Spoiler Threat Level: Medium

I never, ever will be hyped about a movie again.

The reason for the sentence above is simple: Although Redline is absolutely not a bad movie (very far from it) it could have been fantastic movie, something that rocks the soul of any man…but unfortunately it doesn’t do that.

Despite all the cool stuff that Redline throws on screen there seems to be the same amount of bad decisions regarding either pacing, setting or character introductions. In the end Redline has many problems which tarnish the incredibly well staged racing scenes a little bit. Redline truly shows that director Takeshi Koike (Dead Leaves) still has a long way to go and learn much from the masters before he can reach the heavens.

But first things first, the plot outline. Redline is set in a distant future in which the illegal race called Redline is one of the biggest events of the whole galaxy, taking part every five years on a different planet. JT, a young and eager human racer, wants to take part in that legend of a race. Yet, during the qualification race, he almost dies from a horrible accident caused by his own friend who placed a bomb below the car. Surprisingly, JT can enter Redline after several teams dropped out. The reason? The government of the host planet – a militaristic dictatorship – is not amused at all by the announcement that Redline will take place on their planet and is set out to kill every racer who sets foot on their turf. JT isn’t impressed by this threat and starts to rebuild his wrecked car, not knowing that his friend is another threat lurking in the dark.

The racing scenes are seriously some of the best action I’ve seen in a while. Since Redline is framed by two of such racing sequences (the Yellow Line at the beginning and the Redline at the end) those are certainly the highlights of this movie. Racing without rules never looked cooler or was more ridiculous and speedy. The final ten minutes are truly superb and absolutely satisfying while upping the ridiculous level even further. You have to see it and if possible on the big screen. It will certainly blow your mind.

The style Takeshi Koike’s already used in World Record in the Animatrix anthology and perfected in Dead Leaves fits pitch perfect for this kind of movie. The world Koike brings to life really feels like it’s alive with its bizarre and often funny looking aliens and creatures.

Despite my initial impression I got from the trailer, Redline’s also surprisingly slow. It takes its time to flesh out the main characters – especially the growing relationship of JT and the girl whose I name forgot – and the situation they will soon get into (there’s a clash in a bar, for example, with some authorities from the host planet).

But this is where the problems start. Although I think it was a wise decision to give some room for the plot to breathe, I sometimes got the feeling that Redline was too slow. Even worse, I often got the feeling that – similar to Dead Leaves – many plot elements of Redline lead to nowhere.

The other racers are a perfect example of that problem. The anime uses various expositional techniques (interviews, dialogue, flashbacks and so on) to present us the various contestants of the race. We learn some good amount of info about them. Yet, almost all those guys never get a chance to shine. You know who they are, but in the end they’re on screen for about thirty seconds or so. And that’s it, they do nothing of importance. I am still wondering why Redline used up so much time for them when it could have sped up everything remarkably. And god dammit, why didn’t Koike use the two girly racers and their fembot, which was so awesomely cool in the trailer. Sure, it’s there, but as everything else only for some seconds.

Takeshi Koike also horribly fucked up at one occasion in terms of editing. After JT has sorted everything out and got his car, the final race is finally about to begin. I was sitting in my chair and started smiling like a kid, when it really began. And just when the awesome meter is about to reach the heavens, Koike cuts away from the action, only to present us some seriously irrelevant commentators giving us yet another exposition about yet another team. Seriously, at that moment I was short of going Hannibal. And this is one of those moments where it shows that Koike might be a genius at drawing, action, and framing, but still has a long way to go in terms of editing, pacing and characterization.

Sometimes I got even the impression that Koike started to lose his overview of the situation or even forget some teams for a while. For example, at one point in the movie one team ends up digging its way into a high security underground installation. Although this sounds cool Takeshi Koike totally forgot to show us how they began to go underground and never showed us how they fare in the dark. They’re suddenly there and that’s it.

What baffled me even more is a secondary plot about a military guy from the dictatorship who’s sent out to kill the racers. Since he has some old grudge with one team member he decides to go AWOL and participate. Although this was some of the funniest stuff of Redline Koike didn’t resolve or end this plot line at all. It is an epic waste here because I loved that whiny dude and his ramblings. The same can also be said about his friend who has some personal gambling problems but that as well didn’t really got fleshed out.

In the end all those problems can be traced back to the fact that Koike still needs some serious training. He should really go to some anime directors to learn the art of directing. He’s a genius at the visual level but he seriously lacks at the structure level of a movie. If he’s able to sort out that problem I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t become one of the big names in the industry or a legend in some decades.

Don’t get me wrong here: although the problems mentioned are not minor you nevertheless need to watch Redline very, very soon. The action scenes alone are worth everything as they’re some of the best I’ve seen in a long while. And you really have to see it on the big screen. When Redline goes into its high octane mode, it delivers as almost no other racing movie I’ve seen. The action is plenty, colorful, psychedelic and ridiculous without limits.

