Gen X Otaku 1971: the OG blog

Live Action ONE PIECE (Netflix adaptation) is better than the anime!

I have tried multiple times to watch One Piece, the anime.  I made it as far as 5 episodes in my last attempt but I just can't get into it.  The story just doesn't grab me and I find Luffy and his powers too laughable & ridiculous for the anime medium.  I eventually lose interest and drop the show, every time.  Until now.

Holy shit, you guys!   The live action adaptation of One Piece on NETFLIX is really REALLY GOOD!

I seriously like it better than the OG anime.

The first 5 episodes of the One Piece anime?  Meh.

The first 5 episodes of THIS?  Bam! Right in the feels and I'm crying manly tears nearly every episode.  The use of flashbacks/backstory is well executed and really makes you care for Luffy and his crew.  Luffy's goofy weird powers just make this adaptation feel like a comic book Superhero movie somehow, like it actually WORKS better in live action.  The villains are so over the top they too feel like Comic book Superhero arch villains.  Luffy and his whole crew are just so darn likeable.  In short order we get introduced to the principle cast and the story launches without delay.  The pacing is excellent and holds your interest.  The costume design, the backgrounds, the set design are all on point.  The writing and acting are top notch and feel like a polished Superhero film told in serial form.  

As stated, I'm not fan of One Piece the anime.  But I f*cking love this live action adaptation, probably the best one ever done to date....which is a low bar, true, but this one sails right over it.  I highly recommend it, even if like me you don't really like One Piece.

The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (English ReWatch)

So last night I attended an English dub screening of The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (Japanese: 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口, Hepburn: Natsu e no Tonneru, Sayonara no Deguchi) which for me was a re-watch, having seen the world premiere of this movie in original subtitled Japanese at Otakon 2023 in Washington DC this past summer.

The Dub is courtesy of Sentai Filmworks / HIDIVE and features relative newcomers to the industry for the main roles of Kaoru Touno (Gabriel Regojo) and Anzu Hanashiro (Patricia Duran).  As for me I only recognized Shelly Calene Black as the voice of their homeroom teacher.  

For my 2nd time through this story, with the language barrier removed and on the basis of the excellent dub performances, I found the Kaoru & Anzu relationship more believable, natural and plausible.  Just their spending so much time in each other's company, even just scientifically investigating the nature of Urashima Tunnel together, draws them emotionally closer.  Kaoru is grieving the death of his little sister Karin who died from falling out of a tall tree that she was climbing to catch exotic beetles for her brother.  Anzu lives alone in her uncle's condo, having been disowned by her parents for wanting to become a manga artist like her grandfather with only 1 published title to his name who died in poverty and was regarded as a burden and a failure by his family but dearly loved by his granddaughter Anzu.   The legend of Urashima Tunnel is it can grant you any wish but in return you are flung a century into the future....this isn't entirely accurate, as the two begin to discover.   Kaoru's home life is very unstable after his sister's untimely death.  Their mother leaves and his father descends into alcoholism & self-pity and becomes emotionally and physically abusive towards Kaoru, blaming him for Karin's death and wishing Karin had lived instead of him.  He spends long hours alone listening to music by himself to cope.  Meeting Anzu is a stroke of luck and he has in her a friend and confidant he can rely on.  Although they don't get along at first, Karou becomes a familiar face at school and someone to hang out with for Anzu.  

