Anime review: Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge

The creatures of the night go along fighting each other.

Maybe some things should never be translated from one media to the other. Darkstalkers originally is a video game, a beat’em up alas a classic 2d fighting game where you control one character of your choice out of a selection of monster like creatures and try to defeat all the others.

In its time it was an innovative, if fairly obscure, franchise. It featured a gothic world unlike every other fighting game with colorful graphics and imaginative designs. I remember playing it at the time and it was really something good.

So how the conversion to a 4 part original animation could fail? It looks like it could fail really easily; you just need to port everything as it is from one media to the other.

A lot of videogames special moves look a little bit ridicule in their own home medium, imagine translating them to another. We don’t want to see the legs of one of the fighters transform randomly in a drill, we really don’t.  To adapt you need to betray.

Then there is the story which somehow is even worse than the native terrible fighting game stuff, I don’t know how it is possible either but they made it. It’s meandering, boring, magniloquent and stupid all at the same time.

Conclusion: Truly terrible.

Anime review: Gunbuster

Giant robots against space monsters!

Gainax is rightly famous for their very original approach to animation. For good and for worse they never leave a boring impression and their output is always stylistically impressive.

This is not to say that they produce only masterpieces, quite the opposite indeed, Gainax are infamous in the non fanatic side of the anime fandom for having invented the lost style incredibly interesting plot that literally goes nowhere more than a decade before lost.

So I approached Gunbuster with some trepidation, will I get awesome Gainax or absurd Gainax?

In the end we got a little bit of both.

The main story, a fearsome struggle against ever increasing odds where humanity is obliged to continually up the ante just to survive is really engaging and interesting.

This is intersected with the personal story of two young female giant robots pilots which is literally modeled onto another famous anime of the 70s. They even admitted it in the title, the Japanese Toppu o Nerae is clear reference to Ace o Nerae, Jenny the tennis player for the uninitiated. (If a serious anime fan wanders into this little blog I want to preventively apologize for any spelling error).

The obvious point is that this blatant implant of the whole human plot from another anime, in another genre, doesn0t really work and, as it often happens with Gainax, has his reason d’être mainly for the hardcore anime fans who can recognize it.

Visually is a little bit dated, is a series from 1988, one of the first efforts of Gainax and the debut of director Hideaki Anno of Evangelion fame. Probably, as a fairly hardcore scifi fan, the part that I find more interesting is the realistic treatment of how a war in space would really work.

This is not the masterpiece claimed by many but the struggle against the space monsters is interesting and original. Considering that it’s only six half hour episodes long it’s certainly worth a look.

Anime review: Nadesico

A ragtag crew aboard the battleship Nadesico fights in a futuristic space war.

At the time, 1996, Nadesico was a big deal for the fandom. Heavily promoted both in Japan and Europe this anime series was an event but when it arrived here it didn’t exactly set the world on fire and also in Japan a planned second series was scrapped due to low ratings while the main story was finished with a movie “Prince of darkness”.

In hindsight Nadesico had a big problem, it’s an anime, a super robot one, from fans to fans, so if you are really into the genre, a lot in to, probably you’ll have a lot of fun because a lot of the stuff that happens in this anime can’t be properly appreciated without proper knowledge of the various anime and super robots tropes.

Everything in Nadesico is a shot out, a parody or an homage to earlier stuff. They even have a super robot serial, drawn in the style of the 70s anime, that the protagonist watches between the battles!

Now while all this is certainly nice Nadesico is sadly missing in the main story and characterization department. Even with a couple of cliffhangers and plot twists the storyline is really stupid and kinda boring while the various characters are all stock people from anime tradition.

Honestly, even if you are a big fan of the genre, I’ll give it a pass.

Anime review: Noein

A group of kids get in contact with mysterious beings from another dimension, quantum chaos ensues.

The basic concept is brilliant. A full 24 episode anime series centered about quantum mechanics? Certainly the Japanese dare to go where the rest of the world wouldn’t even look, and they even got most of the details right (at least the details that us non physics understand, I’m sure that somewhere now there is a researcher snickering).

Now when I say centered I don’t mean that they spend their time looking for the Higgs Boson, this is still an Anime and so for the most part we have underage kids bickering while caught in tween angst while only a fraction of the running time delve into quantum stuff, mostly into the form of awesome fight scenes (what did you expect, as I said this is still an Anime). Luckily is all nicely integrated, the kids are mostly anxious about their future and so the uncertainty principle of Heisenberg and the parallel worlds theory not only are apt metaphors for that, they literally show what their future could reserve.

Graphically is a mixed bag. The design of the humans various human characters is very basic and a little pedestrian but the fight scenes, with the relative quantum superpowers, are excellent and Shangri la with is incredible flying units is simply awesome. Add a very good soundtrack and you get a nice viewing experience.

