only with a robot.
Anime Review :: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time [2006]
Director - Mamoru Hosoda
Language – English Dub
Runtime – 98 Minutes
Genre – Drama / Sci-Fi. Slice-of-Life.
If you turn off Mamoru Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time at approximately one hour and fifteen minutes in, you’ve just watched the best anime feature film of the decade. If you decide, however, to let the final 23 minutes play on, you’ve instead just watched a pretty darn good movie (though, not a pretty damn good one.)
Loosely Adapted from Yasutaka Tsutsui novel by the same name, The Girl… is the story of Makoto Konno, a high school student who finds she has the ability to travel back short distances in time to re-do things after avoiding a fatal accident. Learning of this new talent, she does what any high school student would do; She frivolously jumps around time to prevent being late for class, avoids awkward conversations, and re-lives a single karaoke sessions for ten hours, until finally realizing that her power is having an effect on the people around her and a mysterious number on her arm seems to be slowly counting down.
Hosoda’s landscape to the story is the sort of atmosphere so masterfully created that you can actually feel the warm summer air and smell the food from the vending carts. You can taste the dust kicked up on the baseball field as Makoto and her best friends Chiaki and Kōsuke play catch and you can feel yourself start to get stuffy from the pollen in their air at time. So involving is the backdrop that instead of wondering why you would care about a girl frittering away such an important gift, you smile and remember your idiotic youth and think to yourself "yeah, I’d have probably done this sort of stupid shit too."
Things eventually take a turn for the serious when Mokoto gets careless with her talent and the people around her start to suffer as a consequence to her impulsive behavior as she jumps away from all of life’s unpleasant circumstances.
The film is completely outstanding until suddenly, with the story seemingly wrapping up in fatal results and a lesson in life well learned, we’re treated to some out-of-the-blue twist, a major continuity problem (which I can't get into without spoiling the story) and an impromptu love story to bring us through to the conclusion, none of which are obnoxiously bad, but they do leave a slightly sour aftertaste to what would have otherwise been a one-of-a-kind anime classic.
In the end, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is a wonderful little slice-of-life story with a sci-fi spin that's still quite an enjoyable piece of work despite it's slightly left-field outcome.
Anime News :: Hulu Features Voltron and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
For those of you feeling nostalgic, or maybe just lacking your requisite amount of gigantic snap-together robots, Hulu Days of Summer has two particularly random and completely delightful featured goodies this week care of Microsoft's Bing. Voltron Season 2 and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie grace the main page this week, continuing the site's excellent history of bringing you a great collection of things you might want to watch but would never want to pay money for (I never did upgrade to a DVD copy of the power rangers movie afterall, and it’s been a huge inconvenience.)
For a while the site has kept a small but respectable collection of anime and anime-related goodness including xxxHolic, Death Note, Bleach and (as baffling a choice as it may be) The Slayers, which has been a godsend to external hard-drives everywhere.
Watch Ivan Ooze get his ass whooped on @
Anime Review :: Read or Die [OVA]
Director - Koji Masunari
Language – English Dub
Run – 3 Episodes [2001]
Genre – Fantasy / Adventure. Boobs & ...Books?
Having fun with the usual genre boundaries of anime is a difficult task. A narrow line walked gracefully by Jing: King of the Bandits, or to a lesser degree even Gunsmith Cats, but Read or Die’s kitsch wears paper-thin (ha!) quickly and spends three thirty-minute-ish installments clumsily trying to decide how serious or whimsical it wants to be. All while still managing to occasionally stop along the way for the sake of pandering to daydreamers and horny teenagers alike.
Our heroine on this spin through a wontubulous world of books and evil clones is Yomiko Readman (yes, really,) a special agent codenamed "The Paper" working for the British Library's Special Operations Division (yes, really,) who’s special ability is a type of telekinesis involving paper or paper-related products. She’s a quiet, forgetful, polite Japanese girl with an affinity-going-on-obsession for books, who soon finds herself paired with the no-nonsense femme fatale “Miss Deep” Nancy Makuhari (what were the odds!)
