Now I just finished watching the most amazingly manly thing related to Studio Gainax- and it isn't Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann. Its the two interrelated OVA specials Gunbuster the OG Gainax robot series and Diebuster its spiritual (and actual) sequel thanks yet again to time dilation in regards to lightspeed travel) Note: I have not seen the anime film Gunbuster vs. Diebuster but I believe that I do not have to- both series ended on a bittersweet note that blew my mind how GAR they were.
Note 2: Thanks to Urbandictionary's first result (as of June 24,2014) GAR is "A term used towards male characters and individuals who are so overwhelmingly manly that your own masculinity is absolutely *buried*, leaving you naught but a whimpering, swooning girl-child before them." Now that sounds sexist- because series do not need to have many- if at all male main characters and it still can be awesome.
Now going into the original Gunbuster I had literally no idea what I was going in for besides the fact that it was the directorial debut of my personal anime director hero Hideaki Anno. (As seen with my constant extolling Neon Genesis Evangelion with Pacific Rim for example- though the anime was my first real foray into actual anime that wasn't Sailor Moon or DBZ) And that there was the first recorded instance of the "Gainax Bounce" or Gainaxing where the animating of certain parts of the female anatomy got particularly bouncy. Which really got the fanservice genre going with bouncy fun for decades to come. I still think this is the best though since it is reasonable size and isn't the complete utter focus of the show.
What I didn't know- The protagonist of Aim For The Top! Gunbuster! (The actual full title of the OVA) seemed to combine the early Gundam series- which I plan on watching next- Macross, and surprisingly sports/highschool anime and Top Gun.
Cause when you have Top Gun with young females and giant freaking robots- and uncensored nudity (which actually surprised me a little since not many anime shows of the current generation get away with that- since ever relegated to Original Video Animations (OVAs- since they go straight to video for the most part and anime big screen movies because of the ratings system- most animes don't touch complete nudity with the actual anatomical upper half of females.
So episode 2's extended naked bathing scene was unexpected in regards to current standards in anime.
And surprisingly I found parallels to both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. Here me out on this. The main character, who is a female, is in my eyes- an early version of Neon Genesis Evangelion's Shinji Ikari- her facial structure, general brown haired-ness, and first general inexperience with robot maneuvering is classic Shinji- and there are psychological breakdown moments with Noriko and her partner in piloting Gunbuster- Kazumi. But here's the kicker- the awesome battles that Gunbuster is known for (ironically Gunbuster is known as a ridiculous powerhouse in terms of kill count and yet the eponymous robot doesn't show up until episode 4 of the 6 part series) That's like saying that the Gundams in Gundam don't show up until episode 30 in their series. And yet it makes sense- the dang power of the thing and size of 250m (at the time, one of, of not the largest robot in the Super Robot Genre and ease of kills- shooting a ridiculous amount of lasers and cutting swathes of enemies down. Also it is proto Gurren Lagann since the trainer "Coach" Ohta (voiced by Norio Wakamoto- of such roles as the voice of Cell and Charles vi Britannia- and who's been in the voice acting business so long that he's pretty iconic in Japan for Chuck Norris Levels of general awesomeness- I am not kidding.) constantly goes with statements that seem to reind me of Kamina's speeches in Gurren. Also the later episodes of Gunbuster have such beautiful moments as stopping billions of monsters by shooting a ridiculous number of lasers and having Earth send a ginormous black hole bomb made from the entirety of Jupiter condensed down.
They use a black hole bomb and Gunbuster is created by combining two robots- not original since that had started to catch on in the genre- but yeah- Gurren Lagann type stuff here. And surprisingly most of the anime is nowhere near this amazing since a lot of it sets up the world building aspect.
Alsi there's an early version of Asuka Langley Sorhyu/ Shikinami thanks to those Rebuild of Evangelion films- in the character of Jung Freud- that is her name. And she has the red hair, different nationality (Soviet Russian- even though the series is set in 2015-2050s for the most part- instead of German and her attitude is cocksure and 'genius.'
