Anime Review: Paranoia Agent

Despite my love of strange shows I had never actually seen this one until this past summer (which did surprise some other anime fans who knew me when we saw a few episodes of it in my school's anime club), honestly it's just because the series is out of print in the US and I do try to keep my pirating down to as little as I can. But the college near me had the first three discs in their library, not a full set but close enough, so that gave me the incentive to go try the series out. After all, I had seen and liked Paprika, Millennium Actress, and what I had seen of both Tokyo Godfather and Paranoia Agent so this show was right up  my alley, right?

Paranoia Agent

Summary: Starting with an artist at a popular design company, Tokyo has been struck by a wave of strange crimes, all involving various people being injured by a boy on golden roller blades with a baseball bat (Shonen Bat in Japanese, Lil' Slugger in the English translation). There seems to be a tenuous connection between the crimes but soon the crimes grow and expand and the line between reality and fiction begins to blur.

The Good: Fans of Satoshi Kon's other works, especially I feel those who would list Paprika as their favorite of his works, should check this one out since this show has his stylistic fingerprints all over it. Nothing is as it first appears, or even as it later appears it turns out, and it is truly a show that can be defined by the word "mindf*ck". I can easily see why it appeals to so many fans out there, while there are many shows that could also be called mindf*cks this one is strange in a way that's different from most of them (it reminded me a lot of the little I've seen of Serial Experiments Lain, although that's not necessarily a good thing).

The Bad: By about half way through the show it was clear, I just really didn't like this series. I don't know what went wrong, in the first few episodes I was hooked and really liked how each story had a duality through it and thought that would be connected in the end. But by the time they caught (?) Shonen Bat I had just lost interest and slogged through hoping the show would recapture it and that simply didn't happen. By the end I still didn't have a clue what had really happened (my earlier theories involving people with dual sides having been shot down), many of the characters didn't seem important in the end, and my beset guess is that it had to do with some kind of mysticism/power of thought and I'm really picky about those themes in shows*. In the end this show was a complete bust for me, which might be a good thing since now I don't have the urge to track down the horribly overpriced, OOP DVDs. 

The Audio: Right, I know that the opening theme here is one that many anime fans just adore but I really don't like it. I'm not sure why but it just rubs me the wrong way and I fast-forwarded through it nearly every time. The ending theme did grow on me a bit 

The Visuals: One thing that amazes me is that Satoshi Kon's works not only has distinctive themes but also a distinctive art style to them. It's not an over the top style, if anything it leans slightly more realistic than un- but many of the characters have the same eye shape and facial structure across series. I thought the art was okay, at times it seemed a bit lower budget (which easily could've been my computer messing with me), however it worked well whenever the visuals became the most important part of a scene and I have no complaints here.


Perhaps I would have liked this show more if I had a chance to discuss it with people between episodes, instead of watching it in chunks over about a month, but as it stands I really didn't not like this movie. Thankfully the library had some other Satoshi Kon to balance this out later with.



*EDIT: Just checked tvtropes and it looks like I was on the right track actually, although there are still holes in that you could drive a truck through.

Anime Review: Mawaru Penguindrum

Quick note, I'm going to be at a con later this week so the plan is that Thursday's post will go up extra early and that Saturday and Sunday's posts will go up on Sunday together (and I'll make sure both of those are already written before I leave so I don't have to try and write them during post-con-lag). To make up for that next Wednesday I'll have my "continuing anime I'm still following" post and then next week I'll explain what my blogging schedule is going to look like from mid-January until sometime in May or later.

Back when information about this show first started surfacing I heard somewhere that it was going to be a kids show about penguins which didn't interest me terribly, even if Ikuhara of Revolutionary Girl Utena fame was directing it. And then Psgels of the Star-Crossed Anime Blog pointed out something interesting, the show was going to be taking over a late night slot so it certainly wasn't going to be for kids and posted some of the trailers which were filled with the characters darkly wondering about fate which did seem rather interesting. It's not Utena in any way shape or form, let's get that out of the way first, which isn't a bad thing, it's simply it's own story with some similar themes but really doesn't make for a good comparison.

