I'm in a video class this semester at school and for our first project I came up with a mockumentary-ish idea and a few people said that I should see Spinal Tap since it was the best example of that. As an added bonus it's on Netflix streaming and a pretty short filming, clocking in at just 82 minutes, so even though I wasn't really familiar with the genre they were parodying I decided to give it a shot.
This Is Spinal Tap
Summary: Director Marty Dibergi follows the British heavy metal band Spinal Tap as they tour the US to promote their new album and the internal drama the band has.
The Good: Despite the fact that I haven't seen many, if any come to think of it, rock band documentaries I was still easily able to see what the movie was mocking and it was still an amusing watch. I would have enjoyed it more if I had been familiar I think but none of the humor seemed outdated and I was amused throughout so I think it succeeded. If it was a real documentary I'd say it had a really good balance between interviews, "non-scripted" segments and commentary from the director and was a good length which I suppose I can praise here as well. As odd as it may sound, it was a well put together film and it was rather fun.
The Bad: Even saying all of that, if you aren't really familiar with what a rockumentary looks like or a fan or parodies in general I don't know how much you'd enjoy this film. It's also quite crude (it's NSFW) which will turn some people off but it's not crude without reason, it's very deliberate and feels very in-character for the movie.
The Audio: I'm not sure if this was on purpose or not but there were a number of songs by the band where it would start out and I would think "oh, this is actually a decent song, I kinda want it" and then it would get terrible, given the tone of the movie I think that was on purpose. I was also amused by how the band kept switching genres, although that has less to do with the music and more with the narrative, but it was still amusing.
The Visuals: It's a film shot in the 1980s on what looks to be a pretty small budget, there's not much to say otherwise. It doesn't look that great today, I doubt even a remaster could make it look good, but I don't think that detracts from the film either.
With something so short that's more character driven than plot driven and is a comedy there's really not much more for me to say here. So yes, I enjoyed it, more than I expected, and can see why my classmates/teacher were advising I'd watch it as well. It's streaming on Netflix so it's easy to find so if people want to see it, go for it, at the very worst it won't take much of your time.
Looking back on my summer I didn't read nearly as much science-fiction this year as I did last year which is kinda interesting, I guess I'm just in more of a fantasy mood right now (I'll just blame the hype for The Hobbit for that one). I think this was the only really sci-fi work I read this summer and if I had known that I would've chosen another book.
Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan
Summary: In the future Earth has undergone even more trauma and in an attempt to make sure that some of humanity survives on other world two ships were constructed and sent into space to make a decades long journey to another world. But people will be people, that is to stay manipulative, deceitful, and just plain petty and the children born in space in the journey, namely the viewpoint characters Waveryly and Keiran, are pulled into the fight between the two ships where everything for both of them is at stake.
The Good: I did like some of the science in the book, mainly the idea of using a constantly increasing acceleration to create artificial gravity (although I have no idea if that would work in real life) because where's the fun in science fiction if they don't at least think about how different the future will be? The setting was really where I enjoyed the story the most, it's been a little while since I read sci-fi set in space (I guess Space Opera is the term for it?) and it felt like Ryan really put some thought into how everything would work.
The Bad: I'm not a religious person these days and, although I've had my fair share (if you could call it that) of crazy people yelling that I'm going to hell for not belonging to their faith I like to think that I'm fairly chill when it coms to people and their religious beliefs. I do wonder however if Ryan had even more crazy people screaming at her since by the end of the book it seems to be actively pushing the belief that religion can only be used to hurt people and people never have a choice in it. From the Space Pilgrims (no really, the New Horizon and Empyrean were split between the religious, all of whom seem to belong to the same group, and the secular plus those of other religions, and from the beliefs to the dress of the people on the New Horizon there are some pretty clear parallels) to the sermons at the end it's clear that differences of/about faith are going to be the instigator of even more trouble later in the series and I feel like Ryan said "see, faith can be good too! Nah I'm kidding, people will still force it against others regardless." Also, while there are events in any story that the main character(s) have no control over and have to deal with some authors pull this off better than others I just didn't like how it was done here. Waveryly especially had to go through a ton of stuff, had no control over any of it, and it was frustrating to see that there was no way for her to take control given how young she was. The story could have worked if the characters were older and, now that I think about it, I would have liked that since the characters would have had more options and felt more like, well, characters rather than items being manipulated by the plot. All in all it was a very unsatisfying book to read and I really did consider throwing it while reading it several times.
So, a bust from me and I won't be checking out the rest of the series at all. Guess that'll give me time for more books later on, and I did read some other books with sci-fi elements this summer, although I didn't necessarily like those a ton either.
Back in winter of 2011 I caught the anime version of Wandering Son and really enjoyed the show and was curious about how it compared to the manga (especially since the anime skipped the first arc of the manga which sounded like a weird choice). The first volume has been out for over a year now and honestly the reason I didn't pick it up is because I usually buy my manga either in bulk at a TRSI sale (by which point I've already hit the free shipping quota and don't need any more and this is the only comic by Fantagraphics that I'm interested in) or sometimes in ones and twos at a local Barnes and Noble and I've never seen Wandering Son there. So, in short, money is once again a factor so yet again I'm thrilled to come across this at my school's library and hopefully plenty of other people check it out and read it too.
