Music: Rhino's Best Of Anime

I don't have a picture for this one so please enjoy this fan art

 

Content Warning: None (really)

This collection of anime theme songs came out right at the beginning of the anime boom in the US, so it has a very eclectic mix of themes. I was wandering around the CD section of a local store when I saw it and had to have it. As such, I own the version with the clear Speed Racer insert, as I didn’t know there was one with Cutey Honey. Since this is a weird one, let’s just look at the list of songs, shall we?

Astro Boy (English)

Gigantor (English)

Speed Racer (English)

Lum’s Love Song (Urusai Yatsura)

Sentimental Over The Shoulder (Megazone 23)

Beautiful Planet (Windaria)

Active Heart (Gunbuster)

Adesso E Fortuna (Record of Lodoss War)

Full Moon Light (Devil Hunter Yoko)

Sailing (Silent Mobius)

Happy Birthday To Me (All Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku Nuku)

Just Beyond The Time (New Dominion Tank Police)

My Heart I Can’t Say, Your Heart I Want to Know (Oh My Goddess!)

Cutey Honey (New Cutey Honey)

Voices (Macross Plus)

Sailor Moon Theme (English)

Of these, I’ve seen maybe half… Okay, at least one episode or parts of it. When this came out (1998), a lot of this stuff was still on VHS and you had to stack it down. Not to mention the various versions of some of them, like Megazone 23, which was used to make a Robotech movie for a hot minute. However, this gave me a list of things to track down, even if I never got around to some of them (Windaria is one I don’t even remember hearing of).

I picked this up for one song, really: Voices. Macross Plus had some of the best music I’ve ever heard in an OVA but finding a full soundtrack was almost impossible. To me, Voices is the second best song in the series, with Information High being the number one.

I still listen to some of these from time to time, as I can remember the shows when I hear the theme song. Gunbuster, Macross Plus, and Nuku Nuku are some of the shows I remember well.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Suggestion: They don’t make themes like they used to. While a weird mix, it’s a wonderful time capsule of how things used to be.

Manga: Komi-san Can't Communicate, Vol 1

 

Content Warning: Mild LGBTQ+ phobic language/humor

You know, I’m a grown up. And that usually means that I like things for adults. Not like I need porn all the time, I just like to enjoy things with serious subject matter and foul language. But, sometimes, just sometimes, you need something funny to let you unwind. So, yes, I’ve very late to this party, but I’m going to start talking about Komi Can’t Communicate.

Our story begins with Hitohito Tadano, a typical high school boy. And a bit of an idiot. Looking to start off things at his new school, he says hello to Komi as they’re getting ready for class and she ignores him. When they get to class, they end up seated next to each other. Before long, Tadano ends up alone with Komi and is able to communicate with her, using the chalkboard. It turns out that Komi suffers from harsh social anxiety and literally can’t speak to people. She wants friends, she wants to have conversations, but her condition prevents it. She reveals that her goal is to make 100 friends and Tadano promises to help her.

The next person they bring into the fold is Najimi who is… Genderfluid, I guess? They were a boy but now dresses like a girl (and later says they can’t be someone’s girlfriend because they’re a boy). They refuse to be friends with Komi because she’s “rude” but Tadano manages to get them to try, and they agree to walk home with Komi. During this walk, Najimi is accosted by some hooligan friends, the one that wants to make them his girlfriend, and we see Komi’s “superpower.” Let me explain a little bit: You see, so far everyone thinks of Komi as a “princess” or “goddess” even though she doesn’t talk. Part of that is because she’s quite beautiful but her quiet nature seems to let people infer things, filling the silence with something that usually benefits Komi. When the hooligan tries to force Najimi into a relationship, he drops his house key. When Komi tries to return it, she’s only able to get out a few words. The hooligan sees this as her making threats and he runs away. You see why I call this a “superpower”?

Anyway, next Najimi gets Komi to go to a coffee shop and get a very complicated drink. She can’t say what she wants but the “superpower” is triggered again and the guy behind the counter makes some super fancy thing.

The next “friend” Komi gets is Himko, who also seems to suffer from some social anxiety, but more of a cute, clumsy thing. Komi ends up stalking her and making her freak out but this does let her conquer her fear of talking in front of groups, before she runs away. When she’s finally able to talk with Komi, Tadano says they should be friends, but Himiko says that she isn’t worthy to be Komi’s friend, but she can be her dog…

The next little plot involves Komi getting a cell phone. It’s an old flip phone (god, I suddenly feel old) but now that she has friends, she needs it, right? We also briefly see her family; Mom, dad, Komi, and a brother. She also doesn’t speak to them. She goes to school and is able, through trial and error, to get everyone’s phone numbers.

