Movies

I finished Vandread: Second Stage last week, but I was so busy this week that I haven’t had time to post any thoughts until now. As with the first series, I found myself quite pleased with this series. It’s more or less the continuation and conclusion to the first series, so this is isn’t too surprising. Potential spoilers ahead…

The men and women aboard the pirate ship Nirvana have learned to work well together and get past their cultural differences. This is a good thing because the enemy they face seems to be quite adaptable, raising the bar during each battle. We learn a lot about the enemy in this series, but it basically boils down to this: after initial colonists left from Earth, the planet suffered some sort of meltdown and the people of Earth could no longer reproduce. The Earthlings became jaded and twisted, consumed by hate and fear, eventually constructing a robotic fleet that would go after the colonists, harvesting their organs so that the Earthlings could continue to live. (I don’t know how much of this will make sense if you haven’t seen the series, but it would take too long to go through the entire story…)

The revelations are meted out at a reasonable pace and are mixed with various character development arcs that make up the series’ emotional core. Interestingly, the single most important character in the first series turns out to be something I barely noticed in the first series: the Paksis.

The Paksis, it’s alive!

The Paksis is the power plant of the Nirvana – it’s also apparently a living, sentient being. The Paksis was discovered on Earth as the colonists were beginning to expand into the galaxy. It’s unique properties made it ideal for an energy source, and so it was split into two: one remained on earth, the other was sent out with the colonists (eventually ending up on the Nirvana). The red Paksis has suffered as the people of Earth enslaved it to construct and power their harvester fleet, while the blue Paksis went on as part of the colonists’ fleet.

The Paksis is behind a lot of the confusing things that happen in the series – it’s the driving force behind the way ships combine and evolve, and it’s also got a self-preservation instinct that opened a wormhole and sent them light-years away in the first series. During many of the battles, the enemy shows the ability to adapt and evolve, mimicking many of the powers of our heroes. This lead to lots of questions until I realized that the Earthlings were simply using their Paksis to copy the fighting machines and tactics that were created by Nirvana’s crew. Steven Den Beste wrote about this a while back, using the Japanese word kiai (which essentially means “fighting spirit”) as a starting point:

All through the series the four primary characters seem to have an unreasonably fast learning curve regarding the abilities of the various versions of Vandreads as they appear, becoming adept at using them in just a few seconds. It’s not clear that the controls really matter, in fact. When they’re sufficiently motivated, the machine does what they need it to do pretty much no matter what control they use.

And afterwards they’re all weary, though Hibiki is usually the worst off in that regard. It’s because he’s been using his ki to make the machines run — because they’re not really machines.

What’s even more interesting is the cases where a character manages to raise their ki and when they do so it directly causes changes of some kind before our eyes. In Vandread it’s all about the Paksis; what they’re doing is to somehow link to the Paksis, which uses its mysterious powers to create what is needed. It isn’t necessarily a conscious need, of course. Hibiki does this more than anyone, and Meia/Dita/Jura do it to some extent, but Bart also does it once, in episode 16. (That is, the third episode of the second series.) Bart attains a sufficiently high emotional state that he is able to reach the Paksis, and as a result the Nirvana is changed to create banks of missile launchers.

Bart didn’t do that deliberately. But in the emotional state he was in at the time he didn’t question it. He was able to fully control them immediately. They did exactly what he expected them to do and needed them to do, even to where they struck only enemies and dodged around friends.

In essence, the entire series could be seen as a struggle between the red and blue Paksis, and the way the blue Paksis draws on the power of it’s crew leads to a lot of interesting character dynamics. As with the first series, there are several interesting character arcs here. One is the aformentioned arc with Bart, who becomes attached to sick little girl and is thus able to achieve an emotional state that allows him to interface with the Paksis (in order to protect the girl). It’s a fantastic episode, and it features a great reveal at the end:

Bart’s new haircut

Hibiki continues to grow, as does his relationship with Dita, and it turns out that Hibiki plays a surprisingly important role in unifying the opposition to Earth’s harvester fleet. Oh, and speaking of surprises, there’s a big one towards the end. Some hints were dropped, but I doubt anyone saw it coming (indeed, at first, I was really confused by what happened).

