X/1999 has its good points and its bad points.

Many critics claim that it is difficult for a person who has not read the original X/1999 manga to enjoy this film, but as this site proves, many people are very happy with what they see.. even if they know nothing about the Tokyo Babylon universe, CLAMP, the manga, TV series or even anime.

The art and animation is nice... if you like what you see in online screen-shots and the cover art then you shouldn't be disappointed.

The plot is (in my opinion) aimed at a masculine audience. When I saw this film it put me in mind of the old mindset of anime importers to english speaking countries: "Make it violent or sexy and people will be fascinated by these sensational and contraversial asian cartoons". To my mind this film choses violence and aggression over creative character development. I'd say it has little emotional resonance as a result, though a lot of that is as a result of trying to cram so much story into so little time. If you like fighting and blood in anime you may just love it.

Inappropriate for young audiences, this is a plot for older teenage and adult audiences. It contains supernatural themes, violence, an apocalyptic storyline and the deaths of many of the major characters. In my opinion? it could be depressing.. if you ever felt like you knew or could identify with any of them. Humour isn't really a feature in this production

The soundtrack was cool. Nice use of music, however if you want a 5.1 mix the Zone 1 and 4 release DVDs only have that for the English track. The Japanese track is in stereo only.

I felt that this film was 98 minutes of my life that I'm not getting back. I had already seen the TV series and that is a production that had more of the manga (still in production to this day) to base it on and basically a lot more time to go into character development. I have always got more pleasure from stories with emotional resonance than flashy fights and gore.

The film was not painful enough for me to want to gouge my eyes out with a spoon.. but not engaging enough for me to suffer a rewatch.

Overall Rating: 5
Animation:8 Plot:5 Humor:1 Sound Track:8
Weight: 40
Date: 01/05/2005 05:37:47 pm PST

Replies: 0

Now and Then; Here and There, is a thought provoking adventure. The story is that of a teenaged boy who is accidentally drawn forward through time to the far distant future. It is a barren world of little water, where a derranged overlord has amassed an army in a fervent attempt to bring the world to "order".

Though the main characters in this story are young people this is a series that is very adult. It uses devices such as torture, sexual violation and cruelty to animals to convey the brutality of the setting. Although these things are present, there is little that is very graphic. In most cases the worst of the violence is told of in the characters' dialogue or only ever alluded to. There is one case of graphic nudity in the series and it is an unglamourous image of a young child who is getting his pants mended.... not much for titilation value there.

One of the ideas explored in the series is the motivation of soldiers. This series shows how even the most average people can be lead to kill. I am not sure why it is that the story has been told primarily though the eyes of children, but it may be because children more freely share their feelings and thus the audience gets more of an idea about their motivations. It also, I think, forces one to feel empathy for them, as children being manipulated into killing people seems so much more pitiable. This is a fresh new perspective to life in a war enviroment.

Although the main character, Shu, isn't the brightest cookie, he has a certain charm that eventually grew on me. His irrepressible optimism is both annoying and yet heartwarming at the same time. His promises to other characters that "everything will be alright" are, ironically, believed less often than dictator Hamdo's propaganda.

Suffice to say, this series is not replete with happy endings. Even as things go right, the little victories seem always tempered with sorrow. I think that the whole point of this series, unlike other series that end on a down note, is that we are left with the sense that no matter how bad things get, so long as you are alive, they can always get better. I could see this being a really good therapy piece for people trying to find their footing in life.

The art and animation in this is really quite cool. Those of you with interests in robots and such may like the robotic serpents that feature in the first episode and later in some of the battle scenes. In general there is a shortage of attractive women in the series, unless you count the spooky-eyed La-La Ru. This niche is filled primarily by Abelia, Hamdo's faithful second in charge. As far as attractive male characters go, you may be out of luck, unless you like young boys. There is only one attractive grown up male character, in my opinion, and his role is brief.

This is a fabulous series. I can only begin to scratch the surface of the questions it asks. By having such an abstract setting we get to see the story for what it is and not be bewildered by technology or science. This is a story about people and the human condition. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest in mature animation with daring themes and endearing characters.

Overall Rating: 8
Animation:8 Plot:9 Humor:4 Sound Track:8
Weight: 40
Date: 03/25/2003 02:52:05 am PST

Replies: 0

This is a beautiful story about a couple of children who meet with Totoro... a forest spirit, after moving into a "haunted house" while their mother is sick in hospital.

It is truely a family movie, from the animation of the children and the way they look at the world, to the concerns their parents have for them and the joy the have when they are together. Though it is lacking in violence I think that (like most good family movies) it is NOT just for kids.

The animation (though in an older style - this was created in 1988) is brilliant. Care and attention to detail has been invested, and continuity and light sourcing provide a setting that is easy to immerse yourself in. The backgrounds are gloriously colourful and the scenery is gorgeous.

My Neighbour Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) is a story of what it is to be young and has surreal aspects and characters that are remeniscent of classics such as Alice in Wonderland. You have to love a bus shaped like a cat that runs on 12 legs... don't you?

If only all children had the benefit of having such a supportive father. (And yes.. I want to sleep on Totoro's belly too!)

