Anime & Manga Teh CX Anime Review Thread

[Captain X]

Yukikaze
(5 episode OVA)

This is one of the better shows I've watched. While it's superficially about humans fighting it out with aliens and flying cool airplanes that aren't very aerodynamic, it also touches on a few other things that are actually somewhat contemporary.

The most obvious one is how this conflict is treated on the home front. Initially, when a mysterious portal forms in Antarctica and some aliens (eventually called the JAM) randomly attack an Antarctic research base, people all over the world are shocked and the world rises up to respond against this new threat. The UN manages to pull together and coordinate a military response that successfully pushes the alien invaders back through their portal. A special military force is then assembled to take the fight to the other side of the portal, in order to keep the aliens from ever making it back to Earth, or so the story goes (and yeah, it's obvious where they were going with that, too). But after the war moves to the other side of the portal and is no longer obviously visible, people start pretending that the war never even existed, to the point that when an author writes a book about the ongoing war, it's popular and sells a lot of copies, because everyone says it's a well thought out science fiction novel. When some pilots from the other side of the portal briefly reappear on Earth, they're treated somewhat coldly by the naval force gathered to keep an eye on the portal, even though these pilots just saved a lot of their asses. In other words no one wants the conflict to be there anymore, so much so that they pretend it doesn't exist, and they shun any reminders that it does. Fortunately at least some of them manage to pull their heads out of their asses, but by then the JAM are stepping things up.

The other contemporary issue touched on is the introduction of AI controlled combat aircraft. Not everyone is sold on the idea, and in fact the weaknesses of AI-controlled aircraft are shown quite often. However, the series focuses on the idea of a pilot and an AI developing a kind of bond that makes the both of them together practically unbeatable. The suggestion seems to be that we shouldn't be afraid of technology, but rather than make it do everything itself, we should develop a kind of symbiotic relationship with it.

For me, though, the interesting part was the conflict with the JAM. They were tough to beat as it was, but during the part of the conflict that the OVA covers, they've developed some new strategies which made things a bit more interesting. Basically this involved the same old cliché of "conquered from within," because as we find out, the JAM have figured out how to imitate humans and their aircraft. This is also the point where things tend to get a bit confusing, because not only is it hard to find out who may have been replaced with an alien, but the show seems to skip around a bit and it almost feels like I missed something at a few points. In one instance it appears that the main character, Lt. Fukai, his friend, Maj. Bukhar, and the fighter they're flying in (Yukikaze) have been replaced by copies, since they are attacked and it appears beaten ... except they weren't, apparently.

There's plenty of action, and it's all quite visually interesting. They even managed not to go completely overboard with things like having impossible missile barrages ... at least until the end. The mad dash back to the portal so all the remaining humans can escape and close the portal behind them is naturally the biggest battle, but this is also where things tend to go way over the top, at least as far as the attacking JAM forces. Mostly this comes from the fact that the writers have essentially set the JAM up so that they are impossible to beat, because they have millions of these tiny aircraft that can literally swarm the human aircraft and rip them to shreds. Yet somehow the humans win, spontaneously developing some new laser weapons, just because, apparently. I'd say the ending is somewhat unsatisfying because of that, and because the short epilogue doesn't really do justice to the massive battle, it just sort of ends and wraps everything up quickly without telling us much.

As for the characters, none of them really stood out that much. Lt. Fukai and his plane, Yukikaze, are both stereotypically "mysterious". At points both of them come out a little, the plane even admitting to being afraid a couple of times, but for the most part they are stoic, pragmatic, and do pretty much whatever they want while getting away with all of it because they are just so awesome at killing aliens. Hell, they even figure out that the JAM are replacing humans for everyone so the plan we see come into fruition at the end of the OVA can be developed. Major Bukhar is supposed to be a kind of buddy commander to Fukai, I think, but they tend to go over the top with him. At one point he's actually pretty pathetic. It actually made me wonder if the two of them were intentionally written to come off as a couple, or if it was just supposed to be bromance. Anyway, it was just hard to like him at all because he tended to either be a whiny loser or a prick. Pretty much all the other characters were just kind of weird and until the end kind of hard to figure out.

Probably the most interesting "character" was the JAM. Their nature and purpose was always shrouded in mystery, and while the human characters made some guesses about them, the JAM are simply left as being the mysterious creatures (or creature) that they (or it) are. The idea that the entire planet and all of the JAM were in fact one single entity was especially intriguing to me, as was the idea that the war was just its way of studying humanity and testing itself.

Overall it's pretty fair to say that I was fairly impressed by this OVA. It's not perfect by any means, but it's still pretty good and I'd definitely recommend it. 8/10.

 

[The One Char]

This is because Yukikaze is based on (at the time) two novels that's are collections of short stores. It's compacting 16 short stories into 5 episodes.

 

[prinCZess]

But after the war moves to the other side of the portal and is no longer obviously visible, people start pretending that the war never even existed

...You know, this is so exceptionally blunt-force in its metaphor that it actually sounds like it's made more effective by it instead of just cheesy. I might track down and check this out purely based on that little bit just because...it sounds like it could be handled either horribly or well-enough to work, and since you don't point out the cheesy terribleness that would result in the case of it being handled poorly...
I dunnow, even if it's not given much focus, that's a curious enough situation and presentation of something in fiction I'm intrigued by it.

the JAM have figured out how to imitate humans

Ah. The Battlestar Galactica syndrome I've heard so much about.

