HunterxHunter (2011): Election Arc

Well, I don’t think that when they revived it, Madhouse thought that in the time it would take to animate 16 years’ worth of HunterxHunter manga, Togashi would only have managed about 40 chapters.

So, well...the inevitable has happened. With the end of the Election arc, HunterxHunter is over once again. And I’m sad, because watching that final episode, which is actually a good place to end because it marks the culmination of Gon’s emotional arc with him getting to hand over Ging's Hunter licence and accomplishing the goal established at the very start, I’ll realised a few things.

I realised that even if One Piece is consistently better and I enjoyed Naruto more in its first 40-odd episodes, HunterxHunter is the Jump action property I care about the most (and second overall only to Hikaru no Go). Gon is by far my favourite of the action protagonists, much more pure-hearted and less annoying than Luffy, Naruto, Ichigo, Goku, Tsuna, Allen Walker, Yugi, Yoh or any of the rest of them, as well as going through far more harrowing experiences. HunterxHunter does darkness far better than any of the others ever did, and I’m going to be sad if Togashi is demoralised by the end of the anime and stops again for another long hiatus. Money isn’t going to motivate him – I’m sure that with his titles and the money the new Sailor Moon is bringing in for his wife, the only motivating factor is gonna be love of the piece. Is it still there? It feels like it, when he’s writing, but then for months and months he won’t do a thing.

Anyway, inception aside the Election Arc, while short and almost entirely lacking the protagonist of the story – another bold decision you won’t see from other Jump writers – is actually a very satisfying one. It reintroduces the long-absent character of Leorio and makes him look pretty impressive (setting up his role in the next arc), it despite a magical solution illustrates that the power-up Gon received was not a typical shounen ass-pull but genuinely put him and those close to him through significant pain and suffering, and with the parallel story arc for Killua, it further fleshes out his relationship with his family and fills in some important blanks.

But best of all, we get introduced to the Zodiac. Some are absurd, and some uninteresting, but Pariston is one of the most brilliant creations in any manga I’ve ever seen – and I detest him. But to have such powerful feelings about a fictional character who is only ever seen on the surface and who is named after Paris Hilton is quite the accomplishment. Pariston is an utterly brilliant depiction of a smarmy, insincere politician type. He’s slick and polished and knows that everyone hates him, but has an incredibly deep cunning under the surface and runs intellectual rings around the others – especially poor likeable Cheadle – while making it all look accidental or idiotic. Bringing Ging to the fore – and having him a foil to Pariston yet not entirely able to deal with him – is the most wonderful, watchable dynamic and again, sets up the next arc.

But fun though the election story is, the real emotional heart of these episodes was of course Killua’s rush to save Gon. Gon turned himself into something horrific in exchange for the power to defeat Pitou, and Killua can only think of one way to save him – the fearful power of his little sibling (most likely biologically male but identifying as female) locked up in the Zoldyck household.

With a set of strange rules, Alluka – or the other personality residing within, known as Nanika – can grant wishes when various demands are met. But failing to meet those demands brings horrific consequences. It’s the furthest HunterxHunter delves into horror territory, and it works really rather well. What Togashi does best is show that Killua actually sees Alluka as human, which none of the rest of the family do, and their bond is quite touching.

Illumi and Hisoka end up giving chase, another interesting dynamic – and Hisoka is enigmatic as ever, though brutally effective in his battle with Gotou. There are also some interesting new Zoldyck butler characters, though I think Tsubone’s goofy, rather embarrassing-looking ability was a waste – especially since she herself is awesome. It’s a pretty classic chase storyline, but wrapped up with all sorts of family drama, as well as Killua’s love for Gon and conflicted feelings.

The big climb to finish the arc is very sweet. Not only is that kind of ascent an old classic of shounen stories – most notably Dragonball – and finished off with trademark Togashi silliness with the nest, the conversation Gon finally has with his father is done brilliantly – it’s not too saccharine or emotional, but the message that Ging imparts, that the journey and the people you meet on it are more important than the goal, comes over very nicely.

I’ll very much miss my weekly dose of HunterxHunter. But I have every faith that it will come back again – someday. And until then, well, there’s always the manga. Sometimes. 

Monsters vs Aliens

Monsters vs Aliens was largely well-reviewed, made good money – primarily in North America – and ticked most of the boxes for a lighthearted animated comedy. On the other hand, it was one of the most instantly forgettable of the animated features of the first decade of the millennium, and is nobody’s favourite, largely because it does just what it says on the tin – it has monsters fighting aliens in a light-hearted comedy based on B-movie clichés, and for that reason it will likely entertain for the duration, but break no hearts, jerk no tears and lead to no calls for a sequel (though sure, why not a spin-off series?). Because while boxes get ticked, there’s no sense of human connection, and with the point being that the monsters are nice guys all along, you don’t get the same chance at growth and affection in the likes of Despicable Me.

I didn’t bother with Monsters vs Aliens at the cinema. At the time, I have to say that I largely ignored DreamWorks animated features. Antz I can hardly remember, the first Shrek I didn’t like, I missed Madagascar and found the trailers annoying, and though I liked the look of Kung-fu Panda, I didn’t see it until 2010, two years after its release and a year after this film. Soon after, of course, there was a bit of a turning-point for DreamWorks with the lovely How to Train Your Dragon, followed by the enjoyable follow-ups Kung-fu Panda 2 and Puss in Boots, then the strange hit-with-edgy-kids-despite-not-quite-being-on-the-wider-cultural-radar that is Rise of the Guardians, and even if The Croods and Turbo have taken DreamWorks back towards the goofy, somewhat superficial side that used to define them, they remain in a good place.

But for Monsters vs Aliens, my only contact with it was a random Happy Meal toy my friends and I found at a convention in 2009 and decided was our silly mascot, especially since its inexplicable gimmick function was, upon being wound up, to vibrate and travel slowly, jerkily backwards. We named him Stig after something some random junkie/drunkard passing by said, and Stig he has remained to me until today, when we spotted the film on iPlayer and decided to watch: his real name is Link.

