Asteroid Blues: The Lasting Legacy of Cowboy Bebop

What they said. And what we said.

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longtime readers – Hmmm…. – may have seen the previous posts on Ghost in the Shell – both the movies and the 2 TV Series. recently a ‘prequel’ 4-episode miniseries was done that arguably fits ahead of all of them in time, although it’s closest in plot, characters and mentality to the two TV series – Ghost in the Shell:Arise.

So these episodes are a bit of a mix – they attempt to tell more of Motoko’s backstory (I can’t remember if they did much in the series with this, certainly not the movies, with this, barring one notable episode) – and they show the forming of the team (Motoko, Batou, Borma, Paz, Saito and Togusa with Aramaki as the Chief) that continues in the two series. And they attempt to include the other characters a bit more than seen previously (in the series it’s all about Motoko, Batou and Aramaki with Togusa in close second, the rest of the team have fairly 2-dimensional roles) although with four episodes there isn’t much time for that.

Here they also develop Motoko’s origins in Army Intelligence prior to joining Section 9, which is interesting but definitely not explained enough. And her former captain (Kurutsu) is seen throughout this series, in part as a foil, in part as a potential adversary? It’s not really clear.

Like all the Ghost series and movies, the animation is top-notch, and the visuals are always interesting and offbeat. And in addition to the backstory development mentioned above, there are at least two major plot lines through the four series in parallel, and those are sometimes hard to follow but interesting also.

The Section 9 ‘think tanks’ (Tachikomas in the two TV series) are seen here as earlier versions called ‘Logicomas’ – while the characters sometimes slam their capabilities as outdated or inferior, they seem as useful as the later versions – and not quite as silly in voice characterization as the later Tachikomas are).

And another interesting side topic is the infrequent commentary on ‘cyberization’ of humans – the human dream of merging man with machine – as well as the flip side of it being forced on people in part due to corporate greed. I found it kind of ironic that the people (with one exception) doing most of the commentary on this in the show are full cyborgs (all the members of Section 9 excepting Togusa and Aramaki).

I would say that besides the first movie, the first TV series (namely the Laughing Man story cycle within) would be my favorite – but this mini-series is very well done and definitely next in line – there’s likely sufficient timeline available for yet another between this series and the events in Stand Alone Complex, certainly. Like Initial D, Samurai Champloo and Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell rarely disappoints and ranks right up there with the best anime – can’t wait for the next one!

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Annoying – I find yet ANOTHER great animated series, only to determine that it’s already been CANCELLED – argh! So just finished watching the last episode of Sym-Bionic Titan, made by one of my fave animators – Genndy Tartakovsky, you may know him for Samurai Jack, Dexter’s Laboratory or even one of the early Clone Wars animated series.

So apparently this series came out a few years ago but was ultimately cancelled after its first year of 20 episodes in part because there were no TOYS associated with it? Sometimes I really think Cartoon Network has its head up its collective TV set on this stuff?!?

This series is really well-done – it has the always incredible art and design by Scott Wills (also of Samurai Jack fame among others); it has engaging stories that while in some cases a wee bit repetitive (they do generally fight one monster a show) still move a multistory plot along in the background and have the characters actually *develop* along the way. Astute viewers will notice sly visual pop culture references hidden in most episodes or in some cases, dialogue, but ths show doesn’t go out of its way to be ‘hip’ in that respect, which is nice.

One thing that’s very different about this show vs. say, Samurai Jack, is that the violence is definitely more pronounced, definitely more anime-inspired. While in watching some extras about Samurai Jack, they talked about how they could never actually kill a ‘person’ onscreen in that show – so they slice and dice robots and robot kaiju all over the place instead – here, they definitely left that rule behind, sometimes in a big way (the large battles of the ‘Escape from Galaluna’ episode especially).

But like happened to TRON:Uprising – I guess hollywood can’t appreciate (and RENEW for another season!) quality when they see it. Hopefully Mr. Tartakovsky will keep up the great work and using the same animators and art team – amazing stuff, this was…..

Other voices:
Metacritic

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Discovered they finally finished Initial D – and watched the last four episodes (Final Stage). Very glad they kept with it. These start a bit slow and go a bit overboard on backstory, but all the things we love about Initial D are still there:

– ridiculous, over the top posturing (although less than in past Stages);
– crazy mountain driving without apparently any hint of fear, parental control or police;
– ‘mental monologuing’ throughout where people are constantly explaining things to each other out loud (or through narration);
– and last but certainly not least – Takumi Fujiwara and his amazing AE86 Trueno…..

