Originally posted on the Anime Guidepost blog, July 12th, 2009.
I
apologize for not getting this posted yesterday, but the pollen of the
world decided to give a massive headache along with an itchy nose, and
I'm afraid to say that things may not get better, according to the big
picture. While it has been great to watch all of this anime, my summer
is starting to turn back towards worrying about school, which means
finding tuition money and then spending time on homework or, in short,
less time for anime. I don't know how often I'll be able to update from
here on out, but I'll try to be as often as I feel I can.
At least I've got a few titles to get things started for now.
Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion (25 Episodes)Code Geass: Lelouch Of The Rebellion R2 (25 Episodes)
Animation: *****
Story: ****
Music: ***
Overall: ****
Yes,
I have finally finished all of Code Geass and, boy, is my brain tired.
I remember when this series was first starting to get all of sorts of
attention from all sorts of fans and I thought I'd give it a shot when
it rolled around on Adult Swim's online video player and found myself
ensnared in a tangle of plots that I could pull my eyes away from.
In
an alternate but not too distant future, the Empire of Britannia
(located primarily in North America) begins expanding its territory
across the world, including Japan, taking it over completely and turning
into Area 11. The people there are now called Elevens and treated as a
lower caste by the Britannians. Lelouch is a Brittanian prince who is
living as a high school student in Japan under the surname of Lamperouge
in order to hide from potential assassinations. However, he still
holds a personal grudge in his heart against whoever killed his mother
in an assassination, a trauma that left Lelouch's little sister, who is
“hiding” in Japan with him, blind. Lelouch figures that it's someone
else within the Brittania family and vows to get revenge, but having
been dumped in Japan, he feels powerless to do so.
Meanwhile,
even though Japan has been a part of Brittania for 10 years, there are
still resistance groups trying to fight for their Japanese heritage.
They get wind of some chemical weapons are being transported and try to
prevent the Empire from using them. Lelouch happens upon this act of
terrorism and decides to follow up on what's going on, thinking that he
can make a dent in Brittania. However, instead of finding chemical
weapons, he finds an incapacitated girl in green hair and tries to take
her to safety away from the terrorists violence. Along the way, he runs
into Suzaku Kururugi, his childhood friend and native Japanese,
fighting as a soldier for Britannia. Without having time to catch up,
they try to get out of danger, but end up getting separated again, with
Lelouch being caught by a platoon of soldiers. They fire, but the
green-haired girl suddenly jumps in front, saving Lelouch's life. As
the green lies on the ground, she suddenly starts talking about giving
Lelouch “power.” Finding himself up against a wall, he accepts and is
granted the power of Geass, where upon eye-to-eye contact, Lelouch can
alter the will of anyone. He uses his power to escape the soldiers, by
ordering them all to commit suicide, and begins to help the terrorists
in their efforts against the Empire, later becoming their leader under
the guise of Zero, a masked hero for justice. He begins to figure that,
with his own cunning, his new power, and the terrorists' resources, he
can finally topple Brittania and find out who killed his mother.
What
happens from then on is a convoluted tale that warps between political
intrigue, high school antics, supernatural powers, and personal anguish,
as Lelouch and the others feel the weight of their new responsibilities
and try to defeat their enemies and fears. The green-haired-girl,
simply named as C2, returns as an immortal being capable of granting
Geass power and willing to Lelouch with his rebellion as long as he
fulfills his end of the contract, a detail that remains unrevealed for
quite some time. Suzaku ends up climbing through the ranks of the
Brittanian military, quickly ending up as a test subject for a special
proto-type mech.
Oh, yeah. There's robots throughout the whole thing. All the battles are straight-up mecha army action.
Code
Geass is a very ambitious story, trying to weave together so many plot
threads and still make sense, and, to its credit, it mostly succeeds.
While my head spun with each plot twist, each piece finds its resting
place by the end of the long series and felt satisfied by the end.
Things went well, even if I felt like everything was stumbling through
mud from time to time.