Sounds like it suffers the generic anime protagonist-syndrome and ass-pull victory to contain itself to the allotted amount of episodes time/budget allowed. But still curious to me.

 

[Captain X]

I'd actually compare it to the 1982 The Thing, with the somewhat interesting twist of not all the imitations realizing that they're actually imitations until certain points. Also of note is that it's one of the few animes I've seen that depicts a Native American. And while he looks kind of stereotypical, he doesn't really act like one. Rather than being fierce warrior guy, he's actually kind of a meek tech guy.

 

[The One Char]

I'd actually compare it to the 1982 The Thing, with the somewhat interesting twist of not all the imitations realizing that they're actually imitations until certain points. Also of note is that it's one of the few animes I've seen that depicts a Native American. And while he looks kind of stereotypical, he doesn't really act like one. Rather than being fierce warrior guy, he's actually kind of a meek tech guy.

This isn't true in the novels. If you want to know more, buy them! Trust me they're great.

 

[Captain X]

Zipang
(26 episode series)

This series was both good and frustrating, frustrating mostly because of how it ended.

The story revolves around a modern Aegis destroyer named Mirai, which gets sucked back in time to just after the Battle of Midway. While in an American show the natural impulse would probably be to have the futuristic ship and crew get into the action (Final Countdown comes to mind), here they decide to try to keep as far away from everything that they can because they're afraid not only of any unforeseen consequences to the timeline, but also of the implications of picking a side. Displaced from their own time, they have no allies, not even the Japanese, because as it is constantly pointed out, they aren't like the Imperial Japanese of this era. Unfortunately for them, they find themselves getting more and more drawn into the war thanks to finding and rescuing an Imperial Japanese officer, and they end up getting involved in some very big ways.

If you're thinking that this will be an epic adventure with awesome action scenes, well, prepare to be disappointed. This series definitely comes down on the cerebral side of things, making even the action scenes full of dialog, whether it's to agonize about having to kill in order to survive, or to philosophize about the future and politics. This isn't all bad, and in fact I found most of it to be quite interesting. The problem is that they went so far with it that it made the action scenes stale and drawn out.

The series tends to focus on the Mirai's first officer, Lt. Comm. Kadomatsu, and the Imperial Officer he rescues from a crashed seas plane, Lt. Comm. Kusaka. Basically the crew decides to let Kusaka read through the ship's library to find out what he's in for, but as it turns out Kusaka is a pretty slick individual who ends up basically stabbing them in the back, though it's not entirely clear that this is what he intended. Kusaka is probably the most interesting and the most frustrating character of the series in that it's pretty hard to figure him out. Toward the end of the series he makes it clearer what his actual ambitions are, but things involving him tend to stay somewhat ambiguous.

I have to say that I also found the politics and discussion about time travel and its possible consequences pretty interesting, too. While I wish that there had been a bit more about how the Mirai managed to travel back in time and how they might get back, the series never really went there, focusing instead on the philosophy of time travel and how one might manage to inadvertently cause themselves to never have been born. Their agonizing over even the smallest bit of interference from them might cause them to fade out of existence like Marty McFly is thrown for a loop though toward the end of the series, when a crew member's father is run over and killed as a child. By the end of the series, though, the crew has pretty much decided that they are stuck in the past and are just trying to stay as far away from everybody as possible, for fear that the Mirai will be taken from them and used in the war. There's actually quite a bit of complexity that goes into making that decision, but it would make this review a lot longer if I tried to explain it all.

At the end of the series, there is still quite a bit going on, Kusaka's plans and actions still somewhat shrouded in mystery. And that leads me to the biggest disappointment of the series: it just ends. The last episode doesn't come off as a series finale so much as a season finale that ends on a cliff hanger. I know the real reason for this is because the manga hadn't been finished yet, but since there hasn't been any more news on this since about 2005 as far as I can tell, I'm more than a little frustrated by the fact that this series might go unfinished.

So while I would say that this is a pretty good anime to watch if you're into a more cerebral show that combines history and sci-fi, just know going in that the series is actually incomplete. 7/10.

 

[Bear Ribs]

And that leads me to the biggest disappointment of the series: it just ends.

Almost every anime ever made...

 

[Captain X]

This is probably an example of one that was made to get people to read the manga.

 

[Captain X]

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor
(26 episode series)

This series is basically one big parody of space operas, though in the same kind of light-hearted way that Galaxy Quest is a parody of Star Trek. More than acknowledging the many clichés inherent in the genre, it insists on calling all of them out, always to humorous effect.

What we have here is the very same basic set-up one might see in literally any space opera. We have Earth's fleet of ships, usually flying under the banner of some kind of federation, fighting a conflict of some kind with an alien enemy. In this case the enemy is shown as a worthy foe, with a lead antagonist who is simply an honorable soldier of an empire led by a sympathetic empress, a teen-aged girl with the mantel of responsibility forced upon her by the assassination of her royal parents. We have the "real" enemy manipulating the young empress in a power play. We have our heroes, a band of misfits with the odds against them, including their own devious and power hungry superiors. Actually, considering the effort that was actually put in to the set-up, this might not have been a bad series if played seriously .... just like every other space opera. Oh, it might have been one of the better ones that managed to stand out, but I feel that this series true strength is in the fact that it takes everything you would expect from a space opera and starts to play it straight, only to turn everything completely on its head.