All in all, the story progressed well and most of the unanswered questions were resolved. We get more background on Earth, we get more detail on why Tarak and Mejale are segregated by sex (though I’m still not totally clear on that one), and of course we find out a lot more about many of the characters. There were some nitpicks and open questions, but nothing major. For instance, what was the deal with Gascogne’s return? I was happy to see her come back and all, but a little baffled as to how she managed to do so… it seemed extraneous and unnecessary to me. Also, the battles with Earth’s forces got a little repetitive, but you’d expect that in a series where our heroes engage the enemy in every episode. However, as I noted in my review of the first series, nitpicks don’t seem to bother me with this series.

In the end, it’s a solid series, and pretty much exactly what I was looking for. By the end, I was sad to see the characters go, but pleased that there was some sort of closure to the story that made sense. Thanks again to Steven for the recommendation.

As usual, more screens and comments below the fold…

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Vandread: Second StageRead More »

As requested, a review of Vandread. I finished the first series this week, and I must say that I’m quite pleased (this is in line with my initial thoughts). The first series doesn’t answer all the questions that were raised and the story isn’t complete, but it answers some and provides a great, satisfying finale. It’s a big, spectacular battle sequence, but the reason it’s satisfying has little to do with the action (though that’s fun too).

It occurrs to me that I haven’t actually described the story much yet. Sometime in the future, men and women seem to have segregated themselves on separate planets, and for three generations, a war has been waged between the sexes (apparently, in this future, technology provides a means to reproduce which does not require interaction between the sexes). It’s a little unclear why this rift exists, but it does, and it is exacerbated by propaganda depicting the opposite gender as monsters or worse. Hibiki is a mechanic that works on Vanguards (giant fighting robots or mechas), and as part of a dare, he attempts to steal one off a ship that is launching. Of course, he gets stuck on the ship, which is promptly attacked by women pirates. During the course of the battle, the ship takes moderate damage, but its core power generator has some rather nifty automatic repair mechanisms that sorta run haywire, merging the men’s ship with the women’s ship and transporting them far away. Hibiki and two other men are stuck on the ship with a bunch of women, and to make matters even worse, they seem to have stumbled into a new, unknown enemy that attacks on sight. Who are these new enemies, where do they come from, and what do they want? And can the three men work hand in hand with women to defeat this mysterious foe?

The male & female ships are merged into this ship, dubbed Nirvana

In general, the series has a lot of action, but the focus is pretty squarely on the characters. There are a few standouts who get the majority of attention, but many of the side characters are also interesting and likeable. The main characters are Hibiki and Dita (one of the female pirates), and their relationship has grown pretty steadily throughout the series to a point where they’re both acknowledging that they kinda like each other. Hibiki has had the clearest character arc so far and I think the ending of the first series is satisfying because of the way Hibiki handles the final battle. The story of the series doesn’t end, but Hibiki has definitely changed, and for the better. He was a bit of an annoying loudmouth at the beginning of the series, but he has grown, and it’s been handled well. Again, many of the characters are likeable (though not all – I’m not a huge fan of Jura or Barnette, but that’s only a minor beef, and I’m pretty sure they capture what the writers were going for anyway), and there are many little subplots and relationships that are entertaining and fun. My favorite subplot was the Christmas episode. I’m a total sucker for Christmas stories, and I absolutely loved that episode. (Screenshots and more comments on this subplot below the fold.) I’m guessing that some of these characters will be fleshed out a little more in the Second Stage (the stoic male doctor Duero and the female engineer Parfet will continue to flirt, Bart might actually become something of a leader and maybe get with BC, and Meia, well, I’m not sure what she’s up to, but I think she’s an interesting character.)

Bart & BC share a moment

The animation is pretty and the action sequences are well executed. I mostly watched the series with dubbing on, though I took a gander at the subtitles as well (as I’ve noted before, I’m interested in the differences between translations, and will still occassionally watch a series with english dubbing and subtitles on at the same time). I haven’t settled on which is better in general, but the dubbing on this series wasn’t bad at all, so I ended up sticking with that for most of the series. The translation seems a bit funny at times (dialogue that is supposed to be witty banter or sound inspirational sometimes fall a little flat), but the general idea always gets through. The music is serviceable, but not great (I’m just spoiled by Yoko Kanno, I think). All in all though, it seems to be pretty well produced.

