So I finally watched Akira recently. This is one of the anime movies that started it all, way back in 1988. It shares many (now) typical anime plot devices (angry head cop going-it-alone against the system, devil-may-care central characters that live (and often die) completely in the moment, a post-apocalpytic Neo-Tokyo that has more than one section of the city living in all but anarchy, subtle yet pervasive technology throughout everything the characters see and experience, etc.) – many of these themes, however, originated in *this* movie, so small wonder these influences persist to this day – Akira is by far among the best anime I’ve seen to date.

Like the first Ghost In The Shell movie, this one doesn’t seem to have any CGI in it – given that TRON and The Last Starfighter weren’t too many years before this movie, the lack of CGI (or, CGI integrated into anime) isn’t very surprising. The scenery and drawings are fairly impressive with a meticulous attention to detail, and the characters are drawn with a wide range of emotion throughout.

There are definite external inspirations within Akira in turn. The super-bikes all the main biker gang characters own are obviously influenced by the TRON light-cycles (and 80s ‘crotch rocket’ street bikes from the real world of the same era). And there has to be a shout-out given to Escape From New York (and similar but far cheesier early 70s post-apocalyptic sci-fi) as influential upon the burned-out city in Neo-Tokyo.

Without revealing very much – essentially one of the main biker-gang members, Tetsuo, is inadvertently exposed to a mutant on the run from a secret army agency. This exposure (of course) begins to create powers in this kid and one can begin to predict what happens next – although it’s still not near as predictable as you might think, and just when you think the movie is ending, another plot twist moves in another direction – nice!

To repeat, definitely one of the best anime I’ve seen yet – others have amazing animation/CGI but largely flat characters (Appleseed); interesting stories that sadly create inherent plot contradictions over time that aren’t resolved (Witch Hunter Robin); or very simplistic (but fairly entertaining) plots in a completely fantastical setting (Mars Daybreak – all hail talking Belugas!). Akira stands way above all of those – if you only ever see one anime – make it this one.

candybowl

Generally speaking, I’ve loved animation since well, forever. Over the past several years, besides the rise of Japanese anime in US pop-culture, another worthwhile offshoot of animation has been a variant of (arguably) good ol’ claymation – except with Lego bricks. Saw this Lego Matrix homage today, reminded me of the White Stripes Lego video of several years ago – enjoy!

candybowl

Finally popped up on my hold list at the library, and was able to watch the original Ghost in the Shell movie (again – saw it several years ago once before) tonight.

While the first two GITS movies have the same characters but an almost completely different storyline than the two series and much later 3rd movie, it’s interesting now to go back and watch this one again, having seen all the rest. It’s obviously older – there isn’t any CGI in this one, all classic animation (although I guess it has since been remade itself and incorporated some CGI). The characters, excepting Aramaki, all seem somehow ‘younger’ – almost as if you are seeing The Major in her late 20s or something. It’s not impossible to believe that her merger with The Puppetmaster program by the end of this movie made her into the arguably colder, more calculating/mature and ‘older’ Major of the later series? Interesting to think about at any rate. Batou seems younger too, as if he’s all but ready to *tell* The Major he loves her, but as per usual, seems torn up about it? Hard to say. He’s definitely a colder fish in the first TV series, if not the second.

As the story here (and in the second original movie) are again, not part of the rest – seeing them before/after everything else is fine, you aren’t losing out – there are only really five characters here from the later series – The Major, Batou, Togusa, Chief Aramaki, and Ishikawa. Saito gets mentioned but they never show him, and Borma/Paz don’t exist here.

I think of the three movies, I like this one best. Its story can stand alone, even though of course it was easy to build a sequel and later series from it. Of the two series, the first one was better for me (see earlier post on this). Great stuff, definitely top-tier anime, for sure.

candybowl

Well, after 2-3 weeks of off-on watching, I finally finished the second Ghost In the Shell anime TV series – S.A.C. 2nd Gig. This series is a continuation from the previous Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex (see earlier post on that one here).

This second series is more of a political thriller than the first. Both series have a long story-arc that persists until the end, but they don’t seem to ‘explain’ as much in this one by the end – there are still at least a few motivations and actions I didn’t quite understand. There is more straight up ‘battle’ and conflict in this one too – and I liked the fact that they gave the other members of Section 9 (Paz, Boma, Saito and Ishikawa) a lot more to do in this series, than just focusing on the main four characters (Togusa, The Major, Batou and The Chief) as seen in the previous series.

There is a great villain in this one too – Kazundo Gohda, the head of the Cabinet Intelligence Service. Besides being facially disfigured and scarred (like all great over-the-top villains) this guy has plans within plans within plans, something every other main character finds out all too often along the way. While personally I thought The Laughing Man from the previous series was a more interesting foe for a variety of reasons – I had small hopes he’d show up in this one at some point – Gohda is definitely a man with a complex and hidden mission.

The main ‘anti-hero’ in this series Hideo Kuze, who remains at least in part a semi-major enigma. It would have been neat to see another episode of flashback(s) to his wanderings in Eurasia and how he came to his revolutionary stance portrayed in the series. They explore some of this through dialogue, but IMHO not enough. The Tachikomas even get a bit more to do – there are computer simulations of them used for the various episodes centered around computer hacking, besides their usual role as battle-backup for Section 9.

