Ernest & Celestine

 

Celestine is a young mouse who lives in an underground city.  Taught from birth to fear the town of bears above them, she is instead a dreamer who draws pictures of a life where both species could peacefully co-exist.  Similarly Ernest is a bear who sits outside of the norm.  Failing to build a successful business like every good bear should, he lives secluded as an unappreciated musician outside of town.  The two have a chance encounter, and eventually learn to see into worlds other than their own.

                     

This is a lovely little film.  Gentle both in nature and in execution.  Ernest & Celestine sports a style that gives the appearance of a painting - those familiar with Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbours the Yamadas are in the right area.  Watercolour backgrounds are overlaid with accomplished animation that is loosely lined, and completely charming.  Much like Japan, France hasn’t forgotten the charms of a two-dimensional aesthetic.  Maybe one day not all the big-name animation companies with stick solely to 3D work, but it’s sadly not going to happen any time soon.

I totally recommend anyone interested in animation check out this film, and it is great to see such titles making it to our shores.  What is less encouraging is the lack of Blu-Ray release and the DVD sporting subtitles that cannot be removed.  Also the lack of an English language track for a film obviously aimed to include younger viewers is bound to miss out on the bulk of its target audience.  Please don’t be discouraged, this is a hidden gem.

  

Gantz

Kei Kurono is a bit of a brat who is accidentally killed by an underground train.  As his decapitated head rolls around the station platform, he suddenly finds himself transported into a game where he and other recently deceased people have to fight for their continued survival.  Gantz offers no further explanations, and so the next round begins.

It’s violent, sex-obsessed and batshit crazy - this is Gantz in a nutshell.  It really goes all out with a live-fast-die-young attitude with entire volumes flying as the plot is sacrificed in favour of pure action.  Some people may be familiar with the anime series which covered only the first few volumes before ending on an entirely different note to the manga, which instead continues into new areas.  The gore was certainly there in animated form, particularly in the second half, but for my money the pacing too was slow for a series so entrenched in action.  To be honest I also found the manga a little difficult to get on with, partly because I already knew what would happen, but also because Kei is such a scumbag I struggled to care about whether or not he got destroyed.  His sexist pervy ways are pretty repulsive along with his shitty attitude, but from the second stage (starting at volume 11 where the book covers turn blue) even worse characters are introduced which propels Kei into becoming more of a hero role and more appealing as a main character.

At this point in the story more layers are gradually added as Hunters are introduced as well as other Gantz teams.  Only now are the answers starting to show themselves (Dark Horse’s release has currently reach the late 20s).  I’ve got no idea where things will head further down the line, and Gantz offers no guarantees.  Frankly, I am hooked.

As a side note the artwork of Gantz is very detailed with CG used extensively for the backgrounds and other little fixes.  It makes you wonder just how much or little of this manga is actually drawn by hand, and while early volumes produce slightly wonky art, later volumes are pretty spectacular.  I do find Dark Horse’s sound effects a little distracting at times however.  The original Japanese ones are big and bold, yet translucent.  The English ones on the other hand are filled in with pure white so you lose a little of the impact, sometimes to the point where it’s more difficult to keep track of proceedings.  It’s still a great manga though.  It’s a nasty, sadistic thrill ride, but with enough of a sense of fun about itself to throw a random panda into the middle of the carnage.  Volumes are quite expensive and are read quickly due to the low word count, but is worth the expense.

English/Japanese sample comparison

Tenjo Tenge - Complete

After 11 2-in-1 volumes released at a fairly merciless rate, Tenjo Tenge reaches its conclusion, and to be honest, I’m kind of glad it’s over.

I’ve spoken about this series before, enjoying its mindless indulgence of boobs and violence as it smacks its way through thousands of pages, and it really should have stayed its course.  Sadly the series starts to believe its own hype by upping the drama and becoming damn-near incomprehensible.  Suddenly the simple premise of a martial arts tournament becomes a po-faced battle fought both on the physical and spiritual planes where the world is at stake in between multi-generational conspiracies.  Flashbacks bounce around between multiple timelines and the core cast get lost in a steady stream of a dead-end side characters and plots that add little to the overall mix.

The artwork has improved immensely since the first volume and now provides some of the most clean and technically accomplished work in a mainstream manga.  Every page has impact, but telling the difference between someone getting mauled only metaphorically while other characters receive permanent damage only causes confusion.  Seeing a character ripped apart for example, only for them to get back up on the next page lessens the dramatic impact for when things actually do happen.  It continually undermines itself by psyching you out at every turn.

Oh Great! does great work and easily impresses on a visual level, and Tenjo Tenge produces one crazy ride overall, but in terms of concise storytelling there’s still room for improvement (I’ve read a chunk of Air Gear, and to be honest I have a similar opinion of it).  Go to be dazzled, but not fulfilled.

Random Whale Metaphor

That Manga Intro...

