Yeah, I ask for a favour from you people. Hopefully, Aion would be reading this as he seems to be good at it. But I hope the AUKN reviewers will be reading this and give me a few pointers.
I did a review now and then ages ago, but it's only recentley that I got into it and starting doing a lot. It had an effect on 'what I want to do'. So yeah, here is my collection of reviews that I done in the past month. Hope you enjoy...
I did a review now and then ages ago, but it's only recentley that I got into it and starting doing a lot. It had an effect on 'what I want to do'. So yeah, here is my collection of reviews that I done in the past month. Hope you enjoy...
Review: My Neighbour Totoro
Studio Ghibli- the company founded by the critical acclaimed director, Hayao Miyazaki, who directed many animated films in the past and is worldly appreciated by critics and audience alike. His later films such as Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle have been nominated for awards, of which Spirited Away has won. And Princess Mononoke was the start of the establishment of Hayao Miyzaki’s worldwide status.
My Neighbour Totoro is one of the first films from Studio Ghibli, in which our giant character, Totoro has become a mascot for the Banner of Studio Ghibli. And Totoro is popular amongst Japan like Winnie the Pooh is amongst the Brits. Or whatever the Americans got for a cute, huggable plushie. But what about the film itself?
My Neighbour Totoro centres on two main characters, who are sisters named Satsuki and Mei. Their father is a university teacher in Tokyo and they moved to a rural village in Japan to be nearer to the hospital in which Satsuki and Mei’s mother is recovering from a strange illness. Then after they have settled down, Mei finds the huge spirit in the tree which she acknowledges as the spirit ‘Totoro’.
Honestly, I don’t feel there is a plot in the film or any explanation. But if you want an explanation, then here is one: Totoro is the spirit of the forest and the keeper. There’s no mystery or revelations. So if you're watching it to find out, then you’re wasting your time. But I am not holding that in a negative light. Characters are what matters and they strengthen the plot, not the other way round.
Satsuki is the mature older sister, whilst Mei is the younger sister. What they both have in common is running around like hyperactive children on a sugar rush, playing and relating to each other. I’m pretty much glad that Satsuki still acts like a child at times and plays like normal children does, whereas compared to other anime, the experience of a mother dying or becoming ill transforms the child’s personality into an adult one, as if the inner child is dead and forgotten.
Satsuki has that balance, trying to act adult at times, but isn’t afraid to let herself loose. Her little sister Mei is naturally the hyperactive one, and they compliment each other. Then we have Totoro, the giant spirit (in the cover) which the sisters meet. Totoro isn’t a wise spirit or a talkative one in riddles, but a cute and curious spirit who only roars at times and participates in the act of nature. Totoro is instantly lovable, it’s hard not to unless you have some sort of immunity to cuteness.
Another group to add to the mystical creatures is the ‘Soot Sprites’, small house spirits that can be seen for a small second when moving from light to dark places. Two small spirits that look similar to Totoro and a freaky cat bus that appears in the film. It’s as if the Cheshire Cat became twisted in the imagination of the Japanese and became some sort of transport. But it’s the Japanese, they are unique for twisted stuff.
For an animation in 1988, it is really beautiful and bustling with nature as it's set in a rural village. There are ancient houses which looks dusty and are host to an old-fashioned bath (I’ll point out that the film is set in 1958). The huge, old tree which is home to Totoro stood out as a landmark of nature and is quite magnificent. There are the rural roads and the streams which you find as the norm.
The soundtrack itself… There is an issue I have with it. It’s rather more personal than a flaw, but there are some which feels out of place. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great, but it’s out of place and feels as if it has a serious vibe. But there are some which are great and have a sense of comical beat for our lovable, Totoro.
I’ve only have opinions on the dub since I recorded the dub version on my Sky+ Box. The Dub is great as you'd expect in any Studio Ghibli Film, but I felt that some of it was a bit off for some characters. Overall, it’s a great dub and I should expect it to be.
But Totoro is just a cute spirit who participates in Nature and is the Keeper of the Forest. The real deal comes from the sisters' relationship with each other and their fascinations of the spirits they meet. And despite the hardships with their mother’s illness, they still manage to smile and play like children as they are suppose to be.
Summary
My Neighbour Totoro isn’t quite the definitive movie, but it has a definitive mascot, which I’m tempted to get a plushie of. It may not have a great plot, but it has a great set of characters, interesting creatures, and a rural village which fits with the theme of nature.
If you ever liked one of Studio Ghibli’s film, then watch this. Not one of the greatest, but certainly a great watch.
8/10.
