Anime Review :: Battle Angel [1993]

My next incoming review for Oh,Tetsuo! was (well, and still hopefully is) Key The Metal Idol. A sort of bygone cyber relic that passed me by growing up that I just never really got around to finally watching. By the fifth episode, however, when the lead character had said her name (spoilers: it’s "Key") in the third person at least six hundred times and I was treated two and a half hours of wasted conversations about pop stars with no tangible plot development outside of the absurd premise, my patients were wearing thin. I decided to take a quit trip back (and thankfully a short one at that) to one of my absolute favorite little pieces of cyberpunk bloodbath goodness, just to make sure I haven’t lost my mind. I mean, afterall, maybe I’ve been so spoiled by the slicker animation, better voice work, and cohesive plots of modern anime that I’ve just lost all love for the murderous robo-girls of the 1990’s.

Battle Angel [OVA] [1993]
Director - Hiroshi Fukutomi
Language – English Dub
Runtime – 70 Minutes
Genre – Action. Drama. Cyberpunk.

For those unfamiliar, Battle Angel is a two-part OVA based on a manga series titled Gunnm, and… I’m not going to go into the details of the story in its entirety. Not for lack of wanting to, in fact the more copy I put in this post, the more fantastic artwork from the series I get to post along with it. No, it’s just that trying to explain Gunnm to explain the Battle Angel OVA is sort of like trying to catch someone up on the entire history of the X-Men books to get them ready to see the movie. It’s unnecessary, the world the story takes place in gets explained away about five minutes into the film, and knowing about the period that Marrow was an X-Man or the brief but important story of Maggot doesn’t really enrich the experience of watching Hugh Jackman say “bub.”

Like the slew of recent Marvel movies, Battle Angel is a film adaptation in the strongest possible terms.

So we've covered that it's good hatin’ material for purists, let's get down to business (see, blah blah blah, and I get to put more artwork in.)

While scavenging through a dump for parts on the outskirts of Scrap Iron City, cyberphysician Daisuke Ido comes across the shredded remains of a cyborg body that is miraculously still alive. Ido takes it home and transfers the still living… aspect of it into a new cyborg body and names her Gally. (It’s never really covered in the anime whether it’s her brain or ghost or whatever sci-fi philosophy we’re actually dealing with that’s “still alive”)

Within no time (no, seriously, we’re talkin’ about 5 seconds of screen time) Gally is up and about being chipper and charming and taking an interest in Yugo, a young lad who does maintenance work for Ido. He takes little interested though, as he’s far more concerned with one day making enough money to go to the majestic floating city of Zalem that hangs over the slums of Scrap Iron City. A place it’s soon made clear that Ido himself and his colleague Chiren were once residents of, and a place that Chiren herself too has designs on getting back to by any means necessary.

Another abrupt jump-cut later Ido, who’s already managed to be quite a mysterious character in a scant 10 minutes, is spotted sneaking out at night by Gally who tails him to find out that he’s secretly a bounty hunter, and, seemingly not all that great of one at that. Luckily, in the midst of a foiled attempt to stop a murder, Ido himself is saved by Gally who, as luck would have it, is a ruby-eyed murder machine. Gally herself takes up the cause after finding out about her new abilities …and the fun begins. As, aside from trying to recover the lost memories of her past, she just… REALLY loves killin’

From there heartstrings are tugged at, clusterfucks are developed, hope is squeezed out of you, and heads are torn off. But hey, it wouldn’t be fun for you if I told you the ending.


It’s hard to properly rate Battle Angel.

The artwork is magnificent, and Gally is one of the most likeable… murderous robot girls in the history of anime (marvelously voiced by Larissa Murray(?), I might add, although, I can’t tell if that’s the proper ADV credit or the notoriously awful UK/Aus release Viz had. Blame IMDB.) The action is stunningly choreographed and the story has far more feel than the usual hack-and-slash fodder. Imagine everything good you’ve ever read about Kite. It’s like all of that except actually good.

A wonderful juxtaposition of the struggles of heaven and hell on earth.
…but also a short and sometimes sloppy one.

