Anime Review: "The Duke of Death and His (Black) Maid"

So let’s talk about the elephant in the room first, so I can spend the rest of this review convincing you to forget about the elephant, and watch this anime. The characters in this series are done in CGI, using what appears to be the same kind of process that was used in one of J.C. Staff’s other series: “Hi-Score Girl.” You’re either going to let that bug you, or you won’t. For some people CGI is a complete turn-off, and means an instant drop. For others, they don’t care. I’m kind of in the middle. I much prefer standard animation, not too big a fan of CGI, so when I saw the trailer for this, I was initially really disappointed; I’d read some of the manga, before the announcement that this was coming out, so I was pretty excited when I heard it got picked up, but when I saw the trailer I was crestfallen. I’m sure a lot of people had the same reaction. But, if you can, be a bigger person, and see beyond the CGI, you’ll find something pretty special.

Since we’re already on the topic of visuals with the CGI I’ll start by saying the art in this series is fantastic. The backgrounds are done with incredible detail, even given texture to make them look like they’re paintings on canvas. It gives the entire series a glorious fairy tale vibe, like you’re watching an anime that’s come to life right out of a pop-up book. I caught myself, at times, just fascinated by all the little minor things that decorated each frame. So, despite the fact that the characters are CGI and move around a bit weird, it somehow comes together pretty well and I didn’t find myself overly bothered by it.

From art, the next obvious thing that needs to be talked about, is the sound. This series had probably the best sound track of the year I think. It was enchanting. There were multiple vocal performances by the main VA’s Mano Ayumi (Alice) and Hanae Natsuki (Bocchan); they sang not only the opening theme song, but also did several other insert pieces that popped up within the show as well. There were also a number of classical songs featuring beautiful piano arrangements which were a joy to listen to. I’d say “glorious,” is a pretty good word to summarize my feelings for the music of “Duke of Death”. I may end up hunting down a copy of the OST if I can find one.

Also, Hiroshi Kamiya (MAL’s #1 Person) is in this. He plays a bird-faced witch. Anytime I get to hear him play anything I count that as a win.

Witches and magic are pretty central to the story of “Duke of Death”. The plot revolves around the titular duke, who was cursed by an unknown witch, when he was just a boy. The curse causes him to kill anything he touches – plant, animal, or even people. It’s honestly a very, very dark plot hook, but it’s used in an extremely creative, fun way, through the antics of the character Alice. She’s the (black) maid of the moment, who’s favorite past time is getting as close to the duke as she can, without touching him, in a cute/sexy kind of “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you,” playful way, while also sexually harassing him every opportunity she gets. She delights in his adorable, embarrassed reactions (which are done extremely well on both an animation level and acting one). This dynamic is the core of the show, turning it into essentially a rom-com with a strange, slightly morbid kink to it.

With that being said, it’s quite a bit more than just your standard romantic comedy though, because the plot hook of the show, the duke’s curse, is actually quite intriguing; the more we learn about it, the deeper the mystery surrounding it gets, but that’s something you can enjoy yourself watching the series. I don’t wanna spoil anything.

All in all, the flirting between the Duke and Alice is really entertaining to watch, making for a fun little SOL/rom-com with a unique premise, so I’d be happy giving this series a 7 or an 8 on just those merits alone, but as it turns out, by the end of the series, I was genuinely invested in the characters, their futures, and the answer to the mystery of the curse, thankfully, after the credits, they announced that the story will continue in season two, so hopefully we’ll get to find out then, because the season ends with all the big questions still up in the air, which is to be expected because the manga for this has been going for near 200 chapters now, and expecting to cram all that into just twelve episodes is asking much too much.

This all leads me to say that this was a perfectly enjoyable watching experience. Not even going to take off points for the CGI characters and wonky animation because after about episode 2 I had completely gotten over it, forgetting all about the elephant, and just enjoying the ride.

Masterpiece, round of applause, etc. 10/10 from me.