Mawaru Penguindrum

Summary: Kanba, Shouma, and Himari are three siblings who all live together by themselves but Himari doesn’t have long to live. After she dies she is brought back to life by a mysterious penguin hat and the entity who resides in it tells Kanba and Shouma that this is only temporary, to bring Himari back to life permanently they must find the penguindrum, whatever that might end up being.

The Good: Mawaru Penguindrum is a strange, twist and symbolism heavy show which made for rather gripping storytelling and gave fans much to discuss every week. Nearly every character underwent significant character development (to the point where it's surprising who is the most crazy and who is the sanest by the end) and the story knew exactly when to show a flashback and when to keep the audience in suspense. I adored the show for all it's craziness and know I'll re-watch it in the future to see what details I missed the first time around.

The Bad: Not quite everything about the show is explained in the end and at times it's hard to tell when the location/actions on screen or symbolic or real which does bug some people. Sanetoshi wasn't the most gripping villain the end but that didn't bother me as much since the show didn't actually need a villain most of the time. It would have been nice to get a little more explanation on some parts of the show, or a view from a character unconnected to everything since it becomes clear that everyone remembers the past differently, but I'm not sure how well that could have been worked in. Shouma also takes a bit too long to do anything important and Ringo becomes a much more minor character in the second half but those were my only major complaints with the series.

The Audio: This is the first time I’ve seen a show where both openings were sung by the same singer but I really liked the effect. Normally it’s a little jarring when the opening or closing song changes but the visuals in both of the openings were incredibly similar and the endings also felt very connected through their imagery. There were actually ten different ending songs (and four insert songs) which bothered some people but I liked, no matter how great a song is it won’t fit the mood on every occasion so I liked how the songs got switched out*. As for the actual voice actors, this is the first major role for Ringo, Kanba, and Sanetoshi’s voice actors and the very first role for Himari’s which I find amazing, they were all great and I really hope to hear Himari’s VA in particular in more works.

The Visuals: The show had some absolutely great looking episodes (special mention goes to episode 18 which featured a lot of people who worked on Casshern Sins and it showed) and some bad looking ones (those didn’t bother me as much as they bothered some people but many people loathed how episode 10 looked). Hopefully the DVD/BR releases will clean up some of those episodes since when the art was good it was great, lots and lots of eye candy with interesting details and lovely color schemes.

As I've probably made abundantly clear, I loved this series so even the flaws it has doesn't bother me as much as they have bothered some people, possibly because I wasn't expecting certain things to get resolved/answered in the first place. I really hope someone licenses this show and brings it over so I rewatch it again and try to introduce more of my friends to it as well.

       

*actually, in one episode, I forget which had an ending that was really different from the previous episodes and I was thinking “man, when the song kicks in we’re in for some major mood whiplash” but then the song was different and it worked, that’s what the songs are supposed to do.

Anime Review: Neon Genesis Evangelion

So here it is, one of the best known anime titles that is literally known and loved/hated all over the world and one that many people say changed the mecha genre. I haven't seen that many mecha shows actually (I don't dislike the genre, I just never seem to end up watching most of it) and I don't believe I've seen any from before NGE so the show never felt really "revolutionary" to me in that respect, but plenty of non-mecha fans have loved the show as well so why not try it? Plus, now that I finally had both the time and the access to the local college library that had a copy of the Platinum collection what did I have to lose? Well, 13 hours of my life but that's not really so bad....

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Summary: The year is 2015 and the world suffered a terrible disaster around the turn of the century which destroyed Antarctica, changed the global climate and wiped out a large chunk of the human population. But soon they have even more pressing concerns, the world is being attacked by beings called "angels," believed to be responsible for the aforementioned disaster, and the only weapons that can defeat the angels are the evangelion series of mechas, of which there are disturbingly few and can only be piloted by equally disturbed young teenagers including our protagonist, one Shinji Ikari who will do anything to get praise from his father including piloting one of these mechs. 

