Shelf Life
Apples and Oranges
by Erin Finnegan,
I just finished reading volume one of Viz! Whoever translated and rewrote it worked wonders.
Try Toriko, you might like it.
I tried Gunslinger Girl season one and I still didn't like it. Unfortunately, as a reviewer, I'm obligated to finish it.
As a piece of entertainment, Gunslinger Girl achieves exactly what it sets out to do. It attempts to be slightly-to-very creepy, and it is. The viewer is supposed to think, "this is so wrong," and Gunslinger Girl is very effective in eliciting that reaction. In that respect, it's a winner.
Unfortunately, Shelf Life ratings are based on my opinions. ANNCast.
The production quality is high enough that Gunslinger Girl stays out of the trash. In of blazons, compared to Strike Witches, Gunslinger Girl is the reviewed the OVAs, which were much more loli-tastic. Everyone said, "watch season one!" Well, now I have. Soon I'll watch season two.
I enjoy the science fiction aspect of this show. But as long as you're rebuilding little girls as super assassins, why not remove their tear ducts? The Social Welfare Agency is already removing other unnecessary parts. In one scene, Triela complains about having cramps and another girl mentions that her uterus was removed. (Skeevy!) I mean, it's implied none of them will live long enough to have children anyway, so…
Some fans will argue that they "really got into the characters" in the show. After season one, I still can't tell you much about Triela or Henreitta's personalities. Their past memories are wiped, and their current memories get re-wiped periodically, so there isn't much to go on. Henreitta is, uh… really nice? And Triela kind of likes teddy bears? Character traits like "enjoying books" are not the same as full characterization.
I would feel better about the show if the girl's didn't have an older brother/teacher/coach/lover relationship with their Handlers. But if they had more platonic relationships, what would be left of the show? The relationships are an integral part of helping the show meet its skeeving-you-out goals. I would feel less sorry for the girls if they couldn't cry and if erasing their memories didn't shorten their lifespan. But you're supposed to feel sorry for them.
In any case, the Blu-ray edition looks fantastic. The scene at the end where the girls sing "Ode to Joy" in front of a starry sky might be worth the price if you enjoy this series. However, some of the rare lower-quality scenes look much worse in HD than they would in standard definition.
Gunslinger Girl is somehow simultaneously creepy and boring, but Initial D: Fourth Stage is somehow simultaneously exciting and boring:
Initial D: Third Stage movie didn't improve on the designs a little. When I started Fourth Stage, I realized I was wrong; they did improve the character designs for the movie! Hyper sidekick Itsuki looks even grosser in the TV series, but occasionally unimportant side characters really get hit with the ugly stick, like this poor girl.
Fourth Stage picks up where the movie left off, as, Takumi s "Project D," a team of local stars brought together by strategist Ryosuke. They take on regional teams and win, as you might expect. At one point, Takumi has to race against a professional racecar driver working as a ringer for the Toudou racing school. (Is the Toudou School even accredited? Do they offer Associates degrees in race car driving or what?)
This season gives us some insight into why Initial D is such a sausage fest. Nearly all the drivers and spectators in Initial D are dudes, with the occasional female challenger. At least in classic American street racing (in American Graffiti or Grease for example), the starting flag gets thrown down by a girl.
In this set, a rival team's chick driver, Kyoko, falls in love with Keisuke, Project D's uphill specialist. She falls all over herself, not just botching the race, but even getting caught helpless when her car breaks down in the mountains. Being in love even makes her want to dress cute (*gagging sounds*)! The show almost produced a likeable female character, then stole all her merit and rubbed salt in the wound.
Keisuke turns down Kyoko, explaining that he has no time for love if Takumi is out there practicing every night! (It's a good thing Takumi's girl moved to Tokyo.) Maybe repressing any sexual urges fuels Keisuke's racing, like how Gō Nagai's editors would keep him away from chicks, enabling him to draw better comics (I have a reliable anonymous source on this).
About half the dialog of any given Golgo 13 episode consists of characters exclaiming how impossible it would be for a normal human to make such a shot. Initial D spends the same amount of time saying how impossible this-or-that is, followed by Takumi blowing everyone's minds. It gets more than a little repetitive.
Formulaically, before each race, Ryosuke gives Takumi Dumbledore-like vague advice that Takumi puzzles out just before the finish line. Dumbledore could never tell Harry Potter everything at the beginning of the book or the story would be over by chapter two. Likewise, Ryosuke hopes his pupil can piece together his clues in time.
I wonder if the hosts of Gundam, if we are to believe the movie.
I wrote a caustic, comedic summary of the film on my old blog. (Don't bother commenting on that page, comment in the forums here instead.) I still haven't seen the Appleseed: Ex Machina on purpose.
The trouble with digital animation is that it dates really fast. I complained (above) back in 2005 about Appleseed's Toon Shader look, and the years have not been kind to it. Watching this movie in Blu-ray adds insult to injury for the Toon Shader characters. They look terrible.
However, the future cityscapes look great! If you love CG animation, you might want to get this disc just to slow-mo through the pans across Olympia. The mono-filament whip battle scene also looks really sweet in HD. It's somehow sharper than watching it on film.
The Blu-ray includes some totally sweet Japanese extras. There are two entire commentary soundtracks. I listened to one from the director and producer, who go into great detail about changes to the script and the technical details of the animation. This was interesting to me as someone with a once and future animation career, but I don't know how fascinating it might be to ordinary folks. There is a long and amusing anecdote behind the choice to make Olympia's highways look like frictionless glass.
Unfortunately, I was paying so much attention to the commentary and the ugly, ugly characters that I totally missed the new dub (and I still don't have a Blu-Ray player so it's too late to watch it again now). Fortunately, Theron goes into detail about the dub and some of the more technical specs in his review.
Here's why I don't like Appleseed; Aristotle outlined in Poetics six elements of theater, from most important to least important:
1. Plot
2. Character
3. Themes
4. Diction (writing, so, let's say the script.)
5. Music
6. Spectacle (as in Special Effects)
Appleseed, like a lot of movies (and also theater), values these elements in the wrong order:
1. Spectacle (Special Effects)
2. Music (It has a great soundtrack.)
3. Character
4. Themes
5. Diction
6. Plot
In general, I tend to agree with Aristotle. If a movie has a great plot, the special effects and music can suck and the story will withstand the test of time. If you need a bunch of cool ghost effects to save your production of Hamlet, as they say on the internet, "ur doin it wrong."
This is a very respectable release of the film, but that doesn't fix the weak script at Appleseed's core. I still think, five years later, that this film ought to end with bioroid sex-orgies. Y'know, based on where the plot was going.[TOP]
Congrats to Dave Roman (former editor of Yōkaiden (and perhaps most famous for her artwork "The Simpsonzu"). I haven't read the Zuko book yet, but I flipped through it. Zuko's scar looks brutally realistic.
This week's shelves are from Kimiko:
"Top shelf - Sorry for the glare on the GitS: SAC:2ndGig is GitS: SAC:SSS.
Second shelf - Between Howl's and Murder Princess.
Third shelf - For the occasion I've put my anime-related CDs up here as well to make this shelf not look so empty. The CD titles are probably too small to read though. From right to left: My slowly growing collection of OSTs by Perfume - Complete Best. The K-ON! picture came with one of the CDs."
Good choice of music!
Want to show off your shelves? Send your jpgs to shelflife at animenewsnetwork dot com!
discuss this in the forum (143 posts) |
this article has been modified since it was originally posted; see change history