[Anime Reviews]

Final thoughts on Kaiba

Posted by Martin  [Tags: arthouse, Kaiba]

Right from the get-go Kaiba proved to be certainly one of the most unusual but also one of the most thought-provoking shows of recent months. In light of Masaaki Yuasa’s penchant for the extremely odd (when I mean extremely odd I mean it in a Holden Caulfield-italicised extremely) I wasn’t sure if it would try to carry itself on its unique visual style alone or whether Yuasa would back it up with a richer thematic approach too; for all its artistic innovation, Kemonozume was engaging, unpredictable and even shocking at points but as a story nothing revolutionary. Kaiba in contrast looks like NOTHING before seen on God’s green Earth and also kept me guessing from the first episode to the last.

For some viewers, especially those who followed it from afar or dropped it entirely, the ‘look’ may be the one thing they remember it for. It certainly flies in the face of everything that even the most eclectic animation fans are familiar with: the outlines are bold, the character designs childlike and the animation flowing like something Tezuka may have had come up with if he’d taken LSD. In some ways it distances the viewer from the gravity of the situations the characters find themselves in: vehicles look and move like bubbles, weapons appear to be innocuous lumps of rubber and when a character dies they disappear into a puddle of colourful gunk instead of a spray of crimson and dismembered limbs. Had the emotional heart of the story not been so strong I’d actually count its Astro-Boy-Gone-Wrong aesthetic as a hindrance - I certainly wouldn’t think less of anyone who was put off by this.

The opening episodes took a bit of getting used to for this reason: I was still worried that the artwork was a gimmick and that the story was a limitation as it was with Kemonozume. As we met the likes of lecherous Vanilla, the idealistic Popo and the delightful Chroniko however, I began to realise the true nature of the trump card that Yuasa and Madhouse had up their sleeve: the cutesy, hallucinogenic alien world with an amnesiac at its centre took on some very grown-up themes concerning identity and sense of self despite its juvenile and dreamlike appearance.

[8 Comments]

[Anime Reviews]

Eve no Jikan first impressions: are friends electric?

Posted by Martin  [Tags: arthouse, Eve no Jikan, Yasuhiro Yoshiura]

Anyone who’s heard me go on about this in recent months will know how I’ve been dying to get my myopic, bloodshot orbs on Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s latest effort, Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve) and how I’ve been trying to drag fellow bloggers onto the EnJ fanboy bandwagon purely from watching the trailer. Not knowing what to expect from the director of Mizu no Kotoba and Pale Cocoon, apart from expecting Good Things, I nigh on jumped out of my seat at the sight of the first episode. I actually watched this twice in twenty-four hours, and noticed extra little details on the second time around: it’s only fifteen minutes in length, but what a fifteen minutes it is.

The premise is that of a near-future world in which robots have become commonplace in everyday life; they’ve made a difference to industry, agriculture and, in the case of humanlike androids, even homes. While Pale Cocoon was intevitably very cold and dystopian, the world of EnJ is a more recognisable and brighter place - the mannerisms of the characters and quirky background music make it a much warmer and jovial affair and show androids integrated into a society very similar to our own.

I know the idea of robots living side-by-side with humans is one of the oldest and most commonly-covered areas of sci-fi, and this in turn limits what new concepts EnJ is able to explore: it even quotes Isaac Asimov’s first rule of robotics in setting out the androids’ place in society. The first episode introduces Rikuo, an average teenager (aren’t they all?) whose family own a ‘female’ android who acts as a maidservant, running errands and helping out with household tasks. Rikuo clearly has trouble treating the android as a machine instead of a living person but when compared with how some people seem to behave towards to their mechanical assistants he’s more sympathetic than most; an issue that comes up immediately in this ep is how androids are viewed very differently from humans, even though superficially they look the same.

[11 Comments]

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The shorts review #1: Mizu no Kotoba and She & Her Cat

Posted by Martin  [Tags: arthouse, Makoto Shinkai, Yasuhiro Yoshiura]

This post is something of an experiment. There are a few bits of anime that are too short in terms of running time to warrant a post of their own - there simply isn’t enough to say about each one individually so I’ve decided to take on two in one go; the only common feature between them, really, is the fact that they aren’t very long. I don’t stumble on these short-and-sweet pieces very often, so I’m making no promises as to how regular this feature will be (recommendations for more are welcome, people). First up though is Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s nine minute effort Mizu no Kotoba (Aquatic Language) and my long-overdue fanboy rave of She and Her Cat.

