Last Quarter

Oh dear! It's been almost a month since my last post. Sorry about that! ComicAttack is keeping me busy (and so is Dragon Age). But I did want to talk about a lovely film I watched recently, while waiting for Berserk DVDs to come in. This live action film is based on the manga of the same name (in Japanese, Kagen no Tsuki) by Ai Yazawa (Paradise Kiss, Nana). It is called Last Quarter, which is a reference to the last quarter phase of the moon.

When Mizuki was a child, her mother committed suicide, and her father married his mistress, with whom he had a child. Unhappy with her home life, her 19th birthday is further marred by the discovery that her boyfriend (Tomoki) cheated on her with her best friend. Depressed, she walks home alone late in the evening. As she passes by a mansion, she hears a haunting and familiar tune coming from inside. Inside, a young man is playing the tune on his guitar. Mizuki confesses that she learned piano to play the same tune, though she doesn't know the ending, and that she had never heard anyone else play the song before. The young man, who calls himself Adam, claims he wrote the song for her. Confused, but somehow drawn to him, Mizuki returns to the house the next day and stays there with Adam through the week. On the last day, on the evening of a waning moon, a disappeared Adam calls her to tell her he must leave. She pleads with him to take her with him, and Adam tells her that if they see each other before the moon fades that night, they will go together. But what it means to go with Adam, is something that will have a profound effect not only on her own life, but on the lives of those around her. The mysterious Adam leaves everyone scrambling to discover his true identity, and his connection to Mizuki, in order to save Mizuki before the last quarter of the moon fades away for 19 years.

This beautiful story will have you feeling melancholy by the end. It might even elicit a few tears. Love, karma, reincarnation, trust, desperation. All the elements for a tragic love story. Dark and gothic, this is a beautifully filmed movie. The special effects are nice (though not perfect), and the music is fitting. Mizuki is heartbreaking; Adam has an ethereal beauty and a well of sadness that makes you want to wrap him in your arms and hold him tight; and the high school students that try to help Mizuki are endearing. Tomoki...you either love him or hate him, as a character. It's a little difficult to root for him, honestly, given what he's done to Mizuki, and you kind of want to punch him in the face sometimes. All the actors hold their own and capture their characters quite well.

The film stars Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo in Kill Bill vol. 1) as Mizuki, Hyde (the vocalist from L'Arc-en-Ciel) as Adam, and Hiroki Narimiya (Gokusen, Nana) as Mizuki's boyfriend Tomoki.

For the interested: Last week's Bento Bako Weekly was a review of Natsuki Takaya's Tsubasa: Those With Wings (er, sorry, two weeks ago; last week I (re)posted my S1 Yu Yu Hakusho review). Monday's will be a review of the yaoi manga Ludwig II.

AIR the Motion Picture

An easy (though not entirely accurate) way of describing this film would be to call it AIR Lite. AIR the Motion Picture is a very simplified retelling of the television anime by Kyoto Animation, which is itself closely based on the visual novel AIR by Key.

The first thing you'll notice, assuming you have already seen the anime series (which I would suggest watching first), is a completely different animation style. This is because while the anime was produced by KyoAni, the film was produced by Toei Animation. Toei gives the film more of a visual novel look, but skips around between animation styles multiple times throughout the film. By that I mean, there's a main style they use for most of the film, but occasionally they use completely different styles scattered throughout. The next thing you may notice is that most of the cast has been cut from the film. All of the girls except Misuzu have been removed from the story. Haruko is still there, as is Kano's older sister Hijiri, the town doctor. Some of the other characters have brief, visual cameos, but the story only follows Misuzu and Yukito this time.

If you haven't seen the anime series, there are some spoilers in the film. So I would stop reading now if you haven't seen the series, and wait until I get around to reviewing that instead (or just go watch it!).

Yukito travels to a small seaside town, where he meets Misuzu, a high school girl working on a summer school project about the history of the town. Yukito plans to stay in town to practice his mysterious puppet trade during an upcoming festival, and Misuzu invites him to stay at her house with her and Haruko, as long as he helps her with her summer project. Interspersed throughout their adventures around the town (during which Misuzu exihibits the symptoms of a mysterious illness) is a story about a winged creature named Kanna and her bodyguard Ryūya. Misuzu is following this story as part of her project, because the story is woven into the history of her town and is the basis for the upcoming festival. As the two get closer, Misuzu gets sicker, the result of an old curse placed upon Kanna's race that causes them to die when they verbally express their love for someone.