And unlike Eva, the length of the series (6 episodes instead of 26) the budget is spend overall much better than the later series that is much more well known, The piece de resistance in that regard is the final episode, which outside of the time skip in the last few minutes, is animated in complete black and white and filmed on color film- which makes it possible for the end switch to color. This was actually really jarring to me because while I do love Eva- it's last two episodes are some of my least favorite. And yet Gunbuster was beautifully animated there.
So should you watch it? Depends- if you don't like nudity and 1980's versions of common tropes with the animation style of the late 80's- might not be for you. But I give it the OG seal of approval in regards to Gainax's other works in the genre and give in a 8.8/10- mainly because of themes of time dilation and coping with that fact and giant manly robots piloted by females.
Now on to the sequel- Diebuster- set 12 thousand years after most of the events of the first Gunbuster (the two OVAs do entwine in the last few minutes of this film.) Now update Gainax's crazy into the new millennium and make it right around the time that FLCL came out and before Gurren Lagann and that pile of crazy.
Pretty much its FLCL meets Gurren Lagann- which is not entirely a bad thing- with how the main characters Lar'C (spelling is up for debate) and Nono are our replacements and similar characters from Gunbuster.
So the setting is all FLCL- weird goofy looking monsters, desert like Mars. Shout Outs to FLCL (Vespa, the entire plot about losing powers when you hit puberty) Gurren Lagann gives the giant robots (Nono is actually the Solar System defense system put in a robot body. And she's Diebuster- though that is her large form. And she can create mini black holes, teleport, and pretty much wreck any enemy's day- except this development got the Gunbuster treatment and this fact didn't come out much until episode 4. And she's really goofy.
Actually a whole lot of the plot happens in the later half of the series. I do have to give the special props for colors and overall amazing battle scenes. Except for one thing: the Conspicuous CG that plagues the series (Gunbuster was all animated and I prefer the completely animated style because in a way it doesn't date itself- CG looks bad after a decade or two when looking back in hindsight.
And pretty much Diebuster is Gunbuster for the modern anime viewer- we get thrown into action, sadly there is a short attempted rape scene which came out of nowhere and blindsided me in episode 5- Nono gets almost raped by a now useless member of Topless- the mental power users (There is a reference to the original where the especially awesome moments with robots had the MC rip her shirt and not wear a bra because the robot followed all of their movements. That happens twice (Episode 1 and 6)
And the super huge monster that they fight by throwing Titan at it- didn't work- spamming mini black holes, and trying to ram the Earth into the monster- to name a few ridiculous moments in the show. Said monster uses the scream that Ramiel uses in the Rebuild of Evangelion movies.
Is Diebuster as good as Gunbuster? Yes and no- I love the characters of Lar'C and Nono- but I was never a huge fan of either FLCL or Gurren Lagann- Gurren Lagann's too one upmanship on themselves and FLCL is really confusing without much of a plot that makes sense outside of maybe an abstract thought on adolescence. In Diebuster, I found the perfect medium of crazy modern Gainax and a nice, quiet show in terms of hype level- Diebuster is not well known (none of my friends seem to know it) and Gunbuster is one of the studio's first works as a professional studio. I give Diebuster a 7.2/10- mainly because the CG was a bit dated and a lot of the technology was never explained- and until the last few minutes of the final episode- there was little chance of connection to how this fit into Gunbuster's 12,000 year timeline due to the time dilation. And it felt too much like FLCL for my liking.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Saturday, June 21, 2014
Just watched Pupa- I am livid. Literally the worst let down I have even seen in an anime.
So I do like the horror/ gore genres a lot. Crazy I know.
So I would think that an adaptation of a horror/ gore manga would be radical. And I am more disappointed in this anime than when I watched the Fire Emblem anime. And I thought that was bad- not because of how much I love Fire Emblem- but because it was left unfinished and never completed and was actually good.
And this anime adaptation was the most infuriating thing I have even seen- I sometimes have awful taste in anime- but this is just. . .pitiful. Said anime adaptation was one of my "hype" lists of the past anime cycle (Winter/Spring? 2014) and this anime was rated awesome because of that NC-17 rating it had. But it was full of let down.
