Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Utena meta-thoughts

I've watched the first 28 episodes of this series so far. A few thoughts. No real spoilers here, or it would be a lot more thoughts.

The first 7 eps are great as we are introduced to Utena's world, meet Anthy and the school council / duelists. The shadow girls are surreal and helpful in realizing that not everything is always what it seems to be. Towards the end of the first season (eps 8-13) things start to get a little more serious.

The 2nd season is a bit rocky. The goals of the "black rose" folks means that Utena cannot lose (or the show would be over), which makes most of the duels rather boring. The first season duels ("self", in particular) were more interesting from that aspect. Utena *could* lose and we got to see her deal with that loss. Still, the last episodes in the 2nd season are well worth watching because the explain some of the background.

OTOH, the 2nd season starts to really hint at some of the messed up interactions between the key characters. You'll also find out who is behind the "end of the world" missives.

The first few episodes in the 3rd season are interesting. The art takes a different tone (Utena's eyes become bright blue, and you'll see Anthy let her hair down).

Overall the art in Utena is great, but there are a few sections (like ascending the spiral stair) that don't "mesh" with the rest of the artwork. Similar to the problem in Dual! when you see the giant mecha being launched (they use a full CGI sequence for that). It (the stair sequence) probably looked alright for the time period when the anime was being produced, but today it looks stilted.

Character designs, colors, and the dynamics of the images are very good. There are some wonderful sunset / sunrise shots that are very vivid, or things like the "shadow play" girls which are very unique.

Labels: 2005, Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 3:16 PM (0 comments)

Friday, July 08, 2005

Appleseed 2004

So, I watched Appleseed 2004 a few weeks ago. It's basically a rehash of the hand-drawn anime from the late 80s, redone as a nearly 100% CGI.

It *looks* pretty.

However, character movements are stilted and look dollish. Think back to Reboot when it was on TV and you'll get an idea of just how bad it can be. None of the character movements are realistic, and in fact, are very distracting from the movie/plot.

Really a pity. They relied too much on the CGI and completely lost it on the artistic side.

Labels: 2005, Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 2:03 PM (0 comments)

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

Anime Backgrounds 1400x1050

Just a quick dump of what anime wallpapers I'm using on the laptop this month. They're all sized to 1400x1050 and generally darkened by about 50% from the original to make for a background that doesn't interfere with the foreground windows. Sometimes, if I'm sizing and image up and it doesn't look okay, I'll apply special effects to the image in Jasc Paint Shop Pro.

Trigun and Bean Bandit (untouched except for resize and darkening)



Tenchi Muyo - Ryo Oki (darkened, with edge enhancement or something)



Priss from Bubblegum Crisis and Trigun (fine oil brush filter effect)

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 11:35 PM (0 comments)

Saturday, August 16, 2003

Spring and Chaos

Saw a preview for Spring and Chaos on the first disc in my Vampire Princess Muyo collection, and it looks like a very interesting film. Visually, it's very distinct, where the main characters are human-like cats.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 12:12 AM

Sunday, June 08, 2003

Boogiepop Phantom 3

Boogiepop Phantom 3

Life can be so nice (spoilers ahead)

Scene 001 - Shinyo Academy - Apparently a serial killer stalks the city (Hisashi's mother was murdered by the killer) and a junior high school girl has also been found dead. Nagi is being pressed for answers by a classmate (who has read a book by Nagi's father) about whether or not she was involved in the events of 5 years ago, or even the dissapearances of a month ago.

Scene 002 - Hijiridani High School - Classmates are discussion the dissapearences, Death and Boogiepop. We meet Panaru, who doesn't know if Boogiepop exists or not. Panaru's real name is Arifuji Misuzu and she's a Senior at Hijiridani High School (Class 5). Yoko (the girl that Jounichi Hisashi caught cheating) walks home with Panaru and wonders where Hsashi has gotten to. After Yoko wanders off, Misuzu sees (a vision of the real?) Panaru. Panaru is someone that loves and accepts the entire world as is. Misuzu and Panaru wander off through the town...

Side scene, we see a disturbed lad being restrained by the police. As Misuzu and Panaru wander by, he calls out the name "Rie" and reaches towards them. (We'll see him again in a future episode.)