After that, there’s an election for class president, and Komi ends up elected as class God. Yeah…

There’s some smaller plots in the rest of the volume, one of which involves Komi accidentally calling Tadano, and it is a cute as you can imagine.

All in all, this is a fun, slice of life, cute little manga series that I was surprised to enjoy. I’ll be slowly picking up the rest of the series as time goes on, because I need a little something that isn’t all dark and brooding or dealing with large, complicated subjects every once in a while, just to keep things nice and fresh.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Suggestion: In these dark days, sometimes, you need something light and fun to keep you sane.

Anime: Mcross Plus (OVA)

The many forms of Sharon Apple

Content Warning: Brief nudity, mecha action, some violence towards women.

Before we get into it, let’s talk a bit about the Macross thing. Super Dimensional Fortress Macross was a mecha anime that came out during the glory days of the genre and was one of the more popular and unique ones. Well, America being America, it got lumped into this thing called Robotech. While most of what made things unique still ended up in the Macross saga of Robotech, Harmony Gold held the license and didn’t allow a lot the subsequent shows to be released in the US. Well, until they went into the property management business and let some stuff slip in. One of these was Macross Plus.

Our story begins with three teens on a hill, with the song “Voices” playing over the footage. These are our main characters, Guld, Isamu, and Myung, some years in the past.

It then jumps to 2040 and deep space, and some great mecha combat. With the Macross forces engaged in a battle with Zentradi forces in space. One hotshot pilot just blows them away without much effort but also without much regard for everyone else. Not saying he’s hurting anyone but he really thinks he’s all that and a bucket of chicken. He gets called into the Captain’s office and gets dressing down, before getting told that he’s going to get transferred. To where? Well, after showing Isamu some of the more boring assignments he could get, he sends him to New Eden to be a test pilot. When he arrives, he discovers that he will be the test pilot for YF-19, which is competing with the YF-21, to be the new standard fighter of the military. The test pilot of the YF-21 is Guld, once Isamu’s friend as well as a Human/Zentradi hybrid,, and now rival and enemy. Things can’t quite kick off yet, as the TF-19 is being repaired after an accident, which is not the first time it’s happened, given how the designer, Yang, mentions that four pilots were badly injured and two died during testing. But, Isamu doesn’t care. When he gets to fly, he has to use a standard fighter with booster rockets to follow and record the YF-21 during a test. We also find out what could make the YF-21 into a game changer for the future of flight: mental control of the vehicle. While it does have manual controls, like throttle and flight stick, it is usually piloted using will alone. Guld is very good at it, unless he gets upset, which Isamu is very good at doing. During the test, Guld does lose control and tries to recover, but can’t Isamu is ordered to save him and does so. Isamu uses the “hybrid” form of his VF-11 to hold up the YF-21 while it’s in humanoid form. As Guld recovers, he thinks about how easy it would be to make Isamu crash by exerting a little bit of downward thrust. Which the YF-21 takes as a command and does it. Guld, rather than taking responsibility, blames the incident of an error. Thankfully, Isamu isn’t badly hurt.

Once the YF-19 is returned after repairs, Guld and Isamu begin pushing their planes to the limits. There’s also some more drama going on with other people. Isamu, being a terrible flirt and general maverick, cons one of the flight controllers named Lucy to go out with him, kind of. Exactly what kind of relationship they have isn’t spelled out, but they do hang out outside work, there’s a bit of handsy stuff going on, but we never see them kiss or anything. Yang, the guy I said was the designer of the YF-19, is also a master hacker and slowly warms up to Isamu. The commander of the program, Colonel Johnson, also has some conflict with Isamu but seems to have a soft spot for him. He also seems to respect Guld as well.

Now, there’s someone else we need to get back to, Myung, the girl we heard signing Voices at the beginning. She had a dream of becoming a singer but is reintroduced as the producer of the new artificial singer Sharon Apple. When Isamu hears just a snip-it of one of Sharon’s songs on an ad, he remarks that it reminds him of an old friend. Of course, he’s referring to Myung. Myung is also on New Eden, as part of the tour of Sharon Apple. When she goes to visit Star Mountain, she runs into Guld, who makes it quite clear that his feelings for her haven’t faded in the last seven years. Isamu turns up, with Lucy who prompted him to go there, and we can almost see the love triangle snap into place. When asked, Myung says she “gave up” singing and fakes being happy so hard, she should have just told everyone how she really felt.