Anime Review: "Tokyo Revengers" Season #1

I’m starting this review off up front by saying that “Tokyo Revengers” is, for me, a 10/10 series, but I’m a big softie when it comes to anything unique. I tend to score things a bit on the higher side, so, for you it may be an 8 or a 9 (if you like the same kind of things I do), but I want to be up front that I think this is a great anime and that it absolutely must be seen. I’m putting this at the beginning of my review, because I’m going to sound pretty mean about this anime a bit later, but I want it to be known that it’s very minor stuff, mostly dealing with visual elements, and doesn’t change the fact that this series deserves near perfect marks for its originality, story, and characters, and by no means does the visual side detract from any of that. This was not a bad adaptation, it just wasn’t a legendary one.

Premise is cool. Time travel + Delinquents. If you’ve got any interest in seinen/shonen, that should be enough to get you to watch it and also enough to keep you from asking too much about the plot, or reading up about it online. Once you KNOW that the series is about time travel (which is NOT a spoiler), you know that you shouldn’t research too much, or you risk ruining it for yourself. This series delves heavily into dealing with disappointment, regret, and facing the failures of your past; I believe these are themes a lot of people can relate to. I certainly did. If I had the chance to go back in time, there’s a lot of stuff I would do differently…

Disclaimer: if you’re the type of person who has to have an explanation for how time travel works…

Maybe sit this one out. Not every plot device needs to be explained up front, and we don’t get one here, and if that’s gonna be what you’re thinking about the whole time while you watch this anime, don’t bother with it. I daresay, this one’s not for you. Since I’m saying this, you clearly understand that I’m not the type to get hung up on stuff like, “bUt HoW dOeS hIs TiMe TrAveL wOrK?” BS. I can suspend disbelief, realize that this is sci-fi, and just roll with it. It worked in “Boku dake ga Inai Machi” and it works here. Honestly, what I found much harder to believe was that these were all 13-14 year olds kicking each other’s butts and riding motorcycles all over the place with not a single parent in sight, especially with Japan’s strict traffic laws. The “past” of this is 2005, not 1985. I definitely don’t recall things in Japan being like that at all when I was living there, just a few years later, but, let’s set that aside as well (for the sake of the plot).  I loved this series on a conceptual level – the characters seemed fresh, the story put an original spin on the typical time travel premise, and the plot was twisted enough that I had no idea where things were going, leaving me absolutely gob smacked at the end.

Now, I haven’t read the manga yet, but I’ve seen quite a bit of the art. I thought it was amazing. To be frank, the anime failed to live up to what the manga put on the table, and I can make that judgement based entirely off of skimming through panels in the first few volumes.

All of my complaints about this show come down to visuals, but they’re extremely shallow complaints, coming from someone who has become jaded by bad adaptations and hastily produced garbage.

As far as “Tokyo Revengers” is concerned, the cinematography wasn’t bad; it was normal. The Director behind this didn’t do a bad job, by any means, but he’s a relatively new face. At the end of the day, I’d say he did a commendable job working on such a big project as this, which will most likely be a HUGE financial success, and is already the highest rated series by this studio of all time.

The animation quality, as a whole, wasn’t bad; it was normal. The studio behind this, LIDENFILMS has made a lot of series that had that, “commercially successful” feel to them, but lack when it comes to rating. They’re not out there making art pieces, and they’re not producing shows that can get sold on their sakuga alone. They make anime that look mostly average. From the visuals alone, you probably wouldn’t be able to figure out what studio made this. Very mainstream.

Art, background, fights. All the visuals were normal. They lived up to expectations. None of it looked phoned in, but at the same time, didn’t look like it was painstakingly crafted in some artisan way. There were no copy-pasted cars in any of the scenes, but there were also not that many shots bristling with life from the mid 2000’s shown to give us atmosphere.

It was all just… normal.