Conclusion

Redline is an action movie that is simply pure genius on the visual level, something you definitely have to see. Unfortunately, director Takeshi Koike too often forgets its characters and plot lines. And unfortunately Redline sometimes even forgets the one thing it was meant for from the beginning: ridiculous to awesome racing from start to finish. Koike should have left out the character introductions and spent more money on longer racing sequences.

(By the way: I swear to God/Buddah/The Area51 Aliens: if I can get a hold of the guy who subbed Redline I’ll smash him anime style to colorful pieces. Note to him: it’s not that easy to read non-outlined white text on a white background. Never was and never will. I seriously hope that anyone in the US won’t get the same edition and this white on white disaster only was a German hiccup (as are movie titles, movie actors and German movies in general).)

Now it’s your turn: did you see Redline? What do you think of it?

Rating: 5.0 (Redline is a disappointment compared to its trailer.)

Spoiler Threat Level: Medium

If you’re searching for a movie with deep characters or a thought out story: please, for the love of God, do not watch Dead Leaves and stay away from it as far as you can. Dead Leaves offers nothing of substance as characters or a deep plot. In fact, it’s the total opposite of said substance. It’s crazy, fast, brutal, vulgar, full of action and lacking almost any plot whatsoever (albeit having some twists here and there). If you’d give a (male) teenager some money and let his creative destruction roar, Dead Leaves might be the result.

The plot of Dead Leaves is about the protagonists of Pandy and Retro in a science fiction future that way away that it’s totally normal for guys having TV sets as heads (Retro) or penises as large as drills that pierce the heavens (minor side character). And yes, you read that correctly. Drill penis. You gotta see it to believe it. It’s crazy and one part of the word ‘vulgar’ I mentioned above. Where was I? Oh yeah, the plot. The movie opens with Panda and Retro waking up totally naked in the middle of a city, having no memories whatsoever. Seconds later they rob a bank and cause an uproar – and minutes after that they’re sent a prison on the moon. Turns out, they’re somehow connected to that prison.

Please don’t mistake my description of the plot. The connection they have is nothing of importance, it’s only some glue added so the movie doesn’t fall apart completely. But that didn’t work very well because towards the end I got more question WTF marks floating around my head than the whole cast of Looney Tunes.

Overall, I’d describe this anime as ‘experimental’. I’m not sure if this really was the reason for making Dead Leaves, but after some minutes I knew that the visuals and the style is everything and anything this movie cares about.

The overall style fits very well with the excessive action as every scene bursts with intense colors while lacking any kind of shading. I think the animators must have loved and hated it after some time. Nevertheless the result is a high contrast, almost harsh looking anime. Here you can definitely see Takeshi Koike’s influence because he already used the same visual style in the Animatrix anthology short World Record. Basically, the only difference lies in the colors.

In terms of animation Dead Leaves also certainly delivers. The animation is stylish and slick, fast paced and over the top in almost every frame. I got the feeling that director Hiroyuki Imaishi and Takeshi Koike (in the role of the key animator) decided to go as excessive as humanly possible. It’s as if you’re coupling every western silly cartoon you can think of with every eastern action movie and let LSD do the marrying:

If only I’d be not that lazy to create a gif sequence. The image above shows only one frame of an explosion sequence that basically consists of a hundred of smaller explosions, culminating in something I can only describe as a nuke going off. And that’s only one explosion moment of at least dozens.

Another thing as excessive as the explosions is the bullet count. Remember Hot Shots 2 and its supposed record of the most kills ever? Dead Leaves definitely holds the record for most shots fired ever. I think I lost count at about twenty million rounds (which also means twenty million bullet cases drawn!). Dead Leaves also puts the Hollywood cliché to shame that the heroes never need to reload their guns. The guys in this movie shoot that fast they couldn’t reload even if their lives would depend…oh wait…

The prison Panda and Retro are being sent to is one of the most imaginative and vulgar ones I’ve seen in a while. The craziest thing is that the ideas shown here make total sense.

By putting those criminals into those ‘bags’ like some laundry (see image above) you save yourself a lot of trouble and time. Not letting them move on their own? Yep, good idea. Force feeding them? Saves time. Force sh***ing them? As long as nothing happens: saves time.

Of course, all those things only work well in a scifi universe, so rest assured. I won’t start a movie career to become a politician so I can build one prison like that (and I mean exactly like that: all down to the colors and cloned security guards). By the way: the character designs of the whole cast is superb to say the least. Crazy but creative.

The problem of Dead Leaves? As ironic as it sounds but it’s the action Dead Leaves set out to top in every regard possible. After the 100^th action moment I got tired of it because it offered nothing new. They change locations and weapons but that’s about it. Compared to Shoot Em Up which has some of the most awesomely ridiculous action moments, Dead Leaves feels hollow and not that imaginative despite its look.

That’s also the overall feeling I have for Dead Leaves. Certainly, it delivers in terms of visual style. But there’s nothing more. I certainly missed some creative spark or idea that is more than just doing everything on hyperspeed. The parts are there (interesting characters, awesome style, crazy pacing) but it just doesn’t add up to something awesome you could watch again and again. It’s a real shame.