Toei's animation isn't nearly as beautiful as KyoAni's in the series. The character designs have been changed (specifically Misuzu and Yukito), both visually and in their personalities. It's not drastic, but it's a difference. For example, anime Misuzu is far more childlike than she is depicted in the film. The curse and the story of Kanno and Ryūya play out quite a bit differently as well. In the film, there is a strong romantic relationship between the two, which doesn't really exist in the anime series. It's a good film, on its own; but personally, I prefer the series. The only real upside to the film is that it focuses only on Misuzu and Yukito, instead of having Yukito running around town and helping other girls. But it wouldn't be a Key game based anime series without those extra relationships. So my original declaration of it being AIR Lite is still a decent description. By cutting out 90% of the characters and their stories, the main story is much more simplified. But that's not AIR.

AIR the Motion Picture was originally licensed by ADV Films, but the rights have since transferred to FUNimation for any future distribution. I watched this in Japanese, but I did listen to the English version long enough to note that the same voice actors from the anime were used. So if you want the consistency...because the voice actor for Yukito changes in the Japanese version. Even so, when I watched the anime in English, I was really turned off by the voices and didn't think they fit the characters, so I automatically watched this one in Japanese.

This week's Bento Bako:
Vampires in Anime/Manga, part 2 (the...lesser titles)
November 2009 Previews selections

Black Lagoon

My boyfriend was around while I watched most of this series, and he would ask me, "Why do you like this?" I think the question came because I typically don't go for over-the-top action, with lots of gun fights and explosions. Things that characterize nearly every minute of every episode of Black Lagoon. Never mind the foul-mouthed, scantily clad leading lady who likes to shoot first, and shoot later (there's no talking involved, unless she's yelling at someone about wanting to shoot them). Yet somehow this excessively violent, foul (as in vulgar), dark and hilarious anime struck all the right notes with me.

Rock (Rokuro) Okajima is Japanese salaryman, on business for his company. The ship he is on is attacked by a group of mercenaries/smugglers known as the Lagoon Company. In an effort to first recover, and then to cover up a disc containing classified documents, Rock's company abandons him to his fate. He somehow manages to survive, but refuses to go back to his calm life in Japan, instead choosing to stay and become a member of the Lagoon Company. This band of misfits includes large and tough Dutch, the owner of the Lagoon Company and captain of their smuggling boat; easygoing and peaceful Benny, the company's mechanic and technology expert; and foul-mouth expert dual gunslinger Revy "Two Hand", the company's...well I think it's pretty obvious what she does. Rock joins on as a diplomat, the negotiating voice of the company, and he also serves to keep the short-tempered Revy in check. The story follows the group from one dangerous situation to another, including raiding an old sunken WWII German submarine, running various errands for Russian Mafia branch leader Balalaika, fighting off bounty hunters, and various other situations that typically involve getting shot at and blowing things up.

The city of Roanapur, where the company is located, is full of many other colorful characters. Roanapur is mostly controlled by the Russian mafia group Hotel Moscow, and the local branch of the Chinese Hong Kong Triad. Hotel Moscow is run by former soviet captain Balalaika, whose former troops make up most of her elite squad. The Triad is run by Mr. Chang (one of my favorite characters), an ex-law enforcement officer with an easygoing attitude, who is highly skilled at wielding dual pistols. They maintain a delicate balance of power within the city, often with the aid of the Lagoon Company, which frequently works for both sides. The Church of Violence (more commonly referred to as the Rip-Off Church) poses as a Catholic church, but secretly runs an illegal arms smuggling operation. A one-eyed, tough talking nun runs the operation, along with a smart mouthed, trigger happy woman known as Eda (who also poses as a nun). Eda and Revy are frequently at each other's throats, though they also fight well together when pressed. There are also plenty of bounty hunters around; such as the Taiwanese knife master Shenhua, who speaks in hilariously broken English; the constantly high Irish getaway driver Leigharch; and the voice-box talking, chainsaw wielding, pint-sized girl Sawyer the Cleaner.

