Month: May 2007

Perrine with caravan and dog Baron

This is getting a mention here as it was the only title of the 23 or so World Masterpiece Theater animes that I hadn’t seen. I just got hold of a copy of episode 1.

In the original children’s book by Hector Malot , Perrine’s father was a photographer who dies when the family is travelling in Bosnia. In the anime, Perrine and her mother travel to France, where they hope to meet Perrine’s rich grandfather. On the journey through Europe, they work as photographers to make ends meet. Perrine’s mother dies, but Perrine travels on alone with her dog, Baron, and finds her grandfather. She realises that he is a cruel man, and instead of identifying herself, takea job in his string factory.

The novel starts with the death of Perrine’s mother, all scenes preceeding being created by the scriptwriter Akira Miyazaki. On the evidence of the first episode, this is a rather unexceptional anime, and the scene shown is typical of the design.

I haven’t written much lately as I have been preoccupied with other things. The heating in my house is failing and it seems a good time of year to get some quotes (not today though – cold!). Also the windows could do with replacing – but did you know that double glazing has a limited life? If I’d replaced all the windows when I’d bought the house they’d all be out of guarantee by now and might need replacing again! On the street side, I still have the original windows which are 110 years old.

Denno Coil

New anime from NHK. Judging from the characters it is meant for Japanese elementary schoolers rather than otaku, but it throws in some quite grown-up concepts in the first episode. It’s tough to take it all in, in just one viewing, but it seems the young heroine has moved to a city where there is a more advanced cyber-infrastructure, which can be viewed with a pair of viewers looking like ordinary spectacles. They have cyber-pets. If you watch closely, there is a scene where the younger sister (looking a bit like Mei in “Tototo”) drops her bag on their cyber-pet, and instead of squashing the dog, the bag just goes through it. And it seems something is going a bit wrong with the infrastructure, for there are rogue things roaming about, and holes where cyber-pets vanish.

Production values are high, as one expects with NHK, and no doubt this will be very popular.

Rocket Girls

A private enterprise manned space company is trying to develop their launchers at a base in the Solomon Islands. They keep blowing up, much to the delight of the natives who enjoy the free fireworks. The despairing engineering director decides to revert to a lower-powered but reliable booster rocket, which means that they have to cut the weight of the payload. At this point, their astronaut candidate decides he has had enough of the sadistic training regime already, and does a runner.

Enter a Japanese girl, who for reasons not yet clear, has come to the islands to look for her father. The director hits on a brainwave – why not use the pilot already tried and tested in many other anime – the petite Japanese schoolgirl?

This is a science-fiction comedy – and though some have found the storyline implausible, I find it less implausible than many more po-faced anime featuring adolescent pilots, to which we have already been subjected. It’s also quite funny and looks set to be popular.

Lovely Complex

The story of two high-school kids who would appear to be matched well enough to get together as a couple, since they are interested in the same things, enjoy the same sort of boisterous sports and even start speaking in synch. Just one problem – the girl is 170cm tall, which makes her a sort of Japanese Brigitte Nielsen, and the boy is unusually short, so that she is more than a head taller than him. And they are both self-conscious about their height, not helped by their teacher naming them after a well-known TV comedy act.

More comedy ensues as both try to solve their problem by finding another boyfriend/girlfriend. Ths is pleasant enough and really quite funny, and seems set to be popular. On the other hand, “School Rumble” covered similar ground and did it much better.

Nodame Cantabile

Did I write about this already? It’s now up to episode 17. A story about classical music students, in which the talented Chiaki, not lacking in self-esteem, studies piano and then switches to conducting. He gets involved with the exasperating Noda, or Nodame, a girl who could be a fine pianist if she tried a bit harder. Nodame has a flat which looks like a rubbish tip, can’t cook, and has made up her mind to be Chiaki’s wife and a kindergarten teacher, in that order.

Excellent comedy, interesting insights into the world of classical music, and some fine music, not to mention a cute heroine, make this well worth watching.

Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo is a recent anime movie – there have previously been a live-action movie and other adaptations. The basic premise is that school girl Makoto gains the ability to jump through time, which she uses for fun, or so she at first thinks. The time travel is basically a plot device allowing the scenario of being able to go back and redo events while still maintaining knowledge of what had happened. There is a little comedy, a little drama, and so forth.

Overall it’s pretty good – a good story, and the backgrounds are packed full of interesting detail. I don’t want to give any spoilers, which in this case would be particularly regrettable, but after the initial fun it does get a bit dark, and I’d rate it as not particularly suitable for small children. It’s based on a novel, which does usually imply a more intelligent and coherent script than the norm.
Characterisation is not deep, but at least there is no problem in remembering who’s who. At the end I was left feeling a little dazed and confused, which is perhaps not the best way to leave one’s audience, but I have every intention of watching it again.
The animation design positively invites comparison with live-action, as apart from the very abstract-looking time jumps, it could be re-shot (with the appropiate budget) virtually frame for frame as live-action. The detailed street scenes are a striking feature. It does not use the fantasy potential of anime at all, any more than “Only Yesterday” does. If it was a live action Japanese movie, how would I rate it? Below the classics (Kurosawa, “Onibaba” etc) but more interesting than some, and more intelligent than others. Japanese art movies, however worthy, do have a tendency to feel rather longer than their actual runtime… This one doesn’t.

Shimabara sisters with tribal elders on Barou island

I was reminded about Neo Ranga when it showed up on Catalan TV (TVCi). It was released in 1998, got a US R1 release and has slipped from attention since.

Three pretty Japanese sisters inherit from their missing brother both the throne of an Indonesian island and a god/robot: Neo Ranga.
Unimpressed and suspecting it’s all a con, they return to Japan. However the huge god/robot follows them there; which makes for some interesting juxtapositions of everyday township life; shoot-em-up action; and the activities of the media. The three sisters are very poor; the eldest, Minami, is obsessed with making money, the middle sister, Ushio, is an idealist, while the youngest, Yuuhi, is excited by the power that command of Neo Ranga gives her.

The detailed attempt to capture the effect of weird circumstances on the three girls, and on everyday life – right down to house prices and the trade in local shops – makes “Neo Ranga” worth watching. Various subsidiary characters, such as shopkeepers, an ambitious TV journalist, a police officer keen to pilot law enforcement robots, and the local yakuza, all feature in the action. The activities of the police and armed forces are portrayed in a rather satirical way.

As befits a series made in 15-minute episodes, the action is fast-moving. There are some great images in the opening and closing credits, however in the actual story the sisters keep their kit on.