Anime review: Nazca

A group of Japanese people discover that they are the reincarnation of ancient Incas.

In theory it shouldn’t be that bad, at least there is an original concept that could provide plenty of drama when the allegiances of the past conflict with those of the present, the setting is also very original, the Inca empire is not something that we see every day. Therefore it’s noteworthy how they managed to make so many mistakes.

But first let’s talk a little about the tone. This is clearly on opera aimed to a female audience, no offence intended here, in Japan there is a clear division between stuff aimed at male and stuff aimed at females (there is also stuff for older male, older female, young boys etc.). So the actual fighting and generally the plot advancing stuff is not very abundant while we get plenty of angst, weeping lovers and that odd homosexual undertone that apparently fascinates so much Japanese girls.

The main problem is the general unlikability of practically everyone. This is a big problem because in a work like this one, where the relationships are the main focus, the characters need to be better that these thinly detailed sketches. The main bad guy wants to destroy the world for unfathomable reason, his present mind so completely obliterated by his past self that he became a caricature of a villain, even bursting up in the more stale “evil laughter” that you can imagine.

The ancient Inca society is left completely devoid of any interesting characteristic, actually is missing any defining trait at all apart from a mystical access to a mysterious super energy of dubious utility. The design of the Inca costumes is Campy in a “Oh my god what they were drinking that day!” way. I really have no idea who they thought could root for somebody dressed in s long leotard and incredibly long feathers...

I must admit that the animations are nice, detailed and high quality but this only means that I can see all the ridiculous details of the setting.

Terrible stuff indeed.

Anime review: Nabari

Young Miharu got embroiled in the secret world of ninjas.

This 26 episodes anime series from 2008 nominally is about a secret world of ninjas which coexist alongside our own, modern, one. In theory the protagonist is saddled with the most powerful secret ninja art in the world, with whom he can literally do anything he wants, and he must learn to control it because all the others ninja in the world want to steal it from him.

Sadly this synopsis, while true, doesn’t really reflect what this anime is about. See, in reality this is a story about teen angst and gay love, a lot of gay love. The beginning is terrible, I’m not against man love in any shape and form but when a running gag is that our protagonist, who is a young school boy, pretends that his ninja teacher, a grown man, is trying to have sex with him the pedophiliac subtext becomes so big that it’s impossible to gloss over it.

Probably the author realized that too because this relationship quickly sour while our depressed hero find solace with another young ninja, still slightly older than him, who is even more nihilistic than him and literally wants to erase himself.

Now of course this is a boy anime so they never spell out what the whole relationship is about. They simply pretend that this is an incredibly angsty form of bromance, one where they walk literally hand in hand while tears flow liberally.

Nothing bad per se but the end result is that a fairly promising story deteriorates in that Japanese evergreen of the young boy who in reality could be incredible but can’t be bothered because life is without any sense for him. They go around and gather a bunch of secret ninja arts which are all in the end useless to the final resolution of the story. The fights are all sub par and the story in the end is so hijacked by the “bromance” that the final chapter is all about that while everybody seems to forget the famous uber powerful secret art.

Maybe if I were an angry teenager I would have at least partially related with this story but as it is I only wanted to slap some sense in the various protagonists.

Anime review: Freedom

Planet earth is in shambles while a colony survives on the moon. Three guys from the colony discover the true nature of their world.

This confirms what has been happening in the last decade. To get good scifi we need to go to Japan.

This series of seven OAV (Original Animation Video) is a long heartfelt homage to moon exploration and the Apollo program. We start in the moon colony, with old earth seemingly destroyed, when our hero discover that, maybe, there is still somebody round here and so set off to do what the Apollo astronauts have done in the 60s, but this time in reverse.

The mecha design, all the technological bits, is wonderful, extremely detailed and lovingly crafted. We felt like we were watching the real thing.

On the other side the story and the characters sadly aren’t that good. The idea is very interesting to say the least but the execution often feel contrived or fall flat altogether. This is an interesting problem. As viewers we often complain when the writers of our favorite show invent stuff on the fly just to “keep going”. On the other side when they so clearly decide beforehand what is going to happen in very single episode they can have trouble finding things to fill them. Case in point, in very single episode of freedom something happens, which is good, but often is not enough to fill an entire episode and so we were left fidgeting while the protagonists did what amounted story wise to nothing.

The characters also lack in subtlety and feel Manichean without being engaging. The morale of the story is spelled right from the mouth of the main heroine.

In the end this is very interesting for space exploration lovers but other persons can stay away.

On a related note there is an interesting case of product placement. Nissin Cup noodle financed “Freedom” for his anniversary and in every single episode we can see our characters eating Cup noodles and declaring them to be delicious. Just like in a live action movie!

