Read (this) Or Die, the one with the paper

I was initially excited to stumble across the R.O.D. series simply because of the name, as I thought that it was going to be some kind of Saw with reading or knowledge acquisition to prevent your own death type deal, which would still have been awesome, but instead it involved very little reading after the first few minutes. Enough of my unsatisfied dreams though, we don't have time for my crushing life story and I don't trust you enough to tell it anyway. ON TO THE SHOW.

R.O.D. is a very mediocre experience overall, with some definitively enjoyable points and a fair amount of meh, erh, and whatevs bro it's aight. The story follows the above girl, known as The Paper because fuck names, as she uses her ability to psychically control ... paper?... to carry out commands from her government handlers. The plot is interesting enough, a few select members of polite society with powers battling a few select members of jerk society with powers always appeals to me to some degree, probably because I am the only person in my area with super powers, but I do like some explanation as to why they have powers and the nature of the conflict they are involved in. R.O.D., unfortunately, lacks sufficient development in either of these areas. This is not enough to condemn the series, but I would not put them high up on your watchlist.

The animation is pleasing enough, but occasional errors and a lack of detail at times make it less exciting than it could be, given the general badassery of being able to make shit out of paper and turn

it to a steel level of hardness. On the flipside, the scenes are interesting and well written enough that it is not too hard to look past the flaws, I actually forgot about the quality level until I went back to re-watch parts before writing this. This is ultimately because of the scenes like the one below, which look rad enough to stick in my mind and color my memories of THE PAPER.

My final concern is with the villains of the show. While reasonable in their design and monologue, the writers selected various minds from scientific, artistic, and academic history to be the opposing force to our paper wielding protagonist. I find this trend annoying and somewhat disturbing, because there is enough demonization of important shit in the real world, leave it alone anime.

bonus, this is what my notes look like when I watch an anime I intend to review (it was a while ago but I believe I was drunk)

*edit: file is corrupted apparently, my bad, you get nothing

To-Y, not the one about 10 year old sex addicts

Alright nerds, this is a fun one. Let me begin with a bit of background on today's anime, and the glorious shit storm that is trying to get a hold of anything but a terrible sub a la Justin Sevakis

   "Issued only once in 1987 (on LD, VHS, Beta and VHD), the laserdisc became an ultra-rare collector's item in the mid-90's, once a fansub was circulated. At one point, it's rumored that a disc was sold on eBay for US$6,000. I was not (and am still not) of the means to spend $6,000 on a laserdisc of anything, but I counted myself as one of the faithful. And for ten years, I hoped to get my sweaty fanboy hands on it."

 https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/buried-treasure/2007-03-15

With anything this valued by a niche market, there are going to be at least one or two copies cobled together on the internet, but, as these things go, most of them will be about as worth watching as any episode of Naruto or the presidential primaries. Thankfully, however, the anime community possesses some individuals with the dedication, talent, and obsessive, nerdy, notgetlaidness  to produce incredible fan assembled copies of even some of the most rare source material. So it is that I was able to get a quality copy of To-Y (after a lot of interneting) and so it is that I bring the review to you hapless fools. 

*BRIEF PSA*

Despite what internet searches will tell you (assumedly as a result of the obscurity of the OVA's), this show is not astorotte's toy, seen here. Fuck that. It is a show about a 10 year old succubus, To-Y is a show about a punk rock band that takes on the dominant Japanese idol scene. If you cannot tell why one of those is cooler than the other, then stop reading and go fiddle with yourself into a shoe or something. 

As some of you will know, I am pretty punk rock when compared to the average Japanese 14-16 year old in the 80's, but who's counting. When I say that this Japanese teenage punk rock narrative is punk as hell, I mean that this Japanese teenage punk rock narrative is punk as hell. We follow a young punker as he deals with the struggles of a popular but unsigned and unproduced band as it competes with the overwhelming popularity of the mainstream music industry, the difficulties of teen life in general, and negotiating group dynamics. enough plot though, let's get to the review aspect yo. 