The visuals were all very standard, traditional, and popular, in that plastic, mass-produced kind of way. It feels weird to use this as an insult, but it had a very “seasonal anime” vibe to it. I’m afraid people won’t be talking about it years, or even months from now, even though they should be. It could have been an 11/10 anime that gets brought up in the same sentences as stuff like “Steins;Gate”, “Erased”, or “Evangelion”, but I doubt that’s going to be the case even if it’s trending on twitter after the finale. Watching it, I couldn’t help thinking, how damn good it could have been if it had been done with more “style” to it, because “style” is definitely what the manga has in spades. The manga art re-defines stylish, in a retro-future kind of way, taking your typical “delinquents” imagery and amping it up to a hundred. I would have loved to have a little more of that in the adaptation, which for me, fell pretty flat. In my head, when I think of delinquents, my mind goes to “GTO”, “Cromartie High School”, or “Slam Dunk”, and to the 90’s aesthetics. I think it would have been really cool to have seen something more along those lines, in terms of aesthetics, with the adaptation of this series.

To conclude in one really long sentence: “Tokyo Revengers”, the anime, was an absolutely unique experience that was adapted well enough that I won’t forget it, or take points off my review because of the animation, but not well enough that I’ll likely re-watch it, buy it, or add it into my favorites list; however, it made me interested enough in it that I’ll most likely BUY the entire manga, even if I have to import it directly from Japan because there’s no official physical release.

…

Which brings me to the P.S. to this review where I’d like to talk about censorship.

At the time of reviewing this series, which is just following the finale, there’s no print version of this available in the US. I’m not even sure if there’s an official English release in print anywhere. You can find the manga, digitally, to purchase easily enough, it’s right there on Amazon, available through Kindle & Comixology, among other places. Now, why this did not have a physical book, is something that baffled me thoroughly, and after discussing it with a friend on twitter, they suggested that it’s almost certainly because of the “problematic imagery” i.e. the “Manji” character seen blazing throughout, on the flags, and apparel belonging to gang of the main characters in the story . Or, should I say, it WOULD be seen throughout the show, if you’re watching the “Tokyo Revengers” uncensored version, and not the censored version that’s available through legal streaming sources, such as Crunchyroll in the states. The “Manji” is apparently controversial because uneducated people are too stupid to realize the difference between it and the Nazi swastika. One is a spiritually religious symbol, with thousands of years of cultural heritage. One is a white-power hate sign. I don’t usually get up in arms about censorship in anime, because usually it’s for one of two reasons: 1) titties 2) gore. Fundamentally, I don’t think having censorship of that kind of stuff is a bad thing, since modern streaming services put all the adult titles right there next to the kiddie grade stuff, making it just as easy to watch “Redo of a Healer” as it is to find “Reborn”, and that’s a mistake you don’t wanna make when you’re babysitting… I am, however, completely opposed to companies fucking thought policing us over anime imagery, judging us to be too fucking stupid to educate ourselves about the difference in a symbol’s meaning. It took me 30 fucking seconds to navigate to shorinjiryublog via a quick google search to find a full on explanation of the difference in meaning between a swastika and the Manji. If you’re old enough to watch an anime about time traveling delinquents, you’re fucking old enough to do that level of homework. So, big fucking middle finger to whoever made the decision to censor this for western streaming.

I added in a bunch of "fucking" (adj) to punch up this uncensored review, for my personal blog for little reason other than to make a statement about censorship. If you don't like it, f$%& off and read it on MAL.

Anime Review: "Triage X"

It’s 2021. I’m at home. My Crohn’s disease is flaring, and I’m debating on whether it’s safe or not to go to the emergency room because Covid-19 is still quite widespread, and despite being vaccinated, the risk of infection is still there, especially with new variants on the rise. Health care workers are setting their safety aside to do battle on the front line in order to treat those who suffer and keep the general public safe. Given this current state of events, I thought it was only right that I should watch Triage X, an R+, hardcore echi series created by the character designer from Highschool of the Dead, Satou Shouji, which stars a varied cast of buxom women (and a token guy they can fawn over), who live as doctors and nurses by day, but by night, don their hidden personas as Black Label: a vigilante group of super-spy, ninja-assassins that move under the command  of a genius surgeon. Their mission – to purge the world of the many cancers that plague society (with bullets, swords, and explosives).