The relationship between Revy and Rock is one of the most interesting in the series. At times he is able to calm her down, but at others he only makes things worse. When he once lectures her for what he perceives as grave robbing, she threatens to kill him if he ever tries to force his morals on her again. Rock's naivety and innocence from living a normal life often make Revy uncomfortable and angry, but there are times when she does her best to protect that innocence from the evils of the world she lives in. It often bothers her that Rock lives between the light and the darkness, while she has always lived and always will live in the darkness; she even tries to convince him to go back home, but he feels more at home with Lagoon Company than he ever did in Japan. So as you can see, there are some more serious themes in the show, and the characters are more complicated than they appear on the surface; it's not all explosions and massive shoot-outs...though there's certainly plenty of that to go around.

Originally released by Geneon, you can now find the series re-released by FUNimation. The 24 episode anime is sold in two 12-episode sets - Black Lagoon, and Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage. There's also a manga, distributed by Viz Media, and a light novel that is currently unlicensed. A third season should be out in 2010. The show features excellent animation from Madhouse, great music by Edison, and a totally rockin' intro theme called "Red Fraction" by Mell. The normal discs come with standard DVD extras (clean credits and the like), but if you buy the sets (each season comes in a lovely steelbook) you get a bonus disc in each with things like interviews and music videos. Though the only thing I really found worth watching was the fantastic "Red Fraction" music video. The English voice over is pretty solid, though I was bothered by the sometimes heavy, sometimes missing Russian accent for Balalaika. Shenhua's (Saffron Henderson) broken English comes out hilariously, though. Megumi Toyoguchi is very distinctive as Revy, but Maryke Hendrikse also does a good job.

If you're a fan of shows like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun or Outlaw Star, this should be right up your alley.

This week's Bento Bako Weekly is a re-do of my Midori Days review. I'll be out of town next weekend, so I don't think I will have a Girl G33k post. But if you go over to ComicAttack.net, you'll get the first half of my two columns highlighting vampire anime and manga.

Skip Beat!

I was working on a Black Lagoon anime review, but got busy with various things. If I don't get it up later this week, it will go up next week instead.

However, I did do a review of one of my absolute favorite shojo manga, Skip Beat!, over at ComicAttack.net. You should head over there and read it.

Noir

This week we'll be looking at Noir. This 26 episode anime series was directed by Kōichi Mashimo (Dirty Pair: Project Eden, many .hack// series), written by Ryoe Tsukimura, produced by Bee Train, and released domestically by ADV.

Mireille Bouquet is a professional assassin who goes by the name "Noir." One day she receives an email from a young girl named Kirika Yuumura, who seems to have some connection to her past. Mireille hunts her down, but the two of them are attacked by unknown assailants. After dispatching them together, Mireille learns that Kirika has amnesia. She knows nothing about her past, but does have a familiar looking pocket watch that plays a familiar sounding tune...one that Mireille knows very well. Having seen Kirika's incredible skills with a gun, and seeing her as a connection to her past, Mireille decides to team up with the mysterious girl in an attempt to unlock the secrets of both their pasts. As they dig deeper into the secrets of an underground world, controlled by the mysterious group known as the Soldats, they discover that they have much more in common than they thought. They also discover what it truly means to use the codename "Noir."

For one of the top assassins around, Mireille's not that great. She's a really good shot, but that's about it. Kirika, some random, amnesiac girl she picks up in the street, is 10x the assassin she is; and she doesn't even have any memories to back up her obvious training. In fact, compared to Kirika and another young assassin they meet later, Mireille kind of sucks. Kirika, on the other hand, is a complete badass; 5 years younger than Mireille, she manages to make the woman look like a complete novice.

Animation is average for...basically anything that moves. It's clear they had some amazing scenic painters (backgrounds and environments are detailed and beautiful), but the animation is mediocre at best. For a show from 2001, it's not that impressive visually. They do pay a lot of attention to the eyes, but only on closeups. And for a show filled with so much violence, death and shooting...there's almost no blood. That's possibly an aesthetic choice, or something to keep it in a lower rating (so it can air during the day); but it is a little odd, and it makes it hard to tell when the main characters have been injured (or how serious the injury was).

