Director: Koji Masnuari
Cast: Kimberly Yates, Amanda Winn Lee, Jaxon Lee, Crispin Freeman, Daniel Raymont, Dean Haglund, Hal Lublin, Chad Fifer
Distributor: Walt Disney Home Video
Classification: M 15+ : Low Level Violence, Low Level Course
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Special Features
Original Trailer
Historical Biographies
Interviews
Previews
Imagine if that clumsy, erudite, bespectacled librarian that seems to come inbuilt with all public libraries was really in fact a special agent with enormous powers over the structure and fabric of paper. That seems to be the basis of R.O.D: Read or Die, a 3 part action series, based on a Japanese Manga by Hideyuki Kurata (story) & Shutaro Yamada (pictures). R.O.D. details the story of Ms Yomiko Readman, part time schoolteacher and full time book nerd. She also has a special power over paper, allowing it to become as strong as steel, as flexible as rubber, and as deadly as a knife. This power has made her one of the Royal British Libraries top agents, Agent Paper.
From the state of Yomiko’s home you instantly know what type of person she is. Books take up every conceivable spot in her apartment. It’s plastered with sticky notes telling her to take this, eat that, and not to forget this, from the never again mentioned Nenene. Yomiko’s awoken by a phone call asking her to substitute at a school. Excitedly she runs out of her apartment, and goes shopping for… what else but books! It is here that she first encounters one of her many enemies, a weird grasshopper riding guy. At first she is totally oblivious to everything around her, apart from her books of course, and it is only when the grasshopper riding guy tries to steal her book does she show that under her meek exterior is a woman with powerful, if somewhat unusual, abilities.
From here, R.O.D. imaginatively gives a face-lift to the old formula of special agents vs. evil masterminds by introducing the Royal British Library’s Division of Special Operations, the bibliophile’s equivalent of Mi5 or CIA. With the help of Joker, the stereotypical English leader, Mr Drake, a gung-ho commando specialist and Nancy Makuhari, aka Ms Deep, an agile and buxom assassin with the ability to pass through solid objects, Agent paper must rescue her book from continued theft. Incidentally, Makuhari is a Japanese bastardisation of Mata Hari, the name of a famous Dutch spy from World War I, and the first hint at a much deeper story.
The people stealing the book are all clones of famous historical people, or people from books as it were, including a German glider inventor Otto Lilienthal, and the monk that Monkey Magic’s Tripitaka is based on, Genjo Sanzo, complete with the familiar funky robes, but a lot more butch than Monkey Magic’s hero. This group, known as the I-Jin, are led by Ikkyu, a monk bent on creating the world in his image. Each clone also has special powers, much like the “good guys”, and many an interesting battle is played out.
This Manga is obviously big budget, with superbly drawn animation utilising the best in computer and traditional drawing techniques. It has a very well developed plot, that’s involving and engaging, and doesn’t leave you feeling as though you need to understand Japanese iconography and language like other Manga can. The development of the main characters is excellent, and this is one of the few films I’ve seen that develops a strong female lead character without having to resort to T&A. The relationship between the two female lead roles is also well developed, and while it does hint at a sexual interest between the two characters, it doesn’t devolve into baseless, juvenile innuendo.
The special features are great, with a Biography of each of the character’s real life counterparts, which gives you a better appreciation of the story once you watch it again, but the interviews are all in Japanese with no translation available, which is very, very disappointing as they address questions such as “who’s idea was it to use historical figures” and “how have the fans reacted”, and I would love to know what their answers are. Apart from that one fault, this DVD is a must for Manga fans who want something a little different from the usual Giant Robot / Samurai/ Evil Tentacled thing, but still packed with action.