Let’s be blunt. You will watch this show for the medical theme, just as much as you watch High School of the Dead for the parts with the zombies.  The veneer of medical atmosphere around it plays out more like weird fetish cosplay than it works practically to set up plot, character backstory, or setting. In fact, the plot of the series is bad, no, it may actually be pretty terrible. Not only that, but by the end of the series, the story doesn’t actually give you any closure, instead setting up for a future OVA, or maybe a season 2 (lord knows if it’ll get one, but you never know). So not only is the story bad, it’s incomplete. That’s a major deal breaker for me when it comes to anime, even if the show is just an echi one.

The characters, and their backstories, were confused, and filled with the standard tired tropes. Several of them didn’t even get a backstory at all (maybe we’ll learn about them in the sequel). One of the characters doesn’t seem to have any tie-in to the rest of the team, from what I could tell, and works as an Idol and TV star by day. My best guess was that she was added to the cast by the series creator to fill a certain character archetype, and he thought, “Meh, why not, make her an idol, that’ll sell well with this demographic.”

Honestly, the plot behind the scenes for both the story and characters is pretty much garbage.

But honestly, you’re not watching this series for the plot, just like you’re not watching it for the medical drama. You’re watching it because you’re highly cultured and you’re interested in the PLOT i.e. the sexy ladies. In this case, the PLOT of the show is very attractive, mostly focused, in extreme close-up on the boobs (sasuga Satou-sensei). All the women have massive assets, which have been painstakingly animated with more care than some entire series will ever get (looking at some of the newer releases, it’s really quite painful). The series is presented in a fully uncensored version, as well as the “safe for TV” one, so of course I watched the home video release, because nobody needs weird beams of light, or dark black boxes all over their screen when they’re watching anime.

I saw someone comment the other day on twitter, “that show is entirely carried by the fan-service”, and generally people replied that yea, of course it is. “It’s an echi series, what do you expect?” At the time, they weren’t talking about Triage X, but I think the same argument applies here. If you’re watching this show, you’re watching it for the lewd jiggle physics, not the story, and not the action.

That being said, the action was actually really good. The guns were shooty, the swords were swingy, and the explosions possessed sufficient boom. The chase scenes on motorcycle, and fight scenes were all well-choreographed, taking into account the best way for each of the women to show off her character design. The male lead, was actually not a wet blanket. He was likable, in a serious, “let’s get down to business” kind of way.

At the end of the day, I don’t really recommend this show. It’s in the category of anime you probably watch when you’re horny, and alone, or bored and have nothing else to do, and that doesn’t really have much going for it other than the eye candy; the overly serious tone of it, combined with all the sexual abuse in the plot, just kinda kills the mood. If that doesn’t deter you though, the series is out legally on multiple streaming platforms such as Crunchyroll and Hidive.

*****

Please note, in all seriousness, support your health care professionals who are putting their lives on the line in the fight against Covid. That shit is getting absolutely out of hand. Wear a mask, get vaccinated. Don't be a dick.

Anime Review: "Nakaimo"

 

Nakaimo is basically as average as you can get. So average in fact, I forgot everything about it, including having already seen it, and watched it again. I had this marked as completed on MAL for who-knows-how-long, but could recall literally nothing about it, including the answer to the titular question, “who’s the MC’s little sister?”

This is a PLOT heavy show that is heavy on actual plot. The premise is that the main character’s father has passed away, and he’s soon to become the head honcho at his dad’s company, so he’s going to attend a new, elite school, where he’ll become a refined, adult, and find a wife… but, the catch is that his little sister, the illegitimate child of his father, also goes to the school; so, he’s gotta find a wife, and not ALSO bang his sister by accident in the process.

This is a fan-service loaded, echi, rom-com anime that can’t decide if it’s for the incest, or against it. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of little sister incest plots. They have a bad tendency to come off as really weird, and fetishist most of the time. This time, it was even weirder when they’re passing around literal DNA tests trying to determine who the MC’s related to by blood.