Conclusion

Watch Dead Leaves and then forget it. Why? Because you have to see the animation and the style at least once in your lifetime. And I am sure that many of you will have an incredible amount of brainless fun. Normally I’d be the first one to applaud, but, well, you can’t have it every time.

Now it’s your turn. Did you see it and what do you think about Dead Leaves?

Rating: 6.0 (The style is fantastic (bonus points: rating +2), the story a mess.)

Spoiler Threat Level: High

Gage recently added a comment to my review of Akira (the one anime that made anime famous as anime in the West) and this one made me think. He mainly writes about Kaori who is the girlfriend of Tetsuo i.e. the Guy Who Goes Horribly Nuts. Gage not only correctly points out that Kaori is only on screen in two scenes in Akira but also that in each segment Kaori is in a living hell and no one seems to care. I addressed his second point in a comment of mine in the original post, so I will use this space to address the first point: the role of Kaori in Akira since her two moments seem to be not that important at all.

Before I start please note that you need to have watched Akira at least once to understand what I’m writing about. If you didn’t, you can gladly skip this blog post if you like.

Originally I planned to address all of Gage’s points in a short comment and be done with it, yet I just couldn’t wrap my mind around the whole matter. Why is Kaori in Akira? What’s her purpose? What I certainly know is that her role in the manga is much more important than in the movie. I know this because I bought two volumes of the manga years ago in which she was part of the plot. Yet, in the movie?

Her role at first doesn’t feel important at all in the animated version. I was constantly thinking and wondering why Kaori was in the movie. Certainly you could’ve reached the same plot points with a different character. The only thing I knew from the start was that another character was necessary so that Tetsuo has someone to interact with.

Yet the more I thought about it the more I got lost because I couldn’t really find an answer. Well, until I started remembering one of the scenes in which Kaori was in. This was the moment when it made ‘click’ and for the first time ever I grasped the purpose of her character in Akira completely.

So, what am I talking about? To emphasize this point, let me start with some of the other girls that appear in the movie. There are two scenes in particular I want to talk about. The first scene takes place after Kaneda’s gang is sent back to school and get a good beating from a teacher:

As you can see, the three gang’s chicks on the right can be fully described as biker’s girls. Colorful dresses, makeup and an almost slutty way of talking. If I’d be an asshole, I’d describe them as the pitch perfect bitches of the gang.

Then there’s another scene which is even more important:

The appearance of the other girl on the telephone is not that outrageous but you can see that she has a good tan and wears tight clothes which reveal her figure in any way possible. Moreover she’s some kind of gossip girl who seemingly talks all day on the phone. In a way I got the feeling she’s just the same as the biker’s gang girls.

Now compare everything I mentioned with Kaori:

Kaori’s appearance is the opposite most of the minor girls shown in Akira up to that point. She doesn’t wear makeup; she doesn’t have dyed hair. And she wears rather bland if not slightly colorful yet totally mismatching clothes. She might show some skin, but that’s on a normal level (arms and legs), moreover her clothes are not tight at all as it’s the case with every other girl.

I almost feel like a stupid idiot because both girls appear in the same scene. I never spotted this fact or thought much about it. And I feel massively stupid because of this since the whole purpose of the scene is just to show the contrast between both girls, especially on the level of behavior. One is flashy, the other not. One behaves outrageous, the other one timid and shy. It’s as if two worlds clash.

And this is the moment I understood Kaori and her purpose in Akira. Because when I shifted the outer appearance of the girl onto the symbolic level, everything became crystal clear: Kaori is the symbol of normality, of a normal life. So her role in terms of movie minutes might be minor but that doesn’t mean that her role isn’t truly significant.

The following scene in which she meets Tetsuo drives this point already home: Tetsuo didn’t run to his gang, but to her. Why? Because he wants to run away with her. On the symbolic level this means that he wants to leave his current life behind and start living normally. Remember that he comes straight from the hospital, so he doesn’t have any belongings with him. He even doesn’t want to. He wants to start over.

Minutes later this takes a turn for the tragic in which Kaori plays an extremely important role. She is the trigger of the madness that breaks out in Tetsuo and his lust for power and domination. The reason is the fact, that he wasn’t able to save or protect Kaori, his normal life, from the clowns. He didn’t have the power. But Kaneda did. Kaneda saved the day. This leads to some extreme frustrations inside him. So he not only beats the clown almost to death but also starts to get aggressive towards Kaneda. In a way, Kaneda took Tetsuo’s pride and his face, which is also why he hides his face when Kaori comes close to him and tells her to stay away. He’s ashamed of himself. Seconds later his awakening fully starts and we know that there’s no turning back anymore.

Tetsuo was extremely close to start over living normally, but his old life destroyed everything. The normal life symbolized by Kaori is further away than ever. And the same happens with Kaori as a character: she’s not a part of the following fights and conflicts in Akira.