Also, just to make things clear, I watched episodes 1-20, the directors cut version of episodes 21-24, episode 25 and 26 and then watched End of Evangelion so I think I've seen all the important parts from the tv show and I have not watched the Rebuild movies yet.

The Good: I enjoyed the ending of End of Evangelion more than the end of the series so I'm glad that was created, also because there was some plot related stuff that was finally confirmed/explained in this installment. The side characters in the series (such as the bridge trio, Shinji's classmates and a number of the adults) were surprisingly well-fleshed out and Nerv itself is one of the more capable evil-fighting, government organizations I've seen in a while*. And, while none of the characters are mentally stable by the end, a few of them do seem to (at least temporarily) overcome their issues and do what they needed to do and this feels particularly satisfying considering how long it took. 

The Bad: For most of the show I didn't understand why there has been so much hate over how whiny Shinji is over the years, there have been plenty of unlikeable protagonists after all, but the final two episodes of the tv series really tried my patience and simply felt really dumb. If I had seen this show back when I was still in high school and a tiny bit depressed maybe then I would have been able to better emphasize with the characters but instead I found myself getting more and more annoyed that there was no one to help these characters, the fact that a lot of the plot moves along because of there are no therapists just feels like sloppy plotting. I was also puzzled by what all the "Christian symbolism" people keep going on about in the series since I didn't see much of what I would call symbolism. There was some Christian imagery, and End of Evangelion certainly had some symbolism, but other than a few instances I really didn't see what everyone was talking about^.  

The Audio: While the opening song is surprisingly catchy (and almost prophetic in a few lines, "Just like the vengeful angel/young boy become a legend") the ending song just grated on me with it's English lyrics that didn't quite make sense. I watched the Japanese dub for the show and thought it worked well, Rei's voice was not as emotionless as I expected surprisingly, although Asuka's German sounded forced and rather bad. 

The Visuals: I watched the Platinum collection which, as I understand it, has the best video quality but the show hasn't aged well in places. At some parts the darker areas of the screen became grainy, the colors weren't always as vibrant and the lines sometimes weren't as nice and sharp. And at other times everything looked perfectly fine which left me a bit puzzled. 

So, other random thoughts, Misato is a total badass, Shinji is gay for Kaworu (seriously, how else can a one episode character have that big an effect, I don't even ship this!) and what was the production team smoking when they thought that episode 26 would be a good end to the series? All in all, no I didn't really like it (although I liked some part much more than I expected) and yes I will be watching the Rebuild movies for two reasons. One, I've seen a number of people who didn't like the original series like the movies (specifically, people who also have similar tastes to mine) and two, I somehow already have a copy of the Eva 2.22 blu-ray (would love to know how Funimation got my address) so I feel like I should see the movies, even if I don't have a BR player to watch it on....

*not telling everyone the full story? Sure, being manipulated by other government agencies, oh yeah, but actually doing their jobs with what they have? Yes and that's a lot more than what a lot of other fictional government agencies can say.

^I'm also fairly familiar with Christian imagery, having been raised/spent 13 years in a Catholic school and deliberately looking out for it in my English classes so I'd have something to write about in my essays and I honestly didn't see that much stuff. There was some random imagery but imagery isn't symbolism, symbolism needs to have meaning attached to it and the stuff that other people have pointed out online just didn't seem to have actual meaning, the stuff was just kind of there for visual effect. 

Anime Review: Revolutionary Girl Utena

Utena is one of the legends among recent anime, a series that is just so out there that it’s a masterpiece. Tvtropes calls it the shojo counterpart to Neon Genesis Evangelion (which is high praise, also means it’s mindscrews are on par with NGE’s which is also saying something). So, between watching Star Driver (which some people have dubbed it's spiritual successor) and seeing people talk about the similarities, to seeing people freak out when Right Stuf relicensed it, plus having a spare pink wig and thinking Utena would be fun to cosplay, it seemed like the perfect time to try out this mindf*ck of an anime.