For instance, we take our main protagonist, Justy Ueki Tylor, who for all appearances is a moron. He's the exact opposite of what is expected of a good soldier, let alone a good captain. He's impossible to upset or get down, even when members of his own crew try to kill him or his own superiors try to get his ship destroyed by sending it on impossible missions. His main strength seem to be dumb luck, though there are moments that he shows at least a certain kind of intelligence, even if otherwise he seems oblivious to anything going on around him. It's just enough to make one wonder at times if he really is just lucky, or if he ever actually plans anything out. In fact, this is lampshaded by other characters all the time.

As for the crew of the Soyokaze, an old, decrepit, run-down destroyer no one wants to be on, they are somewhat more typical of the cast of characters on most other space operas. There are the professional warriors and the bad-ass marines who make their own rules. Except to an extent they all pretty much suck compared to the rest of the fleet, making their assignment to Soyokaze more fitting than they would like to admit. Later, after they get over their depression and that whole trying to kill each other and the captain thing, this becomes a source of pride for them, and a way to kind of stick it to the rest of the fleet, which basically represents the typical space opera.

The "plot" of the series is almost exactly as one would expect from a space opera, with an ongoing war between the protagonists' United Planets Space Force against the Holy Raalgon Empire. They have battles, and we do see some characters we never really know die, but that's about where the "typical" aspect of the plot ends. Because really, nothing makes much actual sense. Aside from Tylor and his crew constantly escaping by pure luck in every absurd situation they find themselves in, even the war itself doesn't make much sense in light of the relationship developed between Raalgon Empress Azalyn and Captain Dom. Azalyn in particular doesn't really live up the supposed barbaric reputation of the Raalgan, even if most of her subordinates do. Later on, they actually manage to take a trip to Earth themselves and saw that humans weren't really the horrible enemy they imagined. This after a battle that both sides "won" by simply not firing on one another, making it pretty clear that neither side really wanted to fight each other all that badly.

But again, this pretty much just illustrates the purposeful ridiculousness of the series. If anything, the above is calling out the same kind of illogical plotlines that can develop in serious series. But Captain Tylor is not a serious series. If anything, I would categorize it as a comedy with some "drama relief" because when there is a dramatic moment involving a character death or say the capture and brainwashing of a main character, this is pretty much in leading up to a punch-line of some kind.

Naturally, the series calls out the obvious clichés like all the fan service, a possible relationship between the male captain and his female first officer, and the captain getting sexual offers from practically every woman he comes across, except the one he really wants, naturally. Actually that last one in particular is pretty good, because while Tylor can sweet talk even a female computer into letting him have what he wants, what he wants usually isn't actually sex, and he really doesn't ever have sex, at least that we can be sure of. So in a way, he's both like Captain Kirk's pop culture stereotype, and the exact opposite at the same time.

The series does start off a bit slow at first, even if it does quickly become apparent that this isn't a serious space opera thanks to Tylor, so you'll have to keep that in mind if you decide to give this series a watch. I would recommend that, by the way, and I'm rating this series an 8/10, mostly because of the aforementioned slow start and how at times things could get a bit repetitive. Otherwise, this series is well worth a watch by any sci-fi fan who doesn't take themselves too seriously. So if you liked Galaxy Quest, you'll probably like Captain Tylor.

 

[Captain X]

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor
(10 episode OVA)

Whelp, they did it – they done managed to ruin this comedic franchise. The ending of the series proper was perfect for the series itself, with the crew rejecting assignment to a brand-spanking new "cool" ship and sticking with their old Soyokaze, literally tearing their way out of the scrap dump and ramming the shiny new ship out of space dock to take its place. While there was something of a sequel hook, in a lot of ways I wished they'd just left well enough alone.

So is the OVA bad? Well, not really. Actually saying that they screwed up the series would probably be unnecessarily harsh. More, I'm just disappointed. Much like Desert Punk, Burn-Up W and Burn-Up Excess, what started out as a light series, heavy on comedy, turned into something more serious. What makes the Captain Tylor OVA a bit different is that this change was more gradual and didn't involve a lot of character deaths. Instead, things just got more dramatic and less comedic. So basically this fun parody of typical space opera became a typical space opera, and thus effectively ruined the very fitting ending that the series proper had.

What frustrates me more, though, is that the OVA actually starts out with pretty much more of the same as far as the series proper had been. The shooting war between the United Planets Space Force and the Holy Raalgon Empire has ended and both sides are kind of taking things easy. Naturally something new pops up, the Raalgon come up with some new weapon and the Soyokaze has to save the day in some audaciously unconventional way.

But here already there are some indications of the more serious change in tone, just for the simple fact that Tylor actually has a plan, even if it isn't readily apparent what it is. For a while things seem normal, the show actually teasing us a bit about whether or not Tylor actually has a plan, but then things take a more serious turn. Dom beats the crap out of Tylor because he made Azalyn cry for a reason that is explained a bit later, and a bit later on he nearly destroys the Soyokaze and kills Tylor despite orders from Azalyn to let them go unharmed. Then he abruptly decides to stop and everything seems okay again.

