Sunday, July 28, 2013

Rurouni Kenshin film review

Here at AnimeIowa, or at anime conventions in general, you can usually check out some really cool things in the video rooms. In my case, I missed out of Golgo 13 and Evangelion 3.0, but I did check out that Rurouni Kenshin live action film from back in 2012.


I didn’t expect much of this from what I’d heard—I saw the trailer and thought it looked pretty cool, but you can’t garner much from a trailer. What I mostly got out of it was a pretty exciting film with good visuals for what it was trying to do.

Kenshin fit in every major character from the anime in some way (except Misao), and it’s a good thing the film didn’t try to do too much with them. Characters like Yahiko and Sanosuke are merely there as nods to fans and don’t serve much of a purpose beyond that.

Fans of the original manga and anime will recognize one of the main villains as the antagonist for the first arc in Kenshin (the one with the “Battosai” claiming to be part of the Kamiya dojo). Parts of this story are taken out, such as why he’s trying to taint the Kamiya dojo’s name, but it doesn’t take away from the film as a whole. Fans know why and those coming in new will enjoy him for what he needs to be: a challenge for Kenshin in terms of swordplay.

But otherwise the villain falls kind of flat. He's seemingly just there to provide a challenge to Kenshin and as a bodyguard to the other main antagonist. He is an opium dealer that I vaguely recognize from the series, but I don’t remember his name…After looking it up, it’s Takeda Kanryu. But anyway, his character works as well. He’s the money-grubbing dealer that takes advantage of the drug’s most sellable quality, its addictiveness.

See a trend so far? The minor characterizations are pretty much fine, and often downright entertaining, but no one’s really growing or being more than a one-dimensional and sometimes two-dimensional characters. It’s the same for Kaoru, arguably the second most important character after Kenshin. Her role is largely the voice of reason for Kenshin.

But the film does revolve around Kenshin and, despite how subtle and sometimes frustrating his arc is in the film, he does have an arc. His internal conflict between himself has always been keeping to his now-semi-pacific philosophy and reverting to his Battosai persona. Throughout most of the film, he maintains his aloof and cool personality. Each and every event challenges Kenshin to maintain that persona and each and every event pushes him further over the edge until he compels himself with a mantra. “I will kill you to save Kaoru.” He’s not saying that to Jin’e, the man who was sullying the Kamiya dojo, he’s saying that to himself. He’s justifying his actions to kill this man to save Kaoru’s.

It really felt like this movie was one of those where you go ask yourself, “What is this movie doing?” throughout the entire film and you finally get that “A-HA!” moment near the end when you see Kenshin’s transformation in full (a change in voice and demeanor like in the anime).

The best parts of the film are in what it doesn’t do. The comedy isn’t over the top, like the anime sometimes was, and the battles are kept mostly realistic. I really appreciated the lack of Power Rangers-esque wire pully systems just to maintain that anime feel. Of course, they were still in there, but it was only during the climactic battle, so I give it a pass.

The story of the film is rather convoluted. Because of the introduction of so many characters, trying to do enough justice to be a nod to fans but not be intrusive, some of the story is sacrificed. Overall, it's of course about the opium dealer and how he just happens to correlate with Kenshin. But its disjointed by Sano trying to challenge the Battosai to prove his worth, distracted by the incident with Jin'e taking too long to resolve. If the script had been plotted tighter, the film would be much stronger and much more accessible to fans wanting to get into it new.

What I wanted out of the film was a reminder of why I liked the original anime back when I watched it in the early 2000s, and I got that in full force. It’s not great for someone new to Kenshin, but it’s really fun for someone at least vaguely familiar with its source material.

Grade: B+

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

All about pre-1997ish anime

Like I usually do, I ranted on reddit a lot yesterday. Except this time, it was suggesting a lot of classic anime to some dude who wanted classic anime suggestions. Since I couldn't just let that fall into the aether of reddit, like everything does, I wanted to post it here. And since I have no pretense of professionalism, it's fine with me. Even if I did have a pretense of professionalism, it's since gone from my old and poorly written posts.

Without further ado:


I've been down this road myself, and I've found quite a few anime that are worth watching, or are in my queue to watch. Revolutionary Girl Utena flies under your radar, since you said pre-1995. But it's one of the seminal titles of the 90s.

Armored Trooper Votoms was a compelling and complex story about politics and robots that can't fly. That's right, they can only slide really fast with their wheel things.