The first thing that struck us about the animation here was that the humans are ugly. They are designed very weirdly in the face and their movements are clunky and ungainly, save perhaps for the main character, Susan. Thankfully, this is only a problem for the opening scenes, because Susan is really the only human who has significant screen-time except for the President of the United States – played with rather too much conviction of his own funniness by Steven Colbert – and much of that is in tandem with techniques to make her look huge. For after a meteor containing ‘quantonium’ crushes her on her wedding day, she grows huge, bursting out of a building with more gusto than Alice ever managed in Wonderland, until she is a 50-foot woman. Whisked away to Area 51, she joins the government’s other classified monsters – Link, first names ‘The Missing’, who is a strange amphibian convinced of his own strength but somewhat out of shape now and the most human and approachable of the bunch as essentially an airheaded jock; cackling mad scientist Dr Cockroach, who has merged his DNA with that of the eponymous creepy-crawly, voiced by Hugh Laurie at the height of his House fame; B.O.B. the amorphous blob who lacks a brain but is stretchy and indestructible; and Insectosaurus, a bestial but loyal monstrosity seven times as tall as Susan, who I think was developed when someone joked about what Mothra must have looked like before metamorphosis.

The arrival of the aliens is neatly tied to Susan’s developing powers, for their goal is the quantonium that was behind her transformation. When no force in America can answer the threat of the initial robot invasion from the hostile aliens, it’s left to the monsters to save the day, and things start to get fun – and Susan starts to realise that maybe the life she left behind wasn’t as great as she thought it was before this life-changing event.
 

And ultimately, the film is good, but only good. It has some horrible misfires – like the Presiden’t poop joke (‘Brown alert’) and a string of homages to the likes of Close Encounters and E.T. that just feel like someone ticking off boxes on a list – but the humorous quirks of the main cast keeps then funny and likeable, the computer’s thoughts on its countdown got a genuine belly laugh from me and it was quite refreshing to see the reversal of gender stereotypes in the Renée Zellweger cameo scene. Oh, and I loved the kid from the DreamWorks logo getting abducted. 

There’s good reason for me not to rush to see this. There’s good reason I wouldn’t have been sad to miss it altogether, and looking slightly dated now, I’m sure that in 20 years it will be very seldom-revisited. But if there’s a chance to give it the hour and a half it needs with little to no inconvenience, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell someone to go for it, because while it lacks real emotional punch or any human touch, it also does what it sets out to do well. And sometimes that’s enough. 

化物語 /Bakemonogatari / GhoStory

Especially considering it’s a Shinbou Akiyuki work for Shaft, the word I’d choose to describe Bakemonogatari is ‘stillness’. Part of that is plot related, with the second mini-arc of the story revolving around not leaving a particular place, but almost every episode largely features its cast standing still and talking at length in extended single scenes, with odd imagery usually based on colours or typography flashing up and plenty of typically Shinbou pastiche stills.

‘Bakemonagatari’ is a portmanteau combining ‘bakemono’ (monster/supernatural creature) and ‘monogatari’ (tale), which by happy coincidence can be easily, albeit clumsily, mirrored in the English ‘GhoStory’ – and while the entities dealt with here are not necessarily ghosts, the term ‘ghost story’ does tend to encompass various other supernatural creatures like the animal spirits who dominate this story. The anime is an adaptation of a series of light novels, and has been enough of a hit to spawn two sequel series, Nisemonogatari and Bakemonogatari as well as Monogatari Series Second Season and related Katanagatari.

Our main character Hiraragi-kun, whose hairstyle that covers one eye is not the only echo of Mushishi here (listen carefully to the music), is an unassuming but likeable high school student with a colourful past. When he discovers the strange secret of the standoffish but beautiful Senjougahara – that she has no weight at all – he pursues her and eventually breaches her prickly, even somewhat disturbing, defences to offer his aid. After all, he too has been afflicted by a supernatural ailment – he was bitten by a vampire and helped by a strange laid-back mystic. After helping Senjougahara and putting up with her advanced case of tsundere-itis, the two begin to date. But this action only brings him to the attention of various other girls, and his harem begins to gather.

It is undoubtedly a harem, and probably a cuter one than in most series. The girls here are all quite lovely, and all much more to my liking than the threatening and blunt Senjougahara. There’s the adorable loli, who Araragi shows the most personality with when he mercilessly teases her and gets a bit edgy with his molestation humour. There’s the tomboy who not only has the usual bokuko haircut, athleticism and adorable my-pace personality, but is actually an out lesbian, which is refreshing. There’s a quiet cute one, the bookish one who has always admired Araragi from afar, and then the mysterious little blonde girl who was the original cause of Araragi’s ‘condition’…as well as his saviour.

Underneath the witty dialogue, detached and cynical style and relentlessly odd imagery is a rather conventional story of a boy meeting a variety of girls who have some mysterious background, solving their problems and then having them become his close circle, to help out others when they come along or form rivalries. 

I have to say, while I didn’t dislike Bakemonogatari, I struggle to see why it was quite the hit it was. It certainly didn’t charm me like various other Shinbou works, and the style kept every single character at arm’s length.

There’s a fair bit more Bakemonogatari, as well as various related materials. There’s the sequel Nisemonogatari, and then a second season of Bakemonogatari, as well as the strange but fun-looking feudal story that I think is somewhat related called – I believe – Katanagatari. I don’t feel much attachment to the girls here, nor do I much like Araragi, but there was enough silliness, banter and action to keep me coming for another series. 

Just…rather like the other series this reminded me of despite the different levels of humour, Jigoku Shoujo, I expect the viewings of the episodes of progressive sequel series will become less and less a priority for me. 

Deadman Wonderland (manga)

There’s only a few manga like this I’m reading – where I started with the manga, then watched the anime adaptation when it came out, and then continued with the manga – but they’re some of my favourites of all time. There’s Fullmetal Alchemist, Rozen Maiden and MÄR, though the latter had a disappointing adaptation. Well, there’s also Death Note and Bakuman, but I never have gotten around to finishing the anime for those.

