Guaporense and Zotis Review Animation

→ in
Tools    





30) Rango (2011)



Very well made CGI movie. Modern Hollywood these days delivers a very refined if perhaps a bit predictable product. In Rango we have the traditional structure of typical modern Hollywood narrative and sensibilities, including many jokes that aim to keep the audience entertained at every single possible minute! Though to be fair, it's overall plot structure is more complex than typical Hollywood animations and most live action features as well.

While the film was very well made and indeed I was entertained from the beginning to the end, I found it a bit weak in it's emotional power because of the excessive volume of jokes which reduced the dramatic intensity of the narrative. Well, this is actually a problem endemic to Hollywood animation and also many live action blockbusters made these days.

The graphics were also very good though I disliked a bit the excessively cartoony character designs though Rango's character design was very interesting. I specially liked the way his eyes moved.

Rango's characters as human chibi:


Wouldn't it be better? If it were done in traditional animation with cutesy character designs I would perhaps rate it higher? Well, I didn't rate the Fate Kaleid OVA very highly and it's as chibi as it gets.

+



I love Fist of the North Star. I think it's a bit unrealistic and over the top, but not stupid, and not more over the top than 300. The way it's over the top is different. In 300 the way the characters talk is more over the top, but in FotNS it's only the violence that's over the top. Even their power is at least explained, but 300 doesn't explain the weird things that appear.



Rhea Gall Force (1989)
Directed by Katsuhito Akiyama

In classic 80's style this action-packed sci-fi was a pretty entertaining ride. The characters weren't very developed, but they were charming in their own way. The story took place on a futuristic Earth and was somewhat linked to the plot from the original Gal Force: Eternal Story. Presumably after the human race was born and reached a technologically advanced state they discovered alien technology on Mars which lead to the creation of AI war robots that then turned on their human masters. With the threat these robots imposed the human race was facing extinction and decided to escape from Earth to Mars. The movie was one hour long. The animation quality was half-decent, but nothing exceptional. Overal I enjoyed it, and this was my second time watching it. I admit I liked it more the first time. There wasn't really much depth to glean more from a rewatch.






31) Flowers of Evil (2013)



This is a series, however, like Lain and Haibane Renmei, it's more cinematic than most animated theatrical movies and features a very particular visual style. The animation is entirely rotoscoped and the backgrounds are also probably made from real world photos, an impressive feat for a TV show, and what a show: psychological drama, of the type that only someone who took his teenager nonsenses really seriously would understand.

I find it impressive how enormously complicated these teenagers manage to make their really light romance situations and with their libidos. How they manage to hate themselves just for having perfectly natural sexual thoughs and how they seriously plan to ignore their biological urges, something that it's almost unheard in Brazil, by the way.

Rotoscoping:


Also, all the characters are very complex and I find it interesting that it was based on a teenager manga adaptations instead of an adult manga because it's quite sophisticated and emotionally deep. What if K-On! was made like it? Well:








I never got around to finishing Flowers of Evil. It was pretty interesting though. And that picturr of K-On if it was made like that, lol.



Yeah, Flowers of Evil is interesting... but I'd say it's a slow one, and it only shows its full potential in a few selected scenes of its second half. The open ending that is much likely not going to be continued was as well damaging to the final result. And I wasn't that fond of the overall story and characters. While it is an interesting take at a psychological romance drama, it does not really shine at its character exposition in my opinion; Nanako in special felt lacking and, compared with the other two, pretty much unexplored.

I have doubts about the rotoscope. It's effective in a few instances, but it's also a cheap, flawed and clearly inconsistant use of. To me, it stands as a valid artistic choice that is not properly followed by the amount of effort necessary to make it work. It's absurd how stiff the animation looks, how lacking in detail the character representations are, etc. from a technique that is supposed to make all of this more fluid and close to reality.

In the end I think it was a great idea with a not so great execution, making a unique and flawed series that deserves some degree of appreciation, but not even close to being a masterpiece.



You though it looked stiff? I found it pretty fluid and I loved the realistic background art (similar technique was used in Whisper of the Heart in making the backgrounds though obviously not the character design and movements). Well IMO it's among the best animations of 2013. Weaker than some other series that began in 2013 like Kill la Kill or movies like Wind Rises and Tale of Princess Kaguya. I found it very memorable watch that's why the high rating since I never watched another rotoscoped TV series before. Though I would like they made more rotoscoped series but apparently it's not worth the cost.