Let me explain. The plot (from the anime) is that somehow this sister and brother pair get infected with a virus from red butterflies (maybe? never explained) that turns her into a cool demon monster thing and him into super healing man and her food source (I would say either Deadpool or Wolverine- even Sabertooth because of their healing factor but that would make me hate myself for equating good characterization with whatever Pupa got.) Oh and said brother and sister seem to have a romantic interest in each other since an entire 4 minute episode is dedicated to the sister eating the brother. And sadly it probably is secretly sexual since repeated times they say how pleasurable it is to be eaten by their sibling and episode 11 ended with an inner monologue about how cute and adult the little sister was after she did her latest feeding- and how they didn't need anyone else. I watched an incest anime covered in terrible mockery of gore. Well *^&$. Also I think it is an allegory about how menstruation is super violent or something- the monster is terrifying and entirely blood red and explodes painfully from female protagonists uterus area- also it would explain some of the more creepy lines of the anime and fake out sexual sounding situations.
So she kills her brother and goes back to being a cute anime girl- with weird psychological problems since as far as I could tell from this jumbled mess of a twelve episode series- she might not have been human from birth and has a strange healing factor as well and she was creepy as a baby- score one for creepy children.
And we also have a creepy scarred female researcher who looks kinda like that cat wizard from Soul Eater- so that was different and she has no morals seeing everything as her test tube. Cue episode 7? 8? where she becomes the surrogate mother to the two protagonists love child that they do not know exists and is never brought up again- because the now very pregnant researcher is never seen in the show again.
And there's this shadow medical subplot and a ridiculous amount of teddy bears- yeah for some reason most of the time when we see into the main characters heads- they see themselves as creepy teeth having, talking, almost insane teddy bears. I think there's a message somewhere about how innocence can be perverted by abuse or something. And the girls monster form which burst out of her chest was refreshing and freaked me out a bit- we get to see it for maybe for mostly the first three episodes if that and a kinda transformation that gives said almost adorable anime girl red spindle stabby things out of her back to own on episode 10. So I thought that was cool. The first three episodes are sadly the best. Outside of maybe episode 5- where the backstory on the birth of the protagonists are shown- albeit quickly.
This anime is incomprehensible- besides the three characters we get- there's the abusive father and maybe insane mother (though when you pull a Richard the Third and give birth to a baby who has all its teeth, strange wanting to kill you, and inability to die- at one point the mom tries to kill her daughter with a box cutter- to not much effect- you would go nuts. There's also the researchers aides, a crazy guy that beats the protagonists to see their powers, the medical conspiracy guys who perform a autopsy of the boy while alive because of his healing powers, and random filler people that show for the sake of the plot of episode 12- I am not kidding. Episode 12 is pointless. Literally it has no connection to episode 11- therefore ending waste of time anime with a cliff hanger and no explanation of major plot points and. Episode 12 is a vignette about how the two protagonists got similar looking hair clips. And it is just infuriating because it just makes no sense in context- Why do we need to know that? Was the brother's entire reason to risk being eaten in Episode 3 because
This anime should have been good, cool premise, decent animation, supposedly gory premise and actual nudity- though short lived and nowhere near that bad of nudity, cool opening theme and ending themes- so beside its near incomprehensible sound bite story that is told out of order to where I can't follow and asked constantly "What's going on? Who's that guy? What the infection?"
Its because of two major things: First, the series is like a mature 4koma anime- not in intent because there is a plot somewhere and not just skits that kinda make sense in order- but because of the length of the episodes.
Said 12 episode anime took me an hour to watch- and most of that was because the site I was watching it on was down for ten minutes. Each episode in total is a four minute mess- and a good quarter of that is the opening and ending themes.
Most animes are 25ish minutes an episode.
Next is that the studio probably was a ick to the animation budget- multiple animes are created every year and sometimes the piles of money go somewhere nicer looking. And Studio Deen **** all over this by literally censoring the NC-17 material by the worst censor job I've ever seen. Sometimes on the gory or incest pervy shots- its visually incomprehensible because it looks like some censor took a paintbush in either black or white and just swiped over the offending gore. Or did an animation lens flare. And other times (like in Episode 10 for example) there is no major censoring- though the gore is laughable- intestines look like a mess of purple squiggles and blood looks completely utterly fake.