Wandering Son (volume one) by Takako Shimura
Summary: Shuuichi Natori is a lot quieter than most boys and Yoshino Takasuki comes off as a tomboyish girl to many people around them but neither of those statements reflect who they really are. Both of them are transgendered children (people born as one sex but mentally identify as the other) but are only beginning to understand that idea themselves and how it affects every part of their lives.
The Good: There is a lack of transgender (and genderfluid now that I think about it) characters of any age or gender in fiction and I can't think of the last time, if ever, I saw characters like that so young (or even more than one in a single story, outside of webcomics I'm drawing blank for multiple transgender characters). Some people might find it unrealistic but I've been reading some news articles over the years, especially in the last year or so, and talking to friends I have and it sounds like no, kids really do know themselves well even at a young age and given how slowly Takatsuki and Shuu put into words what they're feeling I thought it was realistic enough (plus, of course someone in that situation is going to start seriously considering gender identity earlier than someone who doesn't have that pressure). Takatsuki and Shuu really are interesting, intriguing characters and even if the story is a bit slow I like reading about them and I would like to at least read the manga up to the point where the anime started.
The Bad: My biggest problem with this volume was that it was really hard to tell when the chapters started which is a bit of an odd problem. A lot of times there would be a couple of pages that looked like the start of a new chapter and then a random image (a shot of a character who doesn't appear in the scene at all, a title page, etc) and I was always thrown wondering if that image had any relevance to the story and if the pages before and after the image were set at different times (hence the use of an image to separate them) or what was going on. Other than that that the pacing was fine but that's kinda a big problem and I had to re-read a number of sections multiple times to try and get a grasp on the story and the story itself isn't terribly complicated. Finally, I can see why the anime choose to jump into the story at a later point since not much actually happens in this volume. It takes a lot of time to set up, doesn't really deal with a lot of the cast (and one thing I liked about the anime was how it showed a lot of variety in that way people act contrary to/within gender ideals) and it just feels a bit flat. I feel like it might be a good idea to recommend that people read the first few volumes close together (admittedly I haven't read the others that are out in English yet) or even show them the anime first since this is a bit slow going and I think that would turn away a lot of people who'd otherwise like the story.
The Art: Apologies on not posting a picture of the cover tonight, apparently photobucket is throwing a hissy fit and won't let me upload anything. In any case, as the manga-ka herself notes in the back of the book, the art is pretty simple both in regards to character designs and backgrounds (although given that this particular part of the story is nearly 10 years old I have no doubt that's changed at least a bit). It was a little hard to tell some of the characters apart (the simple backgrounds didn't bother me as much) but hopefully just getting used to the art style will help me out.
When I was looking around for this series I came across a few statements that made it sound like not only does the art improve quickly but the plot picks up very quickly as well which does make me more likely to keep reading the manga. Of course, given that the anime isn't licensed in the US if I want to own this story at all I'll have to buy the manga, guess I need to make more of an effort to put a few volumes in my future shopping trips.
While I was watching X TV it occurred to me that I should check these two little OVAs out since, as I'm not reading the Tokyo Babylon scans since it is licensed in the US (Dark Horse, are these omnibus editions coming out anytime soon?) and I've started following a few people on tumblr who lately have been talking about the series an awful lot. I'm a little curious about the live action movie made based off of TB (which I only found out even existed this past summer, I've almost never seen people talk about it) but for the moment my curiosity has been satiated.
Tokyo Babylon
Summary: Subaru Sumeragi is an omyonji in Tokyo who spends his days dealing with spirits and other magical things as well as spending time with the only two people he's close to, his twin sister Hokuto and their friend Seishiro (a local veterinarian). Subaru cares a lot about his job and tries to help people no matter what, often putting his own safely on the line.
The Good: I'm not sure if the two stories were based on stories from the manga but considering how well they were paced I'm inclined to think they were original stories. Both stories were rather different from each other, interesting, and in an odd way it reminded me of why I liked xxxHolic, Clamp just seems to be better at writing more episodic series than plot-central ones. I did enjoy these two shorts, even if I was wincing at some of the weird 1980s styles that had crept in, and wish it had been a full series, partially because of a problem I'm about to bring up below.
The Bad: If you don't know anything about TB this is not the series for you, while it briefly touches on Subaru and Seishiro's connection (which ends up being a huge deal later in the story) it's still rather vague. The stories here don't require you to know much about the characters but when they don't explain anything at all it's clear who the show is aimed at. As I mentioned last week with X, that show works a bit better if you know more of Subaru's backstory and, since that is explained there, I could see these OVAs working if someone was to watch them and immediately follow them up with X to get a better grasp on how Subaru has changed in the 7+ years that separate the two. Other than that I really can't recommend this to anyone who hasn't already seen it, it just doesn't have that wide an appeal when it's almost completely lacking in backstory/explanations.
