Tag Archives: Anime

Film, inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

.Hack//Sign (Dot Hack – Sign)

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.Hack//Sign (episodes 1 to 5)
Director: Kôichi Mashimo
Cast: Mitsuki Saiga, Megumi Toyoguchi, Kazuhiro Nakata, Akiko Hiramatsu, Kaori Nazuka
English version: Brianne, Amanda Winn, Paul Mercier, Kim Mai Guest 
Distributor: Madman
Classification: PG : Low Level Animated Violence
Running Time: 125 Minutes

.Hack//Sign (dot hack sign) is a Japanese Manga series, and this is a 5 episode collection of the first series. The series deals with “the World”, an artificial reality game, similar to games like Asherons’ Call and Everquest – it has wizards, warriors, and monsters and quests. The game is played by millions of people around the globe, who can meet up, explore the world together, help each other out, or war against one another.

This series focuses on one player in particular – Tsukasa. We’re introduced to him in the first scene, where he wakes up dazed and confused. He is somewhat aloof, and rather unlikeable at first, but that’s because he’s not part of the “World” as we know it. We learn that he cannot log out of the world, and has special powers and allies that defy the logic encoded into the world. This makes him a target for the Crimson Knights, the game’s law and order force, and each episode follows Tsukasa’s quest to find out what has gone wrong, why he has all these special powers and cannot log out of the world.

Over the course of the series, Tsukasa meets other gamers, such as Mimiru, who at first dislikes Tsukasa because of his brashness and rudeness, but who slowly begins to understand him. Bear is a big, friendly giant, who also wants to solve the story of the boy who can’t log out. The sorceress BT and thief Sora are two players who want the abilities of Tsukasa for their own ends, and help Lady Subaru and Crimson Knights in their efforts to capture Tsukasa.

The DVD is best watched twice. With understanding of the series and how the world operates, working out exactly who the Crimson guards are and what they do, learning a little about the characters, a re-watch can help you make sense of what is sometimes a confusing and puzzling show. Rather than being a full on action series, .Hack//Sign is a lot more cerebral than many other manga cartoon series, relying on moody characters and interesting puzzles than violence and blood. The animation is adequate, nothing too fancy, but the “World” is brilliantly conceived. It has a decidedly Renaissance flavour, with a large Venetian styled city, gothic castles and lush open fields. Although the “real” world is mentioned, the only time it is seen is in a very small scene that is in grainy black and white, rather like a noir crime film, giving the impression that the “World” is more real than the “real” world.

Being only 5 episodes, I was rather disappointed with the end, as it leaves you hanging on. The story developed up until the end point is annoyingly incomplete, with little or no real clues to what is really happening, and who is really what. Who is the speaking voice? Who is the Sleeping Girl? What is that Cat thing? And, the most important of all, why can’t Tsukasa log out? You get an inking of the answers, but nothing concrete. I guess we’ll have to wait for episodes 6-26 before finding out what is going on.

But as an introduction to the series, it is quite good, although the extras should have fleshed out more detail about the “World” – thing’s I’d like to know are who made the game, how many players does it have, who controls what, how many regions there are and so forth, just to make it seem more realistic. As it stands, for extras there are just character profiles and sketches, plus the option to have to opening titles subtitled or not.

EXTRAS
Textless Opening
Textless Ending
Character Profiles
Character Gallery

Film, inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

R.O.D Read Or Die

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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.

Film, inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Spirited Away

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Spirited Away
Director: Hayo Miyazaki
Cast: Daveigh Chase, Jason Marsden, Miyu Irino
Distributor: Walt Disney Home Video
Classification: PG
Running Time: 132 Minutes

From the maker of The Castle of Cagliostro and Princess Mononoke comes one of the most amazing animated films I have seen. I must admit that I like Anime animated films in general, as they’re often weird, funny, outstandingly illustrated, and address issues that ‘western’ cartoons wouldn’t touch with a huge pair of Mickey Mouse ears. Spirited Away won the Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards in 2003, running against Ice Age, Lilo & Stitch, Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron, and Treasure Planet, as well as Best Film: Japanese, and also won Best Film at the Golden Bear Film Festival Awards in Berlin. I think it is so acclaimed because it is truly beautiful, if not entirely original.

The story begins with our protagonist Chihiro, voiced by Daveigh Chase who also voices Lilo in Disney’s Lilo & Stitch, and her parents leaving their old life for a new one. Chihiro is worried about losing her friends, and making new ones at her new school. Her Father attempts to take a shortcut up an old road, and they get lost. They get to a strange building, and walk through to find an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro’s parents get hungry, and follow the scent to a small store with a massive amount of food, and pig out. Chihiro, not hungry, wanders off, while her family is transformed into the pigs they are! She finds a big bathhouse, and is about to enter when a young boy, Haku, voiced by Jason Marsden from the Lion King II and Hocus Pocus, whisks her away from harm. He explains that she has stumbled upon a bathhouse for the spirit world, and to help her parents she must get a job.

It’s Chihiro’s qualities such as resolve, bravery and love that get her through a series of ordeals in a strange, funny and different world, obviously a parallel to her leaving her old life and moving on into a new one. The story has a similar feel to Alice in Wonderland or The Wizard of Oz, but the world it is set seems a lot more bizarre. Maybe because it’s Japanese there could be some symbolism I am missing, but there are a series of events and characters that are just so “out there” it makes me wonder what the creator was on when he wrote this script. Not that this is a bad thing, though, as it adds an extra dimension to the film, makes you THINK, rather than sit there and be entertained / numbed as western children’s films do.

The most amazing thing about this film is the illustration. It is truly, phenomenally beautiful. From the stunningly surreal characters such as the Boiler Man, to the gorgeous River Dragon Spirit, all the characters have well defined qualities brilliantly represented by simplistic yet wonderful animation and illustration. There are no obvious computer effects, but there doesn’t need to be. Furthermore, the backdrops are simply amazing, full of flashes of colour and shadow, creating mood to brilliant effect. The time and effort gone into creating this wonderfully, abstractly weird world are incredible, and puts Walt Disney to shame.

The ending is quite abrupt and happy, almost clichéd, but after all it is a children’s film. There are some dramatic scenes, but nothing too sinister or scary, especially compared to other Manga films, although there are some gross parts involving bodily fluids. Then again, if Ren and Stimpy are any indication, kids get off on that kind of stuff. All up Spirited Away is a great kids film, and is wonderful to watch as an adult as well.