Review by Chrono Mizaki
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Final Fantasy VII IS SUCCESS. Final Fantasy VII IS DOMINANCE. That’s the first thing that will gush through the mind of FFVII fantards who haven’t played a single RPG since. Not that Final Fantasy VII is rubbish (I love it personally). But what I find rubbish is the sequels it spawns. Apart from Crisis Core, every FFVII sequel has been rubbish. Dirge of Cerberus was a bad attempt at a First Person Shooter, Before Crisis isn’t released here and Advent Children… well, this is why I am reviewing it.
Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children is the sequel to the critical acclaimed ‘Final Fantasy VII’. Set two years after the events of Final Fantasy VII, Midgar have become a ruin and the remaining survivors live around the outskirts and try to build a new city, named Edge. But there is a strange disease that has arisen named ‘Geostigma’, which many citizens have been affected by. Then enters Cloud Strife, an ex-mercenary who now works as a courier for the ‘Strife Delivery Service’, and whom was the main character of Final Fantasy VII. During his delivery, he gets ambushed by three mysterious female, I mean male, villains who are planning something devious. Cloud wants to know what they are planning.
Honestly, Geostigma is a horribly bad plot device. It’s as if it was thought up at the last second and integrated into the film horribly. It does have an explanation, but it’s a pretty predictable one and something that Square-Enix would do to try and make this film interesting. Except it wasn’t, not to this extent. Advent Children was planned to be a 23 minute OVA about someone requesting a message to Cloud. And Nomura laid his poisonous, decaying fingers onto it. So plot development has failed there.
But the character has to make up for it, right? Well, I was wishing the characters would be as interesting as they were in Final Fantasy VII. Just at least by a half. Sadly, that isn’t the case. Cloud Strife hasn’t evolved at ALL since the end of Final Fantasy VII. For two years, he has been stuck into this self-blaming, one-dimensional character that hasn’t really got much of a personality. I preferred Cloud before the ‘event’ happened, which transformed him into this. Tifa is basically there for emotional support, trying to bring ‘Cloud’ out of his self-blame state. Then we have new character Denzel, an orphan child with geostigma and who is desperate to become better. He isn’t as bad as I thought now that I think about it. And let’s move onto the three villains. Huzzah.
Loz – Cry baby who want his mother. Honestly, I think the character IS supposed to be a woman, despite his physique.
Yazoo - …there’s nothing you can find annoying about him. He is emotionless and that’s what I like in an evil villain
Kadaj – Honestly, he is the most interesting villain of the trio. Despite his feminine look, which I don’t get since Nomura is WAY obsessed with them, he is pretty much an okay character
The rest are subjected to pointless cameos, which don’t improve or add to the film, except they are there for fanservice.
I do like the soundtrack, but it’s expected. Final Fantasy never really fails in the soundtrack department. I mean, come on, it’s Nobuo Uematsu, he is a legend as far as I’m concerned. Not only does he made really great music, but he also made a worthy remake of the ‘One Winged Angel’. I never really found out why it’s all that great to be honest. But I listening it to it.
Animation-wise, there are times where it feels far too grey or dark and it becomes dull. Final Fantasy VII was bright despite the dark times it was in and even inside Midgar. It is great animation nevertheless, because of the tremendous amount of work that was put into making a great CGI film. One of the Key locations is The City of the Ancients (Forgotten City), which I find marvelous, especially the water effects inside it. And the character models are greatly detailed and would be excellent if they were used as in-game graphics. I think they focused so much on the nice graphics that they forgot about the storyline.
Actually, everything about the film is utter fanservice. That said as a fan of Final Fantasy VII, I wish they didn’t answer the pleading call of rabid fans that spend their whole life commenting on forums, creating fanfics to try and continue the story in their bad-grammar style. Honestly, the first draft of it has potential and I would have been happy with 23 minutes of it. But now we have a dreadful film with a dreadful climax which I find to be badly-written and executed.
Summary
Square-Enix have ruined a classic game with the follow-up, Advent Children. It hardly resolves everything, has ludicrous new characters which are randomly thrown in, made the main character broken BEYOND recovery and is just fanservice. Yes, IT IS FOR FANS. I doubt anyone else would want to watch this film who has no knowledge of FF7 save for Nobuo Uematsu or breathtaking CGI.
They have focused so much on art that everything else just fall apart.
3/10
Review by Chrono Mizaki
Serial Experiments Lain
Length: 13 episodes
Released: 1998
Ahh, the mainstream. The one that dictates what is a success and what is a failure, all governed by the support of them. In the west, anime is still a niche media. In Japan, it’s huge, but there can be a bit of problem with ‘something different’. I blame you, Japan, for your huge love with Harem, all love of ‘fanservice’ and young feminine boys who wield swords three times bigger than themselves or wear orange. I blame you anime fans who are living in the west, who eat up all their crap… and not supporting the official releases, whining on about the dub, which some of the dub isn’t even bad. Oh shut up, go back to watching ‘Naruto’, you ‘narutard’.
