering what happened, he ran out of the bathtub and spent the night crying so loud that even the neighbors knew what happened.

Anyway, Dash's distinction is that it feigns seriousness. What I mean by this is that characters die during the course of the story and there are very heavy consequences to be weighed, but that's usually an afterthought because this was made for all the stammering nerds who need to see someone else fail at even basic socialization with the fairer sex. Much of the show is dedicated to Ryo's pathetic gibbering fantasies and the head injuries he receives while walking, riding or running in the midst of them as he yearns for Nuku's affections and ruins every single chance he could have with her.

To spice up that angst, there's the family drama where Akiko works for Evil Incorporated and Kyusaku is looking to take it apart from the inside using Nuku. Things get interesting when clones and Nuku's sister come out to play near the end, but the buildup was so slow and sloppy that nothing is really yielded from the effort of putting up with it for the show's entirety and the ending itself is so disappointingly ambiguous and creepy that is actually makes me pissed off. It's completely incapable of wielding any one of the elements it tries juggling with any effectiveness: The romance falls flat and feels rather perverse being that it's all in one guy's head, the action is stilted and hinges on gimmicks power rangers would be ashamed of, the comedy is poorly timed and interferes with every other aspect of the show and trying to tie it into the Nuku Nuku franchise seems to have done more harm than good.

I love the OAV series that kicked things off, but the two series that followed tarnish an otherwise good name for the sake of brand recognition, in their effort to keep attention to the name alive they try forcing a square peg through a round hole. The one awesome thing I can take note of is that throughout the entirety of the franchise while in ADV's hands the series had consistent voice casting and to their credit the voice acting is outstanding, but you can't polish a turd and the latter two are verily turds.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Evangelion/Transformers/GI Joe: The tickle of madness



After a lengthy, crazy rant like the last one I feel it's only fair to throw ya'll a bone. Brace for laughter kiddos, your childhood innocence is on the chopping block!

LEVITY, I CHOOSE YOU!

A friend showed this to me awhile back and I'm still between tears and laughter. To clarify for the uninitiated: In the final, tense moments of Evangelion soldiers are sent in to seize the NERV base and use its contents (Angels, ADAM, Eva units, Alka-selzter) to kick-start Armageddon.

In this beautiful bastardization they send in GI Joe to kill off NERV and the Eva units are Optimus Prime (Unit 2) and Galvatron (Unit 1), with the evil "Eva Series" being represented by the entirety of the Decepticon forces.

The video uses footage from the Transformers movie, GI Joe Movie and Evangelion respectively. Well, and A LITTLE bit of footage from each series to pad out some of the scenes.

Enjoy.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I'M RANTING: Just DIE already!

Shut up and FINISH THE JOB!!! Make them stop talking!


(A collection of anime deaths put to music. That's a little creepy, but perfect for this topic.)

Let's start with a generic example:

Two men who’ve been fighting a bloody fight for roughly six ACTUAL hours of your viewing are now chatting like pals as one bleeds to death in the street after the good guy punched clear through his opponent's chest, his fist wet with dripping red remnants of life after bursting from the bad guy's back. This bloody exchange being the final punctuation in an epic tale leading to the ultimate closure with a gruesome reward.

The character dying has caused the death of the other character’s goldfish, wife, fifteen children, best friends, dog, cat, parents, horse and llama. Yet, the surviving character, a heroic protagonist, is holding the evil bastard’s hand patiently listening to his dying words while a tear forms at the edge of his eye and a flashback sequence shows that the bad guy was sexually abused by reindeer as a kid and blames the protagonist for having a yard full of grass and our protagonist appears to mourn the baddie's passing.

This is a typical event used by lazy anime and comic writers to characterize a bad guy in their final moments and eat up screen time in order to stall for additional production time or a way to write themselves out of a corner. Not that the Japanese are the ONLY culprits guilty of this cop-out, but they are one of the most consistent culprits and certainly the most successful in spite of their wanton misuse of this particular gimmick. Also, this is an anime blog first and foremost so I'll pick my fights accordingly.