Yomiko and Nancy battle a small army of clever literary references sent by the evil mastermind Ikkyū Soujun in progressive order of difficulty - once again begging the question of why the bad guys never send the competent henchmen out first. Eventually we arrive at the final battle at Ikkyū’s multi-gazillion dollar hideout / fortress where by-the-numbers adventure ensues.
I really have no problem with pulp. Give me any standard hero’s journey with a predictable outcome and I’ll be more than glad to snatch out the good parts and take it at face value, but Read or Die seems too haphazard in its attempts to come off unique that it’s difficult to distinguish if it’s coming or going at any given moment. What elements were meticulously planned out and which were simply drawn at random via a dartboard with words on it.
Being an escapist fantasy series with an implausibly one-dimensional character in Agent Drake, the tough-talkin' American who doesn't care one bit for guff, doesn’t help matters, nor do the really uncomfortable lipstick-lesbian undertones (I didn’t realize such a thing could even exist) and unnecessary chest-rubs in an otherwise wholesome story. Read or Die suffers from some severe identity issues.
Still, there are some high notes hit over 100-or-so minutes. Most notably, the score is one of the best I’ve heard in some time, going well out of its way to capture excitement and whimsy even when the story isn’t holding up its end of the bargain. Also, for my teasing earlier, the literary references are cute and not done with such frequency that they ever get irritating. Ultimately, though, neither are enough to let the well-meaning series shine.
Anime Review :: Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage
Director - Sunao Katabuchi
Language – English Dub
Run – 12 Episodes [2006]
Genre – Action. Modern Pirates. Boobs & Guns
The second installment of the Rei Hiroe-penned and Sunao Katabuchi-directed Black Lagoon series manages to pack equal parts Ranma 1/2-style goof-assery as well as a surprising amount of depth and thrills. This time around utilizing an ensemble cast of characters (most of whom only made brief appearances in season one) to even out the stories with a far greater focus on the lore and landscape of Roanapur Island.
The Second Barrage is broken down into three story arcs. Which, for the sake of naming, we’ll call "The Vampire Twins," "The Roanapur Counterfeiting Clusterfuck," and "Hotel Moscow Vs. Japan," each of which come with their own distinctive style and flow, with progressively more enjoyable results. 
"The Vampire Twins" arc does little but builds the clout of Hotel Moscow, Roanapur’s resident Russian cartel, and in the process grabs two new tiny killing-machines straight out of the anime-invent-an-archetype hat. While the story itself packs a couple of decent Revy’d-up action sequences, it mostly seems tacked on to make better use of Balalaika (the boss of Hotel Moscow) and company who were underutilized in season one. It’s a slightly disorienting move to start a season with little focus on the main cast, but it’s one that pays off by the seasons conclusion.
"The Roanapur Counterfeiting Clusterfuck" is where the unbridled silliness comes in, bringing back most every head-hunter, C-character, and general bad-dude from season one, and throwing in a couple of even more ridiculous editions to boot. Think the parade-chase scene from Ranma ½: The Movie, only with more bullets and swearing. Every notable gangster (and a handful of faceless bullet catchers), as well as our old pal Shenhua ("Chinglish") winds up on the hunt for The Lagoon Company’s newest client. Wackiness ensues. 
And, finally, we have "Hotel Moscow Vs. Japan," a massive (by Lagoon standards) six-episode arc that takes Revy, Rock (who’s gone almost unnoticed in the season by that point), and Balalaika to the land of the rising sun. Rock, who is there under Hotel Moscow’s employ as a Japanese translator, confronts his past and the life he found himself running from a year ago when he joined up with the Lagoon crew. Revy is there to protect Rock (who by this point she’s warmed to significantly), who has a nasty habit of almost always getting kidnapped, and is granted plenty of opportunities for fast-paced mayhem against floods of Yakuza and thugs. The story also lends wonderful insight into the relationship between Revy and Rock as well as a look into the human-esque side of Revy (without the obligatory “oh I’m sad. Here’s my entire backstory” give-away.) Plenty of tense build-up and pace yet to be seen from the series.