In terms of structure this scene is the first major turning point of Akira, the moment everything really starts and Tetsuo begins to fully awaken. And Kaori’s a part of it. The exact same thing happens again, this time almost at the end of Akira, at the second major turning point in terms of Testuo’s awakening. And again, Kaori, the normal life, is part of it.

If you remember, Kaori appears out of the blue in the stadium after the big fights are over and Tetsuo more or less found Akira:

In this scene the character interactions are important as again is the role of Kaori, the symbol of normality. Minutes after the reunion of Tetsuo and Kaori the Colonel offers him help by giving him the medicine that’s necessary to control this power. Tetsuo refuses. But then the marvelous thing happens: he walks towards Kaori and seeks her help. He wants the medicine from her, not the Colonel:

Remember: this is the guy who killed hundreds of people, even his old gang members. He should’ve killed her or attacked her in an instant but he didn’t (he even let Kaori help him walking as the screenshot above shows). Again, on the symbolic level, he was reminded of the normal life he could have lived after finally seeing Kaori again.  This triggered again his wish for just that. A normal life. He still wants to reach and find it accompanied by all the normality we live in. This time, though, his wish is utterly tragic because there is no way he can turn back anymore. Kaori, the normal life, is out of reach and stays out of reach – Kaori backs off. Seconds later his final transformation begins.

In the course of this transformation he still clings to his wish to return to normality. He frantically grabs Kaori not thinking about her safety at all. He swallows her in his body and moments later she’s killed by it. Tetsuo doesn’t want this to happen but his body – his power – is out of control. He’ll never be able to reach normality because his own body “killed” it. In a way those events in Akira are absolutely logic on the symbolic level. Imagine what would have happened if the kids didn’t awake Akira and Testuo somehow would’ve controlled his body. Do you think he’d still be able to live a normal life? Of course not, simply because his grotesque form would’ve prevailed in one way or another. There’s no way he would’ve gained any form of normality. But even if he would’ve manage to regain his body, he’d still be having those massive psychokinetic powers. Nobody would ever dare to get close to him. He would have been shut out from society. After his powers awakened he lost his path to normality forever.

But back to Kaori as the symbol of normality. As Gage mentions in this comment, everyone seems to treat her coldly or doesn’t care about her death at all. I think that her symbolic role in a way explains, why almost everyone in the movie act the way they do. She – the symbol of normality – is the outsider in Akira simply because everyone else long time ago left this path and nobody wants to return. They don’t want normality, they don’t seek it. Hence nobody interacts with her. In other words: she’s too normal for them.

I am not sure if I overlooked some important scene or moment in Akira but even if I did I for the first time ever get the feeling I fully grasped Kaori and her role in this post-apocalyptic movie. It took some time but I think it was worth it.

What do you think of my interpretation? Let us know!

Spoiler Threat Level: Medium

Akira is the anti-thesis to Disney in any way you can think of.

In other words: you can take almost anything except animation and the negative version is Akira. Where Disney is easy to understand, Akira is hard to understand. Where Disney is fluffy, Akira is hard as a brick. Where Disney animates people as if they are bad over-acting actors, Akira is about realistic animation. Where Disney is “for children”, Akira is for adults etc etc pp ad nauseam, I think you get the picture.

I really can understand that Akira, at the time of its release in 1988, blew the mind of western audiences.

Basically this is also the reason you have to watch Akira, even if you don’t like anime or animation. Even with all its flaws Akira is not called a landmark animation, even a classic, for no reason.

You have to be prepared, though, because Akira really wastes no time to get started. In some ten minutes or so we get introduced to so many plot elements that you get dizzy. Heck, even after a second watching I got confused and had problems understanding all that’s going on.

Moreover, its story is so packed full of characters you get even more dizzy. It’s not only that there enough main characters to fill a whole series (Kaneda, Testuo, Rai, Rei, the Colonel, the shriveling kids, the scientist and so on). No, there are enough to fill a whole stadium since there a tons of minor people in this flick which seem to play a bigger role in the two-thousand page manga but get only some seconds or minutes screentime in the movie. I almost started to play a drinking game.

Here’s my initial rundown: the ex-army kind-of type leader of the Clowns, the strange religious cult leader, the shrimp of a politican (although he played a bigger role here) and the cute little Akira (who casually kills millions of people in some mere minutes – way to go brat!!). I am sure I forgot to mention some other guys here, so be free to add them in the comments.

As the story moves on it at least gets a little bit more understandable but at the end the shriveling kids could have used some more time to spoiler us their plan. I have a feeling of what they did, but some confirmation would be so awesome you almost won’t believe it.

Seriously! Where other movies and series go over-the-top, Akira doesn’t even bother us with some more detailed explanations. Well, at least, it’s enough information here to let the people get started with interpretations. And there still is the manga. But I am lazy after all…

On the other hand the overall atmosphere Akira builds up is fantastic and almost unmatched. Sure, we have Blade Runner and its companions but Akira doesn’t go for melancholic or depressing but for eerie, massive, cold and technological. I think it’s mostly the contrast at work here that makes the atmosphere so unnerving.