Well, that was a waste of paragraph. And I can waste more paragraph, ranting on, but then I stop and look at this little gem; ‘Serial Experiments Lain’. Because not only it doesn’t have feminine boys who wield big swords, have five different, bland love interests and a ninja wearing orange who waiting for the next girl with a breast size too big for her age, it does have a very intriguing plot which by the end of the episode, your brain will be in spaghetti form. It does have a main female character that doesn’t have big breast and act like an idiot. And it doesn’t need lots of music to bombard on the mood when it doesn’t fit. Serial Experiments Lain does everything that other animes fail to do, but it does something more, which leaves you gripped by each episodes.
The first episode starts off with Lain, a school student, who is very quiet and keeps to herself. When she attends her school with her friend, Arisu (Alice in the dub), she discovers that everyone has been getting an e-mail from a girl who died last week. Curious, she checked her computer, called a Navi, to see if she has this email. She did get an email, but once she replied to it, she actually communicates with the girl who died. Lain found out that she abandoned her body to live on in the wired, what I consider Serial Experiment Lain’s advanced version of the internet. Thus her discovery starts off there.
Along the episodes, she’s been getting into the paranormal associated with the wired. She discovers new information, a mysterious group called ‘The Knights’, questioning of existence and the so-called entity, ‘God’, who is rumoured to live on in the wired. You also get this weird saying at the start of every episode, ‘Present day, present time’, which I’ve yet to find out what it means. Actually, within every episode, there are meanings inside. And it varies between everyone, because it’s an anime that gives you different opinions each episode. The re-watch value is high because it feels like when you re-watch the same episode, you get a different vibe. But there is a problem, which I don’t find it a problem, but others may find it a problem. It’s a snail adventure, which the plot reveals at a slow pace, compared to other animes. It’s whether you have the patience and if you do, you can appreciate it to the fullest.
Lain seems to be the only character with a full-fledged personality, which I find to evolve at an interesting and excellent pace. I adored it so much that ‘Lain’ has become one of my most favourite female characters. It’s just that she appears so fragile, so curious and so quiet. But along her discoveries with the wired, she became so much sure, brave, willing and more aware. She even develops many personalities, one which is cheeky, nasty, persuasive and so out of character. The plot depends on her character solely; even the other characters depend on her reactions. Lain IS the centre of the anime. Other characters include her computer-obsessed dad, her heartless mother and her normal older sister, who represent the average teenager that even western teenagers can relate to. There is Arisu, a very caring friend of Lain, who takes Lain to places with her friends and help her have fun. There are minor characters, which they compensate to the plot in its small way.
The animation is quite unique, though the character art isn’t, but in no way generic. But it’s established itself as ‘Yoshitoshi ABe’s art’, which I adore. If I recognise his art in other anime, it gives me a reason why I should watch it. Back to the animation before I lose my train of thought, it isn’t as bright or greatly detailed as other animes. But it’s in no way less of an art. It suppose to make viewers think of it as an illusion, which is one of the themes of ‘Serial Experiments Lain’.
The use of music is actually minimal, compared to other animes, which a lot of the time, use a lot of music when it doesn’t need be. It’s easy-listening and some of them can make you ‘think’, whilst others can creep you out. And that loop of the techno music in Cyberia, a nightclub.
But Serial Experiments Lain is a very puzzling and complex anime. Once you think you got your mind around it, the next set of plot points barged through your window, screwing your mind. You could do just as well by taking in LSD.
And that’s a shame, because it’s one of the most interesting, influential anime in the media and not a lot of anime has taken note from it. And it’s marmite, there are people who will hate it and people who will love it. There are no flaws with the anime except their own personal preference.
Summary
Serial Experiments Lain is one of the best anime and you cannot go wrong with it. A superior complex personality of Lain, interesting episodes that rather contain a theme than linearity of plot development and a confusing plot that you will spend ages within repeating viewing to find out the conclusion of this. It’s the best anime in my list. An underrated gem.
10/10
Review by Chrono Mizaki
Bitter Virgin
Manga
Length: 4 Volumes
Released: 2007 – 2008 (Japan Only)
And I’ve ventured into the manga side, after wasting my free time reviewing and leaped into watching the anime winter season 2009; though it’s a lot less than it should be, but blame the sequels it’s been infested with. And now, the manga with the name, Oh wait, Bitter Virgin?
“HENTAI MANGA! OH LORDâ€