But Deadman Wonderland was posited a while back as the next big thing, and for a while it was everywhere. But then its anime came out and ended just as it was getting big. OVAs followed, but frankly they were too slow getting a continuation to happen, which may have been down to a delay in the newer chapters materialising – almost coincidental with the ending of the anime, the manga went on hiatus for a good two years, and only recently concluded. Twelve episodes was enough to make a small splash but there was definitely potential to get to a much higher degree of recognition. Alas, it didn’t happen, and as I feared in 2011, the anime will likely never continue, and to see the conclusion, one must read the manga.

But fortunately, that’s exactly what I can do. On the other hand, Deadman Wonderland has never quite been quite as high up in my affections as Rozen Maiden or Fullmetal Alchemist, despite me describing it as a favourite in my review of the anime. When it went on hiatus, it fell out of my regular reading and I never really missed it…and when the final chapters came out, it took me a while to get around to reading them, unlike what happened with Soul Eater. The trouble was that for me, Deadman Wonderland attempted what I described as one of anime’s strengths in my thoughts on Shingeki no Kyojin, but fell a bit short – it started with a truly absurd premise (a themepark prison where for outside entertainment, prisoners take part in games and suffer extremely violent deaths) and then attempted to get very serious and personal. The trouble was that – as was one of my problems with the Harry Potter series – the initial episodes of daft humour, exaggerated cartooniness and plot contrivance were so prominent and memorable that the transition didn’t work. The second part of Deadman Wonderland had its awesome cast functioning outside the context of the Wonderland, but the sheer absurdity that something that ridiculous was allowed to exist in what actually seems a much more grim and normal world never sits well and becomes something of a pink elephant. I just don’t find the last chapter of the characters becoming members of a normal society compatible with the bizarre world we were introduced to where people accept the grotesque entertainment of the theme park-prison. The two elements are just not compatible for me.

Which is a shame, because I really liked the action sequences, the characters – especially Ganta – and the central tension of his relationship with Shiro and the ‘Wretched Egg’. The conclusion of their story, though – which is also the conclusion of the manga in general – feels a bit obvious, though, and rather as if mangakas Kataoka Jinsei and Kondou Kazuma (whose story I already detailed in the anime review) wracked their brains for something clever and ended up with only the obvious conclusion to fall back on. It works, but it feels underwhelming, especially after a hiatus.

Deadman Wonderland was well worth the time I spent on it – but ultimately it feels like an opportunity missed.

ダンガンロンパ / Danganronpa / Bullet Rebuttal / Danganronpa: The Animation

I really thought I’d made my mind up about Danganronpa halfway through. I had even started mentally preparing what I’d write in this opening paragraph. Not my sort of thing, I’d say – silly designs and torture porn in an anime adaptation of a game that is little more than a melting pot of previously-used ideas. I’d put it with Angel Beats and Higurashi in the pile of ‘cutesy yet violent and largely brainless anime-of-the-week flash-in-the-pans that don’t last long’.

Yet, dammit, just towards the end, once it dropped the formula that had defined it for the first handful of episodes, it finally began to grow on me.

It’s definitely true that Danganronpa isn’t the most original of shows. Basically, it takes the old Battle Royale fixation with kids being forced to murder one another (see also: The Hunger Games), plus the grinning cutesy-yet-creepy mascot that presides over the dwindling cast of Bokurano, then overlays the ridiculous character designs of something very silly like Macademi Wasshoi and packages it into a game that is pretty obviously supposed to be the PSP’s answer to Phoenix Wright.

Thus, we have fifteen highly exaggerated high school kids waking up inside the very prestigious Hope’s Peak Academy. One is a muscle-bound schoolgirl so manly she puts anything in Stephen Chow’s CJ7 to shame; another is a blatant little trap with genius computer skills. One has a yankii pompadour that almost rivals anything in Shaman King, and another has a second personality – a ridiculous serial killer with a long waggling tongue and obsession with scissors. It’s incredibly dumb, but has its charm. In this company, pretty-faced, rather weedy everyman Naegi believes his only ‘super-high-school level’ skill is luck, but he soon turns out to be the detective of the piece – and the bringer of ‘hope’ to counter ‘despair’.

Why despair? Well, strange little psychotic mascot Monokuma – a cuddly bear with a normal, white-coloured side, and an evil, grinning black-coloured side – explains why. They are trapped in the school, and to get out, a student has to murder another student and not be found guilty of the killing by the rest. Despite all the kids declaring none of them will try anything funny, by the morning one of their number has been stabbed, and it’s up to Naegi to sort out the truth from the lies.

These first few episodes were a struggle, I found. The distorted characters did nothing for me, especially knowing they’d likely be dead soon enough. The fact that not only was there a blood-soaked scene, but the punishment for one found guilty was an over-the-top execution sequence conducted by Monobear in odd cutout-style animation ended up being the lamest kind of torture porn that I found very tiresome – and really found myself shaking my head over when one episode had to resort to the execution of a laptop to squeeze the stylised sequence in, as if that were a great emotional moment. Monokuma’s antics were entertaining but I’d seen it all before, and the formula really did nothing for me. Plus the more interesting characters seemed to get killed off far too soon, leaving an increasingly boring crowd.

Fortunately, things do change for the final act – there are considerably more survivors than might have been expected given the set-up, and the increasingly absurd wider reasons for the scenario are slowly revealed. With characters no longer dropping like flies two or three at a time, a bit more development could take place, and the deepening mystery of Kirigiri and the principal adds some grey tones to an otherwise very ordinary mystery. Naegi was a bit flimsy, but his design did appeal to me and I wanted to see him come through it all.

But I must admit it’s possible I would have let Danganronpa fall by the wayside if not for visiting Japan this summer. Apart from Attack on Titan and Free!, and excepting the omnipresent One Piece, Danganronpa was the most heavily-promoted show of the season. Monokuma and the sequel’s pink bunny-based counterpart Usami were everywhere, from UFO machines to T-shirts, and both the Good Smile Café and Namja Town had themed themselves after the show. With the series so popular and a few friends heavily into the series, I kept up with it, and while I put off episode 13 for a little while, it has still only been days since it became available, rather than weeks.