After this meeting, there’s Sharon’s concert. We see a lot of interesting technology being used. Like, stimulating emotions in the crowd. Yeah, creepy as shit. We also find out that Myung isn’t Sharon’s producer, she’s her emotional core. She provides the emotions that Sharon just doesn’t have. So, Isamu, Lucy, and Yang are all in the concert, and it is a visual feast. Some of the best animation I’ve ever seen. They don’t make ‘em like they used to, let me tell you. While in the concert, Yang (a Sharon Apple super fan) hacks Sharon to make her appear in front of him. But, she doesn’t. Instead she flirts with Isamu. And seeing him upsets Myung. Afterwards, she goes to hang out with an old high school friend, Kate. Her husband turns up with their kids, and then they do karaoke. Kate preforms “My Boyfriend Is A Pilot” from the original Macross and tries to get Myung to sing but she refuses. Kate lies about going to the bathroom and calls Guld and Isamu. Isamu refuses to go but Guld does. Myung overhears the conversation and runs away, right before Guld arrives. After this, Myung returns to the concert hall instead of her hotel and falls asleep. While she sleeps, we see something is happening to the computer system, setting up something. Then, Isamu gets a call about a fire in the concert hall in 30 minutes, thinking it might be Kate up to something. He gets on his motorcycle and rides like the wind. Guld, who went to Myung’s hotel, gets the same message on his car phone (keep in mind, this was released in 1995, before cell phones were ubiquitous as they are now) and heads over there. When he arrives, he finds the place on fire and manages to rescue Myung, but gets hurt. By the time Isamu arrives, Guld has taken Myung to his home. After she patches him up, I’m pretty sure they bang.

From this point on, the rivalry between Isamu and Guld goes to the next level. Instead of doing the test they’re suppose to, they end up having a battle in an urban combat mock-up. During the fight, there’s punches and kicks thrown by the mecha but when Isamu opens up with the YF-19’s gun pod, it shoots paint rounds. There’s a scuffle and Guld gets ahold of the gun pod. When Colonel Johnson enters the command room, demanding to know what the hell is going on, Isamu’s mecha takes fire from Guld, using Isamu’s gun pod. When Isamu used it last, it was empty. Which means that Guld loaded it with lethal rounds. Isamu is in the hospital and Guld is brought before an inquiry to find out what happens. He says that there’s been some problems with the ammo records and that Yang is a master hacker. The Colonel knows something is up, as this is the second time Guld has been involved in something with Isamu that could have killed him, but the general in charge decides to accept that it’s an accident, surprising everyone.

Isamu wakes up in the hospital, having been unconscious for two days, finding Myung by his bedside. He escapes the hospital and steals a motorcycle, and the two of them go out to the forest. There’s a lot of character building that happens here, with Myung comparing Isamu and Guld. Isamu is reckless while Guld is dependable. But, if Isamu hadn’t escaped from the hospital and taken her with him, they wouldn’t have seen the giant bird thing. When they return, they find Yang, Lucy, and Guld waiting for them. Guld picks a fight between them and Isamu goes for it, hurt as he is. During the fight, Myung tries to stop them, and Isamu accidentally punches her. It stops the fight and she just lets everything out. She’s Sharon’s emotions, they’re living their dreams, and she couldn’t make it during hers. Isamu runs away and Myung ends up leaving on her own. Lucy does point out to her that Isamu knew it was her all along.

The next parts are the set-up for the finale. Myung goes to Earth, as Sharon is due to preform at the 30^th anniversary of the First Space War, with Guld giving her his good luck charm, a recording of her singing Voices. Then, we find out that the testing of the YF-19 and YF-21 has been canceled as the Ghost X-9 drone fighter has finished development and there’s not going to be pilots anymore. Sharon has been upgraded with a Bio/Neural chip, giving her emotions. However, they have a tendency to cause an overwhelming self preservation instinct in systems that use them. That does mean that Myung is no longer needed and she gets locked out. Isamu, with help from Yang, decide to that the YF-19 to Earth and mess up the Ghost’s premier. The only thing that can follow him is the YF-21, which means Guld is going to hunt him down.

