Penguin Truth – Page 66 – OtakuRevolution

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #1: Royal Space Force: Wings of the Honneamise (1987)

Director(s): Hiroyuki Yamaga

Screenplay: Hiroyuki Yamaga

Music: Ryuichi Sakamoto

"Reach for the stars" is a cliche motivational phrase denoting a desire to go as far as you possibly can to obtain your goals in life. In this movie, you can actually imagine the people who worked on it as desiring just that, not just the characters. It was an ambitious project for the fledgling studio Gainax and it unfortunately didn’t really make too many waves in Japan. But it’s a criminally underrated film that expresses its themes with thoughtfulness and doesn’t try to sugar-coat or talk down to its audience.

Royal Space Force is about a lost generation. Most of its main characters are a disillusioned, cynical bunch who don’t hold a lot of respect for their lots in life. The huge undertaking of a space program is something they don’t fully appreciate at first. In fact, it’s not until towards the end that these characters even come out of the fog of their stagnation and steel their determination to make the project work.

I love the details in the film. The studio clearly poured enormous attention into the film. The backgrounds are lush, the detail of the machines and the expressions of the characters and their movement are all excellent. The explosions are even well-drawn and have seemingly realistic physics to it. If nothing else, the movie is surely a visual feast, taking us into a world much like our own, with some slight, but vital differences.

Of course, one would be amiss if one didn’t mention a certain scene towards the end of the movie. It’s not a pleasant scene. If you’re any kind of decent person, you’ll probably feel disgust towards our "hero", Shiro. It even seems a bit too sudden and probably a bit too far to take the situation. The movie could have skipped that scene entirely and it probably would have been fine. Shiro is still a guy who needs to turn away from his life of decadence and sluggishness. However, in the scene’s defense, it creates a bigger need for Shiro to redeem himself, at the risk of his own life and well being. I also have an alternative view of the scene, if anyone’s interested. Not that it excuses Shiro’s behavior.

Wings of the Honneamise is a triumph of Japanese animation about the triumph of a man looking for a purpose in his life as well as others. It is as inspirational as much as it is well-crafted. It’s a must see.

by Penguin Truth•March 9, 2012March 9, 2025•0

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #3: Cowboy Bebop: Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (2001)

Director(s): Shinichiro Watanabe

Screenplay: Keiko Nobumoto

Music: Yoko Kanno

A great companion piece to the television series, this movie captures the flavor of Cowboy Bebop in a one-off that feels like a single episode type story but is on a grander scale that suits a movie. It has high production quality, to begin with. The art and animation are stunning. Everything is very detailed and the flow of animation is stunning, especially during the fight scenes, which are brilliantly coreographed. The music is yet another great accomplishment of Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts, with each piece reflecting the atmosphere of the setting and situations given. The city (cities?) the movie takes place in are intricately drawn and have an active personality, as though it were a real place. There is a grittiness and activity that helps the city seem so real. The movie adds in slightly more insight into Spike’s personality and I personally couldn’t help sitting at the edge of my seat, rooting for him. Fans of the series shouldn’t miss it.

by Penguin Truth•March 6, 2012March 9, 2025•0

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #4: Grave of the Fireflies (1988)

Director(s): Isao Takahata

Screenplay: Isao Takahata

Music: Masahiko Satoh, Michio Mamiya

Original Novel: Akiyuki Nosaka

Grave of the Fireflies isn’t just a fantastic anime film. It’s not even just one of my favorites. It actually seems to be something important, something one can’t possibly ignore or miss out on. It’s a vital, mandatory watch, not just for anime fans, not just for animation fans, and not just for movie buffs. It’s a must see for everybody. The gravity of the film reaches across borders, that’s how well-crafted and emotionally realized the film is. It’s a harsh, heartbreaking movie about two children, an older brother and a younger sister, who suffer loss after loss during a difficult time in history. They suffer most of all from the older brother’s pride, mind you, but this is no love note to war either. Whatever your stance on in history for what was done at that time, it’s easy to reconcile with the pain of innocents caught in the middle of a horrible situation. In fact, the author of the original novel it’s based on suffers from survivor’s guilt, a fact which helps to further color this important movie. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you owe it to yourself to do so.

by Penguin Truth•March 4, 2012March 9, 2025•0

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #5 Mobile Suit Gundam Movie Trilogy (I – 1981, II – 1981, III – 1982)

Director(s): Yoshiyuki Tomino, Ryoji Fujiwara, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko Screenplay: Kenichi Matsuzaki Music: Hiroshi Matsuyama, Takeo Watanabe As I said about the TV series, the now classic Mobile Suit Gundam wasn’t very popular at first. But due to its popularity in repeats, it garnered enough attention to warrent a film series adaptation. The TV series is a classic, but most of what it does, the movies do better. Some of the more garish toy advertisement elements were replaced with better looking alternatives and the story and themes are streamlined, without some of the clunkiness of the show. The new animation, most present in the third movie, is good enough to impress, but is also flawlessly in tune with the old animation. The new footage was headed by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, so perhaps more credit can be given to him than for Tomino for the films.

by Penguin Truth•March 1, 2012March 9, 2025•0

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #6: Castle of Cagliostro (1979)