For all its flaws and its undeniable lack of originality, Danganronpa was light, frothy and stupid enough to be an enjoyable watch for 13 episodes. I can’t say I wanted to like it, but unlike Angel Beats or Higurashi, in the end I did enjoy myself. 

The studio animating Danganronpa was Lerche, which while listed as a subsidiary of Hibari would appear to be their major outlet now, and the name will also be attached to upcoming probable-hit Unbreakable Machine-Doll. 

ドラゴンボール 魔神城のねむり姫 / Dragonball Movie 2: Majin-jou no Nemuri Hime / Sleeping Princess in Devil’s Castle

The second Dragonball theatrical release was, like its predecessor Curse of the Blood Rubies, released with other Toei movie versions at their little festival and thus ran to only 45 minutes or so. Also like Blood Rubies, it starts with a scene from the original series and gives it a new twist. Whereas that first film was a retelling of a plot arc with its antagonist changed to an original one, here we get the very basic outline – Krillin arrives at the Kame house and Muten Roshi sends him and Goku off to find him a woman as an expedient sort of a test, and they come back with Lunch (or ‘Launch’) – but spins that into a new plot involving a vampire-themed mystery riffing on Sleeping Beauty.

Muten Roshi has heard of a sleeping princess far to the West, so sends the boys off to rescue her as their test. Off the go in an amusing condensed race against one another, while the rest of the original gang – Bulma, Yamcha, Oolong and Puerh, bearing in mind that when this film was released in 1987 Tenshinhan and Chaozu had not yet appeared in the anime – arrive at the Kame House and, believing Roshi’s embarrassed lies, set off after the boys thinking they’ve gone to a theme park.

The sleeping princess is kept by a handsome vampire called, in that very Japanese Shounen way, Lucifer, who amusingly quite obviously has the same voice actor as Vexen in Kingdom Hearts. His minions take down Bulma’s ship and manage to subdue Goku when a cute pink demon thing latches onto his tail, and while Bulma is flattered at first and won over by Lucifer’s good looks, he soon restrains her and reveals he’s going to suck her blood, mwahahaha. Of course, the good guys interrupt and that all goes awry.

When Goku crashes into the large four-poster bed at the centre of the stage Lucifer has set up for Bulma’s execution, it is revealed that the sleeping princess is not a Pichi Pichi Girl after all, but a large diamond. Lunch makes her entrance, in her badass form, stealing it and making her escape, but of course she sneezes before she gets too far and is captured along with the rest. As it turns out, the huge diamond can be powered up by the full moon to fuel a big weapon, but for whatever reason, Lucifer has only now decided to use that to destroy the sun and bring about eternal darkness. The full moon has another effect, though, and Goku sees it and turns into his giant werewolf-ape form, going on a rampage but setting everyone free until Puerh cuts off his tail. They are then able to confront Lucifer at last, and contend with the terrible new weapon.

Apart from the huge question of why Lucifer has never used this huge laser gun before, when meddlesome warriors weren’t running amok in his castle, the plot is simple and workable enough and it’s a nice alternate introduction to Lunch. There are the usual laughs based on stupidity and perversion, and some big silly monsters to have exaggerated fights with. The standard of art and animation are really no better than an average episode of the series, but it was still a worthwhile addition to the anime and had rather more substance than the first short movie adaptation.

One more Dragonball film to come, then one made much more recently, then I’ll move on to DBZ at last!

Corpse Bride / Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride

After the success of The Nightmare Before Christmas and before his remake of Frankenweenie, Tim Burton had another tale to tell as a feature-length stop-motion animation. Corpse Bride was his first attempt at directing a stop-motion feature, Nightmare having been helmed by James and the Giant Peach and later Coraline director Henry Selick - though Peach stalwart Mike Johnson took a co-director’s credit here and presumably showed Burton the ropes ahead of his solo Frankenweenie.

I have to say, it doesn’t seem like seven years since The Corpse Bride came out, though thinking back I remember seeing cosplay of it at a convention in 2006. I missed it when it was in cinemas and always intended to catch it at some point, but the opportunity didn’t come until today.

And I have to say, it rather deserves the plaudits and minor cult status it has earned. It’s no Nightmare Before Christmas, and doesn’t really tug at the heartstrings enough to really stand out even in the stop-motion animation world, but it was an excellent watch because it does everything right. The songs are done right. The animation is done right. The designs, done right. The script and the pacing – right. And yet it still has that odd B-movie quirkiness Tim Burton does best to give it an edge.

A sheltered young woman of noble stock and a rather wet young man from a nouveau riche family of considerable wealth are betrothed, though they have never met. On the eve of their marriage, young Victor and Victoria finally meet and hit it off, Victoria finding Victor’s piano-playing and diffident nature quite charming. However, an overbearing pastor makes him lose his nerve at a rehearsal for the wedding and he goes into the forest to practice. However, putting his ring onto what he thinks is a branch as he speaks his vows is a ‘grave mistake’ – as the poster jokes – for in a shallow grave is a pretty recently-deceased corpse, and the misunderstanding fuels the rest of the drama. The only slightly dodgy point is the baddie, Lord Bittern, who not only is coincidentally (and very obviously) linked to the Corpse Bride, but for a clearly intelligent conman misses the very transparent reason the aristocratic child of very snobby parents is marrying into a wealthy but middle-class trading family.

It’s a small-scale story that intentionally or not has a nice contrast between the limited cast of the living world – essentially the betrothed, their amusing grotesque parents, their staff, a love rival, the pastor and a town crier – and the exuberant and populous purgatory, where most scenes are crowd scenes and every little creature seems to talk except for the ghost dog right out of Funnybones. The characters in the living world are hilarious caricatures while those in the land of the dead are very quickly-defined bit parts where just about anything is possible. It makes for a grimly comic mood that keeps the pace brisk.