The De-Evilfying Deathbed Confession typically appears in the twilight hours of a storyline, but it is used most frequently in fighting anime like the infamously shallow Dragonball franchise as well as better written shows like Yu Yu Hakusho and Bleach. But let's be clear, it’s not limited to whiz-bang style action, in fact it’s the same BS used at the end of powerful girly drama, Fushigi Yuugi (AKA Mysterious Play), where an incredibly evil character dies revealing that as a child his pretty face ensured a life of ceaseless rape and abuse (It's Japanese, after all) at the clutches of a creepy royal type, which is why the baddie murdered, tortured and manipulated members of his own team while he happily butchered the good guys in a sadistic fashion, writhing in delight as they suffered. Ultimately, so he, like many anime cliche types, can exercise his nihilistic tendencies and end the world instead of wishing for a better life or something.

So he was misunderstood and now we feel sorry for the bad guy suddenly? Well… No, not really. His actions were the very definition of unforgivable. It's not terribly effective when blurted out near the end of the story when the satisfaction of the baddies' satisfying demise is already on your mind.

Here's a positive example of what these guys are trying to attempt: Darth Vader's change of heart and tearful reunion with his son making for a heartwarming redemption to the most evil character imaginable bringing a powerful saga to a close in its third act. It's not a random change of heart either, everything from body language, to the way they fought, to specific choices in dialogue show Vader's hesitation, affection and pride in reacting to how far his child has come as the movies have developed him into a very human character in spite of the evil acts we see him doing (like choking someone to death every 15 minutes). Vader was a complicated dude and the audience needs to see that if they're going to feel the same sense of loss that anime tends to attempt to convey.

In anime, it’s a clichéd and desperate gamble to toy with the audience’s heartstrings while a supposedly integral character is played offstage and the protagonist that made the fatal blow is made into a fucking saint because they showed emotion at seeing their foe perish. Since the writing was obviously only planned so far in advance, production has to step in to make up for the story’s shortcomings by throwing in flashbacks, flowery visuals and strange visual ticks to make the scene impact the audience and the two never seem to meet on the same page so it's stupid and it looks weird.

When used in moderation there’s no problem, in fact it’s often an amazingly effective tool in high end drama that, when used properly, causes a rift in the audience’s ability to judge a character painting the entire story leading up to this one character’s loss in shades of an uncomfortable gray. See in THAT context, it’s no problem! It’s even flexible enough to be used to twist things making a hero into the worst villain imaginable.


There’s no shame in admitting you’re not b-b-bulletproof. However, when you cram in a really cool idea as a method of covering up your inadequacies you cheapen EVERYTHING that your touch.

For instance, Dragon Ball Z doesn’t necessarily milk the revelation/twist aspect of death too hard, but Bleach won’t stop. They kill bad guys all the time in Bleach (A cast of thousands fall on Ichigo & Co's weapons liek they're raking motherfuckin' LEAVES), while with DBZ it doesn’t require a much save for a lot of balls to just shrug off a terminal condition like say… DEATH.

On the other hand, Bleach can’t decide how BAD the bad guys are supposed to be as every evil dude’s death triggers a pace-killing flashback that can run for a few minutes or an entire set of episodes and that’s not even counting how long it takes them to actually freakin’ die! DBZ baddies essentially give their own eulogies before croaking and these guys wipe out three planets before lunch—Lunch being a tray of live babies, because DBZ baddies are rarely ambiguous about their moral orientation.Vegeta being their only shade of gray.

Basilisk chews at the bone of this problem like the marrow will cure it’s wholly stupid ending. Basilisk in particular doesn’t know how to keep dead people DEAD or stay with the fact that hideous, evil, cannibalistic; rapist scumbags were inherently vile from the start. It even goes so far as to have heartwarming flashback episodes before the conflict that killed them all, showing them in cute settings like trying to cure hiccups, playful mischief kicking a fat man down a mountain, etc. After all this they STILL try for the mid-death flashback to a tragic origin that explains why the architect of everyone’s horrific misery acted as he did because his family was caught in the crossfire leaving him orphaned.

Does it soften your anger? Does it stifle your rage? Does it do anything to really hinder your loathing for the character? Not if you're human and have a functioning brain! Lots of orphans have gone through life without going on hundred year murder sprees so that scarcely gives this asshole an excuse for literally murdering clans over and over for generations.

