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| The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the best of the three Reel Anime releases I've seen thus far.
A reasonably thought-provoking story of time travel on a personal scale that in many ways recalls Groundhog Day, with engaging characters and a gentle romance.
As with The Vision of Escaflowne, the heart of this movie is about personal responsibility and maturity. As such it is well grounded in the characters and this provides the strength of the movie. Recommended.
EDIT: Added link to a spoilery wikipedia page. Turns out to be something of a franchise/sequel with the implication that one of the supporting characters in this film is the main character from the original. | |
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| Batman: Gotham Knight is a compilation of several shorts from three anime studios that is apparently set between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The standard of the individual shorts is generally high, and I think I liked the first segment Have I got a story for you the best, but overall doesn't really work as a movie. There are recurring characters (other than Batman), with recurring voices, and a degree of connection but not enough to form an actual plot. Worth seeing but not spectacular. | |
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| I suppose it was overdue but Appleseed Ex Machina is a CGI riff on the zombie film.
And although visually impressive in places it is a deeply flawed film.
When you consider that the original heart of the Appleseed manga was deeply human characters (even, or especially, Briareos) the CGI becomes part of the problem - the features are so close to human that the often less than human movements of the characters becomes alien and repelling. This is particularly a problem with Deunan Knute in several scenes, but several characters from the manga ended up losing their selves in the CGI. Two of the most convincing characters were (I think) inventions for this movie which isn't a particularly good sign.
Add in a story that frankly isn't all that clever or original and you end up with something that is no more than OK. I bought the original OAV recently, I suspect that on a rewatch I'll be rating it somewhat higher than that. | |
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| Stuff I've acquired recently includes the Patlabor TV Series (47 episodes) which I'm chewing through fairly quickly and enjoying immensely. I think you can take it as a given that I'll be trying to run a Patlabor panel at some convention or other. :) I've also snagged some of the second series Wings of War miniatures and now understand why the DR VII came as such an unpleasant surprise to Allied pilots at the end of WWI (that turning stall maneuver is a nasty piece of work). And I should be getting ARIA in September. :) | |
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| Yay! ARIA the ANIMATION is getting a commercial release! Does the happy dance! I am definitely going to order it in from the US. If Madman pick it up, I'll happily order it locally as well. Let me be clear about this: I don't want this to be a moderately successful release, I want it to be a stonkingly hugely successful release so that the second and third seasons get done too. | |
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| I have less than 20Ks to go to reach my target for the month.
Which means I should be there by breakfast tomorrow and anything I ride in the afternoon will be a bonus. Yay!
And I saw another episode of ARIA the ORIGINATION tonight so its all good. | |
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| Reports of an Akira live action movie.
It was incoherent enough when it was an anime, I shudder to think what it will be like when Hollywood gets done with it...
EDIT: For those too scared to read the link the funniest part is that Leonardo Di Caprio may be producing it...
EDIT 22/2/08: And it gets worse: no cast details, scheduled for 2009, and they're shifting the setting to "New Manhattan"...
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| I went for a long ride after work - 56Ks all up today including this morning. I've had a stretch, am about to shower, and there will be anime and ice cream after dinner.
Life just doesn't get any better than this. :) | |
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| I've raved about ARIA before. In fact I've just updated my review slightly (longish, mild spoilers). And now I have good news and bad news. Good news: According to the wikipedia page the third season (ARIA the ORIGINATION) will begin broadcasting in Japan in a couple of days. Yay! Bad news: I can't seem to find any (legitimate) commercial releases of any of the seasons or the OVA. I really want to buy this one, preferably from a legitimate Australian licensee, failing that an American licensee. Grumble. EDIT 6/1/08: For a much better review of the manga (and much of it still applicable to the anime) check out this article from The Comics Journal. | |
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| Back in November 2006 when I was soliciting requests for anime reviews*, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) angriest asked about Tezuka Osamu's Legend of the Forest. At the time I didn't have it, and it wasn't available. However Madman have just released Tezuka: The Experimental Films which includes Legend of the Forest (among many other things). I have it, and I'll be reviewing it in due course. :) *BTW the offer is still open (read the original post for details). | |
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| It gets better as it goes along. Much better.