On the hand one we have a super-mega-city with buildings as massive as you can think them. On the other hand you have a sleazy and derelict feeling at every corner. It’s as if the city is on the verge of falling apart and therefore a perfect metaphor for the society. I certainly wouldn’t want to live there. I think I would hang myself after two months max. Or even earlier considering that Neo-Tokyo very often feels like a ghost town since there are no people around. Budget limitations certainly have their advantages.

But that doesn’t mean they had no budget. It’s quite the contrary because…holy shit the animation is fantastically, epically awesome, even decades later and even though you sometimes can see the limits of analogue recording. Akira even gets some bonus points from me for animating technical stuff like weapons, vehicles and so on without.any.hiccup.whatsoever. Not to Disney: watch it, learn from Akira and start the mea culpa route please.

Effects animation? On of the best I have ever seen. Explosions look beautiful as does smoke and even shards of glass! I get the feeling the animator of the glass shards must have committed suicide afterwards because he couldn’t do anything else anymore. In one scene at the beginning you see literally thousands of them moving smoothly. It’s short but utterly amazing. Again, at that time anyone else wouldn’t have animated it and today anyone would use 3D but they wasted even one life to go full force with it.

The same can be said about the background art which you simply can call Background.Art.Porn! Almost every single shot is wallpaper material and I think I could pause any second and ooze at the detail they went for. I even remember the moment when as a kid I reached for the VHS case to confirm I didn’t watch a live-action movie. It is that amazingly detailed. This especially holds true for the city and its enormous buildings. Basically behind every single window you can see something. What do you think? How many people did they waste for that? It had to be hundreds.

Fuck yeah, Kaneda being badass. By the way: the other guy was in fact driving his bike…

Akira has its flaws as I already stated. But seriously, if you are even slightly interested in animation go watch Akira now! If you are sick of the usual kiddy-shit you get served, go watch Akira now. If you want to start looking beyond Disney, Dreamworks and Pixar: Go. Watch. Akira. Now!

By the way I still stand by my word that the opening shot of Akira is still one of the best ever.

So, I think I have talked enough. Now it’s your turn. Did you already watch Akira? Do you like or hate the movie? Let us know!

Rating: 7.0 (Despite it's flaws a classic and a must see movie.)

She snaps…she literally snaps…

Thank god for YouTube’s recommendations because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have found this extremely funny scene  from the anime Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei (Farewell, Mr. Despair).

As the title suggests, the series is about a teacher who often is trying to kill himself (or on the verge of being absolutely in despair) and his group of eccentric female students.

She snaps…she literally snaps…

Now, if you wonder how eccentric they are: this scene shows you what happens when someone who is extremely fixated to do everything perfectly prepares to cut a cake when people start flooding in.

The solution of this problem is as simple as hilarious:

She snaps…she literally snaps…

The moment she snaps. Oh boy, the moment she snaps is so amazing. You even hear the string stretching and snapping. And her gasp in that particular moment…*lol*

Normally, I would hate this kind of exposition-for-the-stupid. This time, though, I suspect the producers knew all along that the scene would end up on YouTube. Hence they directed it that way that every piece of information necessary is there.

She snaps…she literally snaps…

Spoiler Threat Level: Medium

You know, I don’t want so much from life. There are only some things I wish for – a good  and entertaining movie is such a thing. Hence I love each and every movie that just gets this one thing right that entertains me, makes me laugh or wonder. As I recently had again to learn with Avatar this is rare nowadays. But it’s not impossible. Because where Avatar failed so miserably Tokyo Godfathers succeeded.

Tokyo Godfathers blasts Avatar to atomic dust to with its funny and lovable characters, with its simple yet engaging story. Even more: it does it so well I even don’t care about the deus ex machinas and some other small problems it has.

Originally I planned to restart my blog (see here for details) with a review of the anime classic Akira (Update: which I have finally done, see review here) but after watching Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers I had to change my plans because the experience is simply too charming and funny while wearing a heart of gold to be ignored or pushed back.

Tokyo Godfathers basically tells the story of three homeless people who one day find a baby in the trash and instead of going to the police decide to find its mother. Of course, this goal is not that easy to achieve which leads to a 90 minutes long short movie in which there are so many things happening that your head starts spinning.

Not only do we get the hunt for the mother, there’s a shooting, a kidnapping, a near death experience, a mix-up, a car chase and more. In a way you could say that Tokyo Godfathers had more plot going on in its 90 minutes than Avatar in its three hours.

Besides all those elements, one thing is sure: after watching Tokyo Godfathers and thinking about it I knew that the director Satoshi Kon really got guts when making this movie. You know, the Japanese society seems to have the habit of ignoring the problems it faces or already has. One of those problems is the broadening poverty and therefore the existence of homeless people. There is the saying in Japan that if a nail sticks out you hammer it down. Well, they really don’t know what to do if one nail is sitting too low. In light of that kudos to the whole team for reminding the Japanese of this very serious problems.