Enjoy. I am not supplying a link because if you simply do a search, you’ll find it. 🙂 In case you missed Fifth Stage (immediately precedes Final Stage, there are 14 episodes) – you’ll want to search for and watch that first. And if you haven’t watched ANY of them, what were you thinking (and get to work – Funimation has Stages 1-4 online!

According to Wikipedia, there is also a three-part movie remake coming….woo hoo!

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Scarecrow Video raising $100K on Kickstarter to preserve world’s largest archive of movies

for those of you who don’t know who/what Scarecrow Video is, you need to get INFORMED. 🙂

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Well, it’s been awhile since I watched any anime – but what’s cool is that despite having thought I had watched most of the ‘really’ cool series (Initial D, Ghost in the Machine, Cowboy Bebop, etc.) there was still at least one more great one out there – Samurai Champloo. Just watched the last episode today, sad to end it.

This is the next series done by the director of Cowboy Bebop, Shinichirō Watanabe. Completed in 2004, it tells the story of a young girl, Fuu, seeking a ‘samurai who smells of sunflowers’, accompanied by two master swordsman – Mugen (a fairly wild man/criminal type who literally lives on the edge nearly the entire series) and Jin (reserved, quiet dojo master fighter who says little but can clearly handle himself). The two effectively act as Fuu’s bodyguards (not always successfully) for the interesting and sometimes crazy situations that crop up along their journey. The story is set in Japan’s isolationist Edo period (late 1600’s to 1800’s) so it’s a very rural society with only basic firearms becoming available, possibly through limited European influence/trading. The travelers journey for a long time across Japan, ending near Nagasaki.

There are a number of interesting parallels with Cowboy Bebop, if you pay close attention. The three main characters vary wildly in personality and are largely thrown together by circumstance, much like the crew of the Bebop in the earlier show. While the journey of the Bebop is a bit more disjointed, an overwhelming sense of wandering without knowing why, where or how is a strong influence on both series. And the characters of both seem to be running from their past lives while somehow circling back to confront them at the same time. Finally, in thinking about it, I can see where Mugen and Jin are arguably the two halves of Spike Spiegel from Bebop – the crazy wild side that loves to fight and thrives on excitement and conflict (Mugen); and the measured, calculating, quiet side that still retains an edge (Jin).

But there are plenty of new things to enjoy about Samurai Champloo, too. The pervasive influence of music and specifically, hip-hop in the theme and at various intervals where you least expect it. The ability of the stories to relate history while putting a new (sometimes blatantly fictional) spin on it. Ultimately, taking a rather simplistic concept that’s been arguably done many times (Kung Fu, the original Hulk tv series, even Samurai Jack) yet still creating something new and very entertaining.

Like most anime, we don’t get to see *all* the motivations of the main characters – many are left to the imagination. And in the usual anime way, there is endless posturing and one-upmanship that I’m starting to think is just a facet of Japanese society (old or new) – but never having been there, i’ll have to take that one on faith for now. And there are a few cliff jumps in this show that are unbelievable (meaning not possible to survive if you did it) but i’m picking nits here.

In summary, I’d have to conclude Samurai Champloo was a very pleasant surprise as to the quality and entertainment value and ranks among the best anime I’ve seen to date, surely up there with those mentioned above – Check it out if you get the chance!

candybowl

I’ve been watching 1998’s Cowboy Bebop on Adult Swim over the past several months (at one episode a week with 26 episodes, it can take a while) – finally finished them last week.

This is a great anime, if you like bounty hunters in space and don’t mind occasional crazy violence (and that they don’t usually explain a lot of what’s going on – you have to infer or watch all the episodes to really get it). The main characters’ backstory are slowly revealed throughout the entire timeline, and even though Spike’s fighting abilities seem a bit beyond his outward appearance – it still works. And the overall visuals are pretty much pre-CGI – now rare for a space-opera but like Akira – the animation is more than adequate and well done.

I think the only real downside for me was having to watch it dubbed in English – I prefer watching them in Japanese with subtitles to get the flavor of the original actors/authors as possible. But that wasn’t really too big a deal here.

The other downside is that now i’m done with the main anime’s on Adult Swim – I’ve seen Ghost in the Shell at least twice all the way through; I tried to watch an episode of Big O but just couldn’t get into it – and the others they show aren’t really of interest – doh!

check it out in any event – i’ll be headed back to Scarecrow myself….

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Finished watching Redline tonight.  This is probably the craziest anime, (possibly movie), I have ever seen.