So, honestly, I question why I continued the show. I found that there were three reasons why I didn’t drop it and give it a 2 or a 3.

1. I was perplexed that I’d seen this and didn’t remember it at all, and didn’t want to admit that I’d checked it as complete without seeing it at all.

2. Once I started watching it, the plot actually did leave me guessing, because it seemed to be wrapping each question inside another question and leaving so many different flags, and red herrings that I couldn’t make heads or tails of what’s what.

And the last reason is probably the most critical…

3. The voice cast of this show is perplexingly loaded with all-star seiyuu on the Japanese side (no idea about the dub, I watched the sub).

Keep in mind this series came out in 2012, so for some of these people this was fairly early on in their career, for others, not so much.

The main character is played by Takahiro Sakurai (Reigan Arataka, Oshino Meme, Suzaku Kururugi), a VA legend, who’s been been in the business for a LONG time. He’s surrounded with female actresses who’ve also played some huge roles:

Koshimizu Ami (Kallen Satdtfeld, Holo, Matoi Ryuuko)

 Ayane Sakura (Uraraka Ochako, Nakano Yotsuba, Gabi Braun)

Kaori Ishihara (Souta from Dragon Maid, Aladdin from Magi, Murayama from DxD)

Rina Hidaka (Milim Nava, Last Order, Filo)

Ayana Taketatsu (Nino Nakano, Kirino Kousaka, Azusa from K-ON!)

So in the end, what kept me from dropping this show was the voice cast for the most part. It was so crazy loaded with talent that I couldn’t pull myself away and forced myself to finish it, even though I didn’t really get any satisfaction out of the ending or the plot.

So, I don’t really recommend watching this, unless you want to witness some VA’s in roles they’re DEFINITELY not known for. If you’re kind of a seiyuu nut, like I am, than watching this, and listening to their performances will leave you scratching your head, but will prove to be a moderately pleasurable experience. Hopefully I’ll remember I watched this series better now that I’ve written a review about it.

Anime Review: "Kill Me Baby"

I found Kill Me Baby when I was cleaning out my plan to watch list, wondered, hmm, why did I add this, took one look at the characters and remembered them from a whole slew of AMV dance mix videos and memes. This series may not be well known, or spoken of specifically, but Sonia and Yasuna, the main characters, are fairly recognizable when you see them together. I figured I might as well watch it. Laughed quite a bit at all the gags, and then looked for what to put on next.

That’s the kind of show this is. It’s good when you’re watching it, but ultimately pretty forgettable.

This anime is based off of a 4-koma comedy manga and has a teeny tiny cast of characters. Sonia, is a JK assassin, Yasuna is her idiot friend, and Agiri is ninja of dubious ability. There is also the “unused character” (played by Rie Kugimiya, arguably the most famous VA on the cast), and a few extras. The series is essentially a slapstick, gag comedy, in the manzai format, which is extremely popular in Japan. Manzai is traditionally a two-person act, with a “tsukkomi” (straight man) and a “boke” (funny man). Occasionally a third party will enter, and the roles can get swapped around with the introduction of this third party, which helps change things up a bit to keep the jokes from getting stale.

In the case of Kill Me Baby, Sonia is basically always a tsukkomi, and Yasuna is a really, really dumb boke. When ninja-girl shows up, she doesn’t change the greater order of things too much, but Yasuna will sometimes play tsukkomi to her. I’d say that honestly, the “dubious ninja” jokes in the show were some of the best gags. I actually found myself laughing out loud, which is super rare for me these days (since I’m mostly dead inside).

All in all, the dynamic isn’t nearly as complicated as it is to explain; what’s important is that it works. It’s a very funny show, the jokes hit well, the running gags provide a nice laugh, and the way they vary those up works well too. Now, unfortunately I might be quite biased. I’m a big fan of manzai, so I enjoy seeing it done well, and this is pretty good in terms of pure manzai anime.

There’s another reason I really enjoyed this series, simply because Sonia’s voice actress Mutsumi Tamura is really, really good; she’s probably most recognizable these days as playing Kobayashi in Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid (which happens to be one of my favorite shows). Her performance here really reminded me of the performance she gave in Dragon Maid, so I might be scoring this show a little kinder than I usually do (and I’m usually pretty easy going when rating anime).