There isn't really much of a mood swing though, mostly because while there is still comedy relief, the OVA never really goes back to the same light tone the series proper had. Instead, things slowly built, with seemingly unrelated stories focusing on different supporting characters and some new threat that has made itself known. And that's pretty much how the show slides into becoming a more typical space opera. There's a lot of political maneuvering going on, betrayals happening, and it all plays out like a show that's taking itself seriously. This made me feel uneasy, and left me feeling disappointed.

The OVA does end on a somewhat light note, and yet at the same time manages to end on a serious one thanks to the drama of the political plotline that got added along the way. On top of that the OVA leaves things hanging, with a much larger sequel hook than before. As this OVA came out in the mid-'90s, I'm not seeing that happening because it probably would have been done already. Actually I have mixed feelings about that, because I actually am somewhat interested in seeing how things turn out. What can I say, I do tend to like space operas, and the OVA is pretty much a typical space opera in a lot of ways.. On the other hand, the much more serious tone the OVA took on doesn't fit with the series, or the point of what Captain Tylor was all about, really, which was to be a parody. So in some ways, I'm actually glad that nothing further has been added in order to continue that trend. But then I'm annoyed things were left hanging ... well, you get the idea. In any case I'm afraid that I'm going to have to rank this lower than the series. 6/10.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Tyler was an interesting one but I could never figure out what the ending was supposed to be. I mean, it wasn't Surreal like, say, Birth, but there seemed to be absolutely no motivation for the final set of events from anybody, especially Tyler's.

 

[prinCZess]

I remember watching the series of Captain Tylor with the sister back In The Days Of Old when Netflix sent movies to your mailbox via Pony Express courier. It's a fun romp, the one (scheming, still-incompetent) straight-man officer in the crew everyone else plays off, the bloodthirsty shipboard marines decked-out in Mad Max gear, and just how much of a teeny-bopper stereotype Empress Azalyn is/can-be a few of the bits I recall being pretty amused by throughout the whole thing.

It takes itself just seriously enough to make the punchline to the jokes it throws better. Does fall into a bit of a pattern in the middle that feels a bit repetitive, and while I don't recall much of the details, I do remember thinking the ending felt pretty haphazard, fall-into-place rather than something solidly planned-out.

 

[Captain X]

Ghost in the Shell
(1995 movie)

When I'd first seen this movie, I didn't understand yet that it was actually unrelated to the series, which is what I'd seen first. So I was a bit understandably confused at the differences, not yet realizing that there are a lot of anime movies, series, and OVAs which are only related in that they are all different adaptations of the same source material. I'm told that this movie is closer to the source material than the series, though it's a bit slower paced than the original manga. I still can't hide the fact that I prefer the series, but that really doesn't mean that I don't like this movie.

Having watched it a few times since I first rented it, I can definitely say that this movie takes a more patient sci-fi fan to be really enjoyed. There is action at different points in the movie, not to mention fan service in the form of the main protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi stripping down for her invisibility camouflage to work, but the pacing is fairly slow. In fact, I'd say that this movie is more in the spirit of older sci-fi, from the late '60s and the '70s than more modern ones, excepting Blade Runner of course. Actually comparisons to Blade Runner wouldn't be all that far off.

The story follows Kusanagi and her fellow Section 9 officers, who deal specifically with technological threats and crimes. Even still, the focus of the story is more on the philosophy of what it really means to be human, and if a machine can actually develop a soul, though here they refer to it as a "ghost." This movie is also an old school sci-fi in that it actually does focus on what effect(s) new technology might have on humanity. In this case, not only are there androids, but people have become cybernetic to varying degrees, some actually having their entire bodies replaced, like the Major and her friend/subordinate, Bateau (as it is spelled in this movie). So from there the movie deals with ideas like, can a person who's had their entire body replaced still be considered the same person, and themes of losing one's identity because those cybernetic bodies are produced in assembly lines. At points the Major sees what seem to be copies of herself, though we can never be sure if that's in her mind or not.

Actually, that brings me to another comparison to Blade Runner, namely that in exactly the same way there was some ambiguity as to whether Decker was a human or a replicant, Major Kusanagi is paranoid by the idea that the military has somehow secretly replaced her brain with a computer, and that she's actually just an android programmed to think she is human. So she tends to do some things that are very dangerous in order to feel human, much to Bateau's chagrin.

Then, of course, there's the idea that a person who has been cybernetically enhanced might lose their free will and even their own identity thanks to actually being hacked by someone else. Of course while I actually feel plenty of sympathy for someone like that, even if in fact that person may have gone on to commit crimes because of that hacking, other characters in the movie seem to not really be all that sympathetic. Kind of another commentary of the effects such technology might have on humanity, I guess.

The nice thing about all this is that it all leads back into the plot. A mysterious hacker known as the "Puppetmaster" has been hacking a lot of people. That plot leads to more as Section 9 investigates the matter and makes them run afoul of certain military interests. This is where the idea of artificial life comes in, as it turns out their quarry is actually a military AI that wants to escape and to actually bond with a human being. Naturally those certain military interests I mentioned earlier want to both destroy the escaped AI, and kill anyone who knows about it in order to keep them from revealing the truth about the Puppetmaster and their connection to it.

