I like Anime. I really do. I enjoy being surprised by the liberties that anime allows creators with imagination, how they can bend reality in ways that look much more natural than film, where you would notice the break between special effects and movie universe. Unfortunately, anime of the human character of a Cowboy Bebop, the raw storytelling talent of a Perfect Blue or the brutal power of Akira seldom appear, so it is with dread and very little hope that I approach any new films.
I've learned not to allow myself to get carried away by my preconceptions, however, and the only way to see new things is to take the risk of being disappointed, so I decided to give a shot to Memories, a collection of three stories by different directors based on Katsuhiro Ôtomo's mangas.
The first story, Magnetic Rose, is a brilliantly executed story about a salvage team responding to a distress call from a junk field in space, one that mediocre efforts such as Ghost Ship or Event Horizon couldn't even begin to comprehend. Eerie and beautiful, I couldn't help thinking of a Nobilis gone mad with grief.
Surely this was just an appetizer, and its taste had me salivating already for the following offers (including the final story directed by Ôtomo himself - the only name I recognized from the list). Stink Bomb, the second story, is well animated but just plain stupid. Even if you manage to leave aside the wackiness of the premise, the story and action rapidly spiral down into depths of silliness a Godzilla movie would be embarrassed of.
Fear not - I told myself - Ôtomo's story is coming. Cannon Fodder, the segment that closes the set, is a whimsical little piece about a family that lives in a city continually at war with an unknown and invisible enemy, with the whole town following their glorious leader and firing cannons at their unseen nemesis. Unfortunately, whimsical here means that the director had a peculiar eye for animation but no clue whatsoever as to what to do with it, so the story never goes anywhere. It is also hurt by the fact that I've seen much better 1984 re-conceivings.
I can't recommend anyone to buy this DVD. If you're curious, rent it just for Magnetic Rose - but don't expect too much of the other stories.
Wondering how the collection ended up being so uneven, I turned to the fountain of knowledge in search for answers. I couldn't blame everything on the directors - certainly, the problems with the two last segments lie mostly on the stories. Nevertheless there still was something about Magnetic Rose that made it rise above its overused haunted-house-in-space setup, and I wanted to know what combination of elements had made it happen.
It turns out that it was directed by Kouji Morimoto, who had already several animes in his resume and would go on to direct Beyond, one of the most vivid segments on the uneven Animatrix. Moreover, the manga was adapted by a then unknown Satoshi Kon, who would go on to direct the exceptional Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers. It goes a long way towards demonstrating how a talented creator can breathe life into pedestrian material.
"STINK BOMB plain stupid"...??? Es una parodia! Esta evocando con el tipico humor nipon la ya tan conocida destruccion de Tokyo. Este tipo de comedia es muy tradicional en el anime al punto que a veces no comprendemos los chistes o representaciones humoristicas por la diferencia cultural que nos aleja. El Anime tiene muchos horizontes que podemos explorar, fuck preconceptions!, know what I'm saying ;)
Posted by: Fabricio at April 10, 2004 06:39 PMSí, es posible que no le haya agarrado el sentido del humor. Sin embargo, aún si era una parodia le jalaron mucho el rabo a la ternera: 20 minutos los hubiera podido tolerar, pero ya 45 minutos de tirarle artillería al tipo sin efecto alguno era demasiado.
Posted by: Ricardo J. at April 11, 2004 01:12 AMI was giving up hope on finding really decent anime after finishing Bebop and Escaflowne and gobbling up large quantities of terminally-ill trash in vain. But a friend recently got me "Stand Alone Complex", as a fansubbed AVI collection.
It's a rather recent anime series based on "Ghost in the Shell" the (first) feature-length movie -- same characters, same environment, rather different approach and mood. The day-to-day investigations and operations of Public Peace Section 9, which is to say: stunning cyborgs-on-steroids action outings. Each episode runs the usual 25 minutes and the whole is a lot closer to the original Masamune Shirow manga than the film. And let me say, for a TV series, quality almost matches that of Bebop.
You'll find it through the usual means. Enjoy.
PS: I said "first" movie because, as you might know by now, the second is on. It's called "Innocence" -- give your Japanese a try at http://www.innocence-movie.jp/trailer/index.html