But thanks God they don’t forget the characters. And what a lovely bunch of characters they are. I simply love them and would hug greet them right away. There is the tomboyish girl who by Japanese standards behaves so not Japanese and therefore is extremely funny to watch. Then you have the transvestite who is simply made of pure win with his over-the-top but still lovable antics and his heart of gold. And last but not least the deadbeat dad who is somehow the most normal one of those three.

In a way you could call them the modern version of the three Stooges because their interactions are so fantastically written and executed. By the way: The background story of each one of them shows that there is no massive naivety at work here because everyone really, really messed up their lives on their own accord. And they know it. The plot makes great use of this fact because, as the story unfolds, we see the smaller and bigger changes in them as the adventure unfolds.

This fact, that everyone gets their story finished, might be one of the biggest problems of Tokyo Godfathers because the plot basically is one giant coincide.

Each and almost every time they – by chance of course – meet their past in one way or another, or the people which are important for the main plot of this movie. If you want you could make a drinking game out of this and be sure to be drunk beyond heavens when the movie is over.

But you know what? I didn’t care about the massive coincides because I loved the characters, the atmosphere, the art direction, the pacing and so on. In fact, I am crazy enough to state that I even like some those coincides as they help to resolve all major questions. There is even a small joke with a lottery ticket by the end of the movie to top every other coincidence so I guess the director knew very well what he was doing.

So even if by now you aren’t convinced to watch Tokyo Godfathers I present you another reason why you should: the humor. Some idiotic reviewers might call it a drama, but after only some mere minutes into the movie I knew right away it was a lighthearted – no warmhearted – comedy with some serious tones here and there. Anyone else is simply an idiot stupid not getting the point.

And boy, what a comedy they managed to create. Holy crap! It’s been months since I laughed that hard during a movie. Toyko Godfathers in its best moments is classic screwball comedy accompanied by pitch perfect timing. There are way too many moments, one-liners and jokes to count so I won’t do it here because it would spoil all the fun.

For those who already seen the movie: smelly train and opening eyes. Tokyo Godfathers solidifies my impression that Japanese anime directors simply “get” comedy whereas the Hollywood directors don’t. Or can’t. In any case – if any screenwriter or director reads this – rent it, buy it, but watch it immediately and learn!

The same applies to you, my beloved readers: even if you only have an ounce of interest in animation or a bunch of lovable characters you need to give Tokyo Godfathers a chance – believe me, every minutes is worth it. Some of the screenshots above should have helped you to decide.

Tokyo Godfathers is a fantastically funny, heartwarming Christmas movie that yet never gets too naïve for its own sake. I really loved every minute of this movie, even the “great-!!-another-coincidence”-minutes.

I have some classic Christmas movies I watch each and every year during Christmas. One is Wonderful Life, the next are Christmas Vacation, Scrooged and Christmas Carol.

Consider Tokyo Godfathers added to this list of mine. It’s a worthy addition.

Rating: 8.0 (Funny and heartwarming. This is the perfect Christmas movie.)

Spoiler Threat Level: High

Take the average internet geek and you get something like this: Stupidity + Coolness – Money.

It’s hilarious that Moondrive – a short movie of the anime anthology Genius Party Beyond – accidentally exploits just this prototype to tell its hilarious story which follows a bunch of bankrupt thieves on their hunt for a treasure. Nevertheless I can safely state that Moondrive is one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. This includes movies, by the way. It has tons of cool moments, interesting characters and style wherever you look. Admitted, the characters turn out to be a little bit flat but since this is a short movie that completely goes for “style” I can accept that. If you haven’t seen Moondrive or Genius Party Beyond, do it now. It’s only about twenty minutes long so you cannot say you ruined too much of your life afterwards.

So, and now let’s take a closer look at the best moments of Moondrive with an absolute disregard of spoilers (therefore the red flag on the left side of the title if you’re on this site and not using feed reader. This post was the reason I implemented all this technical AJAX stuff).

Now that’s what I call cutting the fluff. We’re just 50 seconds into this short and we already got a colonized moon (while the Earth is not some sort of epic wasteland), a bank robbery (for seemingly no reason besides money – hey Hollywood taught me there’s always more going on) and a fantastic visual style. Other directors would have needed ten sequels to just get to this point.

“I wonder if there are any leftover treasures just to be found”

You gotta love short movies just for this shortness of everything. It’s great and all to have the usual 15 minutes of introduction to the characters but sometimes this just feels nicer.

Another obvious thing: the director lacked big amounts of money as the visual setups are not moving and always “photographed” flat on. Does that matter? Not really, because the style simply rocks.

Note to myself: using a big head as your goal guarantees your win. And while this takes place, we learn that a guy selling antiques seems to have an old treasure map. Yay for hunting.

An old guy rapping and four toughs ruining a sofa just by sitting on it? Best moment in a long time.

I simply love those moments when a guy gets a gun pointed to his head but still doesn’t spill anything for free. Hollywood movies are so boring in that regard: “You see that gun in my jacket?” “…I tell you everything despite the fact that you can’t kill me since the information would be lost forever.”