Before anime, there was Manga!  And it was blowing your mind into the 21^st century…

In a time when no one knew what the hell anime was in the UK, or perhaps more cynically when marketers assumed ‘anime’ would be more difficult to remember or pronounce, Manga Video was a video label formed by Island World Communications in an attempt to capitalise on Akira’s success in the early 1990s.  As they were treading into untested territory, they had to establish a clear statement as to what the company was about.  As a result, virtually every release by Manga Video on VHS was headed by a minute-long intro to get viewers into the mood for whatever title they’d bought.

For better or worse this clip became a defining moment for a certain generation of fans.  The tabloid-grabbing tentacle porn and obscene violence were what anime was all about back then, and the stereotype was only knocked on the head when Pokemon arrived on the scene and gave everyone epileptic fits.

This is all old news and people have been through it enough times already, but I thought it’d be fun to break the clip down anyway for those less familiar or the nostalgia-heads.  The clip is made from 6 different titles, which also formed the initial batch of Manga’s releases in the UK.  They were:

Akira

Dominion Tank Police (OVAs 1-4)

Project A-KO

Odin

Venus Wars

Fist of the North Star (1986 movie)

It’s quite a strong line up of titles, most of which are still well regarded 20 years later (sorry Odin…).  The famous ‘What’s happening’ line at the end of the clip is from the old Streamline dub of Akira, and the music was from the intro of a track called ‘The Heart Beneath’ by Celtic Frost.

…that’s pretty much all I wanted to talk about it.  It’s an iconic thing from a certain age, and conjures up images of a time when anime was a bit more crazy, swear-filled and unpredictable.  Of course things have moved on, but this was given decade to burn itself into fandom’s collective brain, so it seems cruel not to give it a bit of recognition today.

Ni No Kuni - Wizard's Companian

For those who own a Playstation 3, Ni no Kuni is the game you need to be thinking of owning if you don’t have it already.  Co-produced between Level 5 (of Professor Layton fame) and Studio Ghibli (of Studio Ghibli fame), it’s something of a dream team solution in making an RPG that feels right to play and looks beautiful.  It’s a worthy addition to any gamer’s collection.  I’m not here to talk about the game though.  I’m here to talk about the book.

As the game progresses the main character is given a magical tome, the Wizard’s Companion Book, which contains over 300 pages of information about monsters, weapons and all other kinds of other info in the game.  You can browse through it for hours reading up on all the details of the game’s world, while collecting extra pages as the game proceeds.  The book is translated in its entirety within the game and as an additional bonus was included as a hardcopy with the limited ‘Wizard’s Edition’ of the game.  It’s a lovely little book, and well worth owning for those who want to enjoy the game as much as possible.  However things were a little tricky for some fans…

Only those who were particularly clued in, organised, or just plain rich were able to get the book as it was only made available at a premium price, and in quantities that meant it sold out on pre-orders alone.  Many people missed out and are now forced to squint at the book through their screens as opposed to being able to casually leaf through a real one.

I can’t help but feel someone missed a trick with this situation.  The game was heavily promoted from around 8 months before the game’s release, and fully successful in getting everyone interested and wanting to buy the game.  But once having successfully created near ravenous demand, why not try and fulfil it by supplying enough of your product?  The publisher consequently made less money than they could have done, while auction dealers now reap massive rewards as fans fight over the remnants.

As a final blow there is also a DS version of this game in Japan, unreleased in the west.  This game was reportedly deemed too financially prohibitive for release as the game is only playable with the book and could therefore only be sold as a bundle pack.  I guess throwing money at publishers is not enough proof that there is demand for this game at any price.  Sadly the DS boat has since sailed for pastures new (3D ones anyway), so I don’t see it happening now.

I don’t mean to moan as it’s a fantastic game.  Go buy it now and accept the compromise, it’s all you’re going to get.

Street Fighter v. Red Hawk

Street Fighter II: The Movie.  It's a rubbish title for a film to be honest, but as good an anime as you could hope for if you were a fan of the video games.  Made in 1994, it has a simplt plot that is sufficient enough to keep you interested n the action, and the action itself is properly choreographed and suitably punchy.  It's a personal favourite from the 16-bit days.

A year passes...

Hitting cinemas in South Korea in 1995 was a film called Red Hawk, a homemade animated film about a superhero who goes round beating up generic bad guys while in search of his missing brother.  It's not a great film truth be told.  While a lot of effort has been put into animating the near-constant stream of martial arts action, the plot is a shocker, characters flat and despite the fair quality of the art it is curiously missing any kind of charm.

Korea is well known for its animation production, with both America and Japan frequently farming work out to be completed there, but it is less known for its own product.  Red Hawk is something of a forgettable curio were if not for the fact of a fight in the middle of the film that bears a striking resemblance to the opening fight from the Street Fighter movie.

I'm not pointing any fingers here, but there's definitely something between the two, and its even more obvious in motion.  I'd have taken more pictures of proof if Red Hawk didn't look so awful on Manga's budget release of it.  Take a look and decide for yourself...