To-Y is what Sevakis called " like a counter culture Ghibli movie," it digs deep into the rich atmosphere and characters of the early punk scene in Japan. There is an embedded element of realism that shows just how much the creators investigated their subject matter, how passionate they were about making this feel authentic. There is an unapologetic realism to the struggle of these kids that reminds me of my Anti-Flag rocking, skateboarding days. This makes me wonder where my baseball sleeves Dropkick Murphy's shirt ended up BECAUSE I WAS REALLY COOL. Anyway, there is so much to connect to in each of the central characters that To-Y is a guaranteed emotional ride for the inner angsty teen in each of us. 

Art wise, the OVA is nothing special, but not at all a failure. Many of the artistic elements of the period that I have praised in previous reviews are present, but definitely without the full precision and evocative force of  other pieces from the period. This is not to say that it is a let down artistically, but simply that scenes like this could afford a bit more detail and definition. All in all, however, it is an enjoyable visual experience, though the characters and emotional energy are the driving forces in this little gem (hate when people say that phrase, it sounds like an old woman describing a dog or upper class parents describing the kid they secretly hate).

As you may have noticed, I said less about the piece itself this time than normal but that is because it is short and the less you know the more you will enjoy. Plus, now you bastards have to return for more thoughts in the review of OVA 2. Until next time, I will be slaving away on the whims of my cat.

Toward the Terra, or, "What was that movie with people turning 14 and someone named Mr. Blue?"

I first watched the "Toward the Terra" movie around 4 years ago, and have been trying to find it again for some time. Unfortunately, when you only remember that an anime from the 80's involved leaving earth, government conspiracy, and someone named Blue, it is pretty difficult to find said movie on the internet. Thankfully, due to a review of the TV show remake that i stumbled upon, I rediscovered the movie and had the opportunity to revisit an old favorite.

It is difficult to detail the artistic style of movies like this to someone who has not seen one. The soft lines and slightly choppy animation of hand drawn animation with generations of traditional Japanese art as a source origin have a special place in my heart, and the visual warmth is a phenomena that everyone interested in film or animation should witness at least once. I use the word choppy here not because the animation feels discontinuous or poorly constructed, but because the lower frame rate and lack of computer generation gives a hand crafted feel to the images moving across the screen. Perhaps a better term would be baroque or rustic, but these too fail to give words to the emotive potential of the combination of motion and negative space that characterize this style.

Since I am sure that you have heard more than enough of me praising hand drawn slides from teh 70's and 80's, I will spare you from further explanation and move on. Towards the Terra takes place in a society of complete social regulation by the ominously named "Universal Control." At age 14, each child is taken from their parents and reprogrammed at a government facility to ensure that they function as a "proper" mechanism of society. This extreme regulation and oppression is a hold over from the era in which humanity destroyed the environment of earth; it is a tool for maintaining the delicate balance of the artificial cities, the fake earth, that the formers inhabitants of earth now live in. The final feature of this system is to weed out and eliminate members of the society with psychic powers, the social scapegoat for the host of problems now faced.

The narrative follows one such psychic from his 14th birthday as he is pursued by the system and forced to flee, rescued by an organization of psychics trying to disrupt the human social programming and bring society back to a system of freedom and cooperation. Needless to say, I am a fan of anything with liberally anti-state themes, so this is a fun romp through marginally developed revolutionary philosophy of cooperation and non-violence through...violence. No one is perfect, including the angry fucking kid here, all breaking windows and such. 

Nothing about this movie is going to challenge you academically unless you are not particularly smart, but the positive themes and glorious art style make it worth the watch, without question. Also, you get to watch some guy named Blue be called Blue by people with totally straight faces, which is fairly entertaining. Peace children, I will be back with some other thing and words about that thing and maybe pictures also...of the thing.

Dead Leaves: how to avoid overuse of the phrase drill penis in a review

THIS GUY'S PENIS IS A DRILL, FEAR HIM NERDS!!!!!