“We’ll let you have her for an hour.”

“I’ve got really extreme tastes, you know.”

“No problem.”

Now that’s a negotiation any male reader of this blog, which is probably about everyone, would like to have, I guess. Japanese directors not only have a knack for absurdity but also for profanity. Boy, why didn’t the Wachowski Brothers chose this way for their Matrix franchise. It could have been so much better and cooler.

So they got the map easily and the girl is proud to being of help. That’s teamwork ftw.

“I can’t read it at all”

I just love this tidbit of information that shows they really are in a distant future in which our primitive languages don’t exist anymore and also explains why the owner gave up the map so easily. How many times did we watch science fiction movies or series in which languages don’t play any role at all? Yes, I am looking in your direction Star Trek…

“Just decipher it already”

“I’m not doing this job as a volunteer, you know”

“We’ll let you have her for an hour.”

Do I even have to add something to this crazy awesomeness of pure evil profanity? Japanese movie makers really don’t care for political correctness. The repetition of this “teamwork” is just another way of telling us “We’re doing it this way all the time.”

The following “hour” even adds more awesomeness as this guy is a “Oh, please, beat me up my queen”-type of guy. The total opposite of the first one.

Although this short movie has a kind of slow start it gets better by the minute. Not only is it revealed that the map only leads to another map on an island called “Giant’s Island” but they now need stuff to go to earth. In other words: it means to go to the Mafia and gamble for it instead of paying. Yes, you read it correctly.

“I can’t do it anymore”

Yep, that happens when your friend bets your body on a gamble. And yep, they always deal with this stuff that way all the time it seems.

The last ball! He screwed up his gamble with the last ball!!! Not that I didn’t see that coming hours ago.

I love this fantastic and crazy visual anime style. Disney, please stop being a studio for children shit only and get experimental. Please…

What do you do when you are about to stole a spacecraft in the middle of the night? Yes, you look stupid or check the size of your boobs. If a nuclear bomb would explode right in the middle of their face, they even wouldn’t blink.

“Come to think of it, we should’ve just stolen it from the start.”

Moondrive really excels at its writing. How many times does a script build some bullshit stuff into its story that’s so unrealistic you didn’t even care anymore? Here, the writer not only knew about it, but also used it to make one of the best jokes ever.

“We don’t have enough fuel”

The number of pure comedy gold moments just keeps increasing and increasing. I really start to love this bunch of idiotic toughs who are now stranded on the moon with a map guiding them to eternal masterhood of money.

Sometimes you simply need to turn around and look up to find the answer to all your prayers. Best.Moment.Ever.

“It’s like we’re commuting to work”

This must be the most unusual treasure hunt ever. It’s as if Indiana Jones would use an elevator to reach the snake filled pit in Egypt accompanied by a tourist guide who cannot shut the *beep* up. What makes me shiver, though, is the thought that a spoof comedy would really use this idea instead of going for something more “simple” or “realistic”. This moment shows: it works. And way better than the normal, unrealistic, over-the-top spoof shit you see on the big screen.

Did I already mention how I love the visual at work here?

The idea of an island that feels eerily similar to a certain ship in Fifth Element is great by itself, what it makes even better is the slow reaction of our beloved bunch on which it begins to dawn that something just doesn’t feel right – but simply decide to ignore it. Now that’s what I call a G.W. Bush moment here.

Yep, the best way to reach the bottom of a volcano is the good old theft of a car or whatever this thing is. But why did the other guy not call the police? I get the feeling we have just witnessed the beginning of another blessed moment of “One hour” and “No problem”.

“What’ll we do if there’s lava inside?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see when we go down!”

“You’re so cool!”

Best.Lines.Ever.

It’s almost unbelievable. A volcano in the future just isn’t the same anymore. It’s like facing off with Darth Vader only to learn there’s a fluffy cat behind the mask. But that just adds more awesomeness to the already present comedy gold.

“Sir, I’d like to buy a new map”

I start to feel sorry for my beloved bunch, after all this whole island seems like a big fat tourist trap. But I simply can’t stop laughing. Sorry…

(The music adds even more fun to the scene.)

So, which one is the original treasure map? Hint: it shows an island and is filled with primitive English words.

Please stop, spare me! Moondrive results in too much laughing for my health. If nothing else, the end is truly one of the most satisfying and perfectly timed conclusions to a treasure hunt I ever watched in a movie, being it short or long. How many times did we feel like an idiot for missing the obvious just because we didn’t look closer? I can so relate to that and that’s the main reason this moment is so fucking hilarious.

Words fail to describe this outburst of emotions.

“Feeling better now?”

“On to the next one!”

If seen in a cinema this would be one of the rare moments when I’d jump out of my seat, scream “Fucking yeah! Give me the next one!!!” and start to dance like a maniac. Where normal movies are extended into franchises without any reason, our main character here simply starts another treasure hunt out of thin blue. What do we need more? Oh yeah, a sequel.