The vocal performances here are excellent – while Tim Burton’s usual stars Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter provide mostly functional performances that nonetheless are immediately sympathetic, as does Emily Watson, a cast of British comic and horror talents are clearly having an excellent time here. Christopher Lee’s gruff pastor has all the expected gravitas, and Albert Finny tries hard to out-gruff him. Harry Enfield and Fast Show fixture Paul Whitehouse (who Depp has expressed great admiration for) plays multiple roles, and Jane Horrocks crops up as a spider. The late Michael Gough, another Hammer actor and the Alfred in Burton’s Batman films, has a charming wise man role, and Richard E. Grant is his usual wonderful snarling posh bad guy. But stealing the show every time she speaks is Joanna Lumley, with a rich voice like no other. 

Then there’s Danny Elfman singing, and sounding like he’s having more fun than anyone else.  

I have to say, I was also probably more impressed by the stop-motion animation here than in any other Burton film. It wasn’t the spectacle – it was the small details. If that fabric rippling in the wind was done frame-by-frame, it was done by consummate masters of their craft. It looks fantastic. Spiders’ legs can’t be easy to do in this sort of medium, but they look great. And that pleasant creepy-but-still-soft aesthetic that persists in Frankenweenie looks rather nice here.

In some ways I feel like this is the purest form of Tim Burton’s style – everything is his vision, and hung on a good, classic, B-movie premise without the need to make it in some way metatextual or ironic. And it’s entertaining to boot. Great stuff.

バイオハザード ダムネーション / Biohazard: Damnation / Resident Evil: Damnation

Not much need to write a whole lot about Damnation, Capcom and Sony Pictures’ second computer-generated animation in the Resident Evil franchise. I’ll say this: it was more fun than Degeneration. At least it was full of action and didn’t drag on, which despite not having a bad script that film did. It was thin on plot and high on rocket launchers making tyrants explode, and already puts it above Degeneration in terms of action, but it had a terrible script and very unlikeable characters, so it ended up pretty dreadful and too often unintentionally hilarious.

Leon – here horrible characterized as a highly irritating wise-cracker who fits in quips before taking action – is dropped into Russia to investigate biological weapons. He finds them, of course, and some Russian mercenaries (or similar) who he befriends. Meanwhile, Ada Wong is doing her usual infiltration business to find out who sanctioned getting in dangerous viruses. Most of the film is just Leon and co fighting their way from one place to another.

It still looks clunky. Despite some beautiful renderings of a church – internal and external – and clear effort put into making it look good, it moves in an awkward motion-captured way, the lip-synch is all still iffy and the zombies look more comical than anything else. Only the tyrants look good, huge and lumbering – though the lickers aren’t bad.

Ultimately, the film is basically a tie-in to Resident Evil 6, and if you’re not interested in that – as I’m not – then it’s unlikely to have much for you. 

Hotel Transylvania

Despite the impression that this is just one in a long line of forgettable CG comedy films, it was actually one of the best little Hallowe’en treats in a while. Sony is still getting on its feet as an Animation department, with The Smurfs not exactly well-received and Arthur Christmas (as well as The Pirates!) probably more closely associated with Aardman than with Sony, but this was a big step in the right direction. They took the wise decision of getting in someone with TV animation pedigree – Genndy Tartakovsky of Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack fame – and though his pedigree with CG feature-length films isn’t exactly glowing (The Clone Wars film), this is more in-keeping with the tone of his prior work.

And it was good. There were a few misfires – bad fart jokes, a rather underdeveloped scene where the main characters end up in a monster festival and a male romantic lead who it took a very long time for me to find likeable, but that’s far outweighed by what the film got right.

Icons of horror have long been prominent in comedic animation. From Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies through Count Duckula and Doctor Zitbag’s Transylvanian Petshop to last week’s Frankenweenie, the icons of gothic literature and Hammer Horror films are the right mixture of strong characterisation and silliness and basically write their own stories. And here’s one that’s a classic storyline but neatly 21^st-century.

In the world of Hotel Transylvania, the monsters are terrified of the humans. Angry mobs and pitchforks have taken their toll, and Dracula himself lost someone very close to him. Retreating to an extremely well-hidden hotel, he raises his little daughter Mavis and keeps her so close she’s stifled. Though he promises her freedom on her 118^th birthday, he keeps tight control even then, going so far as to have his zombie minions pretend to be pitchfork-wielding humans in a nearby village to give her the impression that they’re all out to kill monsters. However, when a happy-go-lucky young human called Jonathan finds his way to the hotel during a big birthday get-together, Dracula finds himself struggling to keep control.

Monsters bring with them lots of obvious humour – The Invisible Man is sensitive about things people can’t see, the Wolfman has doggy habits and a whole brood of uncontrollable welps, and Frankenstein’s monster for whatever reason has a very Jewish bride. Dracula here is a very entertaining character, immense power hidden behind a very daft, insecure and controlling personality, non-violent and only vaguely threatening and very likeable, which is not only a credit to his design and writing but to Adam Sandler’s performance. His daughter Mavis, voiced by Selena Gomez (who I’m not sure I’ve seen in any of her Disney-related things or heard singing in any conscious way), was adorable in design, in character and in bat form, and it was cute that Sandler’s wife and daughter voiced the family in flashbacks.

The film’s mixture of humour and sentiment is a bit oddly-paced and free-wheeling, but that keeps things rolling along at an even keel and is in the spirit of the film’s message that controlling too much is bad and sometimes you should just enjoy yourself going with the flow. There were some random things, but most of them were also funny, like Dracula randomly throwing out a rap involving just about every possible rhyme for ‘Zing’, including ‘The Lion King’. That was one of the pop culture references thrown in there that might date the film very quickly, as well as a dig at Twilight – and I’m sure more than one viewer will make the comment that this was ‘still a better love story than Twilight’, which was certainly true.

Unlikely to go down in history as epoch-changing or essential viewing, this was still a very good example of a fun, family-friendly CG film with a few images that ought to endure. 

Frankenweenie

Tim Burton’s latest attempt to get back into critical favour – after slipping considerably in the past few years – is a self-homage to a time of homages. Burton has gone back to his 1984 short live-action film Frankenweenie – his second-ever live-action work – and his early propensity to pastiche schlocky old films. I do understand this – his best films had an excuse to revel in his love for B-movies, Ed Wood in particular – and aside from the dodgy last few minutes, Frankenweenie actually was one of his best and most heartfelt bits of filmmaking. But going back to it now, as well as gathering a whole lot of cast members from his previous works, smacks just slightly of cynicism and artifice – a little like when a rich, middle-aged band try to recapture the sound of when they were young and hungry and it all sounds a bit false…I’m looking at you, KoRn.