 

DRILL PENIS!!!!

    Okay, now that we have gotten that out of the way, let me begin by saying that I really, really enjoyed Dead Leaves both times I watched it. This is not going to be one for the kids, or one for people who do not enjoy the margins of animation, plot, characters, and violence. This one is for the nuts and the hardcore eccentrics, the kids who love the strange or who want to see what no one else watches. That said, there is almost certainly a higher concentration of those manners of people amongst anime fans than most other demographics, so a large number of you will probably enjoy this shenanigans. It is important to interrupt my manic rant about strange things I want you to watch, however, to note that this is not strangeness for its own sake (a la Apocalypse Zero, though both feature strange penis weapons), but strangeness as a plot device and vehicle for artistic expression. Trust me, that drill penis is an artistic drill penis, you have to see to believe.
   Dead Leaves follows the tale of two miscreant criminals, Pandy and Retro, who wake up naked together in the middle of a desert, and, after quickly landing themselves in prison, strike out on a mission of combined escape and self discovery (oh yeah, they have no memory at all. this is sounding more and more like my Saturday mornings). In
keeping with the pre-established strangeness, our heroes are exactly what their names imply...as long as you assumed from the names that one had a constant black eye and the other had a t.v. for a head. I will leave it to you to guess which is which. As our glorious lunatics go about their escape, they uncover more and more aspects of their intertwined pasts, and they talent for doling out violence leads them to accumulate an army of prisoners, turning their escape into a rebellion. If at this point you have not abandoned the review out of fear, disgust, or both, fear not! Before extolling the rest of the lovely features of this OAV, I feel it necessary to delve into the problem areas.
   Dead Leaves has what is, almost without question, the most awkward sex scene I have ever scene in anime or anywhere else. Quite possibly the least graphic moment in the whole drill penis, the two protagonists manage to have exceptionally acrobatic and absurdly loud sex through the holes in their cocoon-like restraints that are intended for waste disposal. Not disgusted yet? The waste disposal scene displays the use of these creative designs, a vacuum pump sucks the excrement out of each prisoners body so that order and bowel movement routine can be maintained (this scene also features an unfortunate pipe clogging moment). In complete fairness, this is not an unrealistic feature for a futuristic prison, so, aside from the mildly disturbing concept, it is not too much of problem for the viewer. The two main areas that will give some viewers difficulty are the violence and plot development. Dead Leaves is very, very violent. The violence is graphic. The violence is constant,

and the violence is absolutely essential to the aesthetic and narrative. If you are not looking to see cartoon mutants have their faces removed, literally hundreds of police officers gunned down and ripped limb from lib, and a baby shoot a pseudo-family member while being born, you do not want to watch this. As for plot, Dead Leaves does not suffer from the normal plot problems seen in so many underdeveloped anime. Nothing is blatantly left out or improperly explained, and there is certainly enough information to draw educated guesses on any subject that is not explained fully. Essentially, the plot will be a problem for viewers not looking to draw some of their own conclusions based on given information or viewers who just happen to be fairly unintelligent. If this is you, feel not ashamed, but also watch not the Dead Leaves.
   Back to the final super cool reason to watch the good thing Dead Leaves thing; creative genius. This OAV is an explosion of ideas that could not have been expressed in a more delightful manner. It is very clearly crafted with love, and the stunning visual style, rife with two-dimensional, comic book style shots, is paired with a gloriously absurd mixture of characters that would make any contemporary writer jealous. The concepts and characters may not appeal to everyone in terms of their nature, but they are undeniably exceptionally creative.

ARTGASM


DRILL PENIS

shit you don't care about ... out

Vintage Wednesday: Dominion Tank Police

 Starting off Dominion Tank police, I was intrigued by the art style and, frankly, assuming I would love it because it is 80's dystopian. By the end of act !, however, I had had such a mix of fanservice, chauvinism, and weak character development that I was considering not even finishing the other 3

acts. I decided to sit through it however, and I am very glad I did, as by the end of act 4 I already wanted to re-watch the whole thing. This is the strange nature of Dominion Tank Police, it has some fairly polarizing highs and lows, but definitely enough of the good to outweigh the bad.

