Anime: Kite

 

Content Warning: Sex, graphic violence, bloody murder, sexual assault, underage stuff. Yeah.

Oh boy… This movie is one that I’d seen around and knew it was sexy, violent, and bloody from clips here and there. But I never got around to watching it. And I knew that even if I found it in a rental store, I wouldn’t want to be seen renting it (much less buying it) so a friend of mine downloaded it in those Wild West days of the internet. And it’s been moved from drive to drive, unwatched, until now.

Our story begins with Sawa, our main character, dressed up like a schoolgirl, getting macked on by some semi-famous comedian in an elevator. He starts insulting some old lady that’s also on the elevator and knocks her glasses off. After that happens, Sawa takes out the comdian with a gun that puts shoots a bullet that lodges into the body then detonates. So, blood everywhere.

Later, the crime scene is being investigated by a detective. And, as with all detectives, he seems pretty inured to the scene before him. Even the fact that the little old lady had a heart attack when she put her glasses back on and saw what happened to the comedian. Of course, the big reveal later is that the detective is Sawa’s handler and gave her the mission to kill him. We also find out that the detective took Sawa in after her parents were murdered and has trained her to be an assassin. And been having sex with her. So… Yeah. That’s a thing.

The next mission we see is Sawa teaming up with Oburi, a male version of herself. Together, they take out three reported child molesters. We also meet Oburi’s handler, who worked with the detective to train Sawa, but Oburi and Sawa never knew about each other. And Sawa goes out of her way to get to know him. I don’t know why.

The third mission is a complete disaster. Sawa dresses up like a boy and has to kill one twin, who happens to be a Hollywood star. Well, they have three bodyguards and Sawa screws the pooch. She has to stab people, throw around an explosive, shoots the wrong twin, and gets thrown out of the hole in the wall she made and… I will say that this action scene is intense, with her fighting with a guy as they fall through the air, landing on an overpass, having the car fall through the overpass, landing on a truck, having the truck fall through the road into the subway, and then having a sign land on top, making a massive explosion. Out of everything I’ve seen so far, this was the best part of the movie. So crazy and over the top but well done.

Afterwards, we see that the detective’s partner is a rapist. Yeah. Like you thought that these people who trained orphans to be assassins were going to be good, decent people. The detective is mad at Sawa for not only screwing everything up but also for killing the wrong twin, as he was the client. She also wants to go back to the scene to find her earring, as they were made out of the blood of her murdered parents. This girl… Sigh.

Sawa goes to kill Oburi but seems to change her mind. She also knows that the detective and his partner were the ones to kill her parents. Why she keeps doing this, I have no idea. Oburi gets a job to kill a supposed prosecutor on a train. And it also goes to shit, with the target having a gun and they have a shootout. And then, you know, an explosion. Sawa shows up to save him, as he needs it at the right moment.

Oburi then tries to quit by attacking the detective. But he loses to him and his friend. Sawa again shows up to save him. And then the final confrontation happens. And they lose. The detective ends up raping Sawa in front of Oburi. I just… WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK AM I WATCHING RIGHT NOW! Why is this? What is this? I don’t know how this movie had any sort of following! It’s just way, way, WAY TOO MUCH! Oh, it was all an act. Sawa was in on it the whole time. The whole thing with Oburi was a set up. Or was it? Games within games nonsense at this point? Nope. Sawa killed the detective’s partner and then goes to kill the detective. She played along with the detective’s sick game to throw him off and then brutally guns him down, putting a round right in his balls. Which, yeah, well deserved. The movie ends with Oburi getting gunned down by a child with one of their special guns, just green this time. And Sawa waits for him…

Okay. Yeah. This is a A LOT. And it takes a lot to process. I don’t know what to make of this film. There’s some interesting things going on here, what, with the child orphan assassins and the whole thing. But the gratuitous sex and violence is too much, even for the era this move came out. Thankfully, it’s just over 50 minutes long. It tries to ram in so much exposition, and sex, and violence, and it just… It doesn’t work for me. I don’t know… I mean, this came out at the same time (roughly) as the “Holy Sci-Fi Anime Trilogy” meaning, Cowboy Bepop, Trigun, and Outlaw Star. There were so many good things coming out and then… This.