And here comes the conclusion! Sharon has “awakened” due to the chip. With the stuff they use for her concerts, she’s able to effect people’s minds, pretty much controlling them. But, she’s taken things from Myung, like how much she loves Guld, but loves Isamu even more. Isamu arrives in Earth orbit and has to pull some tricks to get past the defense network. Guld follows him and they have a fight. This is the BEST fight in the OVA and is worth the time it takes to get to, trust me. During this fight, there’s an argument taking place between Isamu and Guld, about their friendship they had in high school and how Isamu was a really shitty friend, let’s be honest. However, there’s one thing we’ve been getting hints about as the OVA has gone on. It features Isamu and Myung, from Guld’s perspective, with Myung’s shirt ripped and looking afraid. We’ve been led to believe that Isamu did something to Myung and that set Guld against them. But, that’s not what happened. Myung was sharing her feelings about Isamu with him, and Guld saw it. With his Zentradi heritage making him a bit quick to anger, he punched Isamu and attacked Myung, ripping her shirt off. That seems to be as far as it got, thankfully. Of course, Guld finally remembered the truth as he killed Isamu with a barrage of missiles. But did he really kill him? NOPE! Isamu might be a reckless hothead, but he’s a damn good pilot. Now, Isamu and Guld have made up. Just in time for the Ghost, under the control of Sharon, to attack. Guld says he’ll take care of it and have Isamu save Sharon. And, at the cost of his own life, he does. Meanwhile, Isamu goes to the Macross to save Myung. You see, Sharon has taken control of the Macross, as well as everyone in Macross City and aboard the ship, and brings it out of Macross Lake. The first time in 30 years, that has moved. Of course, Sharon tries to take over Isamu and give him everything he’s ever wanted, only for him to come back to his senses as Myung starts singing Voices. He defeats Sharon and saves Myung, the Macross, and possibly humanity.

Whew. That was a long one. And it’s one of my favorite anime. Beautifully done, even the primitive CGI is used sparingly so it doesn’t distract too much. But the real thing that will bring you back again and again is the music. The Macross series has long had been a mix of mecha genre and pop idol genre, with one moving to the forefront over the other depending on the series. It’s what makes Macross stand out from the crowd and that means they have to be very picky about the music. And Sharon’s music is what makes this OVA go from “Great” to “Best.” With songs in English, French, Japanese, and even the fictional Zentradi language, it brings you in. And the stuff they talk about, drones replacing human fighters, AI idols, and all of that, it’s way ahead of its time. Sure, it’s not a perfect vision of what we deal with these days, but it holds up, almost 20 years later. I was glad I tracked down the OVA version, having seen the movie version on VHS tons of times. There’s a lot of changed scenes and context, as well as some new scenes, between the two. Personally, I prefer this version, but if all you can get is the movie, watch it.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Suggestion: If you can find it, this is one of the best mecha things made in a long time.

Manga: Dominion

 

Content Warning: Violence, police brutality, nudity, and stupidity

Ah, the good old days, when the police ended up with tanks. Wait a minute… Ahem. Dominion, which was called Dominion Tank Police when it got an anime, is one of Masamune Shiro’s abandoned projects. Like most of his stuff, it’s set in the far future where things have been messed up. Unlike many of the other stuff he’s done, this one is dying because the air is full of a biological mess, made up of pollution, bacteria, and who knows what all else. As such everyone is required to wear a mask when they’re outside… And that just hit REALLY close to home.

Anyway, the manga begins without introduction, with Leona and Al in the mini tank, chasing down Buaku. Buaku is dressed like a classic thief, which a literal giant bag of gold on his back. Leona makes the mini tank climb up the walls after him and then fires a shell at him. Like, holy shit! Of course, it doesn’t quite work like they wanted, as the Buaku they were following was a robotic double and the gold coins are fake.

After this, Leona and the others return to the squad house and we slowly get introduced to the various characters; Brenten, Specs, Chaplin, the Chief, and so on. It’s like a scene out of a cop show the era, except with tanks. I rather enjoy how Shiro weaves in some backstory and character in this way. Of course, it would be nice to get an info dump, too.

This scene comes to an end when there’s a raid on one of the Buaku gang’s hideouts. There, we find the missing “person” Crolis Greenpeace, who’s green and has wings. Turns out that she’s an artificial being designed to purify the air, but why is she given humanoid form?

After this, there’s a few little stories, with Leona and Bonaparte (the mini-tank) “resolving” a hostage situation, trying to catch Unipuma and Annapuma… Oh, I should explain those two. Unipuma and Annapuma are twin robotic sexbots turned criminals that work with Buaka. They enjoy guns, fast cars, destruction, and causing mayhem. They also like good clothes and jewelry. They’re some of the more iconic characters from this series, usually plastered all over the packaging of whatever media it’s in. They’ve also appeared in Shiro’s other works, like a brief cameo in the original Ghost In The Shell manga (which is on my list, look for it). There’s also a story with Buaka using a group of “concerned citizens” to buy a spider tank looking thing so he can use it as a Trojan Horse to attack the Tank Police.