That being said, the end of the movie is somewhat sad, mostly because the implication is that the human the Puppetmaster chooses to bond with effectively ceases to exist in the process and becomes a new life form entirely, and I was rather fond of that character. The new life form then escapes to an unknown fate. There is a bit of a sequel hook there, but really the story could have just ended there.

I honestly can't make any comparison to the original manga because I haven't read it yet, and probably won't anytime soon. All I can say is that this is overall a good movie, and well worth a watch. The only caveat with that is that you are definitely going to need some patience to get through it. I, personally, don't see the slow pace as a bad thing, especially because the movie is just taking the time to explain the characters and set things up for the story rather than rushing right into the action, but at times I have to admit that I wished the pacing would pick up just a little bit. I'd say the movie that suffers more from that is the sequel, which is the review I'll be writing next. As for this one, it's a little tough to rate, actually. In some ways, I'm not entirely sure if I want to rate it at an 8 or a 9, but I think I'm going to go ahead and rate it as an 8/10. It just doesn't quite make a 9 in my opinion, and I don't really split ratings.

ETA: I actually own the original manga now, and have read it, and while I can see where aspects of both the movie and the series came from, I have to say that neither one is really a very good adaptation of it. Still love Stand Alone Complex and this movie, though.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Ghost in the Shell

I honestly can't make any comparison to the original manga because I haven't read it yet, and probably won't anytime soon.

I also have the manga. I read the first few chapters, and then skimmed the book to the end. Kinda sad that the movie dropped the cute Fuchikomas/Tachikomas, as they were one of the few things that I liked about the manga, which I found to overly stuffy and boring. It had way, way too much dialogue. Pages where 50% or more of the page is just text boxes. I don't have a problem with a lot of dialogue, but this is a comic/manga, not a book. This is a visual medium. The strength of the medium is in visuals, not text. If you want to be text heavy, go write a book. I always felt like Shirow should've just written a book with some illustrations.

 

[Captain X]

It's been a while since I read it, but I remember liking the manga as well. The main thing that threw me was that it didn't much resemble the movies or the SAC series that I had seen.

 

[Captain X]

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
(2004 movie)

With this sequel to the 1995 movie, pacing is definitely a bit of a problem. It tries to capture the same feel as the first movie, and to be fair, it does to a certain extent. I can completely understand wanting to take time to give viewers more clues and to try to mess with their heads a little while they try to figure things out, but in some cases this movie wastes this time where it probably shouldn't have.

With Major Kusanagi gone, Batou (the spelling now changed to something more familiar) is now partnered with the mostly human Togusa and leading an investigation into some strange sex-bot gynoids (the technically correct term for female androids) that have killed their owners and anyone else unfortunate enough to be nearby. Of course Batou is also dealing with the loss of the Major, whom he obviously had feelings for. That being said, this movie has a somewhat more depressing tone than the last one, and Botou is pretty much exclusively the focus of this movie.

Batou and Togusa's investigation eventually leads them to a cyborg company called LOCUS SOLUS, which makes the malfunctioning gynoids, which themselves seem to have actually been tampered with in order to draw this investigation. There seem to be some ties with organized crime and a rich eccentric hacker who apparently lives in a somewhat dangerous and lawless part of the world. This is where the movie drags a bit, because for all the time it takes to give the audience some clues while it messes with our heads, there isn't a whole lot of pay off. Not to mention scenes that seem to be more about showing off eye candy than anything else.

The idea of having one's mind hacked naturally returns, and it seems that Batou becomes a victim in the course of his investigation. Actually he ends up shooting up a store and shooting off one of his own arms, thinking that someone is trying to kill him. Then there's the scene were they go to visit the rich eccentric hacker I mentioned earlier, as both Batou and Togasa almost get trapped in a computer-generated repeating hell. It's only thanks to a brief return by the Major in her new, entirely computerized form that Batou is able to beat this illusion. I have to admit, though, that the repeating kind of got on my nerves. I understand what the movie was trying to do, but after the second time I was ready for the movie to just get on with it already.

While at times this movie tends to drag on, there are some points that it is actually pretty good. Leading up to the climax, there's a scene where Batou boards an off-shore factory ship and wages a one-man battle against essentially an army. Togasa helps out by hacking into the ship's security system to open the doors for him, and the scene where Batou charges through them is pretty cool by itself, especially with the addition of the soundtrack. And just when it seems like Batou might lose this fight, the Major shows up to help him out, and there's a nice scene between them where she tries to comfort him a little. There's also a call-back to the first movie, because Batou has a thing for putting his coat on the Major when she ends up naked, and he ends up doing that with the gyroid she hacks into to help him out.

Now as it turns out, the cause of those gyroid malfunctions and the reason this LOCUS SOLUS company has been trying its damnedest to kill Batou and Togusa is that they've been having the mafia kidnap little girls to use in some kind of weird soul copying machine. Apparently whatever standard software might normally be used in these live sex dolls wasn't quite "real" enough to the sick frakkers that bought them, never mind that the bots didn't even look quite human to begin with, so LUCUS SOLUS decided that adding bits of the souls of little girls in order to effectively make their products into pedo-bots. Apparently, one of the people working there actually had a conscience and conspired with a couple of the girls to cause these killer malfunctions in order to draw official attention to what was going on to them so they might be rescued. On finding this out, Batou is a lot harder on them than I would be. Sure, it sucks that some innocent people ended up getting killed as a result, but most of the victims were the sick pedophilic owners of these sex-bots, and there is the whole matter of how these girls were kidnapped and were having bits of their soul taken away piece by piece from them until they died, and all so some pedophiles can get their jollies with a robotic sex doll. Of course Batou also feels sorry for the sex-bots that now effectively have human souls who ended up dead, too, but you can guess I'm not with him on that either.