Tuning in to Bleach I felt it necessary to peck at this particular gripe after seeing it abused so eagerly in anime for years. After seeing a guy who was SO evil he changed form into some monstrous fly-thing and in his final moments after having his throat gouged out… he managed to have a brief chat(?!) with two heroic characters who knelt at his side somberly mourning his imminent demise without ONCE holding the character accountable for HIS actions.

So in Japan's eyes, there's no such thing as personal responsibility? There's no reason to be held accountable for all the evil shit you do in life as long as you had a horrific past or some measure of trauma? Is morality like some intangible credit program?

Anime is the epitome of action, style, drama combined and as a genre it holds the yoke to a larger audience than that of its entire home country (Japan, not Korea where it's ACTUALLY animated) now, but with its commercial success the writing and genius that made anime so amazing has died out and become a cookie-cutter industry making half-assed products that put their predecessors to shame.

You may wonder just what the hell I'm asking for? Well, I'm not asking for much. I just want people's deaths to mean as much as their lives. I want writers to really consider the factor of humanity into what they create and I'd like to care about characters again. It's not impossible, Fullmetal Alchemist had an appropriately complicated plot with villains as likeable as the heroes and it constantly forced our wide-eyed young heroes to choke back their tears to walk a path of grey that made them more intriguing characters every step of the way. It can be done. Quality products last longer than piles of shit, Fullmetal Alchemist was SO well received they had to bastardize it as much as possible by milking it with a spinoff series much like Dragon Ball Z Kai and the recent Slayers series.

Creative bankruptcy is ravaging the economy as much as financial drought. Studios and their parents corporations need to reconsider some of stuff they churn out if only so long as to consider if they're creating job security for themselves or jumping right into the toilet. Think a bit about what you're doing before you do it. Just THINK.

Dragonball Z is absolute horse crap, but there's a reason it went on FOREVER and was recently resurrected as a zombie. It's not because Akira Toriyama can't write (because he's a hack writer and an artist so high on cocaine that even his art screams "REHAB!"), but the mere personality of his art and characters possessed such incredible charisma that it devoured everyone it touched in any country it's translated in. Dragonball is fun, it's classic action with adventure with heroic heroes and devious villains. It doesn't require an ounce of thought because it's pure entertainment with fighting that constantly runs the risk of burning itself out as they go from laughing off bullets to casually using the sun like a folding chair as a wrestling prop.

Stuff like FLCL, Dead Leaves, Gurren Lagann, and Panty & Stocking w/ Garterbelt are gaining in popularity and there's a reason for it. They look AWESOME for one and they're not afraid to take chances. Lots of stuff makes no sense, but they don't give a crap because they're telling a story THEIR way. It's berserk enough to make one froth at the mouth, but it makes Dragonball Z look like as serious as a college thesis.

How can weird ass shows like FLCL connect with anyone? Easy!

1) They connect visually with the audience: The moment you wonder what the hell is going on, you're trapped gazing into their works of madness. It's too late to look away, you're already wondering if that robot is eating a monster, if a guy's eyebrows are made of seaweed, how someone can be stabbed with underwear or what the hell is wrong with a woman's eyes you're practically their plaything and they know how to keep you watching.

2) They keep it simple: A good complicated story is the mark of genius writing, but it's difficult to keep that kind of pace in such a competitive industry! So they find one simple theme and ride it into the ground with unyielding brutality, but they have enough brains to weave it into the narrative than make it one 26-episode diatribe about big drills or shiny guitars, instead it's a fight for genetic survival with the spiral of fate and a long sought symbol of power that draws cosmic forces so powerful they threaten to wipe out existence. See what they did there? They created AWESOME from a nothing more than a prop concept.

3) They draw on humanity: Real human emotions drive drama! Writing that someone feels guilt in something like Claymore is different than SHOWING someone feeling guilty in Gurren Lagann, ditto for showing that someone loves another character, but can't express it out of a childish sense of shyness and fear like in FLCL as opposed to THOUSANDS of anime out there. The Gainax amalgamation making these treasures isn't TELLING you a damn thing, they're showing you what's happening and keeping you attached to the characters in direct spite of the batshit things occurring in front of you and that means a lot when they go through the trouble of conveying emotions rather than telling you through clumsy dialogue.

