Category: Reviews

The Cat Returns anime review

I watched Princess Mononoke (good, but seriously violent), Pom Poko (bleh) and My Neighbors the Yamadas (okay, but dull) and skipped over Spirited Away because I’d already seen it. I didn’t feel like writing reviews about them, though. Sorry.

Happily enough The Cat Returns was great! Fun, and mercifully short. Very much like a fairy tale, and the cheesy “believe in yourself” message was there from the start so it didn’t come out of nowhere. Nice simple story, funny characters, especially Muta and the King and that smarmy servant, great animation as always, decent voice acting that got the job done, everything ends very happily ever after.

It is by far the “kiddiest” of the Ghibli movies I’ve seen so far, including My Neighbor Totoro, but I love it! I was a little worried about that Machida-sempai romantic stuff in the beginning, but happily enough it came to nothing. I like romance to be at a minimum in my Ghibli series.

Ah, that was fun. Now since I’ve already watched Ponyo, I only have Earthsea, Howl’s Moving Castle and The Borrower Arriety to go. Arriety hasn’t come out on DVD in English yet, I think, so it’s just Earthsea and Howl. The Earthsea books were some of my favorite fantasy books growing up and I hear they made a mess out of that, so first I’ll get the bad stuff out of the way, and then I’ll be able to enjoy Howl as my “final taste” of Studio Ghibli. Good plan.

Update: since I wrote this review, I’ve shown this anime to several of my young nephews and nieces and their friends, at least 20 young children aged between 5 and 15, and they all love it. It’s their most-watched anime movie over all the other Ghibli stuff. Not to say that The Cat Returns is necessarily better than other Ghibli movies (though I liked it more, to be honest), but it’s certainly the most kid-friendly. It has funny animals, wacky hijinks aplently, constant action, a clear point and a happy ending. It’s easy to follow and easy to enjoy. If you’re looking to buy something for yourself, you might go with one of the other shows, but if you’re looking for something children will enjoy, definitely get The Cat Returns first.

Porco Rosso anime review

The only Ghibli movie so far that I haven’t watched until the end. It was going so well until they introduced Fio. Beautiful visuals as always, a unique protagonist, a bittersweet setting and moderate amounts of action.

I was all set to love Porco Rosso, then they had to introduce a nosy, fast-talking, high-pitched squealing girl in the form of Fio. She just wouldn’t shut up. Instead of letting us enjoy the movie ourselves, she kept butting in where she wasn’t welcome and providing unnecessary commentary where they should just have let the viewers make up their own minds. We can see the place is beautiful, thank you very much. We know Porco isn’t a bad guy, thank you very much. Ugh, who let the kid into an adult’s show?

Anyway, I quit at around the 1:15 mark and watched the last few minutes to find out what happened to everyone. What a waste of potential. Next Ghibli movie I have to watch? Pom Poko.

Only Yesterday (Omoide Poro poro) anime review

Shnzzzzzzzzzzzzzz *snrk* zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz… Hmm, huh, what? It’s over? THANK GOODNESS. Summary of the movie: Taeko, a city girl who likes the countryside, works on a farm and reflects back to when she was 10. More boring than it sounds. Work on farm, drive around, remember childhood, hang out with country boy, roll credits, the end.

Only Yesterday (Omohide poro poro) is by far the most boring thing I’ve watched all year. The parts about her childhood were interesting and funny in places, but her adult life is overt pro-farming anti-city propaganda. I have to wonder if Isao Takahata and Studio Ghibli didn’t get a cut from the Japanese Farmer’s Association, since the moral of the story was clearly “If you’re old and can’t find a husband, go to a farming village and some country boy will take you for a wife.” [this is apparently true, btw. Farming villages in Japan suffer from a dire shortage of eligible bachelorettes, especially ones who will put up with all the meddling, lack of privacy and backbreaking work that comes with living in a farming community]

Anyway, it seems like Taeko only idolizes farm life because she grew up in the city. What’s more, it seems she just enjoys it as an occasional break from city-life, and not for its own sake. None of the frequent flashbacks to her childhood show her particularly yearning to live in the countryside, just to visit it from time to time.

