Manga & Anime THREAD

[GeorgeC]

To paraphrase myself, this is NOT to say anime features DON'T have occasionally bad writing. The batting average for feature animation in general is lousy regardless of the country it's produced in.

In fact, you're generally better off watching the anime TV series than anime features in general. It's very difficult to do meaningful character development in any feature-length film. I think the problem gets exacerbated in Japan sometimes because of the fact that their films run longer. They're just bad at editing unnecessary scenes. A good script rewrite or script wouldn't hurt in many cases.

The only anime feature directors who regularly direct good films (IMHO) are Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon, and Kon's dead now.... Kon's last film is getting finished by his production company, Madhouse, according to the notes he made and discussions he had before he passed away from cancer.

[EricJ]

Here's the quick version since I'm limited on time: imagine that scene as the big finish for a film from Disney and tell me it doesn't get panned as ridiculous.

Well, that's just it--It's NOT a Disney film.
(When Kiki's Delivery Service was reviewed on video to critics who had never seen Miyazaki before period, they pointed out that

while the climax of that film involved our heroine rescuing her friend from hanging off a blimp about to crash into Main street,

if it'd been a 90's Disney movie,

it would've happened during a furious rainstorm, while the villain sneered, taunted, and tried to steer the blimp toward our heroine's friends...)

:

That aside, thought Spirited's "big finish" was supposed to be her finally helping Haku resolve his issues by realizing the relationship they had together (you know, falling through the sky, and big climactic stuff like that?)...And the "pig" plot--which by now was more of a MacGuffin toward self-discovery--was more of a cuddly post-climax wrapup. Those things happen in movies, too, you know.

[Vernadyn]

Yeah, I do think Spirited Away's climax comes with the falling-with-Haku scene. Joe Hisaishi's music during that scene certainly signifies it as the emotional height of the film, and adds wonders to the scene (it is a very pleasing-sounding progression that John Debney would use in Elf and Alan Silvestri in the Polar Express). Though I do see how the pig scene could be seen as a false climax that may take away from the real climax. But Sen/Chihiro had to get her parents back somehow, and making a big deal out of the scene would have diminished the Haku scene even more.

Climaxes in films can be slippery things... in Psycho, the basement scene is the climax, but then we have five minutes of a psychologist babbling away before the movie finishes. On the other hand, in North by Northwest, the movie ends about five seconds after the climax. But to me, both films work as a whole.

And, of course, who can forget Return of the King's half-hour denouement? (Personally, I think it would have been better without all the false fade-outs).

[Ben]

Yep...as a non-anime fan, I've only ever seen some theatrical features.

I do understand that longer form series can be very engrossing and rewarding, but I don't have great access to that kind of content or the time to watch it. Hence I've only really ever seen the "bigger" theatricals, which include most of Ghilbi's work. I absolutely understand them (was kidding about them never making sense even if some are pretty far out there) but can't always find them as "wonderful" as others, though I have stated in the past which ones I'm looking forward to arriving on Blu.

As for Spirited Away...I didn't dislike it as much as James obviously did, but I did find it overlong. Perhaps seeing it in the native Japanese helped, which is how I first saw it. I later saw the US dub, and actually didn't like it quite so much. Maybe it literally loses something in translation!?

[Whippet Angel]

Perhaps seeing it in the native Japanese helped, which is how I first saw it.

Don't wanna say I told you so, but I totally did a couple years back.

[EricJ]

Yep...as a non-anime fan, I've only ever seen some theatrical features.
I do understand that longer form series can be very engrossing and rewarding, but I don't have great access to that kind of content or the time to watch it. Hence I've only really ever seen the "bigger" theatricals, which include most of Ghilbi's work. I absolutely understand them (was kidding about them never making sense even if some are pretty far out there) but can't always find them as "wonderful" as others, though I have stated in the past which ones I'm looking forward to arriving on Blu.

Real anime fans know that some of the best stuff has always been made for TV (or even, if features, spun off from TV, like "The Castle of Cagliostro", "Cowboy Bebop: the Movie" and "Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer"), and ritually beat our head at happily deluded mainstream folk who say "I saw Paprika, is that that 'anime' stuff?...Ewww!"

Fact is, like any director who's gotten his Big Feature Break, most directors with their own projects want to become ARTISTS and get away from the shallow, commercial discipline of TV, and boy, do they make a running break for it when they get the chance.
TV production still has to play for the hard vaudeville job of good genre stories for a paying audience, and for those getting their first peek at Japan, I've known series like Azumanga Daioh, Macross/Robotech or even Ranma 1/2 to have hooked more fans for life than the artsy-fartiness of Metropolis or Perfect Blue ever drove away for life.

(And besides, Ben, what were you doing when droosan and I had ended up briefly rhapsodizing over the Dirty Pair on the DVD thread?--Okay, so YouTube may have since taken down the links, but weren't you the least bit curious? )

[Ben]

Um...not really, no.

Cagliostro is a favorite (so different to anything else in animation), but the rest of it is all pretty samey, at least from first impressions. For instance, I just checked out that link and saw big robot suits and girls with bursting cleavage. That may rock some geeks out, but there's a lot of anime like that and to be honest there are many more things of better ideas and quality that interest me more in seeing. Though I wouldn't say I'm at all well versed in Japanese animation (hey, I admit it, okay?), I've seen enough examples and, when you've seen one bunch of babes kicking off against giant robots, you've pretty much seen them all.

[EricJ]

Cagliostro is a favorite (so different to anything else in animation)

(Yeah, but even that was from a series:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im-O4HRq6kM )

[Ben]

Yeah, I know about the Lupin series. So was the movie a cut-down/compilation from that show, or a "spin-off" of sorts, freshly made as a movie? Wasn't there also a Lupin III comic book...wasn't he a comics character to start with, even before the series?