Galaxy Express 999 and its sequel Adieu Galaxy Express 999, I've been told, are among the best space opera shows of the 70s and 80s. The series is streaming on Crunchyroll. All glorious 113 episodes of it (I call it glorious because I've heard it is).

A bit of an obscure one (but just because us in the west didn't get much into sports anime) is Aim for the Ace. If you've heard of Osamu Dezaki, he helmed the series about a girl playing tennis. It's never going to be licensed, so I torrented it and that's going to be the only way to get it.

Speaking of Dezaki, he's got quite a few things worth checking out. First off, the Black Jack OVAs from 1993. I'll basically give anything that has Tezuka's name on it somewhere a look. Unrelated, Anime Sols is streaming the 2004series. I watched the first episode and threw money at Anime Sols like a parent buying Christmas gifts.

The aforementioned Rose of Versailles was also helmed by Dezaki. He took over in episode 19, according to Anime News Network.

The third, and only, Dezaki work I've watched myself is the Space Adventure Cobra film and I couldn't recommend it highly enough. If any film represented anime in the 1980s, it is probably Space Adventure Cobra.

And I can't believe no one's mentioned Legend of the Galactic Heroes yet! Do I need to explain this one? Because I haven't seen it yet and honestly can't.

For the ridiculousnes, you must do Fist of the North Star. When Right Stuf had their Discotek sale, I didn't pick it up. I regret it to this day and definitely will during their next Discotek sale or when I want to.

The Ghibli's you definitely need to see (if you haven't yet; you didn't list them at least) are: Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (not technically Ghibli, shut up), Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro.

I'll reiterate Mobile Suit Gundam and vouch for the film trilogy, which ends with Char's Counterattack. The film is technically a follow up to the Zeta Gundam and Double Zeta series, but I had no problem understanding what went on without slogging through all that Zeta.

I'll also add the OTHER mecha show of the decade, Macross: Do You Remember Love?. Campy songs aside, it is a great film worth looking at for any anime anthropologist.

Moving on to the early 90s, check out Memories if you haven't. It's another one by Katsuhiro Otomo and features early works of Satoshi Kon, Tensai Okamura, and Yoko Kanno.

Speaking of Satoshi Kon, again falling under (or over?) your wire is Perfect Blue. A 1997 film that started his career and he, in my opinion, never made anything better. Not to say that I didn't absolutely love Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, and Paprika. But Perfect Blue was the pinnacle.

More Macross in the 90s (because it's fucking Macross) is Macross Plus featuring some guy named Bryan Cranston. I hear he's in some bullshit nowadays.

I'm counting it because I'm a total cheater, but The Vision of Escaflowne has got only praise from those I've heard from. I watched a few episodes about 5 years ago and wasn't impressed, but I'm going to have to go back. It's 1996, which is why I say I'm a cheater.

Neon Genesis Evangelion if you haven't watched that for some reason.

Last but not least is Touch. I said we were out of the 80s, but I LIED. I lied to your face and I have no regrets about it because Touch is perhaps my favorite series that I've listed thus far (Utena may beat it out though; I'm halfway through Utena). Touch is a baseball anime that is so endearing and so (haha) touching that you can't help but put on the next episode when you finish one.

Oh, by the way, anime may be referred to as going through a golden age in the 1980s because that was around the bubble for anime in Japan when money was freely flowing and OVAs were pushed out like hotcakes. Most sucked, but some were awesome.

By the way, I cannot recommend highly enough the Mamoru Oshii film Patlabor 2, which I forgot about since someone else mentioned it. That movie was so precedent to Japanese audiences that when the Sarin gas attacks hit Tokyo, the news outlets interviewed Mamoru Oshii. And yes, I totally stole that quote from ANNCast. 

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Honey and Clover

I just finished Honey and Clover for the second time, the first time was about a year ago. This is a show that you immerse yourself in and just allow yourself to make parallels with the lives of these characters, and it’s especially pertinent if you’ve just graduated college (which I have).

If you haven’t seen Honey and Clover yet, then WARNING, spoilers ahead.



While the first season of Honey and Clover is much about discovery, both of yourself and your new peers, the second season is more about reconciliation. It nicely wraps up the arcs of the story without seeming too convoluted. I’ll get more into that later.

First, I want to focus on a few of my favorite characters: Takemoto and Yamada. It’s easy for anyone to pick out a favorite character, because at least one of the six main characters (and four supporting cast) will resonate with you. For me, it was Takemoto and Yamada, both of whom are going through much the same journey I am right now.