But Burton having fun and paying tribute to the things he loves is the best Burton – and this is definitely a good film. I recommend it and I definitely enjoyed it. It just wasn’t quite what I had hoped it would be, and I think part of the problem was that I have seen the original and was therefore aware of the bits that were added – and whether or not the additional material fit in. And while much of the transition to the big screen made a lot of sense – I loved the fleshing-out of the heavily-accented Vincent Price-like teacher, for example, and his brilliant scene at the PTA meeting – others were just awkwardly tagged-on.

The overall structure is the same in this stop-motion remake. Lonely young Victor likes making monster flicks with his dog Sparky as the star. When Sparky is in a traffic accident, Victor is inspired by a science lesson showing a frog’s legs twitching when electricity is supplied to re-animate Sparky’s corpse. His experiment is a success, but he has to keep Sparky hidden, because people won’t understand.

This is where there’s a bit of a divergence, one of the more awkward ones. In the original, Sparky gets out of the house and runs amok in the neighbourhood. There are some amusing scenes were he’s mistaken for something hideous. This is in the animated version, but goes nowhere and oddly gets dropped, ultimately seeming a bit random. Instead, Victor’s schoolmates learn his secret and emulate his successes – only they do not act out of love, meaning what they raise is more terrible. The end result of it is the same, though – Sparky is mistaken for a monster and a mob chases him with flaming torches.

In the original, the climactic action amusingly takes place in the windmill of a crazy golf course. Here, that’s replaced by the large windmill symbolic of ‘New Holland’s Dutch heritage, which is amusing mostly because I know it’s an alternative to the golf course. There is more action in this version, but the ending is largely the same, and thankfully with animation, you don’t have the problem of trying to pretend an almost weightless puppet is Bastion from The NeverEnding Story.

My problems here are the way things just seem to have been tacked on to the bare bones of the old story. Winona Ryder’s character is the most obvious one – she just seems totally extraneous and barely interacts with the other characters. Her father is good for plot impetus, but there’s nothing to him. Burton – or his scriptwriters – made the decision to change the parents from the slightly unsettling, kooky normal people they were in the original (thanks largely to Shelly Duvall’s peculiar performance) into generally rather normal people, and instead has the very normal kids in Victor’s class become a series of nods to horror tropes. There’s the boy who looks like Karloff as Frankenstein’s Monster and has a great scene or two resurrecting ‘Colossus’, but little else. Then there’s the boy in the Igor role, who is quite adorable. There’s the wide-eyed, staring, creepy girl with a psychic cat who I was a little sad didn’t get closure to her story, especially since she lost her constant companion. There was the fat boy who brings sea monkeys to life, which seem to be a Gremlins tribute. Then there’s the somewhat offensively-stereotyped Japanese boy, who the makers have clearly attempted to distance from tokenism by making him talented in a variety of fields, but really only has that thick accent so that there can later be a Godzilla/Gamera parody. It makes sense, given the fleshed-out story, but somehow the slightly unsettling home life set against a very ordinary school life gave just the right atmosphere of weird-twee-suburbia that Edward Scissorhands gets so right, but this now lacks.

Also, strangely, the visuals just aren’t as striking. The film nails shadows on walls – there’s no doubt about that. The Corpse Bride-like designs for the puppets work, but are often a little stiff, and the more grotesque characters have distractingly brilliant mouth movements. But somehow, the angle of that shot with pet graves on a hill doesn’t ring as true, and the cuts with the angry mobs and the fire don’t quite seem to evoke the old Hammer films. It’s all almost perfect, but not quite there.

But this is a harsh review, mostly because I had high hopes. It remains a very enjoyable and well-made film. It just wasn’t quite all I hoped it would be. 

ケモノヅメ/ Kemonozume /Beast Claws

With its highly idiosyncratic art style, insipid opening and closing episodes and rather impersonal and alienating first episodes, Kemonozume isn’t an easy anime to get into, and I have to say the only reason I got into it was my great admiration for Yuasa Masaaki and the two works that he made on either side of this production – 2004’s Mind Game and 2008’s sublime Kaiba. Honestly, without that factor, I likely wouldn’t have bothered giving a chance to this funny-looking, apparently very serious anime about flesh-eating monsters masquerading as people and the modern-day samurai/gangster types who fight them – and what happens when Romeo and Juliet-style, a couple is formed from one from each side.

And I’m glad I watched. I’m not going to say ‘Where else can you see the bad guy’s head sprouting legs and running along while a comedy monkey deeply kisses a part of the baddie’s flesh that is in the form of a lady monkey?’ because, well, in the big scheme of quirky anime, I’m sure I’ll see things at least as strange again. But though I started watching a pretty long time ago, this hardly took up very much of my time and it was a lot of fun to watch once it got going. There’s one episode about paralysis and a mysterious 20-foot-tall mobster (who becomes a regular character) that is one of the funniest I’ve seen. As with Mind Game, the surrealism, mature themes and seriousness predominate, but once the spotlight is on something funny, Yuasa really comes into his own.

There’s a reason he’s one of the big names of anime direction, and the studios let him do this crazy stuff. There’s a reason that Ankama went to him to give their Nox episode such a distinctive aesthetic. And there’s a real skill to how he juggles his different themes. This is my least favourite of his works – Mind Game was more heartfelt and also crazier, while Kaiba was much more conventional but also wonderfully strange in its peculiar cuteness – but it was still definitely enjoyable.

Next is The Tatami Galaxy. I’m looking forward to it – it certainly seems to be Yuasa’s work that has made the most impact, even if I seriously doubt I’m going to like it nearly as much as I liked Kaiba. 

ParaNorman

ParaNorman is just so much better than its goofy title and trailer made it sound. Marketing it like a zany comedy was a huge mistake – this stop-motion animation is less Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and more The Iron Giant. It’s quirky, it’s funny but it has a lot of heart, considerable scale and the vital spark of charm. The characters are much more visually appealing than they look in still images, the animation is the finest stop-motion has ever seen and the story is witty and fun.