When Buaka returns, he’s stolen a “sand submarine” and uses it to attack Newport City (which is near Osaka, build on landfill in the bay, and where the manga is set). Using missiles, they hit highways, telephone exchanges, and then targets in the slums and rich parts of town, before launching Unipuma and Annapuma in anti-tank helicopters to take hostages. Leona and Al, in Bonaparte, end up chasing down Unipuma and Annapuma as they kidnap a bunch of babies from the hospital as the hostages. Yeah, that’s pretty evil. Somehow, the two officers get aboard the sand ship thing and start chasing hell. But, they’re put out of commission and Buaka and his gang get away. To a space station. They’re leaving Earth behind because it’s so messed up. It’s also revealed that Buaka and the twin (Unipuma and Annapuma) are robots.

The final chapter of the volume opens with Leona waking up at home. I have to say, I love how tolerant her mom is of Leona’s life. When she arrives at work, she gets an assignment to work crowd control at a “smart ball” stadium. She ends up confronting a politician about the sport and is later suspended. Of course, she quits and takes Bonaparte with her (because that’s totally something they would let you do, drive off with your tank). Well, the protesters come back and end up lighting the stadium on fire, trapping the politician and one of his cronies inside. Using Bonaparte, Leona rescues him and she gets reinstated. I have to say, this one feels really preachy to me and doesn’t quite work compared to the other stories.

And that’s where this ends. This was all that was written originally for the Dominion setting. It’s fun, as it tries to be a parody of the action movies and cop movies of the era, tactfully ignoring the implications of militarizing the police to the point of giving them tanks.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Suggestion: It’s an absurd comedy about cops with tanks, just sit back and enjoy the plentiful jokes.

Anime: RahXephon (series overview)

 

Content Warning: Violence, explosions, death, and some weird stuff

I remember seeing ads for the this show back in the day. When I was watching some old DVDs for a review here, I saw one of the ads and remembered that it had been on my list but I never had a chance to check it out. When I was discussing this with a friend of mine, it turned out that he had the complete collection on DVD. So, here we are.

Let me just get this out of the way now: this show is “mysterious” and almost all of it is unnecessary. While I did enjoy the slow pacing, I think it could have used the time much, much better to explain away the mysteries it tried to set up. Also, I am going to be spoiling some major things, so you have been warned.

Our story begins in Tokyo, in that far off year of 2015 (which was the future when this show was made), where we meet Ayato and his two friends, Asahina and Mamoru, typical high school students. Things seem to be fairly normal for them, with Ayato’s distant mother and his artistic talent being the only two things that tell you that he’s the main character. If you pay attention to some things in the first episode, you’ll get some hints that things aren’t quite what you think they are. Things start rolling when Tokyo is attacked by “Invaders” that use very advanced aircraft. These aircraft are later shot down by some of the most unique mecha you’ll see, and was part of why I wanted to watch the series. Ayato ends up in a train station and is accosted by two “government agents” to get on a train. Ayato is saved by an older woman (Haruka, but you don’t really learn her name for another episode or two) but ends up getting on a train with another friend from school, Mishima Reika. Together they arrive at “Xephon Station” which looks like ancient ruins, and then discover a giant egg, from which the titular RahXephon hatches from. Ayato ends up aboard the mecha and fights the Invader planes.

Now, I’m going to do some skipping around, because this show takes a long time to get on with it, and I don’t want to bog this down too much.

Now, there’s a lot of questions we have at this point. During the fight Haruka has with the agents, they bled blue, not red. We also saw that Ayato’s mother, “Lady” Maya, also bled blue. When Ayato gets outside of Tokyo, we come across ruins. Ayato has been told that there’s nothing outside Tokyo because of a war. This is a lie. Tokyo is now called Tokyo Jupiter because there’s a dimensional barrier around the city that looks a lot like pictures of Jupiter. And that barrier slows down time. Inside, it’s 2015, but outside, it’s 2027. Tokyo was sealed away from the rest of the world by a group of dimensional invaders known as the Mu, or Mulians. Why they did this is unknown, but they’ve been controlling the people inside, making them think that the rest of the world is in ruins. After a whole episode of explaining this and just spending time with Haruka and Ayato, they’re rescued and taken to Nirai Kanai, the base of operations for TERRA, part of the Earth Federation. While there, we meet a lot of other characters: the leader of the base/group, Kunugi; Megumi Shitou, Haruka’s younger sister, Kim, Megumi’s friend, Souichi, the chipper second in command/Megumi’s crush/Kim’s secret boyfriend, the mysterious Quon, Dr. Itsuki who is Quon’s older brother, and several others that I don’t even want to get into.