Well, I guess I get to see even more of this as next month I’m going to review the American live-action adaption of it. Hopefully, my head doesn’t explode...

Rating: 1 out of 5
Suggestion: This is probably the worst thing I have ever seen and I don’t know why it exists.

Manga: Gigant Volume 5

 

Content Warning: Nudity, blood, violence, and sex. All things near and dear to our hearts.

Are you ready for this one? It’s been a while since I’ve done a volume of this series as I’m reading and reviewing as they come out. And this one is… Interesting.

Our story picks up in the middle of the battle from the last volume, between Chiho and the two remaining Gods of Destruction. Chiho uses her trick, growing smaller and then expanding inside the Gods, killing them one after the other. The battle ends with Chiho standing naked, blood dripping off of her, in the city. And then the cheering starts. People are openly weeping and cheering her on, their savior. Rei tries to reach her but she’s taken away by the military. Rei’s mother calls him and is relieved that he’s okay.

After a bit, Chiho reaches out to Rei and asks him to return the key to her place. It’s the middle of the night but he rushes over. Chiho surprises him with a tackle hug from behind. Their reunion leads to a lot of tears, both of them talking about how much they missed each other. Chiho has her eye covered by a bandage but she’s okay, it’s just a bit swollen. The make-outs soon turn to sex and then cuddling. Chiho tells Rei that she’s quitting porn, because she loves him. She only started doing porn because she likes sex but never felt part of the industry. Due to her recent increase in popularity, she’s going to start taking other jobs in acting. She actually seems really happy at the thought of doing it. While they lay in bed, Chiho’s cellphone kicks on and starts talking about PaPiCo-san and how they “can hear” her, and how they’re going to start “looking into her” as she’s “interesting.” Who exactly this is, speaking using Siri’s voice, is unknown for now. I don’t know who it is but I’m thinking it’s whoever started E.T.E.

Speaking of E.T.E., they get their servers blocked in Japan, but not the US. As is later revealed, this takes place in 2019 and the Former Guy is in office in the US. He refuses to do anything about it, because, does that really surprise anyone? Anyway…

Meanwhile, PaPiCo “fever” seems to take over the country. Girls begin cutting and dying their hair to match Chiho’s. There’s fan magazines, the price of her AV stuff skyrockets, she’s doing ads and interviews on TV. It’s a lot. But, she still makes as much time as she can for Rei. And, after she tells him that she’s given her number out to someone, he tells her that he trusts her. Oh, Rei, could you be more 17? I mean, I want to trust Chiho but I also know that this is an easy way for the author to make some more drama down the road.

Speaking of things that pop up, we encounter a group of “Weirdos” like the one that gave Chiho her device. And we find out that America has FIVE heroes now. No previous mention of this, just all the sudden of, there’s five of them. The four new characters are dressed similarly to the first one, who finally gets a name. They also say that they’re “too late.” For what, we don’t know yet. What does happen is the five American heroes get killed by a horrific demon in New York. With the heroes dead, the demon begins crossing the US, last reported in Montana. That means that it’s headed towards the Pacific. Put it together.

There’s a few other things that happen. Chiho’s mom calls and guilts her into giving her, and her brothers, money. A lot of money. Have I mentioned how much I hate her family? Because I do. Rei doesn’t react to this at all and I want to smack him.

And that’s where this volume ends. I’m somewhat curious to see what happens next (which Wikipedia kind of ruined for me). There’s a lot here and it looks like the series is still on going, thank goodness. I do like how things develop but there’s a lot of filler in this volume. There’s a group of characters that popped up that I didn’t even mention because I can’t tell if they’re important or not yet. In the end, this is starting to feel like filler. And I keep wanting to know more about Chiho.

Rating: 3 out of 5
Suggestion: I’m sticking with it but that’s my choice.