 

Revolutionary Girl Utena

Summary: A long time ago, Utena Tenjou’s parents died and she was horribly depressed and wished to die. But she was saved by a mysterious prince on a white horse who inspired her so much that she wanted to become a prince as well. Now, guided just by the rose ring he left her, she has entered Otori Academy and finds herself tangled up in a series of duels for ownership of the Rose Bride and the mysterious power “to revolutionize the world.”

The Good: Back in high school I had to read a lot of deep, adult books that had tons of symbolism that I couldn’t understand until my teacher explicitly explained it and even then half of it didn't make any sense. So the fact that almost all of the copious amounts of symbolism in this show is just there for the sake of symbolism with no meaning besides what the fans attach to it, that both cracks me up and helped make me love the show.* All the plays inside the show that half-explain the show, the clip episodes that help explain the show, heck the duels themselves are highly symbolic. The show really isn’t about the actual duels but rather the situations surrounding them (much like Star Driver) and really uses this to flesh out the entire cast. Instead of having "winning the duels" as the characters goals, the duels become a means, an explanation, and a release for their goals and this works rather well, especially since this is a heavily character-driven plot.

The Bad: I’m still not quite sure what to make of the ending here. Oh sure I get what happened, but how exactly it happened and why, I think I need to go look up some fan theories on it. Beyond that, in retrospect the hundred duelists arc seems a bit superfluous (okay, I didn’t quite understand that arc, might need to look up more on that as well) plot wise. I can't think of anyway to trim down the series to a 26 episode series instead without losing something but in retrospect I just don't feel like that arc was horribly important.

The Art: The original art for the series sadly isn’t that impressive, at least to my eyes which are used to more CGI art. However, the remastered episodes, holy cow do they look niiiiiiice! They get rid of the weird glow in a lot of scenes, brighten up the colors, sharpen the lines, and get rid of the camera shake that I’ve seen in other old shows as well. It must’ve been a lot of work but it was well worth it, can’t wait to get the new DVDs! I also liked all the stock footage here, despite how out of date it looks, because it’s so dramatic and, like everything else, just adds to the overall strangeness of the show. So, while the original release of the show doesn't look exceptional, the remastered version looks great, but the reused footage will probably bother some people.

The Music: There isn’t just a lot of visual symbolism that makes no sense in this show, almost none of the insert songs make any sense. There’s a new one for each duel (so at least a dozen total, apparently the soundtrack for this series is huge) and the lyrics sometimes make a bit of sense about the fight at hand but mostly they add another layer of strangeness to the show. I love the opening song to death and prefer the second ending to the first one (I also think it has better graphics) but the song for opening the dueling arena really steals the show.

Sorry if the review sounds a bit weird, most of it was already written but I still had to touch it up and I'm feeling a bit out of it now, stupid cold. Just need to hold out a little longer, see the banff movie and then I can crash for the night, geeze, and it's going to be a long weekend too.

*I now lovingly call the show “Symbolism: THE ANIME” And yes I know that some of it does actually mean something but when the creators themselves admit they lost track of all the symbolism they threw in, I just don't worry about it as much.

Webcomic Review: Wasted Talent, Weregeek, What Birds Know, Winters in Lavelle

I have no idea how I manage to follow four awesome webcomics that start with the letter "W" while I only follow one for a much more common letter like "L." Oh well, life is strange like that, onto the reviews!

Wasted Talent
Another journal comic I just found recently that, like Today Nothing Happened, started when the artist was in college so the comic covers from then until current day young adult life (which, as someone whose starting to get a little freak out by "life after college" is rather reassuring). Following the life of the Jam it's a fairly realistic comic with only a little embellishment so anyone who likes slice-of-life or journal comics would probably enjoy this. I think it's also fun to see life from an engineer's perspective instead of an artist's (also fun to see comics made by non-USians) and just a fun comic in general, go look at it!