The Audio: I about started snickering when the first OVA had a classic, let's-play-music-over-unrelated-images moment, such an 80s thing to do (heck, even the way a lot of shots are framed in the series feel not exactly dated but old school). I was a bit surprised that Subaru was actually voiced by a male voice actor (I've just gotten so used to hearing female VAs do male roles) but it really worked well. Hokuto was rather screechy early on but thankfully mellowed down by the end of the first OVA and the rest of the (Japanese, I don't think there's a dub) was fine.
The Visuals: Please note the above image has nothing to do with the actual OVAs, it was the best thing I could find on google that wasn't a screenshot (or involve some of the story's more, interesting, outfits). In any case, I watched this on an incredibly crappy stream (which occasionally had subs when people weren't talking/saying something different than what the characters actually were saying) so I don't really know what to say about how the OVAs looked. They're from 1992 and I'd imagine that they'd look fine if they were remastered although I did see some weird looking animation in places. Aside from that, and I've already established that these OVAs were channeling the 80s like it was going out of style (wait), the only thing I have left to say is that yes, Subaru is pretty damn adorable and one I would actually call moe (and I'm nigh-positive I'm not the only person who would say that).
So, hasn't aged that well in terms of looks (although if it was remastered that would help) and has a narrow appeal, come to think of it you can probably apply those statements to a lot of Clamp shows (or will be able to in another decade or so). I had fun with this but hopefully next week I'll finally be back to shows where I can whole-heartedly recommend them to people.
I don't pay as much attention to films, animated or live-action, that come out in Japan as anime (just because there's such a large gap between when they come out and when anyone not in Japan can see them, legally or otherwise) but the trailers Funimation put out for this one caught my eye since it's an almost all CGI film that didn't look, well, terrible. Quite frankly while I think that some animation studios in Japan have become very good at blending 2D and 3D art together I rarely see any all 3D projects that don't look terrible (and they're certainly not the worst productions I've ever seen, but that's because when I was a kid my brother and I watched a number of VHS tapes with incredibly early CGI shorts which I've never been able to find anywhere since*). And this film looked not terrible at all so when Funimation put up the entire moved subbed on their youtube channel (I believe it's still there) that's all the incentive I needed to go check it out.
Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror
Summary: In the town where Haruka and her oft-absent father live there is a story that little foxes go around and collect everything people have forgotten and take them to a far off place. When Haruka tries to find a keepsake of her mother's, an old hand mirror, she gets to see first hand how true this story is and how hard it can be to get back something that was lost.
The Good: Despite the fact that Haruka is 16 (and you generally age the protagonist to either be the same age or a little older than the intended audience) I feel like this is more of a kid's film than a family film (it's missing all the winks and nods that family-friendly movies/tvs in the US have to entertain it's older viewers) and it works quite fine as one. It's quick paced, doesn't drag, Haruka and Teo both grow, and the simple plot works fine. It's cute, fluffy fare which I think could easily be shown to kids who've grown up watching Pixar (although they'll probably pick up that it's not American quickly which should be fine, I figured out pretty quick that Pokemon was Japanese and that didn't make me enjoy it anymore or less) and it doesn't have any content that would warrant above a PG rating.
The Bad: It's not a very ambitious movie due to it's rather simple plot and, while I can easily recommend this to kids who like animated movies, I feel like it might bore a lot of teens/adults who want something more than a simple, cute flick. The villain was also more than a bit cheesy, another reason why I feel like this film is more a kid's movie than a family/all ages film, and after seeing the movie once I feel satisfied and don't think I'll re-watch it. If not for the visuals I doubt I'd remember it in a few years, it's a solid piece of work but not a stand-out one.
The Audio: Funimation only had the Japanese dub posted so I have no idea how the English dub fares but the Japanese dub was fine, honestly I can't remember the last time I saw a Japanese dub that wasn't fine. Quite honestly I don't remember much else about the audio in the movie but Haruka and Teo's voice both fit well (Miyuki Sawashiro continues to amaze me due to just what a wide range she has) and I often have trouble talking about the audio in movies anyway, there's just so much less time to show off what the composer can do.
The Visuals: There are a few shots early on where it's obvious that it's a 2D background with 3D characters/objects but the movie is 95% CGI and it looks great. The backgrounds are colorful and really feel 3D (the best comparison I can make is that they look like background in an area in a video game, they have depth), the animation seemed smooth and while the character's faces looked a little too plastic it's nothing that an animation fan hasn't seen before (just think of some of Pixar/Dreamwork's films from a few years ago), especially since the film is from 2009. It's not perfect (by which I mean "Pixar level quality" since they are the best out there) but it's more than passable and, while I think the movie could have also worked as a 2D movie it, it works.
So, worth watching if you want to see an almost all CGI anime done right or if you have kids, otherwise there's not much of note here and you can pass on it. As I mentioned earlier Funimation was streaming this movie on youtube when I saw it (which was about three or four weeks ago) and it's probably still up there although I'm betting that it's region locked as well.
*to emphasize how early these were, a lot of people have seen one of Pixar's early shorts involving a snowman in a snowglobe right? A masterpiece compared to what we were watching and a heck of a lot more coherent.