Anzu doubts herself, wrestles with her own adequacy as a mangaka....as an author and illustrator.  Kaoru is slowly able to win her trust and persuade her to let him read the first draft of her manga.  He really enjoys it and wants to read it again.   This makes Anzu very happy and she finally has the courage to submit her manuscript to a publisher, who shows interest and assigns her an editor.  Anzu believes the Tunnel can grant her wish for artistic excellence that will make her work truly stand out.  Kaoru realizes that is not what the Tunnel does and decides to enter the Tunnel one last time....he meets the ghost of his sister and spends some quality time in her company.  His sister is happy to see him but tells her brother it is her sincere wish for him to fall madly in love with a girl at school someday.  This snaps Kaoru back into his young adult form and Anzu's desperate, lonely texts finally reach him in the spiritual beyond.  He learns of her graduation from school, the serialization of her manga, etc. and other milestones of success as she grows into becoming a successful, professional mangaka.  He determines to exit the Tunnel and return to Anzu despite being away for just over a decade and change.  Anzu in the meantime has hit a kind of writer's block and is sinking into a tough bout of depression.  Sitting at the train station where she first met Karou, a random train service interruption announcement takes her back to the moment they first met and she bursts into tears with heavy sobs, heartbroken.  Then suddenly she hears her old High School cellphone ding with a text from Kaoru, announcing his return.  Anzu gathers herself and runs down the train tracks to the crossing where the Tunnel is located....he hasn't emerged yet so she goes in after him, finding him having tripped and knocked himself unconscious.   He wakes in her lap and they embrace then kiss.  Kaoru jokes that with the time dilation effect, their 10 second kiss lasted 6 hours in the real world.

The two emerge from the Tunnel where a light rain is falling, and Anzu returns Kaoru's rusted umbrella to him which he opens for both of them; they can resume their relationship anew....we just kind of have to hand-wave away the awkwardness in age difference....a woman in her 30s taking a boyfriend who is still a teenager physically.  Not unheard of but perhaps a little scandalous.  Reminds me of the same dilemma for Haruka Shitow of RaXephon...and in the RaXephon movie she even bears him a child.... 

But you know, time dilation, undying timeless love, yada yada....awkward, sure, but the do still love each other and the age gap wasn't their fault, etc.  Once the younger person is 18 and a consenting adult, it's all cool, technically.  They were technically born around the same time, etc.

All told, the story takes place between the years 2005 up through 2013.

Anyway, The Tunnel to Summer, the Exit of Goodbyes (Japanese: 夏へのトンネル、さよならの出口) is a good movie, beautifully animated.  In subtitled Japanese their relationship felt under-developed and unearned somehow, but re-watching in English made their dynamic feel more believable, at least to me.  I'm glad I watched it again, and I'm always happy to support anime on the big screen. 
 

Psycho-Pass 2: Completed.

In anticipation of the release of Psycho-Pass: The Movie, which is screening in my area later this month, I did a marathon watch of Season 2 of Psycho-Pass last Friday as of this writing in order to be fully caught up on the story.  I had to that point only seen all of Season 1, which I loved.  I had also only seen the first couple of episodes of Psycho-Pass 2 while it was still a broadcast dub.  I remember liking it, but I abandoned it at the time because of all the hate and negative feedback the second season was getting from some very loud fans of the first season on Facebook.  In reaction, I put the show on personal hiatus, vowing to return to it later.  Having now completed Season 2, I'm at a loss to really understand all the initial vitriol by certain fans of Season 1 that felt let down or cheated somehow by Season 2.

I found the second season to be every bit as gripping and compelling as the first.  It was another great sci-fi thriller, with interesting twists, good cliffhangers that lent well to our marathon session, because we were always eager to find out "what happens next!?", etc.  True, there's no Kogami per se in this season, except as a representation of Tsunemori's conscience when she's privately wrestling with her own thoughts.  It says to me she still loves him and cannot forget him, and I love her for that.  The romantic tension between these two was half the fun of Season 1.  Their attraction to each other was as powerful as it was impossible to make a reality in the dystopia governed by the Sybil system.  Season 2 is just as thought-provoking, philosophical, every bit as disturbingly violent, etc.  Psycho-Pass 2 gets a passing grade from me at any rate. 