Takemoto is undoubtedly the main character of the story. He’s the focal point of the first episode, he has the longest arc, and he’s the focal point of the last episode. And he’s definitely the best main character for this story because his life is a journey from his second year of high school up until graduation as a fifth year. His journey is also the most blatant to the audience. He rides his bicycle from Tokyo to Hokkaido and, while he doesn’t call this journey one of “finding himself,” he certainly does find himself throughout it. His approximately 1,000 km (630 mile) travel takes him all over Japan, to places he never even dreamed of going. Through this, he discovered exactly what he needed to discover: How important those things are that you left behind. Takemoto realizes that, no matter how far you run away, those people will still be there waiting for you when you come back. This is further emphasized with the part-time manual laborers that he meets along the way, who welcomed him back with open arms after knowing each other for just under two weeks.

It’s Takemoto’s return to Hanamoto-sensei, Mayama, Yamada, Morita, and Hagu that make his journey all the more impactful. In a callback to some episodes back, they go to a festival again at the end of the first season. In it, Takemoto, Yamada, and Hagu all act like the immature people they sometimes are (and aren’t we all?). But when it comes time to act the big man, Mayama gives Takemoto the money to pay for the festival games to act the big man, instead of taking the reins himself or having someone like the adult-figure Nomiya do it like in the first festival. This is the literal handing off of the torch to Takemoto from Mayama that signifies that, through Takemoto’s journey, the two are now peers instead of kohai-sempai as they have been.

Takemoto’s arc rings especially true for me because I’m at that stage where he was at near the end of season one, where he doesn’t really know what he wants to do with his life and he just keeps going to school and getting denied for jobs. I think most of us have gone through that stage of our lives where we’ve just graduated and we’re at a loss of what to do since we’re now just thrust into the real world.

It wasn’t until later in the series (because I was looking too closely on a character-to-character basis) that Morita is very much a foil to Takemoto. While Takemoto is kind of a wandering soul, wondering what he’s going to do. Honey and Clover relies heavily on internal monologues at the beginnings and ends of episodes and scenes, and during one of those monologues, Takemoto says that he entered art school because he liked to build things with his hands. That’s the case for so many of us, that we just enter college because we like to do X so we major in X. But Morita seems to have his life in order, even though he seems the most out of order in the group. He’s constantly getting art commissions, leaving for weeks or months at a time as a result, and he’s firmly set in the sculpture department. Morita seems to know exactly what he wants to do, but part of that is because he’s being sort of manipulated by his brother Kaoru. But the point is that Morita, this man with natural talent and jobs ahead of him, seems the least composed while Takemoto, struggling to even get hired for a job, seems the most composed (aside from Hanamoto-sensei and Mayama).

Morita provides his own foil to Hagu as well. Both are tremendously talented, and both are naturally so. What differs is that Morita seems uninterested in using his talents for anything unless it’s one of the commissions that Kaoru sets up for him. Hagu, meanwhile, simply wants to paint. There’s an amazing scene early on when Hanamoto-sensei visits Hagu at her home when she’s in high school. In the scene, Hanamoto-sensei sees all of Hagu’s drawings of the same exact scene, throughout the seasons. This wasn’t an artistic choice on Hagu’s part to show the changing seasons. No, this was the only thing Hagu could draw that was of nature. There was nowhere for her to go, because she was so trapped in her own world by her grandmother. But even after leaving for Tokyo and going to art school, she just wants to return home and be able to paint every day. She doesn’t have to make money or feel accomplished, she just wants to paint.

There’s something really indelible about Hagu’s character in that way. She’s not like Takemoto, who just wants to find his way in life. She’s not like Morita, who wants to be able to have fun with his contemporaries. She’s not like Mayama, who wants to be able to support the one he loves. She’s not like Yamada, who is too focused on Mayama to realize her full potential (more on Yamada later). And she’s not like Hanamoto-sensei, who wants to nurture young artists into professionals. Hagu, despite her loli character and usually distracting character designs, is simply a woman who’s been emotionally stunted due to the situations surrounding her and an artist that just wants to create art.