For all the ungodly drab series that were treated to at least 12 episodes it seems almost criminal that Battle Angel was doomed to be shorter than a feature film, and, because of that, choked a little and not allowed to grow naturally with heavy reliance of abrupt jump-cuts and a few too many monologs that explain away the plot.

Sort of a random reach into the vault, and definitely 15+ as far as the kids go (three boobs and some occasional on-screen gore), but while it’s got quite its fair share of flaws, it’s most certainly a mini-classic by cyberpunk standards.








Not that I’d ever endorse torrents, especially of material who’s American copyrights are owned by the mighty ADV, but, ya know, there maaaay or may not be a dual audio copy floating around on Demonoid.

…just sayin’.

Ten Anime Films that Shaped My Fanhood :: Part 2

Like so many others, one particular anime classic was a huge influence on my fanhood. I mean, who can forget nihilistic the motorcycle punks, the frightening look into the future of humanity, the dusty artwork, the killer soundtrack, the fast-paced action. That’s right…

#o9 :: Akira
#o9 :: Venus Wars

Yeah, okay, so, maybe those images bring to mind a slightly more popular film, but I’m still on a trip down memory lane and before there was Tetsuo, there was Hiro Seno, hotshot leader of the Killer Commandos. Well, by before, I mean a year after in a crappy attempt to ride some of the Akira coat-tails, but lets not split hairs. I didn’t know that at the time.

Venus Wars, Akira, Demon City Shinjuku and a host of Project A-Ko flicks made up much of the Sci-Fi channels Saturday Anime rotation and after my adventures into the world of Iria, I was hot to get my hands on anything anime related I could. And, while Akira was a little over my head at the time, and Demon City Shinjuku was… retarded, even for a 13 year old, The Venus Wars was about where I was at, and somewhere in that aforementioned box of VHS tapes at my mom’s house is a TV dubbed copy of that movie that’s nearly warn to death.

Venus Wars isn't exactly an emotional tour de force, in fact, it's mostly just action pulp, but there isn't much that you can't enjoy about rollerball-like motorcycle violence, space-wars, and sassy Japanese James Dean hero-boys. Now, I'd like to say that this had some sort of deep impact on me, but, really it makes the list because of when I stumbled upon it at the right time and it opened me up to anime on American TV.

It doesn’t come with the same charming story about my friends pressuring me into watching nudie cartoons, but by this point I was already on the anime bandwagon and using my blazing fast 14k connection to check out all the anime info Geocities had to offer. It does come with lots of fun memories of my sitting at my dad's house watching on Saturday mornings drinking Dr. Pepper and eating ham & cheese hot pockets.

Anime Video :: Iria Opening Credit Animation

Ahh, it brings back memories.

Happy Independence Day

As we feast on beer and meat and reflect upon our country's rich heritage, I wish you the very best, a fun evening, a DUI-free night, and some damn fine explosions in the sky.

Cheers, America.

Ten Anime Films that Shaped my Fanhood :: Part 1

#10 :: Iria: Zeiram the Animation

Everyone’s journey into the big-eyed fanboy world of anime begins somewhere, and mine started in 7th grade at a Record Town. …on a dare.

There had always been precedence for me eventually falling in love with anime. Growing up I was always a huge fan of Secret of Mana and the Final Fantasy series, or maybe back even further when I’d always preferred the slightly more Asian-oriented Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to GI Joe or Master of the Universe, but either way, the roots were there despite never really being at all aware of Japanese animation.

The moment where it all officially got underway, however, was in the hands of good old fashion peer pressure.

I spent most of my time hanging out with my best friends Rob and Eric, and we were at that age when you start to do sinister little kid stuff because you’re left on your own and, that’s what little newly teen-aged kids do. I was a bit of a goody two-shoes, though. I was already under heat for not shop-lifting gum and volunteering to be lookout while the guys checked out Playboys from under our other friend Peter’s older brother’s bed, so I was due to do something of note, lest I be the wuss of my social circle for all of my upcoming highschool years. …then my moment came.