I know that it sounds terrible but if I get more interesting animation honestly I don’t care. If I can live with James Bond telling us how wonderful is his latest watch I can certainly live with this.

Anime review: Submarine 707r

Submarine warfare in the near future.

This Japanese Animation is really a mixed bag. The base concept is relatively realistic but the execution makes for a glaring style clash. On the namesake sub, the 707, there are little kids who are employed as pilots of “mini subs”. I know that this kind of stuff happens all the time in Japanese animation and that actually the majority of giant robots pilots are teenager but in a realistic setting with sonar torpedoes they look really out of place.

The big submarine battle in the end is kinda nice. Probably the main attraction of this kind of setting is the chance to play this kind of battle like an underwater version of chess with the two captains out scheming each other at every turn.

The main bad guy is also depicted in an interesting way, contrary to what countless other villain have done before him he keeps his cool to the very end and is certainly the coolest character around.

It’s a shame therefore that this anime take forever to go to the final battle which, by the way, is not really final. I suspect that they were planning sequels down the road.

All the characters also are really dull and unengaging so, in the end, this is one to skip.

Anime review: Mao Dante

The life of young Ryo Utsugy and his sister Saori became entwined with a plot by a group of Satanists to resurrect the mightiest of the demons, Mao Dante. Horror ensues.
Go Nagai is one of the most important Manga artists ever. He single handedly created the giant robot genre and this alone could ensure him a place in the Anime Pantheon.
Something less well known is his role in creating the sub genre of Demon and Angel inspired animation (Honestly is demon most of the times). It actually all started with the first version of Mao Dante which he started in 1971. Apparently Go Nagai was very impressed by a “Divine Comedy” illustrated by Gustave Dorè and decided this was perfect material to use in a horror Manga, and looking I can blame him, there is a primordial energy about that stuff and is ironic that we needed somebody from outside our culture to point it out.
Anyway this, like the rest of Go Nagai seminal work, influenced dozens of other series and left a lasting impression on our subculture.
Watching this late anime adaptation (2002) some of it look dated of course but it still retain part of its primordial energy. Mao Dante is an imposing figure, is ugliness miles away from the ethereal beauty that is predominant in modern animation. Blood run aplenty and people dies, a lot of people dies, really more than you could think is possible.
There are a couple of nice ideas and the back story is actually clearer than the usual messy ones that seem to plague Japanese animation.
Sadly the animation is sub par and the pacing in the beginning of the story is dreadfully slow and this could drive away from the interesting, but depressing, story.

Anime review: Lovely Complex

Lovely Complex tells the love story between two students Risa Koizumi, who is very tall, and Atsushi Otani, who is very short. The height difference is our entry point in their relationship and the peculiar twist of their love story. Apparently is very difficult for tall girls in Japan to find a boy, not that I know anything about this particular problem being on the opposite end of life spectrum.

Anyway this is a Romantic Comedy (Maybe I should say LOVantic COMedy, do you get it? LOVely COMplex, LOV-COM?). A very conventional one I must add. They dislike each other intensely, then she understand she loves him but complications ensues. This seems all very easy but watching this I realized how rare a good romantic comedy is those days, and not for lack of trying. Hollywood seems to give us at least five of those every year, mainly with Jennifer Anniston, and they are all not very funny and not very romantic either.

The mix of romantic and comedy elements that Lovely complex achieves so well is really difficult to obtain. Even when the fun part is actually funny the romantic part is often forced in. It’s like lighting in a bottle. This makes Lovely complex something special. A story were the fun and the romantic part are all very good and support each other, making for a better whole.

It is not without defects, the male protagonist is so stubborn that after a while we were actively wishing for her to stop chasing him and go with one of her others suitors. In spite of this Lovely Complex is a nicely crafted story that brought a smile to many evenings.

Anime review: Beck Mongolian Chop Squad

Beck is a Japanese animation series. It’s a long one, 26 episodes, originally made for the TV.

This is a classic coming of age story. Our young hero, Koyuki, is a teenage boy who doesn’t know what to do with his life. A chance encounter with a young guitarist, Kiosuke, and he found a new reason to life in an Indie rock band, the namesake Beck.

The story is relatively simple but this is strength for this anime. We don’t have to think too much about it while watching and is nice to see our heroes making stride in the harsh world of music. Good things won’t last because in the second part of the anime the author, probably in a creative crisis, comes up with a terrible plot about an evil rapper gangster which is completely out of synch with the rest of the story.

The direction is competent and the animation of decent quality. The design of the characters is somewhat rough and so we have a guy who is depicted with his eyes perennially closed, another who seems much older than is actual age and, generally speaking, the facial animation aren’t that good.

Having said that there is a good sense of storytelling at work. The final concert is really nice and you can even see the developing of some characters.

If you don’t like the genre this will never convert you but for everybody else this is a nice viewing.