The main thing I don’t like about Psycho-Pass (the anime series) is that it relies upon as its central conceit a deliberate blurring of the differences between psychosis, i.e. “normal” individuals having a psychotic break(down) and genuine psychopathy, i.e. psychopaths.  I get that the title is a kind of word-play and riffs on the Japanese pronunciation of “psychopath”.  I can’t tell if the Sybil system is just unable to recognize psychopaths, only normals on the verge of psychosis?  Or maybe it recognizes “garden variety” psychopaths that we in the 21st century would recognize, but there has seemingly been an evolution of “undetectable” psychopaths able to evade standard electronic monitoring and screening.  Moreover, since Sybil is essentially a collective hive mind of such “asymptomatic” brains, and regards itself as the essence of cold, utilitarian perfection that is, in Niezschean fashion, somehow “above” mere human morality clouded by “useless” sentimentality, it sets itself as the ultimate arbiter of justice.  But its power is near absolute…and absolute power corrupts absolutely, per Lord Acton’s maxim.  Psycho-Pass is a thought provoking dystopia about the over-reliance upon technology and the complete discounting of “merely human” judgement, intuition, etc.  It has moments that are genuinely horrifying and is excellent social commentary on our own pervasive state surveillance apparatus.  Sybil is the ultimate Emperor with No Clothes, which only Inspector Tsunemori is privy to.  It is her struggle to remain moral and uncorrupted while working for a very flawed and corrupt system.  She maintains a private faith in democracy and greater justice tempered with humility and mercy, a quite different vision from Sybil’s coldly utilitarian “paradise”.  Cherami Leigh is new to the cast and plays the thoroughly unlikable, very cocky rookie Mika Shimotsuki.  She is basically Tsunemori's polar opposite and is always questioning Tsunemori's action and judgement, meanwhile demonstrating her own terrible judgement and naivete throughout.  She writes highly critical, damning reports that cast Tsunemori in the worst possible light, but Tsunemori ignores these barbs, as does the agency Chief, who has a private understanding with Tsunemori as established in Season 1.   Mika Shimotsuki in the end winds up a rather pathetic figure, a wholly craven "Winston Smith" who obsequiously declares her love for "Big Brother", a.k.a. the Sybil System.  Meanwhile Tsunemori maintains her personal integrity throughout and forces the Sybil system to reform & purge itself and re-establish its shaky truce with Tsunemori.  It recognizes Tsunemori as a long-term threat to its own viability, and Tsunemori certainly still has her own criticisms and distaste for the Sybil system, but she is willing to see just how far Sybil will progress in its new path of "reform".

In any case, I now feel caught up on the story and look forward to seeing Psycho-Pass: The Movie later this month when it screens at my local Alamo Drafthouse.

Black Bullet is da bomb

I really enjoyed the screening of the first 4 episodes of the anime series Black Bullet at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park. Rather dark and grim, but with lots of action. Plus I'll always sit up and watch a show that has great veteran lead actors like Chris Patton and Luci Christian. Makes me harken back to my early anime fan days watching FMP: FUMOFFU and Second Raid (yes I did see the original FMP, too, but FUMOFFU & TSR are my faves of the franchise). At the very least I'll definitely stream the rest of this show on Anime Network and would consider adding it to my physical media collection on down the road.

This anime was good, but the character of Enju Aihara (藍原 延珠 Aihara Enju) was more than a little disturbing because of how sexually forward she is...despite being ostensibly only 10 years old.  I guess as a "Cursed Child" she understands she will not live long and certainly won't have anything like a "normal" life ever...and so feels a burning innate drive to experience all that life has to offer in as short a time as possible before it's too late for her, including her budding sexuality, and feels somewhat annoyed by her partner's "conventional" moral reservations and rebuffs.  It's a tension that definitely makes the viewer uncomfortable.  Though on another level, the anime does pull back on full realism, with the cursed children (all girls) being treated merely as pitiful Dickensian waifs...when the reality would be much darker (systemic prostitution and rape)....though getting summary executed by the police Brazil style is pretty damn dark already.

It makes me laugh a little because especially with the rise of all things "moe" in the 2000s, and especially in a post Madoka-Magica world, anime seems to have this need to shoehorn in cute little girl characters, no matter what the story line.  And for shows like this it can feel really...awkward.

Basically, a good way to think about the structure of Black Bullet is take the existing property Claymore but turn the female warriors into cute 10 year old girls with mysterious red eyes and change the setting from High Fantasy to dystopian future Sci-Fi and PRESTO you have the basic setup for Black Bullet.  Including the part where the girls are themselves half-monsters used to fight real monsters and feared by society around them.

The one twist being that the main character, Rentarō Satomi (里見 蓮太郎 Satomi Rentarō^?), voiced by Chris Patton, is something of a badass in his own right, whereas the Claymore protagonist was strictly a passive observer and Claire's effective "damsel".