"Oh dude!" Rob exclaimed in one of those sort of shouted whispers, "they have those crazy cartoon porn movies!" As you can expect, he was talking about the stores collection of about six anime tapes positioned slightly outside of the soft-core adult videos and the sports/special interest movies. And, for the most part, he was right. Record Town’s "anime" collection was four Hentai tapes (the only one of which I can remember is La Blu Girl), Fist of the North Star, and Iria volume 1. Of course, I had no idea what any of it was and as far as I knew, Rob was right and this was all just porn.

"Who would make cartoon porn movies?"

"I dunno, dude, I think it’s from China or something. You should totally get one!"

"Why would I want cartoon porn?"

"Dude, they don’t even have 18+ stickers on them. Look at the dude at the counter, he’s like 17, he won’t even pay attention, you should do it."

"No way, man, these are expensive."

"Whatever, you’re such a pussy sometimes, AJ."

My time had come. Well, okay realistically I wound up transferring schools in two years anyway and even had I not, nothing would have come from it because I could have just called out Rob for being kind of a perv, but when you’re in 7th grade and your entire life is just one extended episode of The Wonder Years, you eventually come around to the idea that you attempting to get adult-rated cartoons on a dare somehow will impact the rest of your social life.

I thumbed through the six VHS boxes for roughly a half hour, and eventually decided on the least offensive one (which still had a huge-breasted girl on the cover carrying a gun twice her size) and nervously wondered over to the counter with my heart pounding. Again, having been a goody-two shoes, and not usually getting in to any sort of trouble, I was half sure that this zitty 17-year-old store clerk was going to hit some button that locked the store and summoned the police to come take me away the second I put the box on the counter. He looked at the box. He looked at me. The exchange probably took three seconds but it seemed like hours. Like he was robot-scanning me with his eyes and coming up with a big red flashing “UNDER AGE. UNDER AGE" read out in his line of vision. I choked and was about to spit some excuse why I had the wrong tape, or didn’t realize if that one was not okay to buy, though to this day I have no idea what words were about to follow when I spat out:

"I…"

"That’ll be $31.79"


Success! My status as with the guys was cemented forever as Mark (who hadn’t been there that day and was also a bit of a nice kid) became our groups wuss and I had pulled off the grandest heist in the history of our little clique. Gum? That fits in a pocket. Someone’s brother’s playboys? No danger at all. What was he gonna do, tell his folks? Oh no. I fought the law and I won. A grand day for goody-two-shoes kids everywhere.

About a week later my mom left for a meeting of some sort and I popped in my video to see what exactly I’d gotten myself into. Now, keep in mind through all of this that I had no idea what “porn” actually was, and I’m willing to bet neither did my friends. My understanding of “adult material” was basically air-brushed models topless and I figured that somewhere there might have been photos with no pants on too. Had I wound up with La Blue Girl, I’d probably have screamed and threw the tape against a wall, as alien tentacle rape was a bit over my head.

It started and I remember the first thing I thought "it’s subtitled?! I have to fricking READ this?!" But my displeasure was brief as I quickly got into it. It was such an amazing soundtrack and the artwork was so dusty and cool. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before, peppered with some mild violence and swearing. …the cartoons I’d seen never had blood. The story itself was fantastic (well, at least by the standards of a 12 year old) and when it ended I was upset to find that it was just a part one sort of deal (back in the glorious days of two-episodes per tape.)

I guess kids today grow up with an understanding of anime. Lots of more kid-oriented series are on cartoon network and anime is presented AS Japanese cartoons instead of what we grew up with which was, at best, just dressed up and re-dubbed as a mostly American product. To me, and at that time, though, Iria was something I’d never seen before and it was something I was quickly in love with. I even, being somewhat of an analog wiz-kid for my age, made audio tapes of Iria that I’d listen to on the bus and between classes.

To this day, I’ve never been able to fully explain what it was about the short series that, today, I don’t even think all that highly of, but I went from totally unaware of anime to a huge fan virtually over the course of an hour.

Now, I’d like to tell you that my anime origin story is a little more classy. Maybe I stumbled onto Saturday Anime on the Sci-Fi channel, or learned about it online (afterall, I think AOL was getting big around this point) but no, unfortunately, my story starts with a begrudging attempt to see boobs and look cooler to my friends.

But hey, it could be worse. I could have never gotten into it at all.

Anime Review :: The Place Promised In Our Early Days

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.