The story still has a fair share of open questions, but again it seems to be progressing nicely and I’m looking forward to watching the Second Stage. The series is clearly episodic with an overarching story underlying everything. This works well, as the episodic content allows the writers to develop the relationships between the characters. Lots of jokes are made exploring the differences between the two sexes, and it’s quite fun. The ending of this first series was great, though I can’t imagine getting that far and not wanting to watch Second Stage. The series was pretty much exactly what I expected, and it seems like it’s got a lot of the steriotypical Anime tropes, right down to the way the characters (i.e. faces, hair, clothes) are animated. Everything looks somewhat familiar, but not (I could swear I’ve seen half of these people before). For a beginner like myself, this definitely isn’t a bad thing, and it seems like a pretty good gateway drug. There are some aspects of the plot that might seem strange upon closer inspection, but I don’t seem to be getting hung up on nitpicks or anything. It’s funny, but corny stuff that might normally bother me doesn’t seem to be doing so with this series…

Again, I’m very much looking forward to the conclusion of the story, which I assume happens in the Second Stage. Thanks again to Steven for the recommendation… this is just about exactly what I was looking for.

More screenshots & commentary below the fold…

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VandreadRead More »

So I’ve seen the first 8 episodes of Vandread, and I should be finishing the first series early this week. So far, it’s pretty good. I’m holding off on pronouncing any final verdict until I reach the end, but I have to admit that I’m enjoying myself so far and I’m kinda looking forward to a long-term story that has an actual ending.

American TV has recently experienced an explosion of the sprawling, multi-season story. This has been bolstered by the emergence of the TV DVD market, which makes it possible to catch up with a series really quickly. The problem is that I honestly think this Writers of Lost parody is a fairly accurate representation of what goes on in the writing office for some of these series. I gave up on Lost after watching the first season on DVD and I won’t watch another episode until someone tells me there’s a definite ending and that it’s a good ending that actually makes sense. I actually enjoyed watching the first batch of Heroes episodes, but I get that same sorta feeling that the writers are just screwing around and making it up as they go along. As Dalton Ross writes in a recent editorial in Entertainment Weekly, “As much as I love all the drawn-out mysteries and soap opera shenanigans, there’s something I crave even more — closure.”

This is one of the things about Anime that really appeals to me. I’m sure there are a bunch of ongoing series, but it seems like a lot of the series have definite ends, and thus have good, long yet concise character arcs, etc…

Vandread has its share of mysteries and open questions (especially in the first couple of episodes), but the series has progressed nicely, and I’m looking forward to the ending. Indeed, I already put Vandread: Second Stage in my Netflix queue. If the ending of the first series stinks, I can always remove it, but I don’t anticipate any major issues.

As usual, I’m noticing little bits and pieces of culture that I’m not familiar with. For instance, when Dita first encounters Hibiki, she makes some sort of greeting gesture with her hand (I added screenshots in the extended entry below). Dita appears to be a UFO nut, so maybe that gesture is some sort of universal greeting or something (like the lights and tones at the end of Close Encounters). Hibiki returns the gesture (further supporting the universal greeting theory), and then promptly runs away. Did I mention that in the Vandread universe, men and women have segregated themselves to different planets and are pretty much at war with one another? I thought this was a little strange, but it makes for some interesting dynamics (and I’m sure it will play a role in the progression of the series).

Dita chases Hibiki

More screenshots & comments in the extended entry below…

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Vandread: Initial ThoughtsRead More »

In case you can’t tell, I like movies. A lot. I’ll watch just about anything, and indeed, I’ve spent a fair amount of time seeking out the strange and offbeat films that most of my friends have never heard of. When it comes to this sort of thing, I tend to go into phases. Hong Kong Action, Italian Horror, and Japanese Yakuza films (among many other genres) have captured my attention for a time. As such, it shouldn’t be surprising that I’ve seen my fair share of Japanese animation. For the most part, my exposure has been limited to films, but I’ve seen a few series as well.