As Misuzu sees the guy that she has a crush on with another girl, Panaru fades away (she was just a vision) and Misuzu claims that she's never gotten angry or upset because she accepts the world as it is. Anything can happen in this world, and everything does happen in this world. Suddenly, a voice calls out "Liar!" and Misuzu turns around to see a vision of Panaru with blood covering her face.

Misuzu goes to a record store and buys (2) CDs and has the clerk gift-wrap one. As she's riding on the train, we see the white light appear up on a power transmission tower and it then darts down and begins to chase the electric train. When it catches up, the train suddenly comes to a stop, but Misuzu doesn't seem to notice (she's listening to her music player). As the conductor looks around outside for the cause of the problem he sees blood up where the power lines connect with the train. A voice speaks to only Misuzu and asks, "who summoned me?", it then takes up residence in Misuzu's CD player and begins to speak to Misuzu through her ear phones. It wonders why Misuzu was able to summon it, then it sees something in her mind/memories and understands.

Scene 003 - Kitaguchi Park Same timeline, Misuzu has gotten to the park we learn that the 2nd CD that she purchased is a gift for the deceased Panaru. Misuzu lays the CD at the base of a tree and the man-eater (in the form of Saotome) shows up to talk about Panaru's world love and asks if Misuzu wants to spread Panaru's love to the entire world.

Next up, Yoko is complaining to Misuzu that ever since Hasishi dissapeared, the pain in her heart has beeng getting worse. So, Misuzu summons forth the man-eater (again, in the shae of Saotome) to help Yoko to be more accepting of everything. However, Yoko dies as a result of the feeding before she could experience the happiness, or so Misuzu believes.

Nagi finds Misuzu at the Kitaguchi Park playground (Nagi calls it creepy, Misuzu calls it special). Misuzu leaves, and Nagi notices that her compass is going nutzo, plus she starts to see blood spattered on the playground equipment. The man-eater sees Nagi as a threat, and convices Misuzu to lure Nagi to a place of his choosing so they can "teach her world love".

As they wait for Nagi to show, Misuzu finally starts to realize that maybe things are not what they seem to be. Boogiepop appears and things come to a head as Misuzu argues that her and Saotome are not the enemies of the world and that she rightfully took over Panaru's world love. A vision of Panaru again appears and calls her a liar.

Scene 004 - Junior High School Flashback. We see Panaru exhorting Misuzu not to cry over things like that as Panaru introduces Misuzu to the words of Panaru. But, the very next day, when Misuzu goes to meet up with Panaru at Kitaguchi Park, she finds that Panaru has been slain by the serial killer.

Back to the present, Boogiepop continues to admonish Misuzu, explaining that Misuzu's version of world love is not Panaru's, but merely an attempt to hide from the world. Misuzu begs Boogiepop to take her to the other side like HIsashi, but Boogiepop refuses saying that Misuzu is not worth taking and then vanishes. Misuzu now stumbles through the street, looking for someone to take her from the world.

And, who does she stumble across but a nice officer - who turns out to be not so nice (same officer that was watching Hasishi). Nagi seems to show up about 30 seconds too late (the officer has bundled Misuzu's body into the back of his patrol car and is driving off) and smashes the CD player that Misuzu dropped, releasing the man-eater back into the electrical network.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 11:46 PM

Boogiepop Phantom 1

Spoiler alert ahead - Episode title is Portraits from Memory

Watching episode one again, since I haven't watched it in so long. There is a Director's Soundtrack (the english director that made the dubbed version), but the background audio is also english... and as a general rule, I dislike the english dialogue actors in most anime. So I'm probably not gonna listen through that althought it might be useful for figuring out some other bits and pieces. Not gonna re-list the characters from my last entry, but more list the scenes in this episode and where they fit on the timeline.

Scene 001 - Shinyo Academy - Time is 1 month prior to the main timeline (as far as I can figure). Basically, this is the event that everyone talks about where a bunch of people vanished (I think Saotome was one of them). There's some screaming, some glass breaking, some blood splattering on the wall, and a vertical column of white light that briefly knocks out the power.