At the end of the day, I recommend Kill Me Baby. It might be better not binging it, but rather throwing on an episode whenever you need a quick, easy, forgettable laugh to cleanse your palette and improve your mood. Watching every episode back-to-back it kind of blends together, and you lose track of things.

On a final note, you can find this on Hidive, which doesn’t have an option to skip the OP/ED, which is really a shame, because I found the opening song for this show to be extremely irritating, while I loved the ending. Guess you win some, you lose some.

Anime Review: "Urara Meirochou"

Urara Meirochou is a series I picked up entirely because Kayano Ai voices one of the characters, and not even one of the four main girls at that, so it’s not been a priority on my ptw list for a really long time, and I just got around to finishing it. I think it’s a bit underrated, in the sense that I rarely (that is to say never), hear it brought up in conversation or recommended, but looking at the score I gave it, and the average score on MAL, I think it’s actual rating is pretty accurate.

It’s good.

Not a whole lot more to be said…

But I’ll say it anyway.

This series is a very strange mix of genres: despite being undeniably a cute girls doing cute things (CGDCT) show, it also shares lots of trope elements with shonen series. Power of friendship, hard work, practice, etc. It’s a supernatural, fantasy, slice-of-life, comedy, and apparently it’s in the seinen category, despite being about a bunch of fifteen year old girls. It also features a good deal of very weird fan service, focusing on stomachs… it’s oddly simple to explain, and I’ll do that in a bit.

Nothing worth commenting about any of the technical elements, they’re all just what you’d expect from a show like this, so I’ll just skip that and get right into the setting, plot, characters, story and what not.

It’s an alternate earth, and the series is set in a location called “Labyrinth Town” where witches, mystics, and fortune tellers are common place. Visually, the city is reminiscent of a fantastic take on the transitional period between Meiji and Taisho. Without much (or any) technology to speak of though, the series really does bring the fantastic charm, almost reminiscent of isekai.

The main character, Chiya, is like a moe version of Tarzan, but can speak human language for some reason. She has a thing for belly rubs, which she uses to communicate with the forest animals, which is where the fan service comes in – she uses the same technique on all the other ladies she runs into, which brings quite a bit of confused-echi to the series (the kind of echi where you’re questioning wether this is totally harmless, or actually really weirdly fetishistic, and since you’ve gotta question that, it probably means someone out there finds this arousing…). She goes on a quest to find her mother, which brings her to Labyrinth town, where she meets three other girls – they all then set out on a path of training, overcoming their own weaknesses in order to become “Urara”, this world’s version of fortune tellers.

From there, the series becomes an episodic show where each episode the girls face various trials, working together to grow.

This show shines in its characters, which are all very cute, kawaii, moe, and what not. They’re fun, unique and well voice acted (in Japanese at least, no idea if there’s a dub or not). Each girl has her own issues, problems, and fears that they have to overcome on the path to greatness. Their chemistry is good, and the balance between them is swell.

The main problem I have with the show is that it’s honestly just very forgettable. I have trouble remembering what any of the individual episodes were about, and just vaguely recall the setting and plot details (I had to consult the show summary to figure out what the town was called because it completely left my brain). It all really seems to be kind of unimportant, unfortunately, since as far as activities go, fortune telling is definitely more of an exotic one, and the setting itself is very pretty and seems to be full of potential for world building. There were certainly some very memorable moments, and impactful scenes, but on an episode-to-episode basis, I can’t really remember when things happened.

And that’s not really a good thing.

However, I’d recommend this anime if you’re looking for something cute to watch that doesn’t require you to think very much. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy. And try not to dwell too much about the belly rubs.

Watch it on Hidive. 

Anime Movie Review: "Black Magic M-66"

Black Magic M-66 is an OVA by the author of “Ghost in the Shell” made several years before he began working on that iconic masterpiece.