As regular readers know, I’m a big fan of ‘racing anime’ – although among the various types of anime out there – it is comparatively rare, and I’ve pretty much seen all of them (Initial D, Wangan Midnight, IGPX, etc.), save for re-watching Speed Racer all over again, which I still may do someday (the 2008 live-action Speed Racer movie, however – that’s a great flick – see previous post here).  Common elements include the racing itself, which of course in anime means over-the-top posturing and ego clashes from nearly every character at some point or another if not constantly; technology can play a factor (IGPX being the anime-futuro-mecha version of team racing, not terribly unlike the Kinetica videogame on PS2) and illegal street racing, whether in town/highways (Wangan Midnight) or crazy steep mountain/cliffside roads (Initial D).

So Redline takes nearly all these elements in one form or another and goes one better – it is a series of increasingly challenging elimination races (Blueline, followed by Yellowline, then the ultimate final race with the cream of the competitors: Redline) that are held on various alien worlds across varied and unknown terrain, not always including actual roads.  Because (of course) some of the vehicles used are hover-jet/rocket/cars (think of the hover-car/bike race in The Phantom Menace) and because nearly all the cars (even those relying on wheels) have some sort of rocket/nitro boost in them, among other abilities (The Mach 5 would be sadly outclassed here, I think).

So the story follows a few key racers as they make it past a Yellowline race (already in progress at the start of the movie) and gain entry to the Redline final race (the third act of the movie is that race).  Unexpected plot elements include the ‘roboworld’ planet where Redline is to be held – doesn’t want the race to be held on their planet, and so does everything they can (including armies, space weaponry and bio-weapons) to stop the race and kill all the racers if possible.  Also JP (one of the main characters) has a shady past (unlike nearly every other racer who has a ‘shady present’) and is known for ‘fixing’ races, for which he was sent to prison at least once.

The plot is otherwise fairly straight forward, about what you’d expect in a racing movie/anime, save for the following:

First – it is completely hand-drawn animation.  No CGI.  Which is probably in part why it took seven years(!) to make.  The results are VERY impressive, although in many racing sequences the action is so crazy-chaotic it can be hard to figure out what is going on.  They make use of every frame in this movie to excess, and it shows.

I would have to describe the visual style of the movie as ‘Roy Lichtenstein vs. Aeon Flux‘ with a not-completely-subtle dash of Wacky Races thrown in for good measure.  JP looks almost as if he walked right out of an Aeon Flux episode, and he’s not the only one.  The stark color contrasts seen here really stand out (hence the Lichtenstein impression) with an incredible level of detail not normally seen in an anime (or most animation generally).  The ridiculous cast of racers *has* to have been influenced by Wacky Races, and the later IGPX, I’m sure – they are a total collection of freaks and misfits.

What passes for character development here is the second act, where the various racers prepare for the Redline race and have at least a few scenes of conversation here and there.  Sadly, there is a bit of gratuitous nudity thrown in (for no apparent reason) and there was some random profanity at points in the movie (I watched in Japanese with subtitles but it may have also made it into the dubbed version) which, taken together with some of the extreme action and character design, probably make this movie NOT suitable for kids – i’d rate it a PG-13.

But it’s definitely a very well-made, beautifully animated movie and if you like anime, worth seeing for that reason alone – they set a pretty high bar.  One of the few anime I’ve seen that equal this movie’s animation quality would be Appleseed – but that movie has a *lot* of CGI mixed in with the traditional animation, so not really the same thing.

Check it out!  Again I got it from Scarecrow but Amazon now carries it too if you don’t live in Seattle.

Other Redline reviews:
Anime News Network
Notaku Blog

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Watched the one-off anime movie The Silent Service last night.  Made in 1995 and based on the manga of the same name, this movie tells the story of an advanced sub, the ‘Sea Bat’ – ultimately renamed the ‘Yamoto’ – built as a cooperative venture by the US Navy and the Japanese Self-Defense Force.  It is staffed by an all-Japanese crew, but an American captain is included as (presumably) an overseer.

{{Spoiler Alert}}

As the post-WWII treaty between the US and Japan forbids Japan to have any nuclear weapons (not sure if this is in fact really true, but it seems likely), this sub is to sail under the command of the US 7th fleet, but the story implies it is effectively a Japanese vessel, given its crew. And its captain states that belief outright during a conversation, then shortly thereafter steals the sub – the rest of the movie concerns the various diplomatic and international situations created by this action.

This is an interesting movie, for several reasons.  First, it plays like a combination of ‘Red October meets Red Storm Rising‘ given the regular interplay between the military action vs. the diplomatic wrangling.

It’s also well written (but for a couple minor gripes, see below) – I really didn’t know what the heck Captain Kaieda was going to do at any turn once he stole the Sea Bat/Yamoto.  While the characters are otherwise fairly typical anime (one or two silent know-it-all guys; many more pride-filled, over-the-top guys; a few raging crusaders; a few moderates stuck in between all the rest) and none are close to being three-dimensional, within the confines of this story their limitations don’t get in the way.