Norman sees dead people – and I bet many, many reviews started with that sentence. As a result, he is considered a freak at school, stared at on the street and despaired of by his own family. However, when his crazy uncle dies, it transpires a ritual has been holding a dark force in place, and if Norman cannot take his uncle’s place, a witch’s curse will cause the dead to rise. When the inevitable happens, it falls to Norman, his airheaded new friend Neil Downe, their big siblings and the school bully to save the day, and Norman is unique in being able to not only see dead people but communicate with them no matter their form – but of course, Norman thinks he is better-off alone.

The story is not terribly original at its bare bones – the tragic underlying story owes much to the story of the Paisley Witches, or at least fictional descendents of that same history – but the way it is put forward is both unusual and compelling. The pacing becomes unconventional but the final act is so impressive – so like the climax of an RPG game, in fact – that every decision leading up to it seems cleverly-done. And the characters are very likeable – Norman himself is both vulnerable and strong, his family situation makes perfect sense and the characters who are meant to be funny actually are.

I was struck how the film was so explicitly of its time. Norman uses his phone screen to light a dark room. The bully tries to be street in a very up-to-the-moment way. The script gently pushes the envelope using the word ‘sex’ and having some racy jokes, and the moment some critics are making much of where a character reveals he is gay plays into modern sensibilities. In my view, the latter was the ideal way to have the first explicitly gay character in a children’s animation – funny because it is unexpected but not patronising, excitingly deviant for the young teens in the audience who giggled away and yet everyday and throwaway, as it should be. Neatly done in a film that contains some very clever dialogue, brilliant gross-out humour and genre subversions, most prominent when it turns out the zombies don’t want to kill or eat brains, but only to be helped.

I ended up really growing attached to Norman, with his big eyebrows (that perhaps are inherited from many generations ago…), uncombable hair (for that classic visual gag) and expressive face. Stick around until after the credits to see just how complex the puppets used have become – though there’s something slightly more admirable about Aardman’s pre-Pirates plasticine puppets that don’t use 3D printing, the sheer beauty of this film is a marvel, and those funny octagonal pupils in the puppets’ eyes could only be more expressive using the creepy effect in Madam Tutli-Putli, which would of course ruin the look!

With a cast that, John Goodman aside, is made up of actors most will recognise from somewhere but will have to look up (the dad character’s voice drove me crazy until I Wiki’d his work and saw he’s a Pixar stalwart), the performances are heartfelt and powerful, and the humour is delivered deftly. The emotional range here, and particularly the stunning final confrontation which surely contained a fair bit of CG, show that Laika did not suffer overly from Henry Selick’s post-Coraline departure.

Overall, a fantastic film, that left me with just one question – without the curse becoming real, without the undeniable proof of what he had been saying all along, what would have happened to Norman? Would he be accepted? Or just become his uncle?

ロザリオとバンパイア CAPU2 / Rosario+Vampire Capu2

Well then – Rosario+Vampire, by all accounts a throwaway piece of moé frivolity, managed to be a it of a smash hit and justify a second season, ‘Capu2’ – a bit of a pun, the Japanese pronunciation of ‘two’ sounding like ‘chuu’, the onomatopoeia for a kiss.

As I said in my Macademi Wasshoi! review, this second season of a fanservice-based series somewhat crippled itself with censorship on the TV broadcast, here the stupid bat mascot censoring the panty shots – and sad to say, this follow-up series took the usual tendency for a moé show to become much more perverted for its follow-up (looking at you, Dog Days Dash) and went to the absolute extreme. There are panty shots every few seconds. The episode preview is girls’ backsides shaking away until finally their panties are revealed, different every episode. The girls’ skirts are so short they reveal panties when they are simply standing, which actually becomes a plot point. And of course, the girls have decided that they will grope each others’ boobs at every opportunity.

But if any show couldn’t really get worse because of added crass fanservice, it’s Rosario+Vampire. It was about pervy fanservice from the beginning, and pushing it way past High School Girls level doesn’t detract much from an already stupid harem comedy. And what strengths the series has, it still has – a girl for every taste, some of Gonzo’s nicer and more consistent artwork, and a compulsively watchable quality derived from the light, simple tone and likeable stereotypes.

The set-up is much the same – Tsukune-kun the human attends a school for monsters, and has a disproportionate number of the female students lusting after him. Added to the mix is Moka’s little sister, a tsundere who only wants to see Moka’s dark side – and fleshes out the bat mascot into an actual character. She acts forceful and bratty enough that when she gets humiliated it’s both cute and satisfying (though spanking was a bit far). We also see the main girls’ parents, who are like exaggerated versions of them, and we get an answer to the first series’ mystery of whether the two Mokas are aspects of the same person or ought to be considered two distinct individuals – in fact, that becomes the centre of the dramatic part of the series…as in, the parts that aren’t about the Loli magically becoming an adult with big boobies, or the gang going to a bathhouse – which in the DVDs meant unappealing nipples everywhere. Even the loli looked absurd with small, stiff anime boobs.

Given that it was stupid, meant to be stupid, and happy being stupid, I didn’t mind Capu2 at all. It was dumb, unambitious fun, and while I’d never buy any merchandise based on it, it was a fun light distraction. The one problem I had was how they dealt with the typical irritating part of any harem series – the fact that the male protagonist sees the girls fighting over him, professing their love, indirectly imploring him to choose, make a decision, get them past their indecision – but he just says nothing. Laughs awkwardly and changes the subject, or gets interrupted. And the last episode has the true Moka making clear she fully understands what is going on – she beats Tsukune up for just wanting to string all the girls along and have them all, which is after all the fantasy. It’s not a fantasy I like – I’m all for the romance of one love. Tsukune clearly likes Moka the best – and he should make that clear, no matter what the audience likes. That said, that didn’t exactly work out so well for Midorino Hibi or Da Capo, so maybe I’m in the minority. And when each very different girl has rabid fans, it’s gonna be tricky to please everyone.