It looks as if it was in a permanent slow motion state, to me. Which is kind of ridiculous seeing how the traditional limited animation can give more sensation of fluidity than this did. Maybe the reason is that they didn't have enough resources to make rotoscope look as good as it would in a Ralph Bakshi or early Disney movie.

There were a few scenes that clearly had a benefit from this, though; the school scene at night, in special, was really beautiful to look at and conveyed the emotions very well through this kind of limited rotoscope.



32) Fate Stay Night (2005)*



Fate Stay Night this is anime par excellence. It's the typical, most generic type of anime as understood as shounen fantasy action! But it's a very good example of the genre it's a very well executed one and contains great characters and a well executed story. It features a tad too much of silly things however (superpowers by the servant characters are a bit corny like Saber's Excalibur sword slash and her "Avalon" defense) which harmed a little bit my enjoyment of the show. Though I also

The art design is typical, in fact, almost canonical, of 2005 manga. If you wanted to show a cultural anthropologist how 2005 manga looks like you show him Fate Stay Night. But that is not a bad thing, in fact, it's a great thing!

By they way, this whole franchise began with a 2003 computer game of the genre called visual novel which is a novel with multiple narrative paths that you can play on the computer, it spawned a whole franchise of TV series, books, games and mangas. The 2005 TV series adapts one of the possible narrative paths of the visual novel into a 24 episode series. It indeed feels like a computer game at some points: the plot involves something called Holy Grail War which is a competition between mages to obtain the Holy Grail which yields great power, mages recruit heroic spirits in their quest. The main character is typical of teenager boy's manga: a teenager boy who almost without intention, recruits Arturia, King of the Britons (who is the woman clad in dress/armor in the first picture ) as his heroic spirit to fight for him against other heroic spirits to win the Holy Grail War (it's like Pokemon!).

Though some parts of it bored me others were excellent and overall I had a strong emotional response from the whole thing. Especially when the main character and his servant fell in love (though predictable it felt very well made). And by the end I had a great emotional response hence I rate it pretty high, higher than it probably deserves since it has a vastly superior sequel made in 2012-2013 as well, Fate\Zero.

Finally, note that despite being adapted from a computer game it is vastly superior to Hollywood game adaptations. Why? Reason is that Japanese visual novels are computer games with a literary quality and hence easier/better to adapt to film than a game like Mario or Mortal Combat.


*Well, since I closed down my animated TV series thread I decided to put new reviews of animated series here, the name of the thread is "... review animation", not "...review animated theatrically released films".



33) The Tale of Princess Kaguya (2013)



Since I nominated it for the HoF I decided to re-watch Isao Takahata's new film. It's an impressive work of art, of the type that makes me believe that the art of animation is perhaps my favorite medium of expression (even though it's the least developed medium). Animation is an extreme labor intensive art-form, the hardest to produce indeed and the fact it was traditionally relegated to children's entertainment also sucks, but finally, despite these shortcomings, masterpieces such as The Tale of Princess Kaguya can indeed emerge. Partly thanks to the existence of a large economy who loves animation (Japan's), which allows the employment of the vast manpower required to make this film.

It is indeed the single most visually stricking animation I ever watched. It's style is simultaneously very Japanese and simultaneously very different from most other Japanese animation and manga. It's a work of visual poetry, more in common with the short films by Alexander Petrov and Yuri Norstein rather than typical Japanese animation, dialogue is minimal and very simple while the focus is all on the visuals/audio: this is also the first Takahata film with a Hisaishi score, hence, perhaps his best score to date.

It's plot is simple, even a bit full of cliches (including the glorification of countryside living and the villanization of wealthy urban aristocratic lifestyle), though like other Miyazaki/Takahata works it is despite these cliche politically correct nonsense (which obviously includes Nausicaa and Princess Mononoke) it conveys through these rather tired old themes, incredible emotional power and memorable sense of style, in fact, transcedental.

Conveying the same sense of sublimity as Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies is perhaps one of the few true masterpieces of animation. I loved it when I watched it for the first time and on this second watch I appreciated it even more. An overall perfect movie without any apparent flaws.




34) Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou OVA (1998)



I watched this one about 3 months ago but I forgot to review it. Indeed a very interesting and engaging piece of animation. The first OVA adaptation of the manga classic which it's unique atmosphere, it's a great OVA, indeed, a nice example of the power of animation in producing a relaxing atmosphere. Although it is not comparable to the absolute masterpiece that is the manga.