But it’s the natural talented-ness that draws Morita to Hagu, and Hagu to Morita. And it’s unfortunately what ousts Takemoto from both of them. However, it’s Takemoto and Hanamoto-sensei—perhaps the two least naturally talented in the group—that Hagu finds herself confiding in. There’s an episode where Hagu is alone because Hanamoto-sensei is out on a research trip and Yamada has to take care of matters back home. Takemoto comes over, worried about Hagu, and finds himself staying the night. It’s sweet and emotional to see these two, Hagu simply wanting comfort and not knowing how much she’s hurting Takemoto by that little thing and Takemoto wanting only to stay by the side of the girl he loves, but always at arm’s length. It’s a tender moment that epitomizes the love in the series.

It is perhaps Mayama that most emphasizes the love in the series. He’s the object of Yamada’s affection and when she confesses to him, over and over again, he can only say, “Yeah” to her, over and over again. He doesn’t want to close her off, but he doesn’t want to say yes. It’s unnaturally cruel, but weirdly nice of Mayama to hang Yamada out on a limb like this, barely holding on to the love she has yet already beginning to fall. Mayama keeps Yamada at this distance because he loves Rika, Hanamoto-sensei’s classmate and roommate in college.

Rika’s story is only one of tragedy, where she’s ousted herself from her classmates and only warms up to others when she start to hang out with Hanamoto-sensei and her eventual husband, Harada. Rika represents the spiral you can fall down, even after being so successful after college. Harada dies and she wants only to follow after him. It’s Hanamoto-sensei, ever the nurturer, that snaps her back into reality. Once Rika feels like she’s accomplished all she can, and nearly gives up on her life again, it’s Mayama that snaps her back again. Rika believes that she only has to wrap up the loose ends of when Harada was alive and then she can follow after him. Mayama, however, has fallen in love with her (at some points stalking her, though not maliciously). It’s Rika who holds Mayama at arm’s length this time, though. But it’s only their story that ends in happy love—or appears to end in happy love. Yamada is left alone, Hagu chooses Hanamoto-sensei so she can recover, Morita moves to LA to work with Peter Lucas, and Takemoto moves to become a restorer.

This, I believe, so encompasses the college life, though. The second season didn’t just reconcile everything, as I said previously. The second season makes you watch as these characters gradually grow apart. Morita just suddenly disappears, Mayama goes on a business trip with Rika to Spain, and Takemoto has finally found his place in life. This is much more representative of life, though. It’s not like everyone’s lives wraps up nicely all the time. Some people take five years to graduate, some people take eight, and some people go to graduate school. But everyone takes diverging paths at different times, especially in college.

Moving back to Yamada…It was her arc that I sympathized the most with. I connected the most with Takemoto, but watching Yamada hurt my heart every time she was on screen. It’s like watching an alcoholic drive him/herself further and further down the rabbit hole. But with Yamada, her alcohol is her love to Mayama.

What makes her story so endearing is that she’s so devoted to her love to Mayama, even when she knows that he’s not going to give her the time of day. Throughout the first season, it’s much the same thing. It climaxes with her dressing herself up in a kimono to watch fireworks, just to have Mayama compliment her on her looks. All that work for one comment and a promise of nothing. That so encompasses her love to Mayama, because he’s only willing to give Yamada that one line. Anything more would be to committing to Mayama and it would only hurt Yamada more. But, in fact, it’s the fact that he’s leaving her hanging at the edge that hurts the most.

The second arc, so to speak, of her love begins when Nomiya is introduced. Nomiya almost makes Yamada’s arc more hurtful to herself because there’s now this guy that does like her, but she denies her. As she says, if she starts to love Nomiya, won’t that just deny her ever loving Mayama? It’s not true that it’ll deny her previous love, but I see where she’s coming from. She never got any confirmation, or any kind of affection besides that of friendship, from Mayama. Only a tender, “Yeah” whenever she tried to confess her feelings.

Honey and Clover is on the level of such josei manga like Nana and Usagi Drop in its realistic storytelling. I never once felt like these were caricatures or characters in a story. I believed that these were real people going through real problems, and that’s an issue with a lot of the middle-of-the-road anime and manga out there (and, really, a lot of the middle-of-the-road media out there). The comedy elements are hit or miss on whether I laugh at them or not, but they’re rarely misplaced. The drama is realistic and makes you care for these characters. Each of their arcs are touching in different ways, and you’ll root for both Yamada and Mayama to find their own happiness by the end.


This is a series that hits very close to home for me right now, and I hope to be able to pop this in and remember the olden days as I grow older. As the show says, we will always have the memories of those days.