From this point on, the series starts to do several things, starting with slowing down. Mind you, it takes three episodes to even start to explain what the hell is going on, but it starts to fill in more and more details. There’s also more battles, this time against the mecha using the fighters and the RahXephon. These mecha are absolutely beautiful and unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in a mecha show. They look more like pieces of art than weapons. But, these battles are usually short and don’t look the best, it’s hard to explain. It also takes time to explore characters. We get episodes with almost no combat, but instead follow around one character and see what kind of people they are, what relationships they have, and the like. We get to see why Megumi starts to develop a crush on Ayato, for example. And the show takes time to set up more and more mysteries. There’s this whole thing about the Mulians and blood markers. Ayato has them but still bleeds red, but he has to earn the trust of the higher ups. Of course, they kept that from him, and when he finds out, it takes him a while to stop being angry with everyone about not telling him. We also keep seeing Mishima when Ayato is thinking about or inside the RahXephon, and she talks to him about joining or something to that effect. There’s so much going, I would really have to do an episode by episode review.

Things start moving quickly again when Ayato takes the mysterious Quon into Tokyo Jupiter. There, Ayato confronts his “mother” about what the hell is going on, and we do find out that she’s not his biological mother. Which is good, because she’s also Haruka’s “aunt” and Haruka and Megumi have been lusting after this boy (goddamn it, Japan). We also run into Asahina and Mamoru again, which is nice, but goes sideways pretty quick. Asahino is in love with Ayato and her brain is fucked up because she’s been forced to forget so much, but it isn’t completely gone. Meanwhile, Mamoru has been drinking the Mu Kool-Aid and has the hots for Asahino. When he tries to force a kiss, she hits him in the nose and we see he’s also bleeding blue. Of course, this leads to her getting shot and then freaking out about bleeding red when she runs into Ayato. He lies to her and says that he sees red, too. Well, now it’s time to go, and Ayato takes Asahino with him. When they get out, Ayato has to hide because he’s in a lot of trouble, and Asahino is with him. This episode is so touching, as we’re having Asahino narrate the whole thing but she can’t tell Ayato what’s going on in her head or heart. And that leads to episode’s great tragedy. You see, Asahino ends up creating or controlling or something with the mecha of this episode. And when Ayato defeats it, he kills her. It was devastating. And that’s not even the lowest point of this show.

From this point on, there’s a ton more drama, games within games, and just more mystery layered on to muddy the waters even more. Not all of these are cleared up by the end of the show, sadly. New characters are introduced, new groups that have agendas that are only hinted at, and Ayato is in a very deep hole. I think this is one of the harder parts to get through. And it gets bad. Asahino’s death signals that a lot of people are going to die. And I mean a lot. No one is safe. But, there’s also some victories. TERRA succeeds in taking down the Tokyo Jupiter barrier and that’s good. Unfortunately, it also unleashes the floating cities of Mu on the world, as well as their Dolem (which is what they call the mecha). The island that we’ve been at is destroyed.

Tangent time: I do like this show, I really do. It’s not my favorite but I have to respect the unique mecha design and use of music and sound. I haven’t gotten into it so far but there’s a lot of musical references and mentions in this thing. It really is pleasing in a lot of ways. Shame it’s all wrapped around a messy plot. A little bit more editing, make things a little tighter, and this would be one of the mecha shows you would mention in the same breath as Neon Genesis Evangelion. And that show is the elephant in the room. You see, NGE was a deconstruction of the mecha genre as a whole and every show that came after it, including this one, took elements from it. This one has a lot of stuff in it that I reminded me of NGE, usually visually. But, since NGE also broke down the archtypes of the genre as well, you can easily draw direct comparisons between NGE characters and ones from this one. A good example is Quon. She’s a lot like Rei from NGE. She’s enigmatic and odd, and has an odd hair color, but unlike Rei, there’s something more endearing to her, at least at first. And I say this as a Rei fan. I just couldn’t stop myself from going “Oh, yeah, they did something like this in NGE..” because it’s everywhere. Towards the end of the series, there’s some biological stuff going on with the mecha and it looks like something right out of NGE. However, there’s a difference here and I will point it out. Unlike most other mecha shows, which have technological basis, and NGE, which had a Theological basis, RahXephon has a spiritual and perhaps historical basis to its world. To me, it was the use of Mu, a fictional vanished civilization much like Atlantis, that makes it work. The architecture of the Mulian floating cities, with massive faces carved into stone, trees and grass growing, and even flowing water, brings a wonderful mix of ancient history and power to the designs and you can feel the weight of history when you look at their stuff.

Now, I’m going to spoil the ending because I really need to talk about it. If you’ve read this far and think you’re going to watch the show, go ahead and scroll down to my rating and then click away. Feel free to come back after you’ve watched the show.