Scene 002 - Hijiridani High School - Present timeline, girls talking about all of the people who were taken a month ago, also tossing out the words Death and Boogiepop (not sure if the two are considered to be one and the same). We're introduced to the main character for this episode, Tonomura Moto (Sophmore, Class 2) who is a (slightly?) neurotic obsessive compulsive (focused on hand washing). Suzuki Yasuko is Moto's best friend and drags her out to a Kareoke bar that night along with another classmate to go on a triple date. The boys end up asking about Masami Saotome, a boy that Yasuko dated in junior high but doesn't want her current boyfriend (Satoshi) to find out about, so Yasuko dissembles when asked but Moto mumbles that Saotome was probably killed by Boogiepop during the events of the previous month. (Speculation on her part, but Saotome did dissapear at the same time.)

Scene 003 - Junior High School Summer - Flashback time as Moto tells the story of the relationship between Yasuko and Saotome and herself. Yasuko used to be quiet and reserved like Moto, but while Yasuko came out of her shell in Junior High, Moto retreated inward. Eventually, Yasuko broke up with Saotome and Moto discovers that she is falling in love with Saotome.

Scene 004 - The Present - Back to the present, the group is walking back home from the Kareoke club, but Moto isn't feeling well and lags behind as they pass through an alley. As she stumbles, she looks into a side alley and sees white light come together and form the shape of Saotome. She screams and the scene cuts to her waking up in her own bed the next morning. (Again we see her OCD in effect as she compulsively cleans the door handle that her father touched as well as making the back of her hand bleed.)

After the commercial break, we get some introspection by Moto that "we all die anyway so why bother", and in the background is (a girl, can't place who she is atm) reaching towards the sky.

Yasuko now relates a rumor to Moto that Saotome once professed love to Kirima Nagi while he was at Shinyo Academy.

Moto goes to the nurses office, but the nurse isn't in and she meets a boy who says "there's a bug attached to your heart". (More on him in a later episode.) Needless to say, Moto refuses to let him touch her, but she admits that she knows that there is something dragging on her.

Scene 005 - Shinyo Academy - Current timeline still. Moto goes to Shinyo Academy to visit the last known place where Saotome was seen. As she tries to walk away from the gate after looking, she's greeted by some girls from Shinyo Academy and ends up asking whether Nagi is around. However, Nagi left after 5th period. So Moto continues to wander the streets and finally ends up in the alley from the day before where she saw Saotome's image.

While there, she catches a glimpse of the white light running along an electrical wire above and begins to chase it through the streets and alleys until she catches up with it in yet another dark alley. Saotome's shape appears, and we find out that it's not Saotome because it doesn't know who Moto is. In the meantime, we see a girl in Shinyo Academy dress with a heavy bag over her shoulder pushing through a bustling crowd. Moto doesn't care that it's not Saotome (It doesn't really matter... it's okay if you kill me), so the monster prepares to feed upon Moto.

Just as the man-eater is about to feed, Boogiepop shows up and kills it and then chastises Moto. "Forget about Saotome, I killed him" she says. Moto ends the episode pretty much where she started, still disliking her self.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 9:59 PM

Wednesday, May 21, 2003

Bad Anime

Ugh... seems like I'm plagued by some so-so Anime lately.

First up is Ruin Explorers, which is a 4 part series-show-movie about 2 gals who are basically treasure hunters. Along the way they meet up with 4 other folks and have a showdown against a big bad wizard for the "ultimate power". Unfortunately, the characters are flat and you never really feel like cheering/jeering for any of them. I'd have to call this anime-light because it lacks any depth, complexity, or character.

Secondly, I'm taking my 2nd pass through the Evangelion series, including the 2 DVDs - Death and Rebirth and End of Evangelion. Now, the Evangelion series is a great show up until episode 20ish, as tension builds between NERV and Seele over Gendo's plans for the future. But, suddenly in episode 25-26 things go strange and the writers get lost. It's one of the series endings that you sit there and wish you hadn't bothered to watch the last 2 episodes and just left it all to your imagination.

So, they came up with Death and Rebirth, which is a ~65 minute re-cap of the series (with 10-15 min of new animation) done in a flashback / slide-show format (which is on the whole, rather boring) and then a 30 minute episode where Seele invades NERV and it ends with the 9 mass-produced EVAs circling Asuka in EVA-02. Sadly, the 30 minutes are not well spent, and while we see lots of action, it's no where near the quality/drama of the early EVA episodes.