The
animation was incredible, not only with the vivid scenery and memorable
character designs by CLAMP, but with the action and combat as well, a
crucial element for mecha anime. The robots all seem to have wheels on
their feet, so the battles feel like over-the-top roller derbies with
guns, and somehow they made it work. The music was more of a downer.
It had its moments, establishing easy-to-recognize themes when things
worked or didn't work in the story, but it didn't stand out much and I
felt more could have been done with it. Even the opening and ending
themes were rather mediocre.
When
I got a few episodes in, I gathered the sentiment that this was going
to be Death Note but with mecha instead of mind games. Sunrise has had
all sorts of experience with their Gundam franchise in combining a
political drama with robots and so adding in this supernatural twist
could make or break the series. While it stumbled around getting there,
it did come together in the end, resulting in one of the most renowned
series Sunrise has produced (I think it even won some awards in Japan a
couple of times). In the end, my sentiment was right. Code Geass is
Death Note with robots. You have webs of character relations, sudden
plot twists, supernatural surprises (especially when Lelouch runs into
other Geass users!), and a wealth of memorable moments that really makes
this title stand out. I can now see what all of the hubbub was for and
I don't regret it.
The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis Of Uruk (12 Episodes)
The Tower of Druaga: The Sword Of Uruk (12 Episodes)
Animation: ****
Story: ****
Music: ****
Overall: ****
The
Tower of Druaga was an old Japanese arcade game where the heroes had to
climb a 60 level tower in order to save the world. I don't think it
ever made it to America, but it was quite a hit in Japan has since
spawned a handful of games in the same world. In this anime series,
Gonzo takes that game and turns it into a very entertaining romp through
the tower and the personal struggles of those who climb it.
The
story primarily revolves around Jil, a young Climber, who is sincere
about getting to the top and defeating the great demon Druaga. However,
the other Climbers don't want to listen because they're satisfied with
how much money they can make Climbing the tower. He tries to join his
older brother Neeba's group, only to be kicked out for his incompetence.
He finally gets his own party, consisting of Ahmey, a female
spear-wielder, Kaaya, a cheerful priestess, Melt, an eccentric mage, and
Coopa, Melt's personal assistant that happens to have her own bag of
tricks. They all decide to follow Jil up the tower in order to defeat
the evil that lives at that top.
However,
as they climb the tower, they begin to notice some of the connections
between the tower and the condition of the king of the land, Gilgamesh,
who supposedly defeated the tower the last time. Because it has come
back and the past is slowly being revealed, the tower's true purpose
becomes revealed and the heroes have to find the truth on top of it all.
While
all of this is a very engaging Babylonian fantasy epic with it's own
innovations (Melt's magic is swinging clubs like he's golfing, making
Coopa a sort of caddy for him; it's brilliant), it is more than willing
to take some time to put its tongue in its own cheek. The first episode
is almost entirely a dream, spoofing itself and other action series and
fantasy tropes (even going so far as a Monty Python reference and a
sudden shift into Gurren Lagann mode) and not developing very much plot.
Later on, the characters stumble into a series of bizarre traps that
the heroes spend an entire episode walking into. They even take the
time to send Jil into a life-size reenactment of the original video
game, the other heroes controlling him with a joystick and buttons and
having to restart every time something goes wrong. The moments of
comedy brighten things significantly. Even if very little progression
is made, it helps the viewers get to know the characters.
The
second part of the series is much more serious, though, as things turn
uglier, though it does take time to show the ski resort Melt builds
within the tower. However, as it builds suspense and goes deeper into
the secrets of the tower, I felt that the final showdown was rather
light-weight compared to all the momentum it had been building. While I
won't go into detail for the sake of those who haven't seen it, I
thought there were some darker themes and heavier material into which
they could have delved. Instead, they decide to pass over it and simply
bring an end to everything.
The
animation was great. Having many characters involved for massive
battles with monsters and other Climbers went well for the most part.