That sentence alone should be enough to get you to watch this OVA (it’s only about 45 minutes long, what is that, in the great span of your life really?), but because I’ve got a word count to deal with, I suppose I’ll write a proper review.

According to some quick Wikipedia research, this OVA was based on one story from the original doujinshi published by Masanori Ota a.k.a Masamune Shirow in 1983. It’s short, and to the point.

No complicated details about anything, for the most part; this film has a plot, some good lucking characters (and character design) and great set pieces. It’s a very simple action movie that doesn’t get weighed down with existentialism or any of that other cyberpunk philosophy stuff, and instead just sticks with the bare nuts and bolts.

There’s a crazy military-grade robot on the loose, and because of a programming accident it’s trying to kill the granddaughter of its creator and the only one who can save her is Sybel, a gutsy, front-line war reporter! Sybel’s character design reminded me of Ellen Ripley. That should tell you basically all you need to know about her (assuming you’ve seen Alien).

The OVA plays out like a mish-mash of all the popular western action movies from the 80’s and it works kind of brilliantly. I can imagine Masanori Ota sitting in a movie theater in Osaka on a late afternoon, drinking a beer, and smoking a cigarette, and getting inspiration to create this movie… but then again, that’s just my imagination, because the original doujinshi for this predates most of those movies by a good bit.

Moving on…

Because there’s not really much of a backstory for any of setting or characters, it’s all left to the imagination, which is great, because it lets you just enjoy the set piece action scenes, which are pretty great, even by today’s standards.

I really enjoyed this movie, finding it very nostalgic for simpler times. The background art was extremely well done, the vehicles were all overly designed in a typical 80’s anime way, but the level of detail in just the random truck that explodes shows you how much attention to detail artists paid on the little things back then. The crazy robot looks fierce, cold, and cool. Its weapons don’t require any long explanations of science or physics to understand; they’re very lazerbeam pew pew, hulk smash kind of deal. The same applies to all the countermeasures the military takes to fight the robot. We’re acknowledged to be a smart enough audience to know what “the donut” does (because I certainly don’t remember them telling us), but I find that very refreshing not being babied. No excess exposition required. Great.

This was yet another movie I found looking through the HIDIVE vaults. Crazy to think that when you go hunting for hidden gems, sometimes you actually find them.

Hard recommend. Go, grab a pizza, or a beer, and throw this on before you get back to your seasonals. I’m sure it will be a nice change of pace.

Anime Movie Review: "The Dragon Dentist"

 

I found this film when looking through HIDIVE’s movielibrary, not really knowing anything about it. I had heard of it, probably through advertising when it came out, but didn’t know anything regarding the content and I had long forgotten anything I saw in the trailers (if I had actually seen them in the first place). This certainly isn’t a movie that comes up in weeb discourse on social media, so I was interested to see if it was a hidden gem, and I think it kind of is.

First, let me say, if you were hoping for a cute story where a moe girl takes care of an adorable dragon’s oral hygiene, ala Dragon Maid, you’re going to be very disappointed. Prepare yourself for “Princess Mononoke”, not “My Neighbor Totoro”. So, definitely not a kid flick.

This two-part film is an adaptation of an 8 minute ONA from novelist Ōtarō Maijō, someone who writes proper literature. It’s executive producer, Hideaki Anno, is best known as the creator of “Evangelion”, and with that knowledge, you can probably guess that this is going to be quite a ride.

I’ll start by saying that art, animation, sound, music (basically all the technical elements) of this were great on par with things you’d see out of a Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai films. Maybe not quite as good, but honestly, excellent. Highly theatrical.

Now, getting into the content, story, etc.

The setting resembles something like an alternate history WWII era world. In the opening we see period battleships. We learn vaguely that there is a war going on, and one of the nations involved in that war has had a long-time pact with colossal god-like dragons, that function as floating fortresses (people live on them), which they use in battle. The dragon’s themselves remind me of something you’d see in “Dr. Who”. They’re these massive flying beasts, reminiscent of iconic Asian dragons. The plot of the story revolves around the titular dentists, who serve a sacred purpose in caring for the teeth of the dragon – and dealing with all the cavity-monsters that dwell there. Their job carries heavy, religious weight, but explaining it would be too spoilery.