All in all, another great and interesting series – the animation is again excellent, The Major isn’t near as invincible in this one, and even Batou has to face up to a number of his own demons by the end.

candybowl.

gee, another one? Yep. This is the third Ghost in the Shell movie, but unlike the first two, it follows the storyline(s) from the two seasons of the anime TV series, Ghost in the Shell: SAC and Ghost in the Shell: SAC 2nd Gig. I am just about to watch the latter season, so there are still back-story gaps for me, but suffice it to say, this is a very good movie, and I would judge it better than Ghost in the Shell: Innocence for both plot and character detail (see earlier post for that review). Both are equally beautiful animation, no issues in that dept.

The same characters from Section 9 are here again, although most get short shrift per usual. Another unusual element in this one is the comparatively minor role of the Tachikoma AI ‘tanks’ seen in other parts of the various movies and series – while they help in one major assault in the movie, they are otherwise largely ignored or left out. As in the previous movies and series, The Major, Batou, Togusa and The Chief are the main four to watch – the Chief less so this time around, however.

As these series/movies are largely detective stories, I don’t want to talk about spoilers – just watch the darn thing and enjoy it! I did.

This is the second Ghost in the Shell movie, circa 2004. It focuses mainly on two of The Major’s investigator/partners from Section 9 – Batou and Togusa, and a wide-ranging crime investigation that spans yakuza battles and pleasure robots killing their masters.

While I liked this movie, it has some similar plot elements (albeit more complex given it’s a self-contained movie/story) to a later S.A.C. episode from the TV series. And the absence of The Major means they have to flesh out the two male characters much more – which is a good thing, but I’m not sure they are completely successful. I think they paint a more sympathetic portrait of both Batou and Togusa in the later S.A.C. tv anime than here, but I may be biased, having seen that first.

One other interesting thing – I felt a strong Blade Runner influence on this film – from the noir-esque atmosphere, some of the things that happen to Batou during the investigation, and some of the philosophical commentary both Batou and Togusa make at points throughout the story (odd coming from hard-bitten cyberpunk cops, but that’s the noir element, definitely).

Still definitely worth watching, but if you haven’t seen S.A.C. – watch this first, THEN watch the first series. 🙂

After a long series of ISP hassles a couple months ago I won’t bore you with, the home network/site situation has been looking (back) up. And as part of this hopefully continued success, the Amiga server is back in the pink, too after some overdue tweaks and maintenance. What is an Amiga, you say?

Click here for a fairly concise and accurate history of one of the coolest computers ever made. As I drift back towards Amiga-land, including using an actual modern Amiga (my server is getting near 20 years old, I am not making that up!) it will mean reacquainting myself with an old friend, and a computer that’s actually FUN to use.

I guess that’s my main beef with most computer systems these days. Windows is about as subtle as a power drill and even less fun to use. I don’t use it for games, barring say Solitaire, Mahjong or FreeCell and the less time I spend using it excepting certain programs, the better. And living in Seattle means (still) enduring people who never used anything else and think Micro$oft invented everything to do with computers. Those sad, sad people….Thankfully M$’s arrogance, ineptitude (Vista, anyone?) and the resurgence of the Mac and Linux have quieted them down considerably (plus many have since ‘retired’ as wealthy stock barons since anyway).

Yes, the Mac is more ‘elegant’ (whatever that means) and isn’t near as hacky, crash-prone or virus-ridden. But again, barring usage of certain programs, it’s ‘meh’ to use for me. It can do many cool things and had I never used an Amiga, I’d probably prefer it above all others.

FreeBSD, the *nix I regularly use on my ThinkPad (soon to be FreeBSD 8.0 in a couple of days) is secure and stable, but still has a way to go on the user-friendliness aspect. But it’s getting there, just like the various types of Linux i’ve used in the past. The interesting thing about Unix/Linux is that despite many users’ strong and continued efforts to mold it into a Windows-killer – there is just as much interest in NOT EVER DOING THAT. Because Unix (and to a somewhat lesser degree Linux) is a geek’s OS, first and foremost – and wasn’t developed originally to be anything different. The windowing systems (X11 and beyond) and GUI elements that came much later were in part a reaction to systems like the Mac, and many users still *like* being ‘in the know’ – without the rest joining the ‘cool kids club’ of Unix users. In other words, if you want to use Unix, earn your stripes, Marine.

Which brings me to the Amiga – as I get back into hopefully using it regularly again, I’m sure i’ll run across things I now take for granted elsewhere that got left behind in the Amiga’s comparative years in the wilderness since 1994 – but the 4.x versions are a promising re-start and there’s ample cause to be optimistic given the nutty lawsuits are now over (hopefully for GOOD). I will leave it to the reader to review the history materials linked above, but here’s to my happy reconversion back 🙂

candybowl

PS – the Amiga site is here: http://www.amigau.com – it is hosted on a vintage 1989 A2000 68060/50mhz machine with 64mb RAM. For an original-spec Amiga, this is a comparative powerhouse machine (not by modern standards of course – but how many ‘modern’ computers are still running almost 20 years later after debut, either?) And yes, I know there are many dead links on that site – i’m working on it 🙂