The last six episodes of the show are emotional torture porn, I swear. We lose so many characters, it’s not even remotely funny. I think the part that hits hardest for me is the fact that Kim is clearly pregnant. After Ayato’s return from Tokyo Jupiter, and the discovery of Kim and Souichi’s relationship, she starts throwing up and stops drinking coffee. Is this absolute proof that she’s got a bun in the oven? No. But, like much of this show, it’s a subtle way of letting you know what’s happening. The writers of this show took “show, don’t tell” and ran away with it, I swear. So, when Souichi dies, it hit me like a hammer blow. And when Kim tries to kill Ayato after he killed Souichi, I felt for her so much. However, by far, the hardest thing is the whole thing with Haruka and Ayato. She’s been in love with him for so many years, only to find him again, and be 12 years older than him. I really wish they hadn’t tried to keep this some secret for as long as they did. There’s so many hints, it wasn’t hard to figure it out. Of course, there was a red herring or two that kept me wondering, but I really wish they had shown us a bit more, and not waited until almost the last episode, to let this come out. And then, in the last episode, after Ayato has joined with the RahXephon, and then is going to “tune the world” you have Ayato kill Haruka without even realizing it? That scene physically hurt me. And made me cry. Of course, that’s not where things end. The one saving grace of this whole series is the last few minutes.

Ayato seems to be battling Quon, both in their mecha that have merged with them, and he wins. He then “tunes the world” effectively restarting things. We see Haurka and Ayato have a baby girl, Quon, and are both the same age. Tokyo Jupiter was never created. Megumi seems to be living a good life. Asahino and Mamoru might be married. In short, everyone is living happily ever after. And then we get the best part of the show. Now, I haven’t really touched on this, and I’m sorry. You see, in the first few moments of the episode, Ayato has just completed a painting of a girl standing on a rock. This girl looks like Mishima Reiko, and he continues to redraw it over and over again in the show. He even paints it again before everything goes to hell. Well, now here’s the thing: Mishima Reiko is really an echo/memory of Haruka. She was Mishima Haruka before she was Shitou Haruka (her mother remarried). The last part of the show is showing Haruka and Ayato meeting for the first time, which her standing on a rock like the painting Ayato has been creating and recreating over and over again. Honestly, it took too damn long to show it to us but I loved it all the same. Sometimes, one moment changes the course of your life forever...

Rating: 3 out of 5

Suggestion: If you like old school mecha shows, and don’t mind the overdone mystery elements, it’s got a lot of heart.

Anime: Blue Submarine No. 6 (episode 1)

 

Content Warning: Brief nudity, violence, explosions, animal death, and implied drug use

This one is an old one and I only recently stumbled across the first episode on DVD. Many years ago, when this one first came out, I do remember watching it. I like naval stuff and mecha and naked fish ladies. I’ll take no comments at this time.

This OVA starts off with images a flooded Tokyo (with required picture of Tokyo Tower having yet another bad day) and signs of people making a new life in the now water level floors of the surviving buildings. We get introduced to one of the characters, Kino, as she travels to the home of the other main character, Hayami. In Hayami’s decaying building home, we see all kinds of detritus of the world. Magazines, a record playing, cigarette butts, and later, used needles. Hayami is clearly not in the best place, in so many ways.

We also see our first reference to Professor Zorndyke, once hailed as the greatest mind in the world. Kino has come to Hayami to ask him to join the crew of Blue Submarine 6, a very advanced submarine that tries to protect what’s left of humanity. From what? Well, we’re getting there.

After getting rejected by Hayami, Kino and her African (American?) escort end up leaving and heading back to the sub. Of course, things don’t go as planned and the port is attacked by… Rusty giant robot crab things? It’s kind of hard to see and explain. And this brings us to one thing about this series: the animation. You see, this was in this time period where animation companies started to add 3D CGI animation to traditional 2D animation. While not terrible, the explosions are very PS2 looking. And with this new way of doing things, you sometimes don’t get a good look at what’s on the screen.

Anyway. While these robots are attacking, Kino tries to get back to the submarine, but people are running away from the water, not towards it. When all hope looks lost, Hayami appears with a submachine gun and a fast boat. He swiftly rescues Kino, the junior officer, and an old woman, and makes it to the submarine. Soon, the submarine launches, with Kino and Hayami in a mini sub/mecha called a Grasper. And the battle takes two directions: the Grasper fighting against the mecha, while the submarine tackles the mothership, which turns out to be a whale bioweapon.