Also, Black Bullet has a compelling villain & villainous sidekick that really make the show work.  The terrifying masked gentleman Kagetane Hiruko (蛭子 影胤 Hiruko Kagetane^?) and his psychopathic, dual-blade wielding "cursed" daughter Kohina Hiruko (蛭子 小比奈 Hiruko Kohina^?)...both are remorseless killers with a hidden agenda.

The first four episodes were very entertaining and emotionally engaging.  Hilary Haag voices one of the cursed girls and though her screen time is lamentably limited, Ms. Haag makes us care for this girl and her short, awful life.  The suffering endured by these children make the series especially gut wrenching at times.  It is definitely a product of a post-Madoka universe.

Expelled from Paradise

Just got back from a special screening of the anime feature film Expelled from Paradise which features 3DCG technology.  It looks very smooth, nearly like hand-drawn animation, but it is all CG and visually brilliant.  Think Knights of Sidonia, only even better with respect to its visuals.

This anime not only looks really good, but it's a solid sci-fi story to boot.  It's a bit of a slow burn leading to some high concept Sci Fi leading to plot complications, conflict, and good old Anime mech battle badassness. The trailer did NOT prepare me for what was to come.  The beginning reminds me of Sword Art Online, and it was disorienting as I hadn't expected such an opening.

I was very lucky to attend this screening, which is apparently a world-wide premiere taking place only shortly after this film's release in Japan, so of course this was a subtitled show, which I didn't mind.  In fact, there is so much if it that revolves around singing and music that I'd be very surprised indeed if this anime even gets considered for an English dub, as music rights is always a formidable hurdle, and they'd have to pick thematically appropriate songs, too.

The screenplay was by Gen Urobuchi and I was definitely pleased with the writing of this show.  It's got solid Sci Fi elements in it, and reminds me a bit of the Utopian/Dystopian visions of Psycho Pass, which Gen Urobuchi was associated with for season 1. He's also the creative mind behind Fate/Zero, the prequel to Fate/Stay Night.

It was also a nice night out to meet up with my friends and fellow Aspies, S.R. and F.M.  It was the first time in several months we've managed to all hang out together.  We even had some good discussion after the movie, too, and managed some catching up chit-chat before the film, too.  All in all, I give Expelled from Paradise a big thumbs up for story and for its visual appeal.  Definitely a worthy film.

Finished Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya

Finally had an opportunity to finish the new-ish
anime series Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya (Fate/kaleid liner プリズマ☆イリヤ^?), which is a Type-Moon spinoff that re-imagines some of the female cast of both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero as "magical girls", and changes the warrior spirits into collectable magic cards that must be defeated in battle first.  It borrows visual elements from both Fate/Stay Night and Fate/Zero, and it does help to have watched both of these series first before attempting to watch Fate/Kaleid Liner, because otherwise the viewer can't truly appreciate the significance of what she's looking at, in the same way I don't recommend watching Aquarion EVOL if you've not seen the original Aquarion.  The reason is you simply will miss the great significance of what you're watching.

Fate/Kaleid Liner is visually appealing but also has a number of LOL/WTF!? moments interspersed throughout.  The story focuses on Ilya von Einzbern; this iteration of Ilya is much sweeter and cuter than her realization in Fate/Stay Night (which does not end well for her, neither in the series nor in the recap movie).  But she's also quite a bit more pervy and yuri-curious, too.

The voice cast is completely new, but since this is a re-imagined series it isn't as jarring as you'd think it might be.  Rin Tohsaka, now voiced by Carli Mosier, sounds older and more mature, but since she's serving in a guardian kind of role, it actually fits.  Shelley Calene-Black really hams it up as Rin's rival, Luviagelita Edelfelt (ルヴィアゼリッタ・エーデルフェルト Ruviazeritta Ēderuferuto^?).