If this sounds confusing, or complex, I would say you’re right. I don’t want to get into much more plot detailing, because honestly, I’m not sure I could properly summarize it without just straight up ripping off someone else’s review (or wikipedia). And for the most part, that is where my primary complaint with the movies lie. The setting, world building, plot, characters, etc. were all incredibly original and well-crafted, but because it’s all compacted into just two movies, it felt very hard to understand it all, and hard to remember exactly what’s what. The setting is rife with culture, but because we’re only given a glimpse of it, it’s hard to give it much value. I would have liked to have had more, much more of it. This could easily have been a two-cour seasonal show, but they did it in a two-part film format instead. But, considering all of this is coming from just an 8 minute ONA, I guess that’s actually pretty impressive.

My other main complaint with the films was that I felt like I’d seen parts of it before. I try to keep in my the phrase, “there’s nothing new under the son,” when watching anime, because there’s only so many ways you can arrange anime and stay original, but when certain story beats, play out almost exactly like another, very famous, and very specific film, it kind detracts from the originality factor that I had been praising the anime for. In the end though, that’s a nitpick, not a deal breaker, and I would still recommend the movie, despite some of it feeling familiar.

At the end of the day, is this worth watching? Absolutely. Is it worth rewatching, to try and break down, and understand, all the setting and world building? Ehhhh…. maybe?

Anime Review: "Kaiju Girls Black"

I picked this movie out, at random, basically on a whim, when I was browsing Hidive’s film library. I had zero knowledge of it, or expectations going in. After about ten minutes in I was truly baffled, and went off to figure out what the fuck I’d gotten myself into.

15 minutes later, after taking down some notes on a nearby post-it, I had a rough idea of things. But in all honesty, still was pretty fucking lost.

Kaiju Girls Black is a feature film anime sequel to the Kaiju Girls anime series, which I had not watched prior to screening this film while I played Minecraft; now I understood, at least in part, why I was so confused. This is the kind of movie that it helps to have gone into with some base level of connection to the franchise. Basically a movie made for the fans.

In short, Kaiju Girls is a Gijinka (think anthropomorphic or furry, if you will) series in which various Kaiju (from Ultraman? I think, based off reading some wiki articles and watching a YouTube explanation vid, but don't @ me if that's wrong) take the form of cute, kawaii, moe anime girls (most likely in an effort to sell merch).

Now, lots of anime is only made to promote LN’s or Blu-Rays, or sell merch, so I’m not one to really judge things out of the gate. Transformers, a series made to sell action figures, has now had 6 feature films, (all of which were bad, again, don't @ me), which have, according to a quick google search, about $4.8 billion in total box office. Plus, they probably did also sell a lot of toys too, but I’ll not get into that. What I’m saying is this, I’m not going to wholly discount this movie because it may or may not have been just a toy commercial.

With that being said… I bet you expect me to now say the movie was an absolute dumpster fire, and for me to light that shit on fire, but you’d be surprised, because this wasn’t a bad film. It lacked much substance, and so will this review. It certainly wasn’t ground breaking entertainment; but I got a few giggles, and occasional chortle, out of it, the animation was clean, it was delightfully self-aware, the voice acting was well done, and the characters were pretty decent to look at in terms of originality (and cuteness). Given that this was probably being marketed at middle - high school kids (and all the rotten anime-girl figure buying otaku as well), I think it says a lot considering that I enjoyed it, considering I'm well out of those age demographics (though I suppose I am a rotten otaku).

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that this movie succeeded in making me curious enough about the franchise that I’m now putting the original anime into my ptw list with all the other stuff… there’s quite a bit in there now, but I’m gradually getting through it.

You can watch it now, streaming on Hidive. Unfortunately, the original anime television series (which turns out to be done very different stylistically, and in short format), is licensed by Crunchyroll. So hopefully you have subs to both of them.