   The OAV is essentially a feature length film divided into 4 thiry minute "acts." Each act is given a name and intro/outro to delineate it as the OAV was originall serialized between 4 VHS tapes, but present a contiguous story that takes up each time where it left off. The basic storyline follows the exploits of a new addition to the cities rough and toumble "glorious tank police," Leona, as seen above. Leona works to establish herself among her new comrades, though most are reluctant at first, given her gender and lack of tank experience. At the same time, she is making her own mini-tank and preparing to bring the fight to a gang of criminals who function as the series primary antagonists.

   Overall I would definitely call Dominion a worthwhile watch. The characters, while 2 dimensional at times, are fairly compelling for the most part, the humor is on point throughout, and the animation is lovely. Prepare yourself to stomach some fanservice and also for a bit of NSFW humor, but it never gets to extreme. If you are able to look past the slow points and do not mind a bit of nudity, this is definitely an offering that will give you two solid hours of entertainment. As for the sequel, I will have to find out how it is next.

Sunday watchlist number Sunday

It is Sunday, and I am taking a break from early morning Hearthstone to let you know what anime I will be running on my other screen while I make people look the fool in Arena. Spoiler alert: I can't think of many clever things to say right now. HEADACHE.

EL Hazard - the all of it
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=16
(see "related" at the top of the linked page for the others)
I have a strange relationship to alternate re-tellings and OVA's with sequels in series form; everything must be watched in chronological order and, when there are different tellings, the order they were made acts as a second filter. This means that I will be watching the 2 OVA's, then watching the first series as it retells the same story, and then on to the sequel action. This may sound totally ridiculous, but I find that you can get a lot out of a series this way, few re-tellings are made simply for funsies, and so there is usually a lot of depth vs pacing fun juxtaposition to be had in being able to compare a retelling to the original when watching them in order. What is nerdier than reviewing anime? Reviewing how to watch anime properly. This reminds me that I have never broached this issue, but dubs are for shit (see bottom of this post). OH SHIT I have not said anything about the show yet. It is of that excellent 90's large cast, alternate world, love triangle, whatInuyashawasthebadversionof, action adventure anime vein, which is almost as compelling to me as being of the 80's to early 90's campy sci fi vein.

City Hunter
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=384
(again, going to work through the full set over time)
Explaining why I want to watch City Hunter is the most difficult Sunday Watchlist task I have had thus far, as there really is not a good reason. First off, I do not really expect to like the show overall.

There were several people involved in the project that I respect, but the "total dog that is always trying to get laid, but is really in love with his partner" archetype, especially from this time period, is laborious at best, and really sexist at worst. At the same time, the animations looks, from the old trailers and screenshots I have seen thus far, to be absolutely gorgeous, just take a look at those 80's hard lines and shadowing to the right, so I know that the experience will probably be visually pleasing if nothing else. My other reason for watching is that several reviewers, some of whom I even respect, have given this series mixed positive overall ratings, and I feel that discarding it because of my pre-conceptions before viewing would be silly and, dare I say it, ...no, actually I do not. Anyway, we shall see if my fears are confirmed, denied, or temporarily placated with dog treats.


Jisatsutou
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/manga.php?id=13715

GUYS THIS IS NOT AN ANIME OH GOSH. So, I do interact with media forms other than anime (sometimes) and since this is a watchlist to direct you towards ways to burn time, this manga is going to be included. because read it. yeah. Jisatsutou (suicide island) has an exceptionally appealing plot, and I cannot wait to dive in to this business. The incredibly minimal summary that has been circling through various manga sites is as follows "Treating non-successful suicidal patients requires a lot of money and resources. With low budget and a personal respect argumentation, a doctor will ask a non-successful suicidal patient if he/she still wants to live on or not. If not the government will respect his/her wish. However, the government doesn't just simply kill them. " No sauce because no one seems to know where it is originally from. Anyway, I have learned a bit more about the plot, but you will not hear any of it from me, because I have no desire to spoil any of what I believe will be a series of glorious plot twists.