Weregeek
I've mentioned before that I know a number of comics that switch between fluffy, slice-of-life stuff and then more plot centric arcs and that's really hard to balance. Weregeek pulls it off in a really interesting fashion by focusing mostly on the characters regular lives but having occasionally having snippets from their tabletop games. For, as the comic title suggests, this is a comic about nerds (young adults, not the high school/college crowd) who live their ordinary lives by day but have all sorts of fun after work. The more nerdy references you know the better you'll like the comment (and if you don't the comments should be able to tell you at least what series it's from) and everything is done in good fun so you'll usually end up laughing at the page anyway. There does seem to be some sort of conspiracy lurking in the background of the slice-of-life side of things but that plotline may have been abandoned by now, one problem is that the story moves pretty slow since it's a three or four panel strip most days. Oh well, I'll take well done gags over ill-paced ones every day.


What Birds Know
A fantasy webcomic that has taken a mindf*ck turn of late, the premise of this story is that Vandi, Dores, and Elia are on a school trip to collect mushrooms for a teacher which should only take a few days to complete. But in those few days we've learned the backstories for all of them (all with some unhappy parts), learned about their families, and watched them slowly go crazy. To be as spoiler-free as possible, the first part of the story starts with a mysterious story about a prince, which is later repeated at the beginning of the third chapter and, while almost nothing has been explained about that, there have been enough hints in the story to suggest that this is directly related to the other weird/creepyness of the story. The creepiest part of the story however (and done on purpose) is how such strange and disturbing things will happen to the girls and then a cut to how their families are still going about their normal lives, or how most of the girls just accept these things that are happening. I'd love to have this one in print so I could reread it easier (since the reread I did before this review was really enlightening) and I recommend this to fans of fantasy or deconstruction in general (it's not a full-on deconstruction but it's doing something interesting).


Winters in Lavelle
Another fantasy comic, just without the mindf*ck part. The story starts a little before the comic does with Aiden Winters discovering a magic globe at his house that allows him to travel to another world and one day his sister (Kari), who knows about it and doesn't like it, follows him to the world (Lavelle, title drop!) and now their a bit stuck since they don't know where the corresponding orb is to bring them back home (and, to make matters more interesting, their dad figured out what happened and seems to be freaking out, plus the fact that Aiden's grandmother told him about the orb in the first place, makes for an interesting subplot). Oh, and Aiden and Kari now have magical amber stuck in them, are being chased by mysterious deer people, and might be getting mixed up with some rebels (politics please?), sounds like a fantasy story to me! The comic still feels young to me, past the introductory stage but not by much, so I can't wait for more, is it Friday yet?




I've got yet another speaker to hear tomorrow (I think the photography department is trying to bore me to death) but since I only have one comic to review tomorrow everything should go up as normal! But, since I'm already talking about it, no reviews Monday since I have back to back club and speaker (and they're not even the last one! ;-; ) which means that I'll spend three straight hours knitting and that doesn't leave much room for reviewing, at least I like knitting....

Webcomic Review: Kagerou, Khaos Komix, Kinnari, Kiwi Blitz, The Knit Princess

Whew, I *think* I remembered every regularly updating webcomic that starts with "K" that I follow but I don't have my list with me so bear with me if I update this later. And yes this update already has five webcomics on it, what can I say, webcomic artists just love giving their creations odd names (I actually know of even more that haven't updated lately!).