Now, I’ve consumed enough anime, and I read enough blogs in the Otakusphere, to know what I’m getting into here. I recently played along with the Filmspotting podcast’s Animation Marathon, which contained a bunch of anime films (several of which I’d already seen, but welcomed the chance to revisit). The marathon is over, but I feel like I’m just getting started. The only problem is that I’m not sure where to go from here. So, in an attempt to figure this out, I’m going to list out what I’ve seen, what I’m looking for, and some series I know about but haven’t seen yet. If you have any recommendations, feel free to drop a comment, but I’ve been cautioned to take recommendations with a grain of salt (which you kinda have to do for anything subjective like this).

What I’ve seen: (in rough chronological order)

• Akira: My first forray into anime (unless you count Voltron) was largely unappreciated by me, thanks mostly to a horrible translation and bad transfer. I basically thought it was an incoherent mess (and I stand by that, given the crappy VHS experience), but when I revisited it during the marathon, I saw the new translation and digital transfer and was pleasantly surprised. I didn’t love it, as the characters were annoying and generally unlikeable, but my opinion had greatly improved.
• Ninja Scroll: At the recommendation of a friend, I rented this once. I have almost no recollection of this movie at all. I wanna say there was a scene on a boat at one point. I remember liking it, but not loving it.
• Ghost in the Shell: I enjoyed this movie the first time I saw it, but I have to admit that it was a little out of my teenage self’s league. I have since seen it several times and have grown to appreciate some of the challenging and thought provoking questions it raises.
• Princess Mononoke: I distinctly remember watching a documentary on animation sometime around 1998 and seeing some clips from this movie and being awestruck. When it was finally released in the states, I jumped at the chance to see it and absolutely loved it. It’s a fantastic film… yet, I have to admit that I haven’t seen it since then and many of the details escape me. This is probably worth revisiting at some point.
• Spirited Away: As much as I liked Princess Mononoke, this movie topped it, and when I learned that it was the same filmmaker, I was somewhat astounded. I rented it because it had won an Oscar, not because I knew it was from the makers of Princess Mononoke. It’s a great film, and I gave it the best film award in the animation marathon.
• Haibane Renmei: There was a bit of a gap between Spirited Away and this series (which happens to be my first actual anime series), and I hold Haibane Renmei responsible for my more recent interest in Anime. I checked it out because of the enthusiastic recommendations of Steven Den Beste, and, well, just about everybody else who has ever mentioned it. Put simply, this series is superb. Some have claimed that it’s almost too good, and that everything else that follows will be a letdown. This might be true, but I’ve had about a year to cool off, and I think I should be fine:P
• Cowboy Bebop: The Movie: I cought this on Comcast OnDemand, and thought it was great. Unlike most of what I’d seen before, this was just good, clean action-packed fun. The music was so great I went out and bought a bunch of soundtrack CDs and listen to them often. As far as anime gateway drugs go, I’d think this would be a good choice (right behind Miyazaki films, natch).
• Serial Experiments Lain: This was my next series, and boy was it a doozy. I’d heard good things and the technological themes appealed to me, so I netflixed it. At this point, I’m still not sure what the heck it’s all about. As I mention in the linked post from the Kaedrin Forum, I think it’s perhaps a little too obtuse and deliberate, but also quite good. Once I figured out the “unreliable narration” angle, a lot of things clicked into place, but I need to watch the series again sometime to really work things out.
• Grave of the Fireflies: One of the few movies in the animation marathon I’d never seen before, and, well, it’s great, but I’m pretty traumatized by this. Since this was the last new thing I’ve seen, I think my next movie/series should be something a little more upbeat. Please.
• Miscellaneous Stuff: I’ve seen a handful of episodes from a bunch of series on Adult Swim, but this is far from ideal. I’ve seen a few episodes of Inuyasha, Fullmetal Alchemist, Witch Hunter Robin and a bunch of other series. For the most part, this stuff just went over my head, probably because I was jumping into the middle of various series, and so I never really got into anything there. I vaguely remember watching Vampire Hunter D a long time ago, but remember very little about it (I also remember watching some othe vampire hunter anime show, but again, don’t remember much). I remember attempting to watch some Mecha related anime movie on cable. For the most part, it didn’t make sense and I never finished it (don’t even remember the name). I watched Steamboy and was blown away with the visuals, even if I had totally lost interest by the end of the movie (same issues here as with Akira, which makes sense because it’s made by the same people). I also recently went back and filled in most of Miyazaki’s catalog, though there are still a few films I’ve yet to see. They’re all great, though I don’t think any approaches Spirited Away (Howl’s Moving Castle was awesome until about 2/3 of the way through, at which point it began to unravel).