Ironically, the movie is about to start in ten minutes on our pretty cool Film4 channel, so I may well switch that on in the background!

[GeorgeC]

The Lupin films are sidestories/spin-offs, Ben.

I've never heard of a compilation Lupin movie, and I have most of Lupin III (TV series releases and films/OVAs) released in the US with the exception of Lupin III: Legend of the Gold of Babylon which I DIDN'T get on laserdisc when AnimEigo had the license! It was at one time scheduled for release on DVD, but AnimEigo never got around to it and let the license lapse... (Personally, I believe this was intentional. Lupin III's never sold well in the US. The only reason anyone has the license to Castle of Cagliostro is because of the connection to Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli which does sell moderately well in the US.)

DiscoTek had negotiated for the Babylon movie and planned a DVD release but scuttled because they believed it wouldn't sell (inference). DiscoTek has released 3 Lupin III films so far -- the live-action film, Strange Psychokinetic Strategy, The Fuma Clan Conspiracy (second DVD release -- the original OOP DVD was by AnimEigo), and Lupin III: First Contact. I have both versions of The Fuma Clan Conspiracy but would like to get DiscoTek's other Lupin releases, too.

**********

Funimation had the rights to over half the Lupin features a few years back and released them. Since then, they've lost the rights and copies of those films are still available on used/out-of-print DVDs but might be commanding huge after-market prices (which are ridiculous). I got all the movies as they got released or shortly afterwards before Funimation released them in two collections (which were initially screwed up -- wrong versions of films released on DVD... For whatever reasons, Funimation released one or two films in edited forms on DVD).

Lupin III is a character you like or don't. He's sort of a cross between Robin Hood and James Bond in a way. It took me a while to get used to him like sushi. Once I developed a taste, I wanted to get as much as I could afford! Great, great character. Undeniably classic like Astro Boy, Science Ninja Team Gatchaman, and Speed Racer.

[EricJ]

Yeah, I know about the Lupin series. So was the movie a cut-down/compilation from that show, or a "spin-off" of sorts, freshly made as a movie? Wasn't there also a Lupin III comic book...wasn't he a comics character to start with, even before the series?

Yes: Miyazaki cut his teeth on directing the first series ("Sherlock Hound" is also some good early TV work to look up), and the fresh-spinoff movie happened between the first and second series (the one Cartoon Network horrendously misdubbed)--
So keeping first-series style by letting him direct Cagliostro was his first feature break, and he returned for two "guest" cameos directing the above and the final episode of the second series.

Rather like Mamoru Oshii, who was allowed to take his directing of "Urusei Yatsura" for two of his first features, and gave the world "Beautiful Dreamer" before going on to become the insufferably artsy-farty director of Ghost in the Shell 1 & 2.
Everybody had to start somewhere, and they had better source to work with from their old TV jobs.

Lupin III is a character you like or don't. He's sort of a cross between Robin Hood and James Bond in a way. It took me a while to get used to him like sushi.

Ask anime fans "(Dragonball aside), what live-action anime films would you like to see?", and count 3-2-1 before someone says a sentence involving the words "Jim Carrey".
(We're talking separated at birth... )

[Ben]

Ahh, gotcha...thanks!

And, yep, I'm very familiar with Sherlock Hound...they released a bunch of two-episode compilation tapes here in the UK during the mid-80s bout of Sherlock-mania (back when Young Sherlock and Great Mouse Detective were also riding that wave) and I managed to pick up a fair few of them. Some of it was indeed very nicely done!

[droosan]

I just checked out that link and saw big robot suits and girls with bursting cleavage. That may rock some geeks out, but there's a lot of anime like that and to be honest there are many more things of better ideas and quality that interest me more in seeing. ... I've seen enough examples and, when you've seen one bunch of babes kicking off against giant robots, you've pretty much seen them all.

Fair enough.

Though, I'd like to point out that this is somewhat akin to a person watching Aliens now for the first time, and saying, "Marine soldiers, in space..? How cliché can you get?! It's been done to death! I've seen it, and seen it.."


The Dirty Pair TV series is where the anime 'girls with guns' / 'fan-service' genre comes from. And like many such 'first' examples, the original version is still the best.

Their first movie -- Project Eden -- is also rather enjoyable. The other movies and OAVs, less so (IMO).

Their 1990's 're-boot', Dirty Pair Flash, wasn't much to my liking, either; since it overly catered to the then-current anime styles, by which time the 'girls with guns' genre had become a cliché of itself.

And I don't regard Adam Warren's long-running 'westernized' comic-book version as even featuring the same characters.

[GeorgeC]

... For instance, I just checked out that link and saw big robot suits and girls with bursting cleavage...

I guess we shouldn't tell him about Gunbuster, eh, Droo?

[EricJ]

he Dirty Pair TV series is where the anime 'girls with guns' / 'fan-service' genre comes from. And like many such 'first' examples, the original version is still the best.

Or, as Iike to put it, given the subjects of most of the two's frequent arguments, "Imagine Totally Spies with more firepower..."
(Keep in mind, I'd first seen it in the 80's, when just about the entire country was in the same camp of believing that all anime was badly lip-synched Robotech and Voltron space/mecha-operas, and it was a blinding revelation to find out "Waitaminute....These people have a sense of humor! ")

Then again, there is also the question of how an old-school "It's all a cliche' of girls and spaceships!" naysayer would react to..."Project A-Ko"?
(There's some basic "Be careful what you complain about..." )