Overall Rating: 8
Animation:9 Plot:8 Humor:8 Sound Track:7
Weight: 40
Date: 02/10/2003 07:40:33 pm PST

Replies: 0

Urusei Yatsura Movie 2; Beautiful Dreamer is The second in a series of movies that follows the television series Urusei Yatsura. This is a comedic series about an alien girl named Lum who, due to the loss in an ill-fated tournament, ends up engaged to an earth boy named Ataru. Despite its basis, it is a great stand-alone film notable for a few reasons. It marries the artistic talent of Rumiko Takahashi (Ranma ½, Inu Yasha, Maison Ikkoku) and the screenplay and direction of creative genious Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Patlabor, Jin-Roh). Takahashi's characters Lum, Ataru, and their friends are thrown into an odd tale that showcases both Takahashi's brand of bawdy slapstick and Oshii's love of traditional faerie tales.

The story of Beautiful Dreamer is set around Tomobiki High School. As the students prepare for school open night, they slowly become aware that each day happens as it did the day before in a way remeniscent to "Groundhog Day". The physical comedy and romantic plot is very similar to the rest of the Urusei Yatura series yet the plot of Beautiful Dreamer is somewhat more metaphysical and thematically intense.

Beautiful Dreamer is a story that borrows elements from the Japanese folk tale Urashima Taro. This is a tale much like "Rip Van Winkel", in which a man rescues a turtle and as payment the turtle takes him to a banquet under the sea. One night in the under sea realm was many years in the real world and at the end of the banquet the man was given a magical box which he was told never to open. When he returned home, his village had completely changed and he recognised nobody, and so hoping to find an answer to this he opened the box and instantly became an old man.

Some scenes in the story come across as post apocolyptic and some concepts have been likened to plot development in the movie Dark City. As a result this is a bit of an eye-opener for those who are interested in science fiction stories. It questions the bounds of reality and our perceptions of it in some ways similar to the works of science fiction author Philip K. Dick (whose works inspired such movie titles as Blade Runner and Total Recall).

The art style (for those of you not familiar with Takahashi's work) is very simplistic. This film was made in 1984. The line work has economy and clean-ness that her work is renowned for, that make action sequences very easy to follow. Colours are bold and attractive as is the character art, yet some people just won't find the art as intriguing as some of the newer (especially computer graphic intensive) animation that is coming out.

This isn't for everyone. This can come across as surreal and disjointed, especially to people who haven't watched a lot of anime before. It's a good stand alone movie so long as you are someone who doesn't mind not knowing why some of the girls can fly and wear tiger print bikinis. There's a little bit of partial nudity and the story is a bit heavy going in places so realistically this isn't really appropriate viewing for kids under 13... they'd probably prefer something with a bit more action any way... either that or Teletubbies.

Overall Rating: 7
Animation:6 Plot:8 Humor:8 Sound Track:6
Weight: 40
Date: 02/05/2003 06:29:07 am PST

Replies: 0

This is really a moderately standard Cyber Punk plot, but bound to be new to those people who have little experience with the genre. The plot may be a little difficult for most people to understand the first time.

Serial Experiments: Lain is has a curious setting; "present day, present time". The series is based on a voyage of discovery in a world where the boundaries between the real world and the world inside computers have become blurred. The main character is a school girl called Lain, who feels isolated and out of touch with her family and school mates. In a world where her school fellows communicate with one another by digital pagers and computers, Lain is encouraged by one of her friends to get into computers.
This she does, and then she embarks on a confusing voyage that starts with an email message from a girl who is dead and twists through a complex labyrinthine plot that leads her to question her very being. The presentation of the Lain series is avant-garde, unfortunately I think this is done to be deliberately wierd.

A story is a method of giving information to an audience. This is done by linking ideas to one another. That means a story that is easy to understand, is one that provides information which connects to ideas you already know, through either experience, or information that the story provides. This means that you can learn how to get information from movies/TV better, by having seen more or similar stuff that will increase your understanding of (say) a genre or type of plot.

This is a cyber story. It is a story of the real world and its relationship to cyberspace. If you have an interest in cyberpunk or Japanese anime it may be easier to understand. If you have no interest in these things, I suggest you steer well clear of this. It is, however, a fairly straight forward cyber-plot. It seems designed to come across as more surreal by telling the story in bits and pieces that don't seem to link together. I don't know whether or not this is supposed to make it mysterious but it lends little to the pace of the story and not a lot to its cohesion; an ironic fate for a story all about networking ideas.

Subtle(ish) relation of "the Wired" to Wonderland is made, in the form of a character called Chisha Neko (Cheshire Cat); a disembodied smile. For some reason the english version (Pioneer) has failed to grasp the transliterated names such as Rain(Lain)'s best friend Arisu(Alice).

I'm guessing that the translation is difficult to do at times. I don't know how accurate it is in places. To my ears the Japanese language track sounds better but this is personal preference. The typeset of the subtitles in the Pioneer DVD version is easy to read.

Personally I think the colouring is innovative, but for a piece with so much focus on eyes, the eyes could have been drawn in a more attractive way... this is personal preference.

This is a series that not everyone will understand and in that way it has become popular with people who like stuff that they can't understand. This sort of person seems to be scarily common in the wider animé fan community. It is the sort of story that hard science-fiction fans and cyberpunk fans will probably find easier to palate. I suggest watching it before you consider buying it, though it is, in my opinion, worth seeing at least once, and I suggest seeing it all fairly close together so that you don't get lost in the plot.

Overall Rating: 7
Animation:8 Plot:6 Humor:3 Sound Track:7
Weight: 40
Date: 01/30/2003 11:47:05 pm PST

Replies: 0