Director(s): Hayao Miyazaki

Script: Haruya Yamazaki, Hayao Miyazaki

Music: Yuji Ohno

Actually, Castle of Cagliostro is pretty middling as a Lupin III feature. Lupin is more of a white knight than a rarely chivalrous pervert. Jigen and Goemon are barely there. Fujiko is obviously toned down. The feeling produced by the film is more of a storybook than a wild romp with the greatest thief in the world. But despite all that, or maybe even because of it, (depending on how you feel about Lupin’s usual adventures) this is an amazing film. Visually, it still looks gorgeous today. It’s stunning. Just the amount of detail is more than enough to make this a masterpiece on style alone. But it’s such an exciting movie, too. Lupin breaking into the titular castle is some of the best material committed to film. It really puts the viewer on the edge of their seat at the right moments, and at the back of their seat when it needs to be emotional (though sometimes overly sentimental). It’s such a well-crafted movie, one of Miyazaki’s best, and it definitely deserved this spot on the list, but it’s definitely more a Miyazaki work than a Lupin III film.

by Penguin Truth•February 28, 2012March 9, 2025•0

Rants & Raves

The Tenchi Muyo Manifesto

Recently, I’ve been rewatching Tenchi Muyo!, which was a favorite for a while. Nowadays I don’t consider it a favorite, but I do have a certain fondness for it, even besides nostalgia. The original two OVAs were both humorous and endearing and there’s an immense world of possibilities in them. It really felt like it was going somewhere with it all, and for years waited with anticipation for a follow-up. Sure, there were two TV series, three movies, and spinoffs, but it was the OVA that really inspired interest from me. read more

by Penguin Truth•February 25, 2012

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #7: Mobile Suit Gundam: Char’s Counterattack (1988)

Director(s): Yoshiyuki Tomino Script: Yoshiyuki Tomino Music: Shigeaki Saegusa Yoshiyuki Tomino is not for everyone, and nothing highlights it more than this movie. People tend to either love it or hate it. I can’t really blame some people for disliking it. The movie starts in medias res and many details as to how the conflict started are merely inferred. The movie will not hold your hand. The characters of Quess Paraya and Hathaway Noa are difficult to sympathize with, and their storylines seem to obscure more pressing matters, like the rivalry between Amuro Ray and Char Aznable. But I like the in medias res, myself, and really enjoy this movie for the large-scale final battle that was years in coming. What I like about the Quess and Hathaway portions is that Tomino’s highlighting the problems that the future generation have. The movie is all about wanting humanity itself to grow up, but that means also throwing away self-destructive stubbornness, and I think it does that justice. It also has some pretty good production values which still hold up to this day. Can one man change humanity? You might wish he can.

by Penguin Truth•February 21, 2012March 9, 2025•0

Reviews

Gundam AGE Episode 18 Review

Episode 18, "Graduation Ceremony Battle"

*****SPOILERS***** Synopsis: Time passes and Asemu is to graduate. On the day of graduation, he reveals his plan to join the military after the break. Military police interrupt the ceremony and arrest Zeheart. Zeheart’s contact decoys the soldiers. He attacks the soldiers until Zeheart can get to his mobile suit. In his cockpit he reflects on the times he’s had with Asemu and his friends. Back at the school, Asemu gets a call from Vargas, who has sent the trailer with the Gundam. The Gundam comes in and fights Zeheart’s MS. Asemu is again pinned down by Zeheart, who reveals that he’d been fighting him. Romary sees this. Zeheart retreats. Comments: Watching this episode, it feels like I missed five or six episodes. Asemu and Zeheart are dear friends with photos of moments of their friendship, Romary seems closer to them, and everyone is graduating. There are two trains of thought on this, to me. One is, wait a minute, they just skipped ahead of character development? Shouldn’t we see some of those moments? They shorcut the way there with those photos, so that’s actually somewhat clever, but it doesn’t feel like Zeheart’s betrayal of Asemu’s trust is any big deal, because they’ve been friends for two episodes. The other thought is, well, who wants to wait around? Obviously we’re trying to move forward to Asemu joining the military and fighting the Veigans more directly. If we’re just sitting around watching Asemu and Zeheart hanging out, it’s liable to get very boring. So in this way, the time skip is no big offender. There’s a lot of story to get to, after all, we can’t be sitting on our hands waiting for them to become good friends. However, what about a compromise, Sunrise? You could have given it at least another episode for the relationship between Asemu and Zeheart to cement. Instead, this sudden skip ahead has decided character development in a very tricky way that removes any gravity a betrayal will have. We don’t really feel for Asemu because we already knew Zeheart was going to betray him and it didn’t have time to really build up. It was a decent episode, I guess, but I don’t know, I don’t really like some of the choices they made. Overall Score: 3.5 out of 5

by Penguin Truth•February 21, 2012

Random Shit

ANIME TOP TEN (LIST #2) – #8: End of Evangelion (1997)

Director(s): Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki

Screenplay: Hideaki Anno

Music: Shiro Sagisu

All things must come to an end and in End of Evangelion, pretty much everything does (at least for a while). When the plans of SEELE and Gendo Ikari clash, Shinji, Asuka, and NERV all get caught in the crossfire of their grand schemes. Again the themes of alienation, of miscommunication, come to light as Human Instrumentality comes to fruition. Shinji experiences a frightening truth about himself and the world around him. He is forced to confront himself and this new world, and what it says about him as a human being, and what it says about all human beings. The production values are quite good, though the visuals can be needlessly trippy at times, and the action is brutal and unforgiving. End of Evangelion is a great capper to a great series.

by Penguin Truth•February 20, 2012March 9, 2025•0