The movie does try to get a bit philosophical, mostly dealing with how robots are becoming more human with things like this soul-ripping machine adding bits of soul to robots, and how humans are becoming more like robots as with the Major. Unfortunately it also tries to do this by having Batou, Togusa, and the Major constantly quoting philosophers during the slow parts of their investigation. And this is where I feel the movie is really lacking. Probably the best it gets at being philosophical is when it comes to dolls and the comparison of humans to dolls, and vice versa. Actually the movie has something of an obsession with dolls and how creepy they can be with the right mentality. I wasn't really into that, so for me this aspect of the movie also became something of a bore for me.

As an aside, I also have to say that it just isn't the same without the Major, and the movie never really quite manages to move on from that fact itself. Batou is a pretty cool character, but he's no Kusanagi, and he doesn't really take her place very well as the lead character. Of course, who knows, maybe that was the point.

As for other things about the movie I never really got over, there was the very intrusive nature of the CGI used in the movie. While it was blended fairly well with the animation, it just tended to stand out to the point that one almost wonders why they didn't simply make everything, including the characters, CGI. I also didn't care for the visual design, as it seemed way too abstract to me. Plus, what can I say? I prefer my machines to look like machines, so having a tilt-rotor with wings that split up into feather-looking sections and flap made me cringe, among other such examples.

Anyway, I suppose this movie is still worth a watch, but be aware that it does tend to drag in some parts and actually feel a bit longer than it is. 7/10.

 

[Captain X]

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion
(25 episode series)

When I caught my first glimpse of this series when it aired on Adult Swim, I have to admit that I wasn't really impressed. It looked like just another mecha anime to me, and to be frank I really don’t care for shows like that, partly due to the large number of them. They just tend to all be the same and even kind of run together. This one involved a character with a weird eye who liked to dress up in a weird costume, and I really didn't care for the visual design at all. But, just as I'd been talked into watching Gurren Lagann in large part because of the alleged fan service, I'd read quite a bit about how naughty Code Geass was supposed to be, in particular the first season before the executive meddling took place and ruined everything, or so I'd read. Something about a female character using a table to masturbate? At the same time there was supposed to be a great deal of awesome going on due to this series being on real late and largely ignored by the censors and the like. So I decided to give this series a chance, and I have to say that I'm glad that I did.

The series follows a somewhat spoiled, smarmy, arrogant high school student named Lelouch Lamperouge, who apparently likes to skip out on class to gamble with rich aristocrats on the outcome of chess games. This all takes place in a rather interesting alternate Japan, which has been conquered by the Holy Britannian Empire, and of which Lelouch is actually a member of. In fact, he's even royalty, albeit disowned by his own choice due to an assassination-induced grudge. Actually the world this story takes place in is kind of interesting by itself as an alternate history, in which a branch of the British monarchy escaped to North America and founded yet another empire ruled by a hereditary monarchy. At the time the series takes place, the Britannian Empire controls a third of the world, and has a rather nasty tendency of erasing the national identity of any country it conquers (usually over resources), reducing them and their occupants to numbers as one of the many ways they continue to treat conquered peoples like crap long after the conquest has taken place. Personally I find the idea of Japan being conquered by an empire over resources kind of funny in an ironic kind of way, considering that whole world war thing back here in the real world. I also found it a little amusing that for all the ways the world developed differently in this alternate history, Japan was basically the same, except that they were already a more or less democratic nation led by a prime minister rather than a militaristic empire themselves. But that's just me.

Lelouch is far from a sympathetic character, but the series does a good job of explaining just what lead him down the path to becoming Zero, the mysterious masked leader of the rebellion against Britannia who vows to destroy the Empire, starting in Japan. He does this for rather selfish reasons, mainly out of revenge for the assassination for his mother and the way his father treated him and his now crippled daughter like crap afterwards. Of course he's always had dreams of bringing down the Empire, but as fate would have it he'd be given a unique power called "geass", which would enable him to essentially brainwash people into doing whatever he wanted. Of course one of the first things he does when he realizes his power is to meticulously and mercilessly test it out on his classmates. But then that's just him.

I actually like that he's far from the typical flawless hero. The show manages to keep him just sympathetic enough while he plays chess with peoples' lives and very pragmatically tests out exactly what he can do with his power on his classmates, among other things. Actually at one point he even kills would-be allies of his in order to take out some Britannians along with them. And yet his character managed to evolve along the way, keeping just on the sympathetic side of crazy for me to actually feel a little excitement when he was under the threat of being exposed and his double life catching up with him. Part of that was actually kind of funny, as some of the members of the Japanese resistance were students at his school, among other unlikely connections. Plus his name kind of lends itself to a pun on the true nature of his character.

The series also has an interesting number of layers to it. For instance, pretty much all of the royals Lelouch ends up fighting and either trying or succeeding at killing are actually members of his own family, even if they are only half-siblings. He also ends up fighting a childhood friend who he actually helped to save back when Japan was first conquered seven years before, though at first he doesn't realize this. It makes it that much more interesting when he finally does find out, though.