There probably won’t be any more Rosario+Vampire, and that suits me fine. But if there is, I’d watch it. It’s one of those shows – pleasant enough to watch without having to think at all…but not good enough that I’m sad it’s over. 

The Nightmare Before Christmas / Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas

Some of the impressions I’ve been writing lately have been a long time coming because it’s taken me ages to finish watching things. This one is overdue just because I haven’t gotten around to it, deciding I wanted to wait for a repeat viewing – which is also the case for director Henry Selick’s James and the Giant Peach.

What’s that? Henry who? Wasn’t the director here Tim Burton? Well, as a matter of fact, no – it wasn’t. Yes, it has his trademark atmospherics, his cheerfully grim style, music from Danny Elfman (vocal performances too) and even says ‘Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas’ in the posters. But while he was the creative force behind the project’s inception, served as the producer and came up with the story (based on a poem he had written), he neither directed the piece nor wrote the screenplay. After all, he is a director of live-action films, not a creator of stop-motion – though he did go on to co-direct The Corpse Bride. The credit here, however, goes to Selick, later to gain more recognition as the director of Coraline and currently under the employ of Pixar and working on a new film before being lined up to adapt a Neil Gaiman novel.

This is not a case of either-or, however: both men deserve considerable credit for creating this very fine piece of work. Along with Aardman, this 1993 work sent new life coursing through stop-motion animation, which had been foundering since 1986’s creepy but iconic The Adventures of Mark Twain. Its brilliantly distinctive aesthetic showed that CG was not going to entirely replace this branch of the art form, and in every way – concept, characters, music, pacing, believable antagonist and even progression of its romance – it is a good, solid, memorable film. And while Burton has always come down heavily on talk of a direct sequel, the world has remained an attractive one, appearing, for example, in the Kingdom Hearts games. For while this was seen as a little too risky to be released as a Disney animation, it comes from the studio’s Touchstone imprint – which probably helped it at the time, for while Disney was making excellent films like The Lion King, they weren’t exactly associated with quirky, edgy, dark work at the time, and if anything the stigma of Disney being safe and cute could have lost Nightmare a chunk of its audience.

The story is based on one of the more popular modern takes on Christmas: someone who is not a typical Christmas figure intruding onto the joy and brightness of Christmas and ruining it. Unlike a Grinch or a rampaging South Park snowman, here Jack Skellington has mostly good intentions. He is The Pumpkin King, leading the horror-themed inhabitants of the gleefully German Expressionist Halloween Town, and once he glimpses the gaudy holiday happiness of Christmas Town, he is infatuated and wants to be able to do the same thing – even going so far as to kidnap Santa himself to take his place. Of course, things don’t go to plan and as it turns out, you can’t just usurp Father Christmas – especially with the chaotic madman Oogie Boogie setting his eyes on Santa and Jack’s love interest Sally. His motivation is ultimately a little dubious, but he’s so charismatic and visually striking that this can only be considered a minor quibble. He is cruel for the sake of cruelty, because that’s the sort of character he is.

Brilliant visually, clever in how it can make characters at one repulsive and appealing to look at, and delivered with great belief and a fantastic aesthetic, it’s no wonder it was such a hit – and has become a neatly alternative Christmas classic. 

ロザリオとバンパイア/ Rosario + Vampire (series 1)

Like Claymore and Tegami Bachi, Rosario + Vampire was one of the series that crossed over when Monthly Shonen Jump ceased publication and then reappeared a few months later as Jump SQ, short for Jump Square. Like the others, it’s a supernatural-themed story with lots of action scenes. Unlike them, though, it is not an adventure narrative but a pretty brainless harem story chock-full of pantie shots but severely lacking in charm.

On the other hand, it is also one of the more successful manga out there, its tankobon volumes selling tens of thousands of copies each and no doubt there being a healthy trade in figurines and body pillows, too. And terrible though it is, I have to admit this anime adaptation by Gonzo both looked very fine and was compulsively watchable – though it would not leave me desperate for the next episode, if I had time for an episode and wanted something light, it was always a good choice.

The concept is simple: the ordinary, rather passive but good-hearted young man Aono Tsukune failed to get into a good high school when he did poorly in his exams. However, his parents came upon a random acceptance slip for a private school called ‘Yokai Academy’, so he enrolled. Unbeknownst to him, the school is actually for mythological monsters, so that they may learn to integrate with human society – but of course, a human discovered in their midst may or may not make it through the rest of the day alive. Luckily, Tsukune quickly makes a friend of Moka – a vampire whose true powers are sealed away by a rosary around her neck.

If it sounds cute, along the lines of PetoPeto-san, it’s much more like Mahou Sensei Negima or even Shuffle! – the everyman boy at the centre of it ends up the object of desire of a series of cute girls to suit every taste – not only sweet-natured Moka but the huge-breasted succubus Kurumu, the eleven-year-old loli witch Yukari and the quirky yuki-onna ice demon Shirayuki (which is Snow White’s name in Japan). The structure of the 13-episode series more or less introduces all of these, gives one or two episodes of them working together to overcome adversity and joining a newspaper club together, then everything comes to a head as the school’s disciplinary committee finds out Tsukune’s secret.

I really ought to sniffily dismiss such an awful show. Constant panty shots happen at the slightest provocation. The girls are totally objectified, mere shells of characters forever getting into scanty outfits or grabbing each other’s boobs in jealousy. The plots are paper-thin and usually have no tension because Moka’s inner powers get unleashed – along with a different personality that may or may not be an entirely distinct character – and all problems get solved with a bit of violence. Tsukune himself is duller than even the average ignorable male in harem anime, doing almost nothing but calling out the names of all the girls when they’re in trouble and stringing them all along because he supposedly doesn’t know how to handle the attention he gets. And yet…

…and yet I have a soft spot for it, and will be watching series two. Partly it’s just because the production values are nice: it all looks good, the characters’ faces are very cute and I love the silly theme used for lovey-dovey moments. And it’s entertaining and funny despite all its shortcomings. It’s not a show I’m proud to like, or would recommend – but despite myself, I find that I do like it, and it does make me smile and care about its paper-thin characters.