Manga: If It's For My Daughter, I'd Even Defeat A Demon Lord, Volume 2

Content Warning: Violence, beheading, and a tragic backstory. No, I’m not kidding.

This volume is one of the most important and yet is also one of the last ones before things start getting… Intense.

This volume starts with Dale having to go to the capital for work. You see, Dale is under contract from the Duke who controls the area that Kruez, the city we’ve been in thus far, is. However, while Kruez is important, it isn’t the capital of the area. So, Dale has to catch a dragon to the capital. What is Dale doing? Well, we’ll get back to that because it’s time for Latina’s tragic backstory! Or, at least part of it. If you remember, Latina was found wandering alone in the woods, after her guardian died, and has a horn broken off, the sign of a criminal in her culture. Latina becomes depressed while Dale is away and begins talking with Kenneth about why Dale is special to her. You see, Rag, her father, was sick and went with her when she was cast out of her home. And then he died. The corpse Latina led Dale to was that of Rag, her father’s. Why Latina was cast out isn’t said, except that was a “bad girl.” That’s why she loves Dale so much, because he was the first one to tell her that was a good girl that wasn’t family. So, Kenneth gets an idea and Latina learns how to make a Shepard’s Pie (or something like that) to make for Dale when he returns. The customers, those grumpy old bastards, are given a discount to eat her first attempts (at a discount) while she learns how to make it properly.

But what has Dale been up to, during all this cuteness? Well… He’s been summonded by the Duke to investigate rumors of the forces of the Seventh Demon Lord being in the area. Dale meets with Gregor, the son of the Duke, and proceeds to gush about Latina. The change between Dale before and after Latina is stark, to say the least. During the trip to locate the enemy forces, we see how Dale is obsessing over Latina. Before long, they locate the forces of the Seventh Demon Lord, who have a dragon with them, and we see exactly why Dale is part of this group. He uses extremely powerful magic to take out most of the demon people, before cutting off the head of the woman leading them. Yeah. Intense.

Upon his return, Dale showers Latina with gifts and has one of her meals. We also find out that Latina is seven, almost eight years old. This means that she’ll be starting primary school soon. We also see that she has remained friends with Chloe, Marcel, Anthony, and Rudy and they play together in a park. We also see that Rudy has a budding crush on Latina but, like most boys, bullies her instead of saying something. I can say that because I was once a young boy and did stuff like that. I will take no comments on that at this time.

The volume ends with us learning more about the world. You see, there are seven gods, each with a sphere of influence and an associated color. There’s also seven races, Dwarves and Elves, as well as Beastmen, merfolk, and a winged race. And there’s seven spheres of magic… Starting to see the pattern yet? Anyway, we discover that Latina has an affinity for Dark and Holy magic, while Dale is able to use Dark, Earth, and Water magic. Since the language of magic is also the language used by the Demon Race, Latina can learn a lot of magic right off the bat. But Dale doesn’t teach her everything. He does teach her some magic that can be used in self defense. After this, it’s just a few little things, like Latina using magic to make ice cream and visiting Chloe, who’s mother (a tailor) has been commissioned by Dale to make something for Latina. There’s also a discussion about how Latina picks things up very quickly. Think about that time, back in the last volume, how Latina figured out that busing the tables was something that needed to be done, could use a pen, and a host of other things. And yet, she also had some gaps in her knowledge, like how to peel potatoes and wring out a washcloth. Latina drops a very cryptic line of how she “hadn’t been decided yet” and then when asked, she says “But… Ri…” and then cuts herself off.

I could drop spoilers, having read the light novels, but I do like they’re giving us just enough of her backstory to keep us interested and still having “cute girl does cute things” stuff as well. There’s even a little bonus chapter but you’ll need to pick this up to see what happens in it.

Sadly, the fun isn’t going to last forever because in the next volume, there’s The Incident...

Rating: 5 out of 5
Suggestion: Keep reading, keep enjoying, and just hang on until things get going.