The biggest problem I had how the CG elements didn't blend into the 2D
animation as well as it could have. It stood out and seemed somewhat
distracting. Gonzo has always messed around with combining 2D with 3D,
but they seemed to make it work so well ten years ago with Blue
Submarine No. 6. It wasn't a major bother in Tower, but it was
reoccuring. The music was nice, drawing on the themes from the video
game but giving them a Lord of the Rings quality by giving them an
orchestral feel. The opening and ending themes weren't bad either.
Also, it should be noted that I watched this series subbed, for once.
It'll be interesting how the series will sound after FUNimation dubs it.
The
Tower of Druaga was a fun ride, even if it lost some steam at the end.
And it's still available online (Thank you, CrunchyRoll!) so go watch
it. It's worth it. It even led me to a discovery. I was in my local
Hastings with some money to burn and I stumbled across the PS2 game The
Nightmare of Druaga. Not only was it in the used bin for only four
dollars, it was still shrink-wrapped after I tore off the used-wrap
Hastings puts on its used materials. I primarily picked up simply
because I was watching Druaga at the time. The game happens to be a
wonderfully merciless dungeon hack that I imagine I'll be playing for
years to come. I've become a fan of the Druaga series and look forward
to where it'll pop up in the future.
Astro Boy (23 Volumes)
Rating: ***
Osamu
Tezuka's genius has gone unrecognized lately, in my opinion.
Especially in America. While I'm sure that most anime and manga fans
are aware that he brought those two very mediums to the heights of
popularity they enjoy now, they fail to realize that he himself is a
great writer and artist, full of his own impressive ideas. Maybe some
time I'll talk about his Phoenix series.
I
recently finished Dark Horse's run of Tezuka's breakout hit, Astro Boy.
He had some success with Kimba but Astro Boy is what got everyone's
attention back then and the title propelled Tezuka to be the Godfather
of Manga as he is known today. However, reading it now is a bit of a
challenge. The layout and narrative style haven't aged well, coming
across as very wordy and thick for a simple action series. Most of the
time, Astro Boy is simply caught up in an evil plot or scheme and has to
beat up the bad guys in order to save the day. General old-school
superhero story-telling. This leaves the reader with a heavily episodic
series that rarely refers to other stories. The particular collection
that Dark Horse has translated doesn't even have the volumes in any kind
of chronological or narrative order. You could pick up any volume and
begin reading without having to read the others before it (except for
two or three that collect a newspaper run, but even then, the story
would be hard to follow).
So
why do I give Astro Boy 3 stars? Well, even though Tezuka had to keep
the story simple and action driven to please his editors, throughout his
stories he was able to delve into more complicated material, even if it
was merely subtext. The story begins with a brilliant robotics
scientist named Dr. Tenma. However, he was so caught up with work that
he neglected his own son. When his son got into a car accident, he felt
the need to turn his life around, so he coerced the robotics department
to help him create a robot version of his son and succeeded.
Unfortunately, Dr. Tenma grew upset that the robot couldn't grow like a
normal child and abandoned it, too, going into seclusion. Sometime
later, Dr. Ochanamizu found the robot's body and rebuilt him with super
powers, turning him into Astro Boy, who would eventually become the
poster child for the ideology that robots deserve to have rights just
like the humans.
I
find it interesting that Tezuka is a contemporary of Isaac Asimov and
his three rules of robotics. While they have their similarities, it's
interesting to see how each of them consider the possibilities of robots
with progressive artificial intelligence, and that's what makes Astro
Boy such a remarkable work. The out-dated elements of the story can be
compensated by the speculation and vision Tezuka offers for our future.
As
for what to expect in future columns, I don't know what to tell you. I
was expecting Shangri-La (which is has been pretty cool) to finish with
13 episodes but it's probably going to finish in the mid-twenties now.
I do have Hyakko and Eden of the East fansubs sitting on my computer
that I could finish up quite quickly. There are a couple of other anime
series that I could really dive into that are just sitting around.
Another
possibility may not be reviews of a specific title but a focus on
broader topics within anime and manga. I'm not terribly industry savvy,
but I could delve a bit into that as well. I'm just not sure. You'll
just have to come back and check out what I've got to say!
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