Ok… So i’m not planning on doing this often, especially for things that are now kinda old, but i felt like i had to do a review on this anime. It’s not often that something can have an emotional impact on me, but this series made me want to cheer with joy or cry bitter tears so many times, that it seemed impossible to go without advertising it a bit.
The series is called Gurren Lagann to most because, well, the name is pretty long and it takes literally till the end of the series to understand what the first two words are for (If you aren’t a Japanese prodigy). Even the Gurren part of it takes a few episodes to understand, so initially it should probably be called just Lagann, but, whatever… Just let me explain it’s coolness a bit then worry bout the name.
Basics of the story are that for some unknown reason humans are living completely under ground and eeking out a meager existence without sight of the sky. One small underground village is the home to a child named Simon. He’s nothing special and is misunderstood by most and valued by few. He is one of the many in his village that spends his days tunneling, looking for valuable items to pay for food that his dead parents can no longer provide him. His existence is complicated and made interesting by his only friend, a young man named Kamina. He is also misunderstood and valued by few, but has limitless ego, faith, and drive. These are things that Simon lacks and envies. Kamina’s one wish is to breach the ceiling and once again see the sky that his father showed him long ago, and Simon therefore works toward this end as well.
One day a series of events string togethor to allow the characters to make it to the surface, but it opens a whole new series of problems to take on.
That said i have to talk about the mood a bit, cause i may have just made it sound like its a completely serious series that has no room for humor. It’s pretty much the opposite. The character’s complexities and backgrounds provide a firm foundation for the writer to go completely crazy with. The first third of the series has only a few serious moments in it, and it pretty much revolves around the piloting of huge ridiculous looking robots that are nothing but huge faces with arms and legs protruding oddly out of them. That should put things in perspective a bit. TTGL puts about as much effort into making giant robots cool as the American animation Megas XLR does, which is to say both tons and little to none at all. You need to see it to fully understand the awesomeness and lack thereof.
Oh, and i should mention the liberal amounts of fan service scattered about. The only female character is dressed in nothing but a undersized bikini top and hotpants, and the series uses every imaginable camera angle and situation to show off the character. I swear she is not the only reason i watched the series… and ignore the fact that the artwork for this post is of her and none of the other characters… Any way enough of that.
Last of all is artistic type stuff. I know what you are thinking if you know me even a little. “Wait a sec. He saved art stuff for the end. He loves art stuff and can’t help but start every article about it. WTF is up?” To answer your question (or my idea of your question…) it really doesn’t matter. “WHAT? What did he just say? Is The j suN felling all right?” Yes i am doing fine. And thanks for your concern. Don’t get me wrong. The series looks pretty good, and the animation is well done, but it could have been stick figures and achieved the same result in my opinion. You get so invested in the characters and have so much fun with the absurdity of it all that you probably won’t need to pay attention to the art. It is way more about the feeling you get watching every episode.
TTGL is really something to behold because every episode places the characters in situations where you end up cheering for the result time and time again.
Final scores outa 100%
Anime newcomer: 83%
Anime whore: 98%
WWE Fan: 95%
Total score: 92% outa 100%
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OK… so first i neeed to say that i was never a big fan of the original Speed racer show. I know it seems like i shouldn’t be the one to review it because i have no love for it going in, but that perspective will be reserved for 6of6 in another review. Trust me when i say that the fact that i wasn’t a fan didn’t color my review of this. (i know its hard, but try)
I HATED THIS MOVIE… and here is why..
So… where to begin… I’m a fairly visual guy, so ill start there. The good part is that individual elements are outright awesome. Most of the cars look slick. All of the characters look appropriately comic-bookie. The Tracks look daunting and sorta badass. The environments and cities look fairly impressive. So what is wrong with all that? ITS TOO DAMN MUCH EYECANDY!!! Seriously your eyes will burn out in this movie. I am soo glad i chose a seat farther back in the theater than i normally do, cause i think i would have blown out an ability to see at all. There is no priority on anything in this movie. Little to no motion blur, focusing, or color variation on anything makes everything a huge blur of sparkles and colors. Scenes were handled with little to no finesse or artistry at all. But why would i be expecting that in this movie, right? Its a movie of a cheezy old anime. Should i expect more… Well that brings me to my next point.
Everything in this movie is out of balance. It seems to me like all of the movies i have seen lately that are trying to take a comic or a tv series and make it either exactly like the original or try to take it to a new level by adding something to up the complexity or drama of the movie. This movie could never figure out where it wanted to sit, so it never did any of it well, or anywhere approaching well. Characters would try to show emotion or complexity, but the scenes that did this would drag on till you felt like falling asleep or yelling at the characters to STFU. Scenes that showed the racing would try so desperately to go over the top that the racing didn’t make sense any more. The goal is to get from one place to another fast… so why are they taking time to make all these stupid spins at every turn? There were some things that were handled perfectly. The air jacks were used well just about every time, and sometimes the jumping looked reeally cool. The casting was perfectly done to recreate the original characters. Heck, i even thought Racer X was pretty cool. (even though he was wearing some wierd bondage costume) But these things couldn’t save the movie from all of the over-the-top useless action, or the over-the-top useless dialog.