Illya lives with Shiro, who is described as her (adopted?) brother.  Illya's mother (who we met in Fate/Zero) makes a brief appearance near the end of this short series.  Illya herself is voiced by Cynthia Martinez, a veteran voice actress from the days of ADV Films.  Illya's magical girl partner is the initially unfriendly and awkward Miyu Edelfelt (美遊・エーデルフェルト Miyu Ēderuferuto^?), voiced by Caitlynn French.  Illya works for Rin Tohsaka and Miyu works for Luvia.  They were selected as magical girls because the sentient magic wands Magic Ruby and Magic Sapphire essentially grew tired of the bickering and infighting between Rin and Luvia and deemed them no longer worthy of being their masters.  They leave and pick Illya and Miyu as their new masters, and Rin and Luvia end up taking on more of a guardian and teacher role.  Miyu and Illya don't much like each other at first, but through hardship and adversity they learn to respect and even like and accept each other.  Miyu is very blunt to the point of rude and doens't seem to get other people's emotions.  She's extremely logical, almost Spock-like, but also emotionally stunted and rigid.  She overthinks things and chokes sometimes.  She seems to have many Asperger-y traits that make her charmingly eccentric and a little tsundere.  The heart of the series is the budding, difficult friendship between Illya and Miyu.

This entire series is really entertaining to already dedicated fans of the Type-Moon universe, and it pays off visually when you can decode what elements are borrowed from Fate/Zero and which are borrowed from Fate/Stay Night.  It has many epic battles with loud explosions and soaring musical scores.  It also has moe girl nonsense and mild fanservice.  The heaviest fanservices is of course the cameos of the warrior spirits.  The series concludes in a satisfying way but leaves the door open for more tales to come.  Those who make the mistake of watching this series first will probably find it entertaining but will not be able to decode the rich visual language of the series, which is the most important part.  You will definitely want to get this series on Blu-Ray for the best possible visual experience.

I definitely liked this series way more than I thought I would, but mainly because I am a fan of Fate/Stay Night in particular and Fate/Zero to a slightly lesser degree.  It's fun in the way the Evangelion spin-off mangas are fun.  Take familiar characters and tweak them just slightly and put them in new situations, etc.  I think this series rides on the coattails of a mini-renaissance of Magical Girl stories like Madoka Magica and the re-release of Sailor Moon and the new Sailor Moon Crystal.  In any case, it works, but only as a value-added bonus to the pre-existing Type-Moon shows.

Log Horizon (Dub) -- Better than expected!

I just got back from a screening of the first 4 episodes of the new Anime series from Sentai Filmworks known as Log Horizon.
  It was actually MUCH better than I expected, and I must admit, having seen all of the original SAO and a bit of "Dot Hack", I walked into the theater a bit jaded and cynical, doubting that I'd like much of what I was about to see.  I have to admit I was wrong.  Log Horizon was good--really good.  The characters in particular were very likeable and memorable, and their chemistry together really hooks you and makes the show enjoyable to watch.  Some immediate differences between SAO and Log Horizon, Log Horizon drops the SAO pretense of "if you die in the game you die in real life"...the characters ARE indeed trapped in their favorite MMO after a new DLC upgrade.  But if they "die" (run out of hit points), they simply re-spawn in the temple of the territory where their character was originally created.  It's not the end of the world, but it can be an enormous pain in the ass.  The world of Log Horizon is said to be exactly 1/2 the size of planet Earth.  Towns that are 8 km apart in the real world are only 4 km apart in the world of Log Horizon.  There is eating & drinking in this MMO, but the food is bland and all tastes the same, regardless how it looks.  The story is very vague about how the characters came to be stuck in the new DLC version of their favorite MMO, or why they can't log out, or what's "really" happening to their bodies in the "real" world.  They don't seem--at first--to be the victims of any wider conspiracy, there's no all-powerful Dungeon Master who controls their fate, it's just more like an accidental glitch that's preventing everyone from logging out and nobody knows why or how they're supposed to leave the game.  Also, the "jump gates" of the former game world no longer function in this 3D VR version, so all transport must be done on foot or by beast of burden.  Horseback is fine, but eventually our heroes upgrade their ride to Griffins and stuff.  The game in this world of Log Horizon (ログ・ホライズン Rogu Horaizun^?) actually goes by the name of Elder Tale (エルダー・テイル Erudā Teiru^?).