Score: 2/10- the cool couple of episodes save this incomprehensible mess. This anime had no room to breathe and just felt unfinished and an insult to the manga- which I looked at a few pages and it makes was more sense- and I jumped around as much as the anime did. Suggestion: Read the manga- probably make more sense and be less ****.
Recommendations for similar violent NC-17ish, or more adult themed anime- the Blood the Last Vampire series (includes Blood+ and Blood-C series), anything Hellsing, Elfen Lied- even that makes more sense-, Witchblade anime for nudity and a way better story-romance- and one of the few times that a Western property was adapted (before the Marvel comics animes of course) etc.
Similar manga in themes- Read Pupa of course, for an extremely disturbing take on what amount of body horror and gore I wanted- read Junji Ito's mangas- though I am warning you its not for the faint hearted. Also Soul Eater because of similar mad scientist tropes.
When I give you multiple ways to not watch this abomination- I am saying DO NOT watch this pile of crap.
So I would think that an adaptation of a horror/ gore manga would be radical. And I am more disappointed in this anime than when I watched the Fire Emblem anime. And I thought that was bad- not because of how much I love Fire Emblem- but because it was left unfinished and never completed and was actually good.
And this anime adaptation was the most infuriating thing I have even seen- I sometimes have awful taste in anime- but this is just. . .pitiful. Said anime adaptation was one of my "hype" lists of the past anime cycle (Winter/Spring? 2014) and this anime was rated awesome because of that NC-17 rating it had. But it was full of let down.
Let me explain. The plot (from the anime) is that somehow this sister and brother pair get infected with a virus from red butterflies (maybe? never explained) that turns her into a cool demon monster thing and him into super healing man and her food source (I would say either Deadpool or Wolverine- even Sabertooth because of their healing factor but that would make me hate myself for equating good characterization with whatever Pupa got.) Oh and said brother and sister seem to have a romantic interest in each other since an entire 4 minute episode is dedicated to the sister eating the brother. And sadly it probably is secretly sexual since repeated times they say how pleasurable it is to be eaten by their sibling and episode 11 ended with an inner monologue about how cute and adult the little sister was after she did her latest feeding- and how they didn't need anyone else. I watched an incest anime covered in terrible mockery of gore. Well *^&$. Also I think it is an allegory about how menstruation is super violent or something- the monster is terrifying and entirely blood red and explodes painfully from female protagonists uterus area- also it would explain some of the more creepy lines of the anime and fake out sexual sounding situations.
So she kills her brother and goes back to being a cute anime girl- with weird psychological problems since as far as I could tell from this jumbled mess of a twelve episode series- she might not have been human from birth and has a strange healing factor as well and she was creepy as a baby- score one for creepy children.
And we also have a creepy scarred female researcher who looks kinda like that cat wizard from Soul Eater- so that was different and she has no morals seeing everything as her test tube. Cue episode 7? 8? where she becomes the surrogate mother to the two protagonists love child that they do not know exists and is never brought up again- because the now very pregnant researcher is never seen in the show again.
And there's this shadow medical subplot and a ridiculous amount of teddy bears- yeah for some reason most of the time when we see into the main characters heads- they see themselves as creepy teeth having, talking, almost insane teddy bears. I think there's a message somewhere about how innocence can be perverted by abuse or something. And the girls monster form which burst out of her chest was refreshing and freaked me out a bit- we get to see it for maybe for mostly the first three episodes if that and a kinda transformation that gives said almost adorable anime girl red spindle stabby things out of her back to own on episode 10. So I thought that was cool. The first three episodes are sadly the best. Outside of maybe episode 5- where the backstory on the birth of the protagonists are shown- albeit quickly.