That’s pretty much it. I’m sure I missed a few things here or there, but that should give you a rough idea where I’m at and what I think of the genre. Overall, it’s actually been pretty good to me, and there aren’t many movies/shows I disliked. However, at this point, I’m not really sure where to go next.

What I’m looking for: For the next series I watch, I’m going to impose a few somewhat strict guidelines. I want to watch a series, but not something too long. I don’t want to have to wade through 18 DVDs or anything absurd like that. A 13 or 26 episode series would be fine. At some point, I’m sure I’ll move on to longer series, but for now, let’s keep it relatively short. Sort of related, I’d like the story to be complete (or at least, the arc should be complete). I don’t want to have to wait for new DVDs to come out before I can finish the series! I’d like something that has a good story arc (i.e. a character or plot based narrative), and preferably one that doesn’t have a downer ending (I’ve had my fill with Grave of the Fireflies, thank you). I’m also looking for something that’s a little more action-packed and fun than what I’ve been watching recently (i.e. not something like Serial Experiments Lain). I don’t mind kid’s shows, but that’s not exactly what I’m looking for (I’m flexible on this one though). All recommendations are welcome, as I’ll certainly need something after this… but this is what I’m looking for at the moment. Oh, one last requirement, the series needs to be available on Netflix.

What I’m currently considering: I seem to have fallen into reading a significant portion of the Otakusphere (SDB, Fledge, Shamus, Pixy, Alex, Pete, and a couple of others), and even if I have no idea what they’re talking about most of the time, I’ll occasionally notice a title here or there, so I have some ideas as to what could come next. Two pages I’ve been referring to while writing this post are Steven’s reviews and Steve Yegge’s Anime post. Unfortunately, I’ve already had to nix a couple of series, but I haven’t looked real hard at most of these.

• Cowboy Bebop: When I think about what I want for my next series, I keep thinking about the Cowboy Bebop movie. That’s exactly what I’m looking for, so you’d think this series would be a perfect fit. However, my understanding is that it has something of a downer ending. I’ll definitely be watching this series, and probably sooner rather than later, but not next.
• Martian Successor Nadesico: I seem to recall hearing that this was an excellent series to start with, however, it sorta fails the Netflix test: disc 5 is not available (the other discs are). The series is apparently out of print, and apparently Netflix’s copy of disc 5 took a beating. This is most frustrating, as this sounds exactly like what I want. I might check to see if I can download the episodes on disc 5 and netflix the rest, but that just seems like a hassle. It sounds like a blast though, and I’d really like to check this one out.
• Noir: I considered this because it sounds really interesting… unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to fit what I’m looking for right now. However, I am intrigued and will most likely watch this at some point.
• Angelic Layer: Sounds interesting, but I need to look into it more.
• Twelve Kingdoms: Based mostly on Steve Yegge’s enthusiastic recommendation. A quick quote from his post which has broad applicability to anime and foreign movies in general:
  

  You know how little kids at a certain age like to watch the same movie over and over and over again, for up to a year, and child psychologists say that each time they see it they’re seeing it from a new perspective? Well, 12 Kingdoms was like that for us. There’s so much for a Westerner to take in. We missed a lot of it the first time around. It took at least 3 or 4 viewings before the patterns started taking shape in our minds.

  Cool stuff. Still, I need to look into this series a little more. SDB was a little frustrated because it wasn’t finished yet, but at this point, I think it has finished (but I’m not sure)

• Last Exile: Another Steve Yegge recommendation, though I’ve heard this has a bit of a downer ending too (but I need to look into that).

Well, since I’m significantly past my midnight deadline, I figure this is as good a place as any to stop. At this point, I’m not at all sure what to get. Maybe I’m being too specific with my requirements… Let me know what you think. Again, all recommendations are welcome and I’ll probably consider a bunch more than are listed above… or maybe I’m overthinking this and will be bitten by the paradox of choice.