The story focuses on main character and protagonist Shiroe (シロエ Shiroe^?) who is best known as "Shiroe the Strategist" or the "Villain in Glasses" (腹ぐろ眼鏡 Haraguro Megane^?) from the Elder Tale game. His real name is Kei Shirogane (城鐘 恵 Shirogane Kei^?).  After he finds himself in the upgraded version of the game and rather nonplussed as to how he got there or how to get out, he decides to check his friend list and at least hang out with someone he knows.  He meets up with Naotsugu (直継 Naotsugu^?), who is Shiroe's best friend and was also a member of the now disbanded Debauchery Tea Party group. His real world name is Naotsugu Hasegawa (葉瀬川 直継 Hasegawa Naotsugu^?).  He's a bit of a shameless horn dog and always lusting after the ladies.  Shiroe also adds to his burgeoning party Akatsuki (アカツキ Akatsuki^?), a trained assasin whose skills he's very familiar with from past raids & alliances.  However all this time, he never realized that Akatsuki (アカツキ Akatsuki^?) is actually a girl.  She asks Shiroe for a transformation potion and manages to use it to change her in-game avatar to be female and conform with her biological and mental gender.  Although her in-game avatar looks like the body of a young teen girl of perhaps middle school age, she's actually in her mid-to-late 20s, same age as Shiroe who is a graduate student in Engineering in the real world, on the verge of earning his Master's degree.

My favorite character by far in the first 4 episodes is the mysterious Nyanta.  Nyanta (にゃん太 Nyanta^?) is a werecat Swashbuckler and a bit of a ladies' man himself, though far more of a "smooth operator" than lumbering Naotsugu.  He's voiced by newcomer Jovan Jackson in the English dub and I was very happy to hear a black actor voicing this anime character...It's been a personal gripe of mine that there's not enough diversity in Anime voice acting.  Some of this is the fact that many Japanese anime stories do not include black people or other ethnicities.  Nyanta is a large "cat-man", so some artistic liberty was possible and I'm glad that they took the risk and cast a black actor for this role.  It basically makes Nyanta the bad-ass SHAFT of the show and I love it.  I remember getting into a bit of an argument with an anime voice actor who is also a casual friend, complaining about the production of Moonlight Mile where an obviously black character was voiced by an obviously white actor, yielding a performance that was downright cringe-worthy.  My friend's argument was along the lines of "dude, they try, but there's just not that many black VO actors out there.";  My contention was and is they don't try hard enough, so I salute this bold move from Sentai Filmworks and hope it is a sign of better things to come.  Many of the cast and crew were in attendance at this screening and Jovan Jackson was a crowd favorite generally, but especially among the black fans who were thrilled to hear his character, and I was thrilled for them.

Some white voice actors are able to pull off a black character voiceover...I'm thinking Chris Sabat as Garterbelt in Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, say.  Or the voice of Dutch from Black Lagoon.  White men with deep enough voices and acting chops can pull it off.  But Jovan Jackson's Nyanta is on a whole nother level and it's fantastic.

While I'm probably not going to rush out and buy this anime as a new release, I do think I will be adding it to my collection eventually, maybe as a birthday present to myself next year, say, after the first or second price drop.  It really was a pleasant surprise and I look forward to continuing the story of these characters and learning more about the strange online world they're trapped in and how they cope and try to find their way back to reality.

Back from screening Ep.1-4 of Sunday Without God

Just returned from a special screening of Episodes 1-4 of Sunday Without God (神さまのいない日曜日 Kami-sama no Inai Nichiyōbi^?) by Sentai Filmworks, which is a damn weird anime fantasy show.  12 year old Ai Astin (アイ・アスティン Ai Asutin^?), is a novice "Grave Keeper", who inherited the role from her mother (now deceased).  Ai grew up in a small, isolated village and is blissfully ignorant of the wider world outside, which has descended into brutality and chaos since the event 15 years ago where God, the Creator, both made himself known to humanity and announced his departure from the world, essentially giving up on the humanity project and leaving humankind to fend for themselves.  He granted them immortality of a sort and left Earth to run itself.  He had a second thought and sent along the Gravekeepers, for those who still yearned and prayed for a traditional death with the possibility of a post-mortem heavenly reward.  The Gravekeepers function as basically a form of Shinigami, or Grim Reapers.