This anime is incomprehensible- besides the three characters we get- there's the abusive father and maybe insane mother (though when you pull a Richard the Third and give birth to a baby who has all its teeth, strange wanting to kill you, and inability to die- at one point the mom tries to kill her daughter with a box cutter- to not much effect- you would go nuts. There's also the researchers aides, a crazy guy that beats the protagonists to see their powers, the medical conspiracy guys who perform a autopsy of the boy while alive because of his healing powers, and random filler people that show for the sake of the plot of episode 12- I am not kidding. Episode 12 is pointless. Literally it has no connection to episode 11- therefore ending waste of time anime with a cliff hanger and no explanation of major plot points and. Episode 12 is a vignette about how the two protagonists got similar looking hair clips. And it is just infuriating because it just makes no sense in context- Why do we need to know that? Was the brother's entire reason to risk being eaten in Episode 3 because
This anime should have been good, cool premise, decent animation, supposedly gory premise and actual nudity- though short lived and nowhere near that bad of nudity, cool opening theme and ending themes- so beside its near incomprehensible sound bite story that is told out of order to where I can't follow and asked constantly "What's going on? Who's that guy? What the infection?"
Its because of two major things: First, the series is like a mature 4koma anime- not in intent because there is a plot somewhere and not just skits that kinda make sense in order- but because of the length of the episodes.
Said 12 episode anime took me an hour to watch- and most of that was because the site I was watching it on was down for ten minutes. Each episode in total is a four minute mess- and a good quarter of that is the opening and ending themes.
Most animes are 25ish minutes an episode.
Next is that the studio probably was a ick to the animation budget- multiple animes are created every year and sometimes the piles of money go somewhere nicer looking. And Studio Deen **** all over this by literally censoring the NC-17 material by the worst censor job I've ever seen. Sometimes on the gory or incest pervy shots- its visually incomprehensible because it looks like some censor took a paintbush in either black or white and just swiped over the offending gore. Or did an animation lens flare. And other times (like in Episode 10 for example) there is no major censoring- though the gore is laughable- intestines look like a mess of purple squiggles and blood looks completely utterly fake.
Score: 2/10- the cool couple of episodes save this incomprehensible mess. This anime had no room to breathe and just felt unfinished and an insult to the manga- which I looked at a few pages and it makes was more sense- and I jumped around as much as the anime did. Suggestion: Read the manga- probably make more sense and be less ****.
Recommendations for similar violent NC-17ish, or more adult themed anime- the Blood the Last Vampire series (includes Blood+ and Blood-C series), anything Hellsing, Elfen Lied- even that makes more sense-, Witchblade anime for nudity and a way better story-romance- and one of the few times that a Western property was adapted (before the Marvel comics animes of course) etc.
Similar manga in themes- Read Pupa of course, for an extremely disturbing take on what amount of body horror and gore I wanted- read Junji Ito's mangas- though I am warning you its not for the faint hearted. Also Soul Eater because of similar mad scientist tropes.
When I give you multiple ways to not watch this abomination- I am saying DO NOT watch this pile of crap.
Friday, June 20, 2014
Anime Review: Voices of a Distant Star
So sorry for the radio silence- life happened and updating this took a back seat for a while.
But in true fashion, I rise like the phoenix with yet another anime review. This time its something that made me outright sob for the entirety of the 25 minute "movie/original video animation thing" and also for a good ten minutes or more afterwards.
The cursed ending song plague hits me in the feels again. (Yet another time that somehow anime makes me react more than western media when it comes to most anything- except horror. The West likes some jump scares. I personally do not. Only other time I reacted for this long was the end of Samurai 7 which hit me for a few days of sad and still gets the tears a going.
So "Voices of a Distant Star" is a bit dated. The plot is set in the late 2040s and 2050s (thanks to light speed travel- will explain. And yet it has phone technology that is right in the early 2000s (This was made in 2002.) And the mech CGI is showing its age, never been a fan of CGI because of the hindsight of something like this.
So plot- pretty standard one episode fare. Girl likes guy, girl goes away on a scouting mission into deep space to protect the world from aliens, romance, sad unresolved ending. Now after some searching- there is a manga that resolves it a bit better- but not much. It is still left semi-unresolved on their reunion or not.
But this isn't that kind of story. It has a nice arc of trying to explain long distance relationships and the guy has a ridiculous love for our heroine. (I would put their names but unless you are an anime lover- some people don't care. While this was praised- probably due to its story potential for the ime restraint- it isn't a well known anime. I had to slowly search for it and even I was blindsided about what it was all about.)