With the characters beginning to flourish, and Lagoon setting up more roots for the long haul (Season 3 is on the way,) Second Barrage is a clear departure from the "kill 'em all and let god sort 'em out" feel of season one, which plays slightly against it’s strengths, but does make some positive strides to lay the groundwork for more adventures to come.
For all the surprises that season two brings with it, the biggest is how comfortable it’s able to make itself as a semi-serious drama, giving Revy a chance to care for other people without falling into the clichéd world of "killers with a heart of gold" and Balalaika to prove herself quite the frightening motherfucker.
The gore is dialed up slightly and the dialogue isn't quite as slick, and while you won’t find nearly the amount of explosion-based payoffs, the story is far more focused and delivered with a much steadier hand.
While I started iffy on the series and wrote it off as a trite (but very enjoyable) action mess, over 24 episodes and whatever number of misadventures that amounts to, I'm now anxiously looking forward to meeting back up with Revy, Rock, and the crew in the next installment. 
Anime News :: Miyazaki's "Ponyo" English Trailer Hits Interwebs
As the anime-god's newest assumed masterpiece gets ready to hit state-side, Disney lines up Matt Damon, Liam Neeson, Tina Fey, and the recently in-vogue Betty White to spin a new tale about the magic of nature and ooze-men.
Anime Review :: Black Lagoon: The First Barrage
Director - Sunao Katabuchi
Language – English Dub
Run – 12 Episodes [2006]
Genre – Action. Modern Pirates. Boobs & Guns
I am hopelessly devoted to explosions and swearing. Sure, at the end of the day my true loves in life may be slow-burning, thought-provoking travels into the soul, but, it’s hard to deny the sheer joy of a good pistol-whipping at the hands of a foul-mouthed, scantily-clad anime gal with an unreasonably mysterious past.
Substance isn’t exactly a strong-suit of Rei Hiroe’s Black Lagoon. But, honestly who needs substance when things explode.
Black Lagoon: The First Barrage, set in the 1990’s, focuses on the story of The Lagoon Company, a group of loveable smugglers working the high seas of Southeast Asia, and their adventures involving newest kidnapee-turned-recruit Rokuro Okajima. After a classic wrong-place-wrong-time for Rokuro, who’s taken along with a set of classified documents that you wouldn’t expect to be left with a low-level, unarmed company guy, he’s taken onboard by Lagoon after proving himself as a strategic thinker, business asset, and all-around swell fella.
The cast is rounded out by Dutch, the cool-headed gigantic black ex-marine leader of the team, token computer nerd Benny, and Revy, the resident murderous bipolor lunatic who graces most of the series promotional artwork and eats up most of the screen time.
(Benny, Benny's Orange Shirt, Rock, Revy, Dutch)For a series well known for its violence and adult content, it’s actually quite tame outside of the fierce language. With only one notable appearance of boobins and most of Revy’s samurai-like entire-army-killing sprees obscured by smoke, shadows, or camera pans, it’s the sort of violence that’s easy to take if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t stomach it easily. Something that was a wise choice in maintaining the action sequences “oh shit” factors while never becoming a big bloody distraction.
The English dialogue flows remarkably considering its lack of content, mostly filled with quick insults, yelling, and obtuse observations to pull the story along behind the trail of gunsmoke, cigarette butts, and cold bodies. The bad guys always explain their motives at length and the good guys normally wrap everything up in a tight package before the one-to-two-episode arcs finish up. The small plot pay-offs come in the interaction with Revy and Rock who jump from deploring eachother to being bros on an almost daily basis while Dutch shows up for hacky-cool one-liners and Benny stands in the background entirely forgotten were it not for his tacky orange shirt.
Still, there’s enough chair-jump moments and fist-pumps to keep you wanting a little more with each installment and the 12 episodes fly by in no time at all.
Clichéd low-brow action fodder at its absolute best.
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