End of Evangelion begins with the same 30 minute episode that was at the end of Death and Rebirth and then leads into the rest of Armegeddon. Now, the second 60 minutes of EoE wasn't actually that bad... however, that may have been because I was watching it while listening to the audio commentary instead. So, while visually more satisfying then the original end to the Evangelion series, it's still a bit of "am I watching Evangelion or am I watching Akira?".

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 8:30 PM

Monday, February 24, 2003

Boogiepop Phantom

Kind of a tough anime to slot, it's not your typical anime... but is more of a horror / hitchcock style. The first 4 episodes are dense with information that is not explained until an episode or three later (all of the episodes that I've seen so far are that way at least). Flashbacks to something shown in another of the first few episodes, or even stranger, you'll see something in an earlier episode which seems like a flash back to a future episode (flashforward?).

Well, since it's confusing me... I'm gonna have to start taking notes and keeping track (spoiler alerts ahead). First up are the main characters... according to the title animations, I count 3 or 4 main characters (as they are labeled in the title animations):


Miyashita Toka - Not sure where she fits in yet... but she goes to the same school as Nagi (unless there are two Nagi's...).


Kirima Nagi - Rides a motorcycle, is (was?) hospitalized for some reason, might be a detective (for real or as a hobby?). Attends Shinyo Academy.


Kuroda Shinpei - I *think* he's a real detective, but he's not been given much air time in the first few episodes.


Boogiepop - at least, I think this is Boogiepop or "Death". Either a vigilante or some sort of astral guardian.

Then there are the characters that are in the first episode... some of which seem to show up later.


Tonomura Moto - attends Hijiridani High School (sophmore). Had a crush on Saotome, even though she hadn't seen him since Jr High after he stopped dating her friend, Yasuko. Suffers from the affliction characterized by compulsive hand washing / fear of germs (obsessive-compulsive disorder focused on on the hands).


Suzuki Yasuko - Moto's best friend. More of a free spirit then Moto.


Masami Saotome - He dissapeared during the events of a month ago. Went to Shinyo Academy after Jr High.


Jonouchi - A senior at Hijiridani High School who sees bugs attached to people's hearts (more on that in a later episode).

Which brings me to the timeline... there's "now" (which is when most of the first episode takes place), there's some event that happened a month ago (when a lot of young people dissapeared, with the locii of effect at or around Shinyo Academy), and rumors of a serial murderer(?) from 5 years ago.

Also interesting is the framing of the scenes, where the corners of the image have been darkened out (making you feel like you're looking out from a tunnel at the scene.

(laughs) I just found the rythm and the pacing for the first episode... it does build to a climax, but the cues are just not what one expects. The narration is so understated, which is what throws you off the trail. Still, it's taken me a few watch throughs and trying to keep track of the (3) different school names as well as the abundance of characters to figure out the key items to keep track of. (So many characters are thrown at you... you're often left wondering which ones you need to pay attention to.)

One link that might help is John's Boogiepop Phantom Shrine... although I'm probably going to draw different conclusions about some things then he has (which is why I'm trying to avoid reading his site until I've puzzled out the series for myself).

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 9:52 PM

Wednesday, December 04, 2002

S I N

(sigh) Another anime with good promise, but seriously flawed execution. Star of the film is Colonel John Blade who needs to save a little girl named Elyse Stewart from a nasty lady named Elexis Sinclaire. It's a short movie, about 60 minutes, with good special effects and art design.

Okay... so why didn't I like it:

- Movie length was too short, little to no development of the characters. Basically you're shown John Blade, see a few flashbacks where his partner gets killed, his father gets killed, and finally something along the lines of "we can rebuild him, but we have to sacrifice the older one". Okay, so he's half cyborg - but you never really feel like bonding with this guy. Oh, but wait, he can instantly bond with the little girl Elyse who won't say a word after her ordeal until John hands her a teddy bear. He's got a rogue streak in him (classic good cop wants to go after bad guys, boss says he can't, good cop ignores direct orders and saves the day). Oh, and the girl who wants his butt on a legal platter at the beginning is of course in his arm (note the use of the non-plural form) at the end of the movie.