Actually all these connections culminate until he finally reaches the point that he can no longer lead his double life. He can no longer control his power, which leads to a rather sad, if completely outlandish, incident where he almost achieves a kind of peace with a member of the royal family who still loves him from their childhood days. She actually sets up a little slice of land where Japan exists again, and Zero/Lelouch is basically explaining what has led him to this point in the story, only to lose control of his power just as he's all like "if, for example, I told you to kill all the Japanese, you wouldn't be able to resist that command." So of course she ends up doing her best to do just that and he ends up having to kill her and using the incident as a way to drive the rebellion to its strongest point. But still, who would use something horrible like that as a hypothetical? Why not give a hypothetical about her giving him a blowjob instead? I mean, I know there's that whole incest thing there, but between that and a massacre? But I'm getting off track here. The point is that not only could he never look anyone in the eye again without his mask, but at the very end of the series he's finally unmasked, too, and exposed to two of his former friends.

The series ends on a kind of Blake's 7 note, with characters dying or looking like they might die, the battle suddenly going south because Lelouch has to leave to go rescue his kidnapped sister, and Lelouch himself looking like he might buy it from one or both of his former friends who are present as he is unmasked. It doesn't make the most sense, but it's still a pretty good sequel hook, which makes it that much more frustrating to know that this ending is never really followed through on. It kind of makes me wish that the series had ended with Japan gaining its independence, with the sequel hook being that Lelouch is unmasked pretty much the way he was, and Britannia set to retake Japan.

Anywho, addressing the reason I had originally decided to watch this anime, I was somewhat surprised at the lack of naughtiness. Sure there was a bit of nudity, though most of it missing certain features, the way a lot of anime tries to be discrete. Nipples do show up very briefly at one point, but other than that this series isn't really any worse in way of fan service from most every other anime I've seen. Even the infamous table scene was somewhat underwhelming, as nothing was really seen or even heard for that matter, taking place in the dark for all of about two or three seconds while said lesbian character got off silently. I'm not exactly disappointed, but if the series had actually sucked I might have been, partly because most every character in this anime is so androgynous anyway. So I'm not really seeing what people were talking about. Yes, there are the bits I talked about, plus some light and not so light bits dealing with homosexuality thrown in the mix, but its nothing that other series I've seen haven't done.

Actually, if anything, the biggest weakness of this series is that it's somewhat generic. Granted, it’s a much better take on the whole mecha theme, as the mechas themselves aren't really the focus of the story so much as a rather convenient plot device, but it is still very generic in nature. We have a seemingly average high school student with power and/or leadership thrust unwittingly upon them and they go on to fight against overwhelming odds. The sad fact is, that last sentence describes a disturbingly large number of animes. Then there are all the logical brain farts and conveniences in the plot itself, one of the last ones being how the rebel army is suddenly unable to operate or function despite having already basically won simply because Lelouch had to take off to deal with something else, even though he hadn't been actively participating in the battle for some time prior to that.

Still, it isn't really a bad series, and I'd even call it more than just okay. I'd say watch it, but keep in mind that the ending leaves a lot unresolved, and the continuation doesn't really logically follow either. 7/10.

 

[Bear Ribs]

makes it that much more frustrating to know that this ending is never really followed through on.

Every anime ever....

Fun note: The chess game that keeps showing up through the show is incredibly meticulously planned. Every time it's on screen, it should be mate in two moves but the players apparently don't realize and move them to a different set of positions that will also mate in two moves the next time the game appears onscreen. They never actually mate even though it should happen in every scene.

It's apparent the chess game is actually a metaphor for a shounen/harem protagonist getting laid.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

My problem with Code Geass is that the entire plot is driven by asspull after asspull.

I would've been really interested to see Lelouch trying to build up and maintain a resistance against the Empire with only the mind control geass he was given at the beginning, and seeing Suzaku's long term struggle to change Empire society from within by setting an example and promoting cultural changes.

Americans romanticize revolutions, but the reality is that the vast majority of revolutions fail, and if they succeed they usually only end up replacing and acting like (if not worse) than the very government they sought to overthrow.

Against the empire, Lelouch had pretty much no hope of winning given it's sheer resources and built up war machine. Thus, in order to win, the writers had to constantly contrive situations where things go miraculously in Lelouch's favor (ie, CC dressing up as Zero to distract Cornelia from busting Lelouch at the last second, or the Black Knights setting up on a hill that was convenietly ready for a landslide, etc). The writers have to constantly give Lelouch magic plot mcguffins. The writers have to constantly make the enemy commanders unbelievably incompetent or lack basic foresight, not even bothering to consult their advisers. Also, lots of moments of stupidity, like "I recorded a 5 minute long video where I had a conversation with you and predicted everything you would say". Etc.

The real stinker is episode 22. Episode 22 posed a ntural conclusion for the story: everyone gets what they wanted, not by violence, not by contrivance, but by people actually being reasonable and talking out their problems to each other. But the show had to go on, so the writers contrived one the worst diablous ex machinas I had ever seen to keep the plot going.