Basically Earth has devolved into a Zombie-land where nobody dies in the normal way, not even from grevious bodily injury.  The corpses remain animated and still moving, after a fashion, though they do slowly lose their humanity with time.  Only the Gravekeeper class can grant humans the final death with a properly conducted ceremonial burial.

It seems young Ai is neither fully human, nor fully Gravekeeper, though apparently her mother was a full-0n Gravekeeper.  Typical Gravekeepers are not unlike Valkirye insofar as they are beautiful women who are unfailingly polite but otherwise devoid of emotion.  They follow the divine command to bury the dead, whether the dead like it or not.  Ai is unexpectedly emotional and has human compassion, just like a normal girl.  After she learns the terrible truth about her origin and about the wider world, she grimly resolves to carry out her appointed mission as a Gravekeeper to the best of her ability.  Her father's best friend, Yuri, becomes her travel companion and guardian after Ai's father's passing, along with a taciturn but friendly adult Gravekeeper named "Scar".

The first four episodes are largely devoted to "world building" of this very strange fantasy realm which superficially resembles modern Europe; despite the presence of modern technology (cars, guns) the architecture remains decidedly Medieval and Renaissance.  There are no "modern" buildings, not even in the larger cities.  The "ground rules" of the world are really strange and a little hard to follow.

The story is pretty good, just a little odd.  The main character, Ai, is likeable and indeed adorable.  I won't be rushing out to buy this series to finish it anytime soon, but it's a "Maybe" for a future rental, if it ever shows up on Netflix streaming or rental DVD.  The world is very vague about the nature of its human religion(s) or the nature of its recently departed "God".  There's Christian iconography (as one would expect in a European setting) but very little in the way of coherent Christian theology.  The theology we do get is very vague and unspecific, and there don't seem to be any clergy or priests remaining to offer up any kind of theodicy or other apologetics for the recently departed deity.  The story doesn't quibble with any specific religion, merely critiques a more abstracted "Philosopher's God", of a sort.  In this the anime can be irreverently amusing and tongue in cheek, or at least I found it so, as an atheist viewer.

It's not a strong recommend, but I can lightly recommend this show.  It didn't bowl me over or take my breath away, but I was reasonably entertained.

Special advance screening: Bayonetta!

Mari Shimazaki tried to make the witch Bayonetta more appealing with longer limbs and adjusted proportions. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was expecting to write this post telling readers all about Episodes 1-4 of The Devil Is A Part Time, but instead our host Rommel S. pulled a switcheroo on us and treated us instead to an exclusive advanced screening of the new Bayonetta movie!!  While I was looking forward to The Devil Is A Part Timer, it is in fact screening WITH the English dub on Netflix as of this writing.  So I can watch it anytime, in fact.  Currently I'm back to watching Fairy Tail, and I'm also part-way through Psycho-Pass.  I was pleasantly surprised to get to watch Bayonetta this evening, having only just today heard it talked about on the most recent episode of ANNCast with Zac & Justin.  Apparently FUNimation was very flexible with this production and went out of their way to call back the original voice actors from the original SEGA video game, including sending the ADR Director to the UK to track down the English voice actor for Bayonetta and record her dialogue at a sound studio in England, conducted over the course of 12 days.  I was very impressed with the visuals of this movie, which is non-stop action, never a dull moment.  I have no experience with the video game or its fictional world, but the movie does a decent job of exposition via dialogue that I caught on fairly quickly who the principle players were, etc.  I never once felt confused or disoriented.  The "angels" of this world reminded me in passing of the menancing nature of the "angels" of Neon Genesis Evangelion, and to a lesser degree some of the visual motifs of RaXephon, as well.  I was unclear if Witch Jean was intended to be a nodding reference to Jean D'Arc (Joan of Arc) or if that nomenclature was merely coincidence.

This is a definite Blu-Ray collectors' item, if nothing else for the intense battle sequences alone, of which this movie delivers in spades.  Unlike the Blood C movie, which had serious pacing problems, the pacing in Bayonetta moves along at an even clip with no drag whatsoever.  It feels like watching a successful play-through of a medium sized video game.  The story is ostensibly set on earth, but the countries are fictional and it also takes place partly in certain terra incognitae astral realms outside of normal space-time.  The angels are invisible to ordinary humans but can wreak havoc on the physical world nonetheless.