Which means once the first glow of excitement wears off and everyone stops treating her like she’s oh-so-special, I won’t be surprised if she falls out of love with farming and wants to go home again. Especially once she wakes up and finds out she’s married to a man she barely knows. The little episode where she was planting rice plus the scene where she makes city-food (cake!) near the end seem to hint at the fact that she isn’t cut out for this kind of life in the long-term. She’s been shown to want what she can’t have (her sister’s bag, the restaurant trip, holidays in the countryside) and to change her mind frequently, and she says she’s grown up but has she really?

Well, that’s her problem, I’ve got myself to worry about. Other people’s lives are boring, which is why fiction and fantasy come in handy so often. I’d like Studio Ghibli to remember that in future. Next up, Porco Rosso. Haven’t heard much about that one, but hopefully it should be interesting. Can’t be worse than this, anyway.

Dragonaut: The Resonance anime review

Or, “Boobs and Dumb Women – the Anime.” It’s been a while since I watched something this horrible and yet so compelling. Dragonaut: The Resonance started out with a fairly good premise about humanoid dragons, the humans they have formed pacts with and the ominous “Thanatos” creature that was drawing nearer to the Earth every day.

Then it turned into a stupid rescue romantic farce where the main character Jin chased his lady love Toa for endless episodes, Toa always managing to either run away or get herself captured as soon as Jin found her. It’s revealed halfway through that Toa is directly responsible for the death of Jin’s family, but this is tossed to the side like it means nothing. Hos before even families, huh? Even Kouta from Elfen Lied wasn’t this faithful to his romantic needs.

From that point I was just watching to see how bad the series could get. And boy did it get bad. Toa! Jin! Toa! Jin! I want to see Toa! I want to see Toa! Jin! Jin! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHH! *pukes* Phew, that’s better. You know, the dragon transformation sequences should have clued me in from the start that the creators had no idea what kind of series they were trying to make, but I foolishly persevered. In the end Jin and Toa manage to persuade Thanatos to leave Earth alone by showing her the Power of Love – as if it wasn’t bad enough when Gankutsuou did it – and they go back to Earth to live happily ever after. They’d better, after all the happiness GONZO robbed me of just by making this show exist. I’ll think twice before I try anything from that company again.

Hidan no Aria anime review

Anime about high school kids that function as “armed detectives.” The titular Aria is yet another twintailed tsundere played by Rie Kugimiya *groan*. The twist in the tale is the protagonist Kinji, who goes into super-powered mode when he’s sexually aroused. Feel free to roll your eyes at this point.

I read some of the manga and volumes 1-2 of the Hidan no Aria (Aria the Scarlet Ammo) light novels in Japanese. I thought it was okay, but nothing spectacular. The novels especially read like a middle-school boy’s diary: girl x is so cute, i saw her panties when she bent down today, and then i saw her bra, oooh, and then i got to play with a gun and some knives, tehe, im so cool and mature. etc etc.

I almost liked it for that, mainly it felt like a direct look into Kinji’s head. In the anime I can’t even tell when he’s out of Hysteria Mode until he explicitly says so. Plus in a novel/manga you can imagine that he’s faster and sharper in Hysteria Mode, but when you actually get to see him move in the anime, he doesn’t seem any different at all. It’s like the horrible singing in Beck all over again.

So anyway, the anime condenses three novels into 12 episodes, which makes each arc feel very rushed. I was initially curious about what would happen next for Kinji and co, but Tvtropes was kind enough to spoil all future plots, including who the real leader of the IU is. They also revealed that the story doesn’t end when the IU is defeated but is instead dragged on by having the splintered IU members come back for revenge. That’s another 10 volumes of “XYZ showed me her boobs, which turned me on so much that I went into Hysteria mode.” Enough already, it’s embarrassing. Next series, please!