Armoured Trooper Votoms - Pailsen Files

I knew that with Ryousuke Takahashi behind the director’s seat, it would be a bit wiser to just wait for the subs to come out instead of going with the raws. And indeed, it’s only been the first episode, but it was chockfull of dialogue and politics. The “Pailsen”-part of the title turns out to be the name of a military general who killed 1700 of his men, though the first episode so far didn’t explain everything, so it was quite a bit confusing. Still, with eleven episodes left, there’s enough time for the setting to get a bit clearer, though I suspect that they’ll keep the same level of complexity. In any case, if you’re into realistic warfare and politics, then you should give this one a chance.

Rosario to Vampire

Okay, I admit this series has a sense of humour. Still, that is in now way an excuse for the useless fan-service, bad animation, obnoxious leads and lazy scriptwriters. Honestly, I found myself able to predict the entire episode. It was so cheesy and melodramatic at times that it didn’t surprise me in any way. The characters so far have been incredibly shallow and don’t even bother to go beyond their stereotypes so far (a vampire girl who falls in love with a guy because he’s the first one to not bully her? Please). I’m not sure how many of these generic plots still have to pop up. It’s a shame, because I liked what I saw before the lead-girl showed up (that bus-driver was quite funny). Thankfully, it’s not as stupid as what I’ve seen of Goshushou-sama Ninomiya-kun, but boy, it sure does come close.

H2O ~ Footprints in the Sand

Okay, I take back the statement that the animation for Rosario to Vampire sucks. Its animation is gorgeous when compared to that of H2O. I’m not asking for much, but the characters look downright abysmal at times. In terms of storyline, the episode wasn’t off much better either. Sure, the concept of a blind main character has lots of potential, but when the first thing the creators use his blindness for is to grope the bosom of the nearest girl that meets his path, you have to wonder about their intentions. And indeed, the rest of the episode shows him getting involved in various unrealistic fanservice-accidents that makes you wonder whether the creators did any research on blindness at all. Then, as the end of the episode goes nearer, this series too already gives a small taste of the drama that will await in the rest of the series… and it doesn’t end up making any sense. I mean, getting angry just because some food was lost and using two henchmen to physically beat down the suspected girl, in front of the entire class? What?! Suddenly, Rosario to Vampire looks a lot better now.

While Ghost in the Shell is probably the most famous anime-movie of the nineties, Akira is the most well-known one of the eighties. It was this movie that opened up the anime-industry to mainstream America, though at the same time it’s also received some harsh criticism. When I started watching this movie, I couldn’t understand why. It doesn’t happen often that a male main character of fifteen years old is likable, right from the start, and the movie quickly starts with some character-development. But, unfortunately as the movie went on, it became clear that Akira indeed has its problems.

The biggest one being that it’s based on a large manga, which just doesn’t fit into a two-hour movie. Because of this, the movie ends with huge gaping hole into both the storyline and character-backgrounds. Thankfully, some development did make it into the movie, but when a fifteen year-old kid suddenly turns out to be proficient with various kinds of guns without any reason whatsoever, you have to start wondering whether you missed something.

It’s a shame: the potential is definitely there. Especially the characters have been very nicely developed during the first half of the movie, but they unfortunately lose their spark when the storyline gets more and more out of control with superpowers that just become more and more over-the-top. Akira would have been just as fine without the huge amounts of one-sided superpowers. The much-needed background for the two main characters also arrives much too late.

In terms of production-values this series shines, though. Especially for a movie that’s twenty years old, the animation looks gorgeous and there are absolutely no still frames. I also loved how the cast of side-characters is rich and varied, and even the most unimportant roles are more than just paper bags. The soundtrack also consists out a number of excellent tracks. If this were a tv-series, it would have rocked, but unfortunately it had to be compressed into such a tiny movie.

After Twilight Q and Patlabor, I was looking forward to Mamoru Oshii’s most famous work: Ghost in the Shell. It’s probably the most well-known anime-movie of the nineties. With very detailed graphics, especially for those days, and a terrific soundtrack, I can understand why this became a classic for many people. Still, I wouldn’t really classify this among neither Mamoru Oshii’s nor Masamune Shirou’s best work.

First of all, while the movie might try to make you believe otherwise, the depth of this movie is much less than even the first Patlabor-movie (in my opinion, Mamoru’s most down-to-earth work). There’s one specific scene that feels too much like the creators just pasted in a piece of convenient philosophical dialogue, instead of cleverly inserting this in the storyline. At heart, this just remains a standard movie about catching a bad-guy. The concept has a lot of potential, but I just feel that the movie only scratched the surface of it. But yeah, this can be excused with the two movies and two television-series that followed.

What can’t be excused was the fact that a lot of things just aren’t explained. There are a few hints here and there at the characters’ backgrounds, but that’s all that we get. I would have liked to see Mamoru Oshii’s typical dialogue to explain more about both the characters and the plot, like he did so well in Twilight Q. Right now, there are a lot of holes in the stories that could have been explained just as well.

Still, Ghost in the Shell is by no means a bad movie; it just doesn’t deserve the huge hype. The characters are more likable than you would expect on first sight and despite their lack of development. The story is interesting enough to make you keep watching and the action is also quite well done: there’s not too much, it doesn’t get in the way of the story and there’s much less than I expected. One movie just isn’t enough for this concept, and I think I wasn’t the only one who got this idea.

Spriggan is basically the big action movie of Studio 4C. Unfortunately, it’s also one of their worst works. You have to give it credit for taking place in Turkey, though. The overall feel of the Turkish cities in the beginning of the movie is portrayed quite well. If only the rest of the movie wasn’t such a horrible mess.

The biggest problem lies with the main character: he’s another one of those 17-year-old brats with superhuman abilities with shallow explanation. He ends up performing one reckless act after the other without even breaking a sweat. The movie quickly ceases to be engaging, simply because you won’t feel any reason to connect to the main character because his superpowers will save him out of the situation anyway.

The plot isn’t much better off. Hardly anything is explained, so a lot of parts end up not making any sense at all. This isn’t in the way that Yukikaze was incomprehensible; for Spriggan, the writers just have been damn lazy. Characters also posses knowledge of which you’d wonder how the heck they found that out. Basically, all Spriggan cares about are action and pretty graphics.

Thankfully, the climax itself is satisfying. Well, satisfying enough when compared to the rest of the movie. It actually saves some time to give the main character some much-needed development and it was much less over-the-top as I feared. Still, it by no means made up for the mess that was the rest of the movie. The only reason why you should watch this is if you’re tired and want something that doesn’t require you to think. Spriggan is perfect for this and it’ll at least keep you entertained with its action-scenes. Thankfully, it isn’t as stupid as Giniro no Kami no Agito, there are a few good points, but don’t expect any substance from this one.