Well, what can I add more? This was one short but hilarious treasure hunt, perhaps one the best I’ve ever seen. This might also be due to the shortness of this anime, which only lasts 14 minutes, so the percentage of epic moments of laugh is understandably high.

By the way, I’ve got a small request to you all: could someone please lend me 100 Million Dollar? For some reason I currently imagine this short remade by Hollywood’s best talents, starring Samuel L. Jackson as the main character.  Done right that movie would blast any other spoof movie or comedy out of the water.

But for now, all we have is this little gem, so if you might excuse me, I have another date with a short movie called Moondrive.

Further Reading

If you wanna learn more about Genius Party Beyond and its predecessor Genius Party, I recommend heading over to Anipages Daily’s take on both Anthologies.

Wwell, I can count the occasions on one hand when I sit there, robbed of all my thoughts and words because of the awesomeness I just have witnessed. Thanks to Fooly Cooly, the counter went up by 1.

You know, until some years ago I loved anything spoofy from Hollywood. From Airplane to the shit of later Nielsen movies. It’s no joke. In review I cannot believe it either. I really was that much addicted to this genre. Then I suddenly became more critical of this stuff. It was no slow progress. It was more like a click – and I totally forgot the reason for this sudden change (Yes, that’s possible, I am the living proof).

And then the wow hit again! As oblivion began to be my everlasting friend, I got myself again into a frickin’ ride full of coolness, style and fun called Fooly Cooly, which happens to be a six part animated series from Japan that was produced in the year 2000.

Story

Fooly Cooly (FLCL) basically is a science fiction comedy that starts with the main character Naota living a normal (i. e.boring) life in the boring city of Mabase. This boredom of live stops dramatically when the mysterious girl Haruhara slams into his world by running him over with her Vespa and – if that was not enough – giving him a nice slam on the forehead with her electronic guitar. Naota (12 years old but trying to act like an adult) is on the center of the following chaos and learns that Haruhara is an alien on the search for a powerful pirate king to gain his power. And Naota became the key for Haruhara and her fight. Or to be more precise his head, which transformed into a wormhole thanks to the Slam Of The Guitar^TM.

Sounds crazy? Well, you have no idea, how crazy this whole six part series is, because basically I’ve written only the information of the first episode down and didn’t even mention all the minor characters that bring this universe to life.

Animated Storytelling for the 21^st Century

In a way it is amazing that I totally forgot about this series in my vault because to me this is the kind of storytelling I expect to see in our modern world of the 21^st century. Where western animated series try to be blatant obvious with their bland and boring stories, FLCL goes beyond that. It presents a story that is basically one big metaphor for growing up, puberty and ones place in society. From the guitar wielding and swinging the bat to hints of sexual feelings there is not a single scene in FLCL that cannot be interpreted.

Even more, FLCL doesn’t assume you and I are stupid as so many other comedies do. It assumes that you sit down, have fun but nevertheless watch and listen carefully about what is said and done. Almost any dialogue can hint to some important information and small acts of the character can reveal something about their respective lives. The first minutes of this series are a perfect example of this as we get some glimpses of the main character’s lives, yet nothing is explained to us by boring voice-over narrations.

Of course, a well story presented badly would result in a catastrophe. Again, FLCL doesn’t disappoint in this department either. In short, the animation is top notch, fluid and always amazing to look at. They had a budget to spend with both hands and they certainly did.

Even more, they used many occasions in the story to apply more experimental styles of animation. It is no exaggeration when I state that FLCL in the course of its 140 or so minutes changes its animation more drastically and more often than the whole Disney Corporation in the last two decades.

It’s a shame for Disney and the other animation companies that they seemingly weren’t and still aren’t able to pull off something like that, as my rant from some time ago proves.

Soundtrack meets Animation

This “Disney-Dilemma” doesn’t account for the animation and storytelling only, but even goes as far as the soundtrack.

While Disney in my opinion too long stuck with this we-sing-about-our-lives-nobody-cares-about style of music and soundtrack, FLCL does something what Disney should have done years ago: using the soundtrack to transport an old art form to the 21^st century.

So, instead of using an orchestral soundtrack as many would have done, the producers went with the amazing rock sounds of the Japanese band “The Pillows” that perfectly fit to each and every scene. Perhaps someone at Disney and Co. will sometime have the guts to do something like that.

Conclusion

Well, what can I add to this review that sums everything up nicely?

Simply put, Fooly Cooly is the kind of short series I am starving for since the year 1999. Modern in storytelling and modern in its presentation, the Japanese have hit the mark and many years ago raised the bar so high that it’s almost impossible to reach.

Any producer with this “oh look, we can draw funny and distorted faces in a meaningless plot”-type of animated series should watch this and learn from it. FLCL is the pure distillation of style, power, energy and storytelling.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be broadcast anymore but put into the Museum of Modern Art. Seriously. It’s that good to me.

Rating: 9.5 (Brilliant and funny in every way. FLCL is a classic among few.)