[5 Comments]

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Le Portrait de Petit Cossette: sad girls in wine glasses

Posted by Martin  [Tags: Akayuki Shinbo, arthouse]

I’ve become an avid admirer of Akayuki Shinbo’s work in recent months for his ability to make entertainment artistic. This train of thought led me back to that old ABC project in regards to the deepness/entertainment debate in that it made me realise why my answer was unsatisfactory: I was asking the wrong question in the first place. I shouldn’t have tried judging a medium such as animation as ‘deep’ in that sense because that might wrongly imply that it is somehow less valid if it were otherwise; it can however be worthwhile art and/or entertainment. Doing both well, without one interfering with the effectiveness of the other, is difficult; in terms of where Le Portrait de Petit Cossette sits in the spectrum, I think it’s right out there at the Arthouse end.

I was expecting a feature that combines the classic horror aspects of Edgar Allan Poe with the romantic prettiness often associated with CLAMP - it isn’t directly influenced by either as far as I’m aware but it is definitely a Poe-esque tale with really pretty CLAMP-style visuals so this expectation was at least fulfilled. The method Le Portrait de Petit Cossette uses in storytelling involves a gloomy premise, a fairly cryptic narrative and some quite brutal scenes of bloodshed into the bargain. While I can proclaim this to be utterly spectacular as a work of art, its entertainment value is therefore more questionable.

[4 Comments]

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Kemonozume (2007 in 12 day 8)

Posted by Martin  [Tags: ABC, arthouse, Twelve days of Christmas]

Another title that’s strictly speaking not actually from this year, I only recently watched Kemonozume. Besides, it’s a bit of a sleeper title anyway so deserves a bit of extra attention. As with the products of Studio 4°C, it is relatively little-known and its art style is probably the biggest hinderance in its popularity; this just makes it all the more refreshing and deserving of my raving about it though.

Love conquers all

The story kicks off with two guys in a bar talking about their taste in women…nothing unusual about that, you might think. The thing is, these guys are shokujinki, creatures that can transform into hideous monsters with a taste for human flesh like vampires who have a thirst for blood. Toshihiko is a member of the Kifuuken, an organisation with a long and illustrious history of hunting Shokujinki; he’s a man who is trained to kill such monsters, to the exclusion of all else. Unfortunately, things are about to go wrong for them all after he falls for the demure Yuka, a woman with a gruesome secret…

[5 Comments]

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Tekkonkinkreet

Posted by Martin  [Tags: arthouse]

It’s strange that Studio 4 Degrees C have made very few inroads to the Western DVD markets in comparison with the likes of Madhouse, Ghibli and Gonzo; I don’t know about you guys but it’s hard to name many well-known releases they contributed to with the possible exception of the Animatrix anthology. Which is a shame because in my limited experience they seem to be a prolific and innovative studio that often show leanings towards the Superflat Manifesto; perhaps this is why they’ve escaped the notice of ‘maintream anime fandom’ (is that a contradiction in terms?). When it comes to bringing stuff to the screen though, these guys sure as hell know how to innovate.

[3 Comments]

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Pale Cocoon: A glimpse into a forgotten past

Posted by Martin  [Tags: arthouse, Yasuhiro Yoshiura]

In the distant future the human race lives in an industrial and artificial environment far from the world outside. The past few decades of history are all but lost and there is a shrinking minority of people who work in the extensive Archives to piece together the Earth that used to be. One of those is a quiet and thoughtful guy by the name of Ura, who discovers an intriguing video recording that could irreversably alter his perception of the world he knows.

[1 Comment]

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Angel’s Egg

Posted by Martin  [Tags: arthouse]

I like anime that’s original, unusual and downright strange. I admit it, I enjoy watching stuff that keeps my brain occupied as well as my eyes, even if it’s of the ’scratch your head until it bleeds’ variety. Mamoru Oshii, of Ghost in the Shell fame, is famous for that sort of thing, often adding Christian mythology and philosophy into his work. One of his early efforts, Angel’s Egg, is no exception.

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