Kagerou
While a lot of the comics I've reviewed so far have been rather short, even those comics have been around for a couple of years already but Kagero probably takes the cake since it's been around and updating (without restarting or any of that, it's been one continuous ride) for ten years. That's a really long time and, as a result, the archive is quite impressive but not nearly as impressive as the art shift (yes I want to buy these books, just holding out to see if the artist will be at my local con). So what is the story about? Well, Kano has somehow been pulled to another world and is charged with becoming the champion to protect a princess but this whole adventure could be going on inside my head. He's a young man with a traumatic past (that still isn't fully explored), has at least three other personalities (or possibly real people) living in his head, and there are some complications with the princess he's supposed to protect as well. On paper it sounds like a generic fantasy but in practice it's a colorful mindf*ck that really needs a character sheet and may require a reread every now and then. This one has a bit of an erratic schedule update by the way, what I do is follow the livejournal community for the series and get the updates that way and that's probably the best way to follow the comic (unless it has a twitter I don't know about).

Khaos Komix
A quick word, this one also gets a mature warning and the site itself provides a mature warning on the front page, there is quite a bit of sex in this series. I don't recall anything explicit in the series, I think there is some in the side comics however, but if you aren't okay with the idea of gay sex (and it's not subtle at all) you probably shouldn't be reading this.
Now that that is out of the way, this comic is mainly about a bunch of British teens coming to terms with their sexuality, some with more angst than others, and the story is formatted to follow one teen at a time. Each story builds on the previous one and each one starts in a slightly different place time wise (some earlier than the previous story, some in the middle of the previous story) and none of them end when all the issues are worked out, you still see the characters in the background of the later stories dealing with their problems. Judging by the archive, we've still got at least one more story to go now and I hope this story will have some happy endings in it. The art is alright in the story, I haven't reread it recently but some people have complained about art shifts in it yet I never noticed anything like that when reading it. So, the arts okay, the story is good, go read it if you're in the mood for something mature!


Kinnari
Part of the reason I love reading webcomics is because they're a bit more diverse than all the books/anime/manga/TV I spend my time viewing and this is a great example of that. Based off of Indian mythology, the story seems to follow Neel and Manu and, since the title comes from the word kinnara which means "slightly human," they are probably not what they appear to be. So far they've had prophetic dreams, been attacked, and had another adventure or two in the dreamscape but I'm having a little bit of a hard time following the plot. Partially this is because it only updates once a week and I sometimes forget to check but this is also a fairly new comic so the central plot hasn't made an appearance yet (I also wonder if my unfamiliarity with Indian myths is hurting me but so far there have been detailed author comments explaining the unfamiliar stuff). So I'm hoping for a little more exposition soon, otherwise I'm going to be confused for a bit longer.

Kiwi Blitz
I only discovered this comic recently, it's a newer comic compared to some of the others I read, but it's already out of the introductory phase and into the main plot, huzzah for fast pacing! Our protagonist is Steffi, a hyper young girl who loves battling in giant, animal shaped robots and when her dad (a robot designer) giver her her own kiwi shaped robot she decides to not register it for the fighting games and use it to fight crime instead. Aside from a few cusewords in German the comic is family friendly and I probably would have enjoyed it as a kid both for the plot and the very brightly colored art. The first volume is in print now but I'm on the fence about buying it. As I just said, the art is very colorful and fun but I'm not so sure if I want to reread it so I'll wait a little longer and see where the story goes before making a decision^.

The Knit Princess
There are webcomics about everything including knitting it turns out*, who would've guessed? The story is a fluffy, slice of life story that is going to be enjoyed more by knitters than anyone else (since almost all the humor is knitting based) although any craft person will probably snicker at the idea of projects moving around by themselves or pets messing them up. They recently got a new artist so there has been a dramatic art shift and I personally like the new art better (it's a bit simpler and the characters seem more energetic) but the writer is still the same so no changes to the humor.


 Sorry if this was kinda late tonight, it's been a busy day and I'm so glad I've only got one webcomic to review tomorrow, any guesses on what it is?



^Yes I recommend it, if I review it here during this review month that means I recommend it, it's just that I don't have a lot of shelf space these days so I'm picky about what I buy. Speaking of which, need to move some stuff around again, don't think I can squeeze another shelf in....
*I'm still trying to figure out if this or the webcomic about librarians is odder, Knit Princess probably takes the cake however since Unshelved is mostly realist.