The plot is drawn out, predictable and dull. You can see every plot "twist" and reveal coming from a mile away. By the time they get to the moment of some great "secret," it's not interesting anymore. In fact, the entire story in general is not even remotely interesting until disc 4, and then it comes and goes. There are too many episodes; really could have been half that and it would have been fine. 13 instead of 26. I found myself fast forwarding through some of the really slow parts (and ceaseless flash backs) out of impatience. It somehow made me think of Ryoko's Case File...and how I'd rather be watching that instead (even though there's really nothing related about them; it's mostly a genre thing). It's not that I hated it, because I didn't; it was just...uninteresting.

The music is by Yuki Kajiura, who I've mentioned before in my Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle review. I'll say the same thing I said then: her music is beautiful, but it's all basically the same from show to show (or game to game). Actually, in the case of Noir, it really overshadowed the show.

English voice acting is average. I've heard some of these people in other shows, where they did better jobs. Neither vocal track is really notable, other than some pretty outrageous accents in the English dub.

DVD extras include production sketches, clean credits, and interviews. DVD menus are uniquely designed, but they're kind of a pain to navigate.

Ouran High School Host Club

This delightful show is easily one of my favorites. A shojo romantic comedy that pokes fun of shojo romantic comedies, Ouran High School Host Club is a fantastic riot that should have you crying with laughter. FUNimation has released the series in two box sets, each containing 2 discs, splitting the 26 episodes into sets of 13. The show is based on the ongoing manga of the same name by Bisco Hatori (Millennium Snow), which is published in America by Viz Media.

Commoner Haruhi Fujioka has been accepted to the prestigious Ouran Academy on an honor's scholarship. While searching for a quiet place to study, Haruhi comes across what should be an empty music room...but turns out to be the home to Ouran's famous Host Club. Flabbergasted by a room filled with beautiful, extremely forward, superficial rich boys, Haruhi stumbles backwards into a very expensive vase and smashes it into pieces. The tone of the host club immediately changes, and Haruhi is roped into working as their errand boy to pay off the enormous debt that breaking the vase has created (8 million yen, or 80 thousand dollars). Oddly enough, the seemingly nerdy Haruhi is a natural at talking to the girls and keeping them interested, much to the surprise of the other members of the club. But there's something the frumpy dressed, ambiguous Haruhi forgot to mention - this seemingly male student is really a girl!

The Host Club is comprised of 6 extremely handsome high school students, each representing a specific type of male character to cater to their clients: third-years Mitsukuni "Honey" Haninozuka (boy lolita) and Takashi "Mori" Morinozuka (strong, silent type), second-years Kyoya Otori (a cool megane, and my personal favorite) and Tamaki Suoh (the princely leader), and first-year twins Hikaru and Kaoru Hitachiin (little devil type). Throw in Haruhi as the "natural" type and you have quite harem. Of course since Haruhi is really a female, this makes Ouran a reverse harem.

The anime follows the club through an average school year, exploring culture festivals, holidays, summer vacation, character relationships, and various commoner activities as well. The members of the club (particularly Tamaki and the twins) are obsessed with the aspects of a commoner's life...specifically Haruhi's life, which causes her unending frustration. The boys of the club are fairly stereotypical (though there's certainly nothing "average" about them), but also pretty overboard, which somehow makes them interesting and unique. Mori has almost no lines at all, Honey is cute almost 24/7, Kyoya is constantly cool and calculating, the twins are always mischievous, and Tamaki is always an idiot (though a kind and intuitive idiot). Haruhi however is about as far from the stereotypical female heroine as she can be, which is the entire point. In fact, she's about as uncooperative a heroine as you'll ever see. It's hard to have a romantic comedy when your heroine shows absolutely no interest in furthering the plot in any interesting ways. But that's what makes the show so great, and the characters themselves recognize her eccentricities and do their best to work with them.