It's difficult to really talk about this film without spoiling it; those that know the videogame already know the story.  I came into the theater a blank slate and was reasonably entertained by the spectacle.  It is rated TV-MA but mostly for the graphic violence and some of the heavy sexual overtones and fanservice, but there's very little in the way of overt nudity.  It's provocatively sexy but hardly "smutty".  Bayonetta as a character is larger than life and over the top.  She's an unruly demigod with a strong will of her own.  The entire movie is basically watching Bayonetta kick ass, over and over again.  My only criticism of the movie is that Bayonetta is basically female Superman who never has to confront any metaphorical "kryptonite".  She never suffers, never endures any defeats or setbacks.  She's perhaps a little too perfect as a cinematic hero.  I like to see my heroes and heroines suffer and struggle a little on the way to attaining their goal.  I suppose one could argue that in her past she knew defeat and suffering, but we only get that in glimpses and flashbacks.  Again, it's damn impressive in its visuals, and it's nearly enough to bamboozle the audience into overlooking Bayonetta's indestructability and lack of empathy for nearly any of the other characters.  The ADR script was witty, with plenty of amusing one-liners that provoked laughter in the audience tonight.  I would definitely re-watch this movie, and it piqued my interest in the videogame franchise as well.

My thanks to our host R.S. once more for securing this special advance screening for us at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park in Katy, Texas.

Rosenmädchen Zurückspulen

Just got back from a screening of Episodes 1-4 of Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen at Alamo Drafthouse Mason Park in Katy, Texas.  The last word in the title means "Rewind" in German, as in to rewind a videotape or reel-to-reel film or audio cassette.  Or more figuratively it signifies that this is a "reboot" of the original, basically.  I know I saw the original Rozen Maiden dub ages ago but it was so "meh" that it barely left much impression.  I think Johnny Yong Bosch was in that dub, and maybe it was a Bandai(?) release?  All I remember was it involved creepy dolls that talked that the main character was obsessed with, and he eventually went crazy, the end.  It was dark, and creepy, and I really don't remember much beyond that.  It was entirely forgettable.

Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen is by contrast at least a coherent narrative, where there's actual struggle, and stuff actually happens.  The plot seems to be going somewhere.  Sure, it's still creepy and Loli as fuck, but it's loads more entertaining than the original.  I wonder if if this was ever a dating sim back in Japan, as this anime adaptation separates the protagonist,  Jun Sakurada (桜田 ジュン Sakurada Jun^?), along two parallel fates in space-time.  One in which he chooses to activate the red doll named Shinku (真紅^?, Reiner Rubin, Crimson), while he is still in Elementary School and one in which he does not until much later, when he's first started college.  These lines of fate interweave and cross over, which is kind of interesting and lends an almost Steins;Gate feel to the series.  Shinku is voiced by the incomparable Luci Christian, and many of the Sentai Filmworks regulars round out the rest of the voices of the other dolls, including Hilary Haag (happy to see her still active in the biz), Brittney Karbowski, and Monica Rial, among others.

Rozen Maiden is actually faux German...proper German would be Rosenmädchen.  You wouldn't use the "Z" to get a "Zee" sound; the S makes that sound in that position in German.  The German word for Maiden is Madel (Maid) or diminuitive Mädchen (Girl).  Anyway, that's nit picking, I know.

I'd probably watch more of Rozen Maiden Zurückspulen as it definitely piqued my interest.  The animation is really nice, and the story is sufficiently engaging that I care about the main character(s).  Shinku is definitely a pint-sized Tsundere.  Saito, Jun's co-worker, is an aspiring young theater student and seems like a really sweet person who likes Jun.  Definite future girlfriend prospect, even Shinku can see that, even if Jun can't.

The original Rozen Maiden was just kind of a snooze fest; really, new viewers could just jump right in here and not miss a thing.  This is NOT the kind of show where a knowledge of the original show is strictly necessary.  It's not a priority purchase for me, but I'd definitely watch it for rental streaming on Netflix someday, or on rental DVD.