I do have to say that having aliens vs. humans isn't not an original trope- Burrough's Barsoom novels, H.G Well's War of the Worlds, Martian Successor Nadesico, The Cthulhu Mythos, Evangelion, Gundam, Super Sentai, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Mars Attacks!, It, et al. use this trope.
But even with that- I do have to say that the themes of romance- long distance at that, and surprisingly well-written emotion tugging content are nice. I am never one to say to listen to the subbed version of an anime (though that has changed just a little with how much I loved the Garden of Sinners anime movies- tangent of course) but watch this on subbed- I couldn't find it dubbed and thought it was actually good- and when there was random English sentences- they didn't have engrish stuff happen and butcher it with Japanese pronunciation- so I think it was a good thing.
Score: 8.9/10- only due to the shortness of the OVA and now dated CGI effects of some of the foreground space sequences- but when it is good, it's dang good.
Other things by this director/creator (who I will continue to check out)- The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and The Garden of Words. He reminds me a little bit- a little- of Hayao Miyazaki in his vision- cause even in Voices of a Distant Star, there was some very good emotional moments. Also he pretty much did Voices mostly by himself with little input or help from anyone else- cue why it was only 25 minutes and is probably on of his shortest works.
But yeah check this out a bit if you like some feels. Or romance because for what it had to work with- it was well put together.
But in true fashion, I rise like the phoenix with yet another anime review. This time its something that made me outright sob for the entirety of the 25 minute "movie/original video animation thing" and also for a good ten minutes or more afterwards.
The cursed ending song plague hits me in the feels again. (Yet another time that somehow anime makes me react more than western media when it comes to most anything- except horror. The West likes some jump scares. I personally do not. Only other time I reacted for this long was the end of Samurai 7 which hit me for a few days of sad and still gets the tears a going.
So "Voices of a Distant Star" is a bit dated. The plot is set in the late 2040s and 2050s (thanks to light speed travel- will explain. And yet it has phone technology that is right in the early 2000s (This was made in 2002.) And the mech CGI is showing its age, never been a fan of CGI because of the hindsight of something like this.
So plot- pretty standard one episode fare. Girl likes guy, girl goes away on a scouting mission into deep space to protect the world from aliens, romance, sad unresolved ending. Now after some searching- there is a manga that resolves it a bit better- but not much. It is still left semi-unresolved on their reunion or not.
But this isn't that kind of story. It has a nice arc of trying to explain long distance relationships and the guy has a ridiculous love for our heroine. (I would put their names but unless you are an anime lover- some people don't care. While this was praised- probably due to its story potential for the ime restraint- it isn't a well known anime. I had to slowly search for it and even I was blindsided about what it was all about.)
I do have to say that having aliens vs. humans isn't not an original trope- Burrough's Barsoom novels, H.G Well's War of the Worlds, Martian Successor Nadesico, The Cthulhu Mythos, Evangelion, Gundam, Super Sentai, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Mars Attacks!, It, et al. use this trope.
But even with that- I do have to say that the themes of romance- long distance at that, and surprisingly well-written emotion tugging content are nice. I am never one to say to listen to the subbed version of an anime (though that has changed just a little with how much I loved the Garden of Sinners anime movies- tangent of course) but watch this on subbed- I couldn't find it dubbed and thought it was actually good- and when there was random English sentences- they didn't have engrish stuff happen and butcher it with Japanese pronunciation- so I think it was a good thing.
Score: 8.9/10- only due to the shortness of the OVA and now dated CGI effects of some of the foreground space sequences- but when it is good, it's dang good.
Other things by this director/creator (who I will continue to check out)- The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and The Garden of Words. He reminds me a little bit- a little- of Hayao Miyazaki in his vision- cause even in Voices of a Distant Star, there was some very good emotional moments. Also he pretty much did Voices mostly by himself with little input or help from anyone else- cue why it was only 25 minutes and is probably on of his shortest works.
But yeah check this out a bit if you like some feels. Or romance because for what it had to work with- it was well put together.
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