When i left the theatre i couldn’t imagine anyone liking this movie. Kids would be bored to tears with half of it. Adults would be dazed and confuesd. Where was the appeal besides the con artistry of roping in original Speed Racer fans. Just two minutes into the movie i commented to Gamin “Now i know what it would be like if Uwe Bowl and George Lucas had a clone baby that started to make movies” And it sums it up pretty well. The directors never stopped to ask themselves if they were doing things badly or overusing special effects. They just blundered on, blindly believing that they were doing great. As little as i cared for the show, i was left feeling like i would much rather of watched it for two hours.
Definitely a contender for one of my least favorite movies of all time.
This is one of the few times a letter grade system fails me. An F could be anywhere between a zero to a 50% good. So here is something new.
An F with an 82% chance of being crap. Some people will not be disappointed, but it will be few.
-The j suN
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How could i forget anime and what prompted me to remember it(you almost certainly are asking yourself)? The dvd of the new Evangelion movie was just released and promptly subbed by a rabid Evangelion fanboy fanbase. Honestly i was caught of guard by this. I had no idea anything new was happening to the Evangelion series but i am a fan so i watched it, preparing for some horrible sequel or some other abomination. I was even more disappointed when i realized that it was just the original series reedited… but then i realized something else. ALL of the animation was completely redone and CG elements were inserted into practically everything. It started to dawn on me how beautifully done everything was an i got hooked all over again. HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS? Then i realized i did know about this. I heard about it about a year ago and dismissed it, thinking ‘oh great, now it isn’t just George Lucas redoing his stuff, its all my favorite animes too’. Well… now i realize how much of an idiot it was, because the new Evangelion is spectacular.
I guess i should give all of the uninitiated an idea of what the series is about. In order to do that i have to jump back years ago to me hanging out with Gamin and watching random stuff. We popped in Neon Genesis Evangelion wondering what we were in for. The title is really something after all. Hmm…Neon…Vegasish maybee?… Genesis…Music group or bible reference?… Evangelion…well thats just standard anime word BS. Nothing new there. The box art looked good though so i was sold from the beginning. I am a sucker for good artwork after all. The show followed a young kid that was showing up in post apocalyptic Tokyo just in time for a huge monster to attack it(no it isn’t just a Godzilla ripoff). Thing was, Evangelion really shined in its ability to put you in the character’s shoes as he tried to deal with the reasons he was summoned to Tokyo while trying to get the attention of his parentally absent father. Big jump huh? Godzilla to psychological drama. Well oddly enough it wasn’t a big jump. It was damn near perfect. It was hardly noticeable that the main character had been put into the ludicrous situation of fighting off the creature In a giant robot looking thing. But thats when the series got really good. The end of the first episode the kid manages to summons up confidence in himself and defeat the monster easi… well… Ok. So the kid fails horribly and gets his ass kicked. Like majorly kicked. He trips the giant robot and falls right into the clutches of the monster who promtly rips the robot thing’s arm off then delivers a killing blow to the head. All of this leaves the main character in pain and near death because his brain is hooked up to the thing. How that ends up saving the day, you have to see for yourself, but i think both Gamin and I were stunned. The kid failed? WHAT? It was a spark of realism that we weren’t expecting from the series, or from anime in general. I was fatally hooked.
So here i am now, geeking out over them remaking this thing. They are making a series of four movies that retell the story of the anime, as well as putting in some stuff the comic series had, from what i can tell. Good thing too, cause the TV series had one of the shitiest endings of all anime. They eventually fixed it with a couple of movies to properly finish the series… but i digress. If i get all serious about reviewing the new movie i have to admit that the story isn’t told as masterfully as the a original series did. They wanted to cover a lot of ground and only had a couple hours to do it. It’s hard to compete with the amount of time a tv series can take to flesh out characters etc. But still, its done very well considering. AND THE VISUALS! The originals series had really great animation and beautiful settings, but it was just before computer animation was anywhere near cost effective. This time around everything is digitally done with crisp clean colors and lines, as well as even more beautifully rendered backgrounds(aided by cg). It is visually badass.
What it all comes down to is this. If you have never seen anything of Evangelion, check this out. If you have seen Evangelion, check this out. For now i have to say that the original series had a bit better story, but the next installment might blow that out idea out of the water. i’ll have to get back to you all about that when i get a peek at the next one.
For more anime post apocalyptic fun, check out Akira (manga if you can), and Appleseed(manga, 90’s anime movie, then new movies). I might write about more obscure ones at some later point.
Later peeps-
- The j suN
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