The question is whether it can sustain the improvement through to a good ending. | |
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| Since I'm currently on something of a CLAMP binge I bought the Chobits collection recently. After eight episodes (including one travesty that I fast forwarded through), it is beginning to show some interesting signs. But otherwise my verdict thus far is "Oh dear". I'll post a fuller review once I've finished the series, hopefully it will be worth the effort. | |
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| OK,this only works on someone who doesn't know anything about anime or manga but... 1. Show your chosen target several episodes of one of the more innocent CLAMP titles - the early Magic Knight Rayearth, or Card Captor Sakura are ideal for this. 2. Tell the target that this is typical of the sort of work that CLAMP do (which is true, at least as far as the character designs go) 3. Without warning, show your target Miyuki-chan in Wonderland. 4. Point out the CLAMP credits... :) - Tags:anime
- Mood:naughty
 - Music:The Bangles - Eternal Flame
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| One of the peculiar characteristics of anime series is a tendency towards opening and closing songs*. I'm mostly talking about series here, it is by no means unusual for movies from any culture to at least end with a theme song of some sort, and certainly not unheard of as openings either. But consider if you will the number of western TV series, particularly SF series, that open or close with songs - to be honest I can't actually think of any offhand.
I'm not musical by any stretch of the imagination but I did start wondering recently about the challenges involved in composing a complete song that is constrained by the time limits of the credits - which is probably thirty seconds to a minute tops.
And then to consider how many series have truly outstanding opening and ending credit songs. It isn't a short list - some of my favourites include I don't need a promise (Vision of Escaflowne), the first opening to Card Captor Sakura, Blue Flow (the end theme to Haibane Renmei) and about the only thing I like about Eva which is the opening (although how much of that is due to seeing Ippongi Bang perform it live at Swancon, twice, is a good question).
So, what do people think? Easier? Harder? Leave a screened comment with your favourite three songs and I'll tally up the votes and post a list later. :) | |
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| First the bad: I have officially lost interest in Bionic Woman. Frankly, I was about to watch it tonight and just couldn't be bothered. Maybe someone I know will buy it and I'll borrow it later to watch without ads but I'm not holding my breath. In many ways Bionic Woman is one of those 80percenters (to borrow a phrase I picked up from rdmasters IIRC) that could have been great and are frustrating when they miss the mark. The kawaii: So I watched Card Captor Sakura instead. And I would just like to state for the record that Tomoyo-chan is disturbing... :) The good: Heroes. It has taken a while this season, and I was beginning to wonder if Heroes was going to be a one series wonder but tonight's episode nailed it. Looking forward to next week. | |
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| As I mentioned some time ago the Canberra Symphony Orchestra were going to be playing one of my favourite pieces of music tonight, and that I had tickets.
Alas, the concert has started now and I'm not there since I'm too sick to inflict my company on friends. And I missed a gym session on Monday.
You can call me Mr Grumpy at this point.
Oh well, I'll watch a bit more Card Captor Sakura as mental comfort food, go to bed early, and not set an alarm. I'm sure things will be better tomorrow. | |
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| Other than that, not much happening. | |
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| A friend has just alerted me to this concert by the Canberra Symphony Orchestra. He's even offering to book tickets.
As some of you may know there was an anime convention in 1991 for which the organisers prepared an opening collage of anime that was perfectly matched to the 4th (I think) movement of Dvorak's 9th Symphony "The New World". This is a spectacular piece of music, one of my favourite pieces of classical music and this is a rare chance for me to see it performed live (I'm not sure I ever have, its been several years if so).
Bounce! Bounce! :) | |
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| There are directors with a certain indelible stamp, a signature if you will, that marks their films. Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers is one of those directors - "A film by Satoshi Kon" should always be read as "This film will mess with your head". Paprika is no exception.
When I saw it tonight I simply enjoyed the ride and let it wash over me. Visually spectacular, and exceptionally well voiced in the leads by Megumi Hayashibara, Paprika is an easy film to enjoy but not so easy to understand. Maybe I'll make some sense of it on a rewatch later. - Tags:anime, reviews
- Location:Canberra
- Mood:contemplative
 - Music:The Bangles - Where Were You When I Needed You
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