Manga Review: Afterschool Nightmare (volumes 1 & 2)

I mentioned in my review of Afterschool Charisma that I picked it up thinking it was a volume in the series of Afterschool Nightmare, that would be these books actually. It's another series that was published by CMX so I didn't find out about it until after the company folded. I found the first two (out of I believe ten) books up here at the local library (because apparently libraries love CMX and Go Comi manga, all the better for me!) and checked them out after I made off with half of the libraries selection of +Anima and it looks like they don't have the rest, boo.

Afterschool Nightmare by Setona Mizushiro

Summary: Mashio Ichijo has a secret, he identifies as a guy but was born with the lower half of his body female and the story starts with his first period. Later in the day, after discussing with his classmates why they can't remember any of their classmates who recently left, he is called by the school nurse to the secret basement of the school to face his nightmares and the nightmares of his fellow classmates.

The Good: I really like the set-up/setting of this story, fighting in dreams is nothing new and having a bunch of incredibly messed up characters is nothing new either but the story hints that there is something even more sinister going on behind the scenes. Also, there don't appear to be any real good guys in the story yet, everyone seems to have their own agenda or is simply fending for themselves and, with a cast of characters that are this messed up, that should prove to be pretty interesting.

The Bad: But unfortunately the story isn't that interesting yet. It's moving right along, the characters seem to be developing a tiny bit and the story has revealed/dropped clues about a few things, but it just hasn't done anything big yet. I suspect that once Ichijo really starts to develop as a character he'll be a major catalyst in the story and that's when stuff will get answered but nothing so far. Also, some of the romance in here worries me* but crossing my fingers that it's not going to cross that line.

The Art: Nothing really special about the art here. It's shojo (at least I think so) and tells the story but I don't remember being especially impressed by it.

So, I want to track down the rest of this series but I don't know yet if I like it enough to own (ie, reread) it. Hoping to come across the rest of it in libraries but that probably won't happen but I should probably get a move on it, now that the series is OOP I don't want to wait and then find out that the prices skyrocketed since I don't see this one getting a license rescue either.


*As in, please don't play "forced kissing/sexual interaction/rape as love" and the stuff about that I've seen on tvtropes isn't encouraging.....

Movie Review: Black Swan

One of the movies I got around to seeing over the break and it made me doubly sad that I wasn't able to see The Nutcracker this year. The last time I saw it (live) I must have been six or so and I was exicted to hear that one of my aunts had discounted tickets for it since my cousin was in it but with how crazy my Thanksgiving break was I didn't have a chance. Someday I guess, someday I'll be able to see a real ballet again in person instead of just having to watch stories about them. 

Black Swan

Summary: Nina is a rising ballerina who really wants to have a bigger part in the shows her company puts on. Initially it doesn't look like she'll get the role of Odette/Odile* since she's too sweet and too much of a perfectionist and it's only after she does that she discovers just how much her perfectionism is going to hurt her.

The Good: Wow, most movies when a character goes insane the movie starts with them behaving normally and then shows their descent into madness. Black Swan wastes no time there and starts with Nina already unstable and takes it the whole way. I can't remember the last story I saw that took this approach (the closet I've heard about is Satoshi Kon's Perfect Blue) and this was a very creepy and intense movie in parts. At points it was tricky to figure out what was real and what wasn't so the movie succeeds in being a physcological thriller very well.

The Bad: Once the fridge logic set in the ending felt a bit cheap. Yes I know the character is going mad/mad for the film and that this film is being “told” through an unreliable narrator but the film still has to make logical sense in the end (even if the character isn’t sure what is going on/presents a distorted version of the events there still needs to be a way for the audience to work out what actually happened). Also, I know so many people will disagree with me on this, but I must’ve been one of the few people going in who didn’t know about the lesbian sex scene and ack, most awkward thing to watch with your mother ever (and I’ve said it before, I just don’t like reading about/watching sex yet I’m only really annoyed by it when I don’t know it’s coming

The Music: I can't remember much about the music (I was too busy staring at the ballet) but I seem to recall hearing a few well-known pieces of classical music (I thought I heard "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairies" in there but, even though Tchaikovsky composed music for both of those ballets, I think I'm off). The music worked, I would have remembered if it didn't, but like I said above, I was much more interested in the visuals.