It's hard for me to describe just how entertaining this show is. I laugh out loud every time I watch it, and I've seen it through several times. I love the art style and character designs (which are based on Bisco's art). The manga is hilarious too, but I prefer the way things flow in the anime, and the way the jokes play out. The manga is actually a mess as far as a timeline goes, with chapters drawn based on when they came out in LaLa magazine rather than a set time frame for the story (which is a bit problematic since Honey and Mori basically never graduate so they can stay in the club...which is a bit of a joke in itself); the anime streamlines everything and puts the chapters it uses from the manga into sequential order based on the anime's timeline. It creates its own ending (using some events from the manga, and creating others), but leaves it open in a way. Basically, the major issues are resolved, but there's no reason the story can't continue.

I was worried about the English dubbing at first, because it contains two of my least favorite voice actors - Greg Ayres as Kaoru, and Todd Haberkorn as Hikaru. I was also rather skeptical at Vic Mignogna's ability to hit Tamaki properly. In the end, I was rather impressed. Caitlin Glass voices an amazing Haruhi (the difficult to replace Maaya Sakamoto is the Japanese voice), and did an excellent job directing the entire cast. J. Michael Tatum is lovely as Kyoya (oh, be still my heart!), and both Travis Willingham and Luci Christian are great as Mori and Honey (respectively). Ayres and Haberkorn didn't bother me as much as I thought they would. Only Mignogna felt off somehow, using the same voice he uses to voice Fay in Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. It's not that he was bad; he's a very good voice actor. There was just something off about him that is difficult for me to put into words. If, like me, you dislike English do-overs of theme songs, you'll definitely want to switch to the Japanese dub during the credits. I was not at all pleased with the English versions, but the Japanese versions are good songs on their own.

DVD extras include limited commentary, clean credits, English voice over outtakes, manga previews, and clear cases with double sided sleeves showcasing individual characters (so you can put your favorites on the outside).

Yu Yu Hakusho Season 2

Several months ago I reviewed the first season box set of Yu Yu Hakusho, which covered episodes 1 through 28. This second season release from FUNimation covers episodes 29 through 56.

The first season introduced us to the main characters, and included a tournament segment to decide who would be the heir to Genkai's special technique. It left off on the introduction to the Dark Tournament, a tournament for teams of demons (or the rare highly skilled humans) to compete against each other for a grand prize. This second season follows this tournament, but does not conclude it; you'll need to buy season 3 for that. It covers most of it, and ends at the beginning of Yusuke's team's final round against Team Toguro.

Due to the season's focus on this tournament saga, there's not a whole lot of (over arching) story or character development. Each of our heroes grow in power, but there's not a whole lot of individual character progression. The exception here is Genkai, who has her big moment within the season; we learn about her past and why she chose to disguise herself to attend the tournament. We also say farewell to the aging master, as her past comes back to haunt her.

Yusuke's growth is mostly dependent on Genkai. In the last season, he went through intense training to get ready for the tournament, which gave him the ability to use his spirit gun more than once per day (he also developed some new ways to use it). This season he goes through yet another training period with Genkai to learn her special technique, and finally hatches his spirit egg (from the beginning of season 1). Kuwabara gets some help from Kurama and learns new ways to use his spirit sword. Kurama's biggest secret is revealed, as is his true power (and his incredibly sexy true form). Hiei struggles to control his Jagan Eye and the overwhelmingly powerful hell fire he can summon. The girls take a back seat, almost literally, as simple spectators of the tournament. Keiko, Kuwabara's sister and Botan all travel to the arena to watch Team Urameshi, providing some commentary and proving that it's not just the contestants in the tournament whose lives are in danger. Koenma also attends, as the "owner" of the team.

Things are a bit more serious this time around (though the fantastic cheese and comedy still abounds). The gang truly struggles with mastering their individual power, and fighting in a tournament that is continually stacked against them. It takes a lot of hard work and some self sacrificing to get to the final round of the tournament. Along the way we're introduced to all sorts of combatants, and several of them make return appearances later in the tournament, and will return again during other sagas in the other seasons.

DVD extras once again include season appropriate character profiles and clean credits. DVD sleeves are reversible (with tinted sketches instead of color pictures on the reverse side) for the box's 2 cases (which contain 4 DVDs).