Awful plot aside, the rest of the show is otherwise pretty good. The show looks great (for an anime made after the move from cellular to digital). It also helps it was produced by Studio Sunrise, which is to this day pretty much the only anime studio left that has animators who can actually draw 2D mecha and vehicles, rather than just substituting 3D CGI for them. The Brittanians are entertaining. Lots of fun comedy. Good opening song. Soundtrack is decent. I agree with the overall 7/10 (good) rating for the show. I wouldn't recommend watching past season 1. I would strongly recommend against watching the Akito movies, which were even worse.

 

[Captain X]

Oh, don't worry, I already wasted my time watching the second season, about 10 years ago now.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2
(25 episode series)

Well, I can see why a lot of people like this series, and I can also see why a lot of people hate it. It's a mixed bag, really. It had a lot of the same things from the first season/series that made it good. But then it also had plenty that was bad. For me, the worst aspect wasn't anything in particular from the story, it was that everything was reset back to the status quo.

The last episode from the first season/series left things at a point that this should not have been possible. Great change was finally coming in that the Black Knights, the group Lelouch/Zero formed, were pretty much going to win, despite the implication that they were somehow going to lose without Zero there to direct them in the closing stage of the battle. Lelouch had finally been unmasked, he'd finally really crossed a line by having a well-meaning would-be ally order and participate in a massacre and then killed her, and either his friend Suzaku was finally going to kill him, or his best soldier Kallen was because, for some reason, she felt betrayed as well. So how did that turn out? Well, they conveniently missed each other and Lelouch was captured and brainwashed instead. The first episode was actually a little insulting that way, because there were a lot of things about it that made no sense. One thing that still doesn't is how Lelouch's geass power was suddenly repressed when he was brainwashed by his father, the Emperor, who conveniently had his own geass power all along. Then there was how one of the first people he ever used his power on and who had sworn to kill him was suddenly just a concerned teacher watching over him and trying to get him to go to class. And then Lelouch also suddenly had a brother and everyone at his school was playing along. The explanation for all of these impossibilities was not very satisfying.

Of course, the first part of this sequel series was pretty much focused on explaining how pretty much all that came to be. It was all very elaborate, and I have to say pretty disappointing. Of course that still leaves the matter of Lelouch's permanent loss of control over his geass power, almost like they were hoping no one would notice, despite all the other acrobatic explanations they came up with for everything else. But really this was all so this series could be pretty much like the first one, with Lelouch leading a double life, hiding his identity and all that with the constant threat of being revealed all over again. And really that was the lamest part of it all. You can always tell when a studio interferes, because when they find they have something successful, they try to copy it in the hopes that it will keep being successful. But here they missed the point, because it wasn't Lelouch's double life or the high school aspect of his life that made the series good, it was the revolution and how Lelouch was evolving as a character.

In this series, he pretty much becomes a complete bastard, and it's difficult to much care what happens to him. In the end we find out he's a bastard on purpose, though that, along with so much else, just doesn't make all that much sense. Suzaku also changes radically, but then so do a lot of the characters, apparently out of convenience. Even the evil Emperor is suddenly made out to be more of a well-intentioned extremist than the big bad he was originally made out to be, and Lelouch's mother who everyone liked so much ended up being made out to be more of an uncaring bitch than the person whose death had driven Lelouch to become Zero.

This series also really went to town on the aspect of friends and allies fighting each other. It even has the Black Knights turn on Zero and try to kill him. Actually pretty much everyone turns on him, despite all the victories or other good things he's actually done while fighting against the Britannian Empire. Then when he finally wins and has taken over the Empire, Lelouch becomes the evil emperor in a really elaborate plan meant to finally unite the world by having them focus their hatred on him. The thing is, that really wasn't necessary, because he had gotten himself in a position to bring the peace through simply leading the Britannian Empire that way. After all, it seemed like he was headed down that path, and it would have been a way to prove himself to people who would have been his allies, as well as against his enemies.

But that was simply one of the many contrivances that was either unnecessary or simply came out of left field. Pretty much everything was some elaborate plan. While it's obvious that whoever wrote this actually put some thought into these elaborate schemes, I just wasn't impressed by their attempts at trying to convince me various characters were the absolute geniuses they would have to be to plan and execute these impossible plans, mostly because the plans were simply far too elaborate. Part of that was how the different fighters were able to figure out each others moves and know what the other was thinking. It was probably meant to make each of them a worthy foe to their counterpart(s), but in the end it got on my nerves a little when the show would constantly jump cut between multiple characters who were all saying essentially the same thing.

In the end, though, I didn't really hate this series, probably because I didn't really have much invested in it to begin with. After all, it was a fairly typical anime from the start, filled with a lot of clichés. The things that stood out a bit and made it kind of good were still present, to an extent, in this continuation of the story, but I can definitely see what upset so many fans of the first series. But it did keep me interested enough to watch, mainly to find out how they would explain everything, and how it would all turn out in the end. It wasn't really all that satisfying, though, mainly because there wasn't much in way of actual resolution, and the series ends on an unrealistically optimistic note. Even with the big bad finally defeated after all the world's hate has been focused on this object to hate, that wouldn't automatically mean the peace would be maintained, nor that no longer focusing on military conflict would mean that hunger and poverty and the like would just all magically be solved for lack of anything else to do. Humans are humans, after all, for better or worse, and I have no doubt that without some big bad for everyone to unite against, the Code Geass world would simply go back to the same kind of petty squabbling that the real world has to deal with. 5/10.