The animation is fairly standard anime – no CGI in this one, probably a bit early for that – nothing spectacular but otherwise fine.

Minor nits:

1) One of the American motives here is revealed to be the ‘recolonization of Japan’ – WTF?  Is that really a concern after all these years (or even in 1995, or ‘ever’)?  Despite the Americans in this anime obviously being the bad guys, that’s really reaching, guys.

2) The American president has a little ‘rage session’ of his own in the bathroom near the end – and he brags to himself that despite the outcome of the sub chase and confrontation(s), the USA still has enough nukes to destroy Japan many times over.  Again – even transposing the recent departed war-mongering, civil-rights-trampling, corrupt Bush Administration into his shoes – I cannot believe Bush (or the even more despicable Cheney) would ever say (or even think) such a thing to even themselves!  This is just too much…

It’s interesting that even the Japanese players here (Prime Minister, Captain of the Sea Bat/Yamoto, other rival JSDF sub captain, and at least one of the high-level administration bureaucrats – all have competing visions as to what to do with this sub – naturally the guy *driving it* prevails with what happens, but it definitely adds to the story and keeps the viewer guessing.

One reason I was interested in watching this once I came across it in a random search – was that I used to play the Amiga computer game Silent Service – based on sub wars in the South Pacific during WWII.  The feel of this movie is very similar – although the players are reversed – and cool!

The only other downside is that they never made the rest of the manga into more anime footage, so I guess I’ll have to hunt it down to find out what happens later to the characters.  Still, this story is complete and stands alone quite well.  Check it out!  I found it at Scarecrow but I’m sure it’s elsewhere….

candybowl

So readers of this blog already know I’m an anime fan, and a ‘racing anime‘ fan in particular – assuming you can find it. Certainly the most notable racing anime is Initial D, and due to its long term manga/anime popularity, a live-action movie of the Initial D story came out in 2005. So the tofu-hauling teenage drift racer of Gunma Prefecture rides again, now in real life. How does it hold up?

Naturally one movie compared to 30+ manga issues and/or 3 anime series + some animated movies cannot be expected to capture the entire saga of the story – they wisely concentrate here on elements from seasons one and two. We see how Takumi became a drift expert (hauling tofu in the early dawn through the mountains for his dad’s business), how his dad is a retired racer (and expert in setting up the AE86 Takumi now drives for the deliveries) and how once the word gets out, other nearby racers immediately want to challenge Takumi (Nakazato from the Night Kids, Ryosuke Takahashi from the Red Suns, and Sudo from the Emperor team). Various races ensue, and (big surprise) Takumi wins – but like the anime, you root for him the whole time and on balance, it’s an entertaining movie.

A list of differences between the movie and the anime/manga can be seen here. I won’t go into them save to say I didn’t really like how they turned Takumi’s dad into a drunk – in the anime he’s just gruff and quiet, keeping largely to himself. I think here they were trying to show Takumi’s dad as frustrated by his wife leaving (this is never mentioned in the anime at all by comparison) so he drinks. I would have preferred more ‘racing expertise’ discussion and less of this flawed character aspect, it’s mostly just a distraction.

The racing is good, if somewhat on the brief side. The anime/manga naturally has the advantage of drawing out all the events that run up to the racing which the movie simply doesn’t have time to deal with, but they did a great job and the racing is definitely convincing. But the anime also draws out the races quite a bit, often times over multiple episodes, which would look unrealistic if done in live action, so that’s another reason it seems a lot shorter here.

The acting is good, although these are with one exception, all Hong Kong actors (only Anne Suzuki, playing Takumi’s girlfriend Mogi, is Japanese). They all do a good job but I missed the constant (many times silly) over-the-top posturing and dialog from the anime – that tends to increase the tension from the usually following race – here, that’s a bit lacking. But maybe Japanese teens aren’t really that crazy-intense in real life? Dunno.

Another somewhat missing element is the hyperactive background music of the anime during the racing scenes. Here, they largely play hip-hop style music throughout the movie, which is fine, but not quite the same. And I think that tends to slow down the impression of the racing somewhat as a result. But a nice touch was to try to replicate the offbeat and constantly changing camera angles during the race as otherwise seen in the anime – well done!

You can also watch the ‘making of’ via Youtube here – it has english subtitles, the dialog is in Chinese given the cast and crew. It’s clear they took the job of this movie very seriously and tried their best to make a good movie and not do it on the cheap. And, that they filmed in rural Japan gives it that extra look of truth, to me at least.

Check it out – it’s a good intro to Initial D, and will likely make you want to check out the anime or manga (or both).

candybowl

PS – there may be an Initial D ‘2’ in the near future – see here.