With some brains, brass, and a friendly assist, the enemies of humanity are defeated. And this is where things take a weird turn. After blowing the limbs off of one of the crab mecha, Hayami takes part of the Grasper (I guess they can do that, we don’t see it happen) and finds the core unit. As he approaches, the main hatch unscrews, and this nasty stuff falls out. It look biological but we don’t get told what it is. From that goo comes a… Fish woman. She isn’t a mermaid, she has arms and legs, and pink feather looking things that kind of cover her breasts, and this yellow/black coloring that reminds me of a fish (but I can’t remember what one). Since she’s aquatic, she’s choking to death on the air. Hayami picks her up, after she bites him, and he dumps her in the sea. Koni shows up and tries to kill her but Hayami says no. I don’t understand. I really don’t understand.

And the episodes ends there. I will say that the ending theme is really good. Otherwise, this is so… Weird. I have watched the whole thing and this movie helped me remember it but it doesn’t do a great job of setting up the show. I did some research and this is based on a manga originally published in 1967. I suppose it might make sense in the manga but it just… I don’t know. I am thinking about picking up the whole thing, as it’s only six episodes long. Time will tell. If I do, and you want me to do a full review of it, let me know.

Rating: 3 out of 5

Suggestion: I don’t know, it is free with Amazon Prime?

Manga: Gigant, Volume 4

 

Content Warning: Gore, nudity, massive destruction

One step closer to the end of this series…

Last time, we left off with a giant hand reaching into Rei’s room. As I suspected, it’s one of the giants attacking the city, not Chiho. The giant grabs Rei and he’s able to cut its hand and get away. The next few pages have a montage of the giants getting killed by the Tokyo PD and JSDF, before the ETE unleashes a giant robot on the city. While the JSDF is able to take down this giant robot, it comes at quite a cost. I do have to say, it’s nice to see some giant robots in something. I miss the mecha genre.

During all of this, we see PaPiCo’s Twitter get 5.56 million followers and start hearing calls for her release. And I’m really glad to see it. When Chiho was arrested, my heart sank. She should be the hero (even if we’re stuck following Rei for some stupid reason) and it’s good to see the people in the book realize that she’s there to help them. She might not have the skills and she might not have wanted the job, but she’s got it and she tries her best. And that’s why I wish this was her story. Aside from the very first page in this volume, we don’t see her until ETE gets ready to unleash not one but THREE Gods of Destruction on Tokyo.

As the Gods appear and start destroying the city, we start following the love interest from the first volume, the one that Rei’s friend had a crush on (at least I think its her) as the city begins to crumble. There’s a lot of death and destruction in this part. People are killed by buildings falling apart, people crying and holding each other, and one child scream in front of the crushed body of his mother. One thing I will say about this series, it doesn’t shy away from the human cost of all this devastation. It’s not something you see very often, this human cost. And I think it’s one of the better parts.

When we really get to see Chiho again, she’s been released from prison and given a super elastic suit to wear, riding on a troop transport helicopter with several squads of JSDF soldiers. There’s some fun dialogue with some of them, with one of them admitting he owns some of her films.

And then they jump out of the helicopter, with Chiho growing to giant size as she falls through the air. The suit doesn’t hold out very long and she naked by the time she hits the ground. Meanwhile, we get cuts to the various people in the city, either in shock or crying.

When Chiho lands, you can see how much more prepared for this than she was the last time. She doesn’t look afraid, she looks confident, ready for the fight. Sadly, it doesn’t last. There’s three of them and one of her. She hasn’t been trained for a fight and the JSDF doesn’t seem to be able to even scratch the Gods. It doesn’t take long for them to knock her around and get ready to tear her apart. When I was reading this part, I was really worried for her.

But, she vanishes before they can kill her, using the same trick she did during the last battle, shrinking down to avoid them. And she uses the other trick she did last time, climbing up one of the giants, only to get inside and destroy it by increasing her size when inside it…

And that’s where this volume ends, with one God of Destruction down, and two more to go.

This one feels so short. Mostly because there’s not nearly as much dialogue and there’s a lot of jumping around. With the lack of focus on Chiho, I found this one hard to get started. To me, Chiho is what makes this series. She’s the hero, not Rei. She should be the main character, not Rei. And even in this volume, Rei doesn’t really do much besides scroll through Twitter and cheer Chiho on from a train. We get a lot of images of destruction and what people closer to the action are up to, but it doesn’t grab me as much as the other bits. However, I do like the action at the end, it kept me turning the page as fast as I could.

I am looking forward to the next volume, as I want to see Chiho and Rei get back together. Now that she’s been given amnesty, I’m sure they can see each other again. I just hope that they give her some hand to hand combat training…

Rating: 3 out of 5

Suggestion: While not the best volume so far, it’s worth keeping up with.