- John "JC" Armack looked like a great character; but instead he's killed off at the start of the movie in the first incident. Supposedly, he's this super great hacker (and his sister is a mere shadow until she proves she can break through a defense network) yet we're never shown his prowess and he comes across as a geek who gets killed solely to advance the storyline and provide some plausible explanation of why the lead character is allowed to be brooding and silent.

- Kait gets short-shrift the entire movie, she gets to shoot big guns, sob when Tim gets killed, and save Blade's butt when they get trapped in the air-tight chamber at the end (oh, and fly a helicopter to save the 3 of them as they fall).

- Somewhere about halfway through the movie, I stopped caring. (In fact, this is the second attempt to watch the entire thing - I popped it out after the first 30 minutes back in the spring.) As they're falling at the end - you *knew* they weren't going to die, as it was obvious that Kait would fly in and save them with some aerobatic maneuvar. Actually, there are a ton of places in the film where it's extremely predictable and forumlaic.

I guess if you were an avid reader of the manga (or whatever the movie was based on), this movie might not dissapoint you too much since you'd already know all the characters and their supposed motivations. I didn't have that information, and as a result came away from the movie not caring about the characters - which is mighty rare for an anime film. If you want to see it, go ahead, but don't expect it to be a stellar example of what the medium is capable of.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 8:16 PM

Wednesday, January 02, 2002

Samurai X (Trust and Betrayal)

Okay, I'm a little mellowed out after watching the second half of this series. The first part (Trust, Amazon.com) is very action-paced (but I had to watch it twice to catch some of the nuances). The second part (Betrayal Amazon.com) is much more mellow and introspective (and does not have a happy ending... which is a good thing). I'll not get into the plot details, but it's a very well done piece of anime that fits together nicely and leaves you with a languid sense of sadness when it is over (sorta like when one of the principal characters in Key the Metal Idol passes away).

Now I need to find something a little more upbeat to watch... (which is why I haven't watched the last few episodes of Bubblegum Crisis 2040... which is really turning odd at the end, and why I'm waiting to watch Grave of the Fireflies which is reported to be very sad).

I guess I could start watching Gundam Wing (I have a new DVD of that series), but I'd like to have a few more before I start on that series again. Nah, I'll start watching The Princess Bride DVD that I got for Christmas (with lots of extras).

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 8:35 PM

Thursday, October 11, 2001

Gasaraki - vol 1 and 2

Finally getting a chance to watch the first two Gasaraki DVDs. This was one of the anime titles that I haven't seen yet but looked very cool from the previes on other DVDs that I own. (Yes, I should post a list sometime of what I own.) It has a very nice haunting song in the preview (which is also used as the opening song) which is really what caught my eye.

The imagery in this series is done with a combination of what looks like traditional cell animation mixed with CGI. Some of the effects are very dense with the amount of information that is going on (on the simulated computer screens or the combat heads-up view). The style of the art is realistic (nothing cartoonish about the characters).

The first episode (On the Ancient Stage of Stone) opens with the quote (ADV's release does not show anything other than english text, so I don't know if this screen was originally in kanji or romanji):

With this path I take
In testament to the very kai I house within
I stamp my foot loudly upon this stage of cold hard stone.

The first thing you see is someone logging into the "GDS Operation System" using the login name "TApilot012". "TA" stands for "Tactical Armour". There's a bunch of other messages that flash up on the screen, but I couldn't make them out even with the zoom feature on the DVD player. This episode drops us right into a raid situation using the TAs (no introductions). We're then flipped back and forth between the raid and another situation taking place at a lake.

The second episode is called Opening Movements and begins with the following:

Forever present
The dark murky abyss below is swept by wind
Babbling waters echo, the introductory dance begins.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 9:07 PM

Friday, August 10, 2001

Anime that I haven't seen yet

Watching the previews at the start of the BGC 2040 DVD.

Gasaraki - The preview that I've seen has the coolest lyrics (very moody). Here's a review by Anime on DVD.
Samurai X - I don't normally care for ninja-centric anime, but this one looks very well done in the preview.

Labels: Anime

posted by Wuphon's at 9:13 PM