I know, some of you are begging me to stop, but the house that Evangelion built is the BEST example of fresh creativity on the market. They do whatever the fuck they want. Maybe you missed that last comment, THEY DO WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT and they still manage to make fistfuls of yen while collecting accolades, applause and fandom by producing bizarre original works. They kill ANYONE they feel like and it works as though they were humans instead of a bunch of lifeless puppets and it sticks because they have a functional narrative flow. Good guys, bad guys, civilians caught in the middle are all on the menu and after they're dead there's drama to be discussed and it's always powerful, intense stuff that makes you FEEL things no matter how weird the premise giving gravity to the events occurring.

Most anime deaths end up being lazy moments of poor, misguided writing. A character lay dying and suddenly a story will take a break to catch its breath, the same character who is dying (with their throat ripped out sometimes) is suddenly so talkative that everything comes to the surface for the duration of half an episode or more. I understand wanting to give an audience a chance to say goodbye, but fuck you.

The point of a character's death is to fortify a purpose in the cast to propel a story forward, NOT to slow things down to screeching halt so they can whip out the family album and it is certainly not to sit there dicking around in mourning with a dangerous villain still standing there reloading for another killshot since everyone's conveniently in one place. Even if the villain is chased off or runs away laughing or whatever, stopping the show in a way that puts story progression on hold is the option of the lame.

Here's a positive example: In Gurren Lagann the first major death is one that defines the rest of the series as it is constantly referred to, but it's actually the catalyst that changes everything: Loss is only the beginning of their problems as our heroes fumble around in the dark working through pain, anger and frustration as power struggles ensue to fill a vacuum that our primary hero is too afraid to fill.
 Granted, this loss also makes for a lot of screwing around (fixing stuff, meeting new faces, growing up), but events HAPPEN and they happen fast on both sides as our heroes grow in dramatic ways you can SEE while they work towards something better. This particular guy's death turns out to be almost more important than his life was because it inspires a movement bigger than himself and that's truly epic. Hell, I'm still coming to grips with the fact that they killed him and I didn't even CARE about the guy!

If a character's death can't mean as much as their life within the scope of the story then why should any of these characters bother living? Just get your shit together Japan and stop making it hard to enjoy new anime.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Soul Eater: THIS IS HALLOWEEN!


(Note the madness ensuing in the Halloween Town-like "Death City" in the opening for Soul Eater, the show boasts some sharp visuals that never fade throughout so it looks consistently crisp and spastic.)

So, to sum up the image of Soul Eater it's like Harry Potter meets Bleach wherein students learning at the bony feet of the Grim Reaper as they slay tainted souls before they become something worse and try to upgrade their human/weapon partners to be worthy enough to be wielded by Death himself!

Let's cover some significant aspects that might entice you to watch this:

-A Zombie Commando is amongst the primary faculty for the school. He's got a female mummy for a partner that turns into a heavy duty combat knife. No joke.

-Death talks funny, acts silly and wears a mask to keep the kids from being afraid.

-The Legendary sword Excalibur is revealed to be pampered snob who demands to bore everyone to tears with constantly contradictory tales of his exploits, youth and preference in beverages.

-Death's son is OCD and obsessed with symmetry, to the point that he will run home to make sure he flushed something properly or that his picture frame is aligned in perfect symmetry.

-Blackstar the assassin is unable to approach his targets in silence without screaming wild boasts at the top of his lungs.

-There's a Twin Peaks reference that is consistently present throughout the show wherein Maka's partner soul enters the Red Room where a devilish little man dances out of time with Jazz music and spouts cryptic attempts at temptation for Soul to turn to the dark side.

I'll blather more on the matter at another time, but I wanted to get this thing out there ASAP. I would have had this on sooner, but my entire Halloween weekend was spent picking fights with a Honda dealership. This is a fun series to enjoy around Halloween and even more so with it on Netflix's Instant watch in four separate sections.


(This closing give a good look at the main characters & human weapon pairings including Maka/Soul, Blackstar/Tsubaki, Death the Kid/Thompson Sisters, Crona/Ragnarok and a look at the opposition that develops around the second primary story arc.)