The Visuals: Interesting camera work in this one, the camera was almost constantly moving (and a little jerky as well, as if it was being held by a person and moving around instead of moving on a track) which also added to the tense and off balance atmosphere. I’ve heard that the long shots of Nina dancing where not done by Portman and, since I was looking for this and didn’t notice during the movie, that was very well put together. Portman’s dancing looked alright to me (it has been years since I’ve seen a ballet together) and, like the filming style, there were many little details in the background that added to the uneasy air in the film. Visually the film felt very put together and the movie would not have worked as well if it had been a novel instead.

I'm still not sure if I liked this movie or not. My feelings on it, well, it made me want to hide under a blanket with chocolate, something to hug, and something fluffy to read and NOT think about ballet for a while. The funny thing is that all the stories I know that involve ballet are more serious than lighthearted. Swan was melodramatic, Princess Tutu (which I am currently re-watching actually) had more dark moments than you'd except something with that title and, having done some dance during my life** it is a serious sport that lends itself well to these kinds of stories. So, while I'm unsurprised that Black Swan turned out to be as dark as I expected, and I know I'll rewatch it at least once sometime, I'm still trying to figure out if I liked it enough to buy or not.









*Who are traditionally played by the same person, this isn't the movie trying to create tension, this is actually how the play is done!
** More Irish dancing than anything else however, much more lighthearted, just listen to the music!

Movie Review: Paprika

So Satoshi Kon's death was what finally motivated me to see his movies and the anime club, when presented with the choice of either Millienum Actress or Paprika, watched Paprika. A few people came in after the movie started and I think they were confused by the movie (well that's what y'all get for ALWAYS coming in late, do that many people have class until 6:45 and later on Tuesday nights or something?) but I found it fairly easy to understand and much more enjoyable than Inception.

Paprika

 Summary: In the not too distant future, a little device called the DC Mini has been created and is in clinical trials for seeing how it can be used in dream therapy. Controversy surrounds even the existence of the device and when a copy of it gets stolen and used to hijack into other people's dreams that's when everything really goes crazy.

The Good: If Inception tried to base it's dream world in reality, in Paprika the dream world is exactly the kind of world you would expect to see in dreams. It's strange, not quite straightforward, switches viewpoints quite easily, and it is amazing because of it. If Inception tried to show the logic behind and in the dream world then Paprika brings to the front all the strange moments in there that make sense in a dream (or even a movie) but when you think about them later make you go "... wait what?" To me it both made complete sense and blew my mind, the kind of movie you walk out of and you could watch it again a year later, a week later, or even immediately and still feel satisfied with it.

The Bad: There was a strange bit of disconnect with the movie however. I remember that there was a central plot (figure out whose behind the theft) and we do get an answer and a motive for it in the course of the movie, but it felt a little unnecessary. I was having a good time just watching the story unfold that I thought the central plot felt almost like too much, and I never say that! There may have just been a little too much going on for me so I'm not sure if less threads would have made the story clearer or if I really did miss a few things the first time around.

The Art: The artwork was bright and vibrant, especially when the dream world starts spilling over into the real world, and adds to that other-worldly quality of the story. It's all pretty fluid looking and keep an eye on both the images and the subtitles for some foreshadowing. It's a movie that could've worked in live action as well but I think that having everything be animated (instead of awkward live action and CGI combining) makes the art more believable.

The Music: There is one little track from the movie that I remember was in the trailers years ago, a little bubbly theme that usually signals a switch between worlds, and I really want to see if I can get that track for my ipod. The music works beautifully, giving hints that a seemingly ordinary scene was actually much stranger than it seemed and other little clues.