Plot is inexistent as it spends it's 60 minutes of duration depicting the easygoing daily life of the main character who is a robot which looks very much like a human, main exception is her slightly weird hair color. Though she is also one of the world's oldest sentient beings as well since she takes care of a cafe whose owner probably died generations ago though she is always waiting for him to come back.

It's relaxing atmosphere provides the inspiration for additional similarly relaxing anime title Aria: The Animation. Though here the setting is more rural like, very sparse and also very reminiscent of 1990's manga.




35) Piano no Mori (2007)



One of the nominations for the Japanese academy award prize for animated film of the year is Piano no Mori. It's a very healing type of movie, similar in atmosphere in fact with the OVA I just reviewned. It's about the story of a piano talent who develops his talent while preparing for a piano playing competition.

The animation is of good quality but not up to the level of Ghibli's films, it's a small budget animated film. The adaptation of an adult manga it's a very quiet and sort of contemplative film, not as healing type as Yokohama though, but that's almost impossible. Instead here we have the light drama of a poor boy who also appears to have an almost miraculous gift for the piano. It's executed though in a realistic and not melodramatic fashion as typical of Japanese slice of life fiction.

I also disliked though the very standardized art style of the movie. Very generic manga look that previously I found interesting now I find boring.




36) Nurse Witch Komugi-chan OVA (2002)



One of the titles regarded as essential for Otaku according to the Otaku Encyclopedia that I have been reading. It's considered a essential OVA for moe fans, a parody of Japanese pop culture in general and comics and animation in particular, from Speed Racer to DragonBall. It's also incredibly cute, even the opening song is almost "destructive" in it's cuteness.

Deluxe form of main character's alter ego, Nurse Witch: http://static.zerochan.net/Nakahara.....full.3797.jpg

Like other otaku oriented material, it appears like a children's stuff superficially but for experienced eyes of the otaku it is a highly sophisticated work of meta-pop culture. Self conscious at all time it was made for those who grew up on manga and anime works and just parodies everything all the way and all the time.

And her archenemy, Magical Maid Koyori, also her highschool mate and her cooworker as a model: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...89674a256a.jpg

Very similar to Puni Puni Poemi in many ways, in fact, superior to that title as well. The animation is of higher quality (very good at some parts) and I liked the art style more as well.

http://www.new-anime.com/images/nurs...h-komugi_1.jpg




37) Ghost in the Shell: Arise (2013)



Featuring state of the art animation (both CGI and hand drawn) and art,Ghost in the Shell: Arise is the newest iteration of animated adaptations of the famous manga series written by Masamune Shirow (original creator) and Junichi Fujisaku (among others).

It's very similar to other adaptations of the manga and all those adaptations preserve the style of the original manga by Shirow (I haven't read the other manga's yet), which consists of police procedural/investigation at the surface and science fiction dealing with the nature of humanity at it's core. It envisions a perhaps very realistic future where the ultimate technology has become the artificialization of the human body: the capability to manufacture prosthetic bodies to replace the original one, the capability to manufacture prosthetic brains as well. And the creation of artificial intelligence that is perhaps identical to human intelligence. In this world the difference between human and machine is not clear black and white but gradations in grey scale. It's something very disturbing that scared me a lot when I first watched the first GitS movie when I was 14.

While GitS is a very interesting franchise I think that all it's iterations suffer from lack of emotional engagement. At least very explicit emotional development if compared to other mangas (and their adaptations) about the same science fiction theme, such as Gunnm, which is superior to GitS in that aspect even though it's not as explicit in its philosophical content. Here though it's more explicit than in Oshii's films.

This series of 5 movies of 50 minutes each consists of five self contained movies that involve major Motoko Kusanagi and depict her transition from a soldier to an officer of a intelligence section of the civilian government and her daily work in that organization. It's very faithful in translating into animation the feel of the manga, more so than Mamoru Oshii's films which are more of Oshii's own auteur cinema: Oshii only uses the manga he adapted as settings for his own style.

The narratives are also quite complex and the presentation is such that not easy to understand precisely the plots of each. Although formulaic investigative crime fiction it's pretty demanding of the attention of the viewer. Well, the characters are detectives anyway. Though detectives that fight a lot and lose their prosthetic limbs as part of their daily routine. Still, it was an entertaining watch and I guess anybody interested in science fiction would benefit from watching it but those who are not heavily interested in science fiction will probably not enjoy it as much.