DUB SACK
Let me begin by saying that I am not even remotely objective on the issues of dubbed anime/films. I hate dubs, I will not watch anything dubbed, netflix should not be allowed to have anime as it is all dubbed, studio dubs are rarely better than fan dubs, etcetera. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I have two primary objections to dubbing in all its forms, from anime to french art shockers, spanish semi-pornographic films of Antonio Banderas' early career (seriously though, what?) to german soap operas. The more aesthetic of the two is centered on the relationship between audio and visual media that have been created in conjunction. Everything from the unique inflections of voice actors and cultural groups to the relationship between the sound effects and dialogue is planned by the creator of a media object. They are all intended to be parts of a component artistic whole. Dubs, in contrast, are created in the overwhelming majority by external parties contracted to dub a movie or series so that it can by more widely distributed for easy viewing (does not require reading things), and thus has an, at best, loose relationship with the artists original vision, even with artistic oversight. See the English dubs of  such seminal anime as Samurai Champloo for a good example. Secondly, the particulars of a specific language in regards to meaning and the corresponding difficulties in translation carry over with much less distortion in written translation instead of dubbing. Because of the variations in speech patterns and diction between languages, it is much easier to give a close approximation of meaning in translation when the translator is not also attempting to fit the translation into a speech pattern that will not sound awkward or forced when vocalized in place of being read. Our brains can handle some atypical diction and syntax much better when pairing text with audio we do not understand then when hearing translated passages in a language we speak. If you want sauce for linguistic analysis, read some books yo, it is easy.

P.S. If you would like to see anything in particular reviewed, comment on dis post, dat post, or any other post. Anonymous comments are enabled, it is really easy to comment, and I will cry less about my lack of fame if people write things to make me feel noticed.

Vintage Wednesday-ish NSFW

I know, it is not Wednesday. Life has been mad busy, kids, but I will be back on normal schedule by Sunday, worry not. Feels weird to be apologizing to all 7.5 of you (my cat does not count as an entire reader). NOW TO WORK

Apocalypse zero is today's topic, and let me begin by saying that it is seriously screwed up. French art shocker screwed up. Korean rape revenge screwed up. Essentially, it is squarely in one of my favorite genres of non-anime film (shhh I know it is an anime) really disturbing shit that most people cannot sit through (think Philosophy of a Knife, Guinea Pig films, etc.). If you understand those references, you either will enjoy these OVA's, or have very messed up friends. If you did not understand them, I recommend that you grab a stiff drink, turn off the lights, and get ready to learn about yourself in some serious ways.

Yeah, not screwing around people, Apocalypse Zero does everything that you wish or fear anime would do, and in an absolutely no holds barred, self aware manner. The episodes overflow with blood and gore, and almost every villain uses a sexualized body part as a weapon (in this case, double tit bomb is employed by the nurse who just tried to seduce the main character). It is important to clarify, Apocalypse Zero is not an excellent anime. There are a variety of plot holes, a lack of any substantive character development, and several moments of animation error. What is important about this piece, both in terms of it's place in anime and it's watching value, is the way in which it tests the limits of what people can animate and what people will watch. In this way, it is a fun, silly, and entertaining testament to the diversity of the minds of artists and the tastes of the audience. Apocalypse zero is unquestionably not for everyone, probably not even for most people, but if you can sit through it, you will love it.

P.S. no character development/plot discussion, because virtually nothing interesting can be said without giving too much away, unless you want a breakdown of the very basic conflict. Two siblings were trained by their dad to use armor that is blood fed and become badass, one is good and one is evil. They battle, there are sex demons.