Category: Cartoons

Ongoing Investigations: Case #227

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hisui_icon_4040 Since Kate is currently on vacation I decided to have a Sunday anime movie marathon in place of our regularly scheduled anime watching. So I went through three very different anime movies. They were mostly titles I had been interested in seeing but sadly did not play at any of the conventions I attended this year. They certainly ran the gambit in terms of quality I will say that for sure. I wanted to love all three of them but some turned out better than others. I will try to avoid spoilers as none of these has officially come out in English therefore I don’t want to blow the lid off nay surprises.

Lets us start firmly in the middle with A Certain Magical Index Movie: Miracle of Endymion. This is one of those shonen series movies that is not One Piece: Strong World. It is not utterly awful like Clockwork Island Adventure either. It just feels a bit workman like. It is a hard movie to hate but it is also not going to be most people’s favorite story arc as well. Something about this film just keeps falling short of being great.

The story starts a few years before the main storyline when an orbital shuttle hits a bit of space debris (clearly they needed to get the DS-12 “Toy Box” in that area of space) and is forced to make a crash landing. It seems like despite all odds (with a bit of mysterious magical intervention) everyone survives the crash. But is that what really happens? That crash leads to the construction of a space elevator called Endymion. When Index and Touma meet a rising star named Meigo Arisa they are attracted by her alluring voice and peppy attitude. They soon find that she is both wanted by powerful factions in the worlds of science and magic. They must find out how she is related to the so-called Miracle of Endymion and the tragedy that is about to unfold in its wake.

I think the thing that makes it feel most like one of those yearly massed produced Shonen Jump movies is the “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here” feeling on the movie. There is a tendency (especially with the first movie of a long running series) to try to cram in cameo appearances of all the popular characters from a series while introducing a new character who only appears in the movie. It seems like until the last act that Railgun was only in the story to put her in a cute outfit (and possibly because people would storm the Dengeki Bunko and J.C.Staff offices if she were not in the movie.) But her appearance still seems more organic than Accelerator’s almost totally wedged in appearance.

On the other hand Stiyl Magnus on the other hand has gained a bit of an elemental entourage with three disciples named Marie, Mallybath, and Jane. If any characters get brought over from the movie it will probably be these three. Although that might require an odd bit of retconning as they have never appeared in later Index novels. But the Index anime has never been slavishly devoted to making itself a one to one reproduction of the original novels. So these three new witches might appear in upcoming New Testament novels with a bit of a hand wave of where they have been. They are more likely to be inserted in things like the World War III arc if that ever gets animated.

The other introduced characters have a feeling like their appearances might be more limited to this movie alone. Meigo Arisa, Shutaura, and the main villain theoretically could still be around after the movie but I have to wonder if they will ever use them again. Then again I assumed that Erii and Banri would disappear off the face of the earth but they have continued to appear. Only time will tell.

I think by biggest complaint is that Shutaura’s motivations seem a bit … odd when the movie is at its climax. The main villain is your standard evil selfish mastermind as you expect from certain Index villains. If you want something else you in the wrong series. The Index and Railgun worlds are just made of horrible people on both the science and magic sides. Any member of the Kihara family show that in spades. But we are not supposed to be super sympathetic to them. You are supposed to like Shutaura but she seems dedicated to doing to wrong thing until pretty much near the end of the movie. I just wish I had a little more insight into her because she seems to doing things more for plot convenience than legitimate reasons.

That said if nothing else I enjoyed a plot that had a slightly more integrated combination of the magical and technological parts of the universe. It still stays in the realm of the McDLT with the magic side mostly dealing with the magic parts and the technological doing the same. But Touma tends deal with one or the other in most stories despite the fact that the show’s tagline is about the worlds of science and magic colliding.

The again Aleister Crowley always comes off as a magical character to me despite having his feet firmly in both worlds.

I had a good time watching the movie but I have to admit it has a lot of rough edges that could have been better. It is certainly not a movie for people who are not fan of the main series. It is also not a great entry point for anyone into the series as well. If you skip it I don’t you will live with any serious regrets even if your watching the TV series but it won’t hurt to watch the movie either.

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narutaki_icon_4040 The Adventure Time Encyclopaedia: Inhabitants, Lore, Spells, and Ancient Crypt Warnings of the Land of Ooo Circa 19.56 B.G.E. – 501 A.G.E. complied by Hunson Abadeer, Lord of Evil. Seriously, Marceline’s dad knows how to name a book. His pen is defete at communicating his knowledge, research, and disdain about all manner of things in the Adventure Time universe. His voice is superb and hilarious.

Later portions of the book include a fan-zine made by Ice King drawing on anime roots, the instruction manual for BMO, and a travel guide for the many kingdoms by Bubblegum Princess.

The book is also chock-full of choice quotes. Here are a few of my favorites regarding Finn:

“Who’d abandon something as cute and adorable as a human baby in the woods, instead of selling or eating it?”

“His stupidity is matched only by his arrogance in thinking he is a Gift to the Ladies, the most obnoxious human trait in existence.”

“Thus human boys have one and only one good quality–retching at the abomination of love.”

This is an incredibly well put together book merely from both a text and a visual standpoint. Beyond the base text, there are also notes and doodles by Finn, Jake, and Marceline scribbled in the margins, and occasionally over text, throughout the book. There are pages that have been “taped” into the book to add more information and likewise there are “torn” pages from various other sources in other portions of the book. There are tons of tiny details and design elements, it is a book you read once but then continually go back to look at. Major props to the team of Martin Olson, Mahendra Singh, Tony Millionaire, Celeste Moreno, Renee French, Aisleen Romano, Pendleton Ward, and Sean Tejaratchi.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #226

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narutaki_icon_4040 Wolfsmund (vol. 1) by Mitsuhisa Kuji is the latest release from Vertical. The story tells the tale of a dark period of history set in and around the Alps in the mid-17th century centered around the St. Gotthard Pass (a fortress nicknamed Wolfsmund) and ensuing unrest of the peasant population.

The art of Mitsuhisa Kuji is well suited to details adding a lot to the historical period as well as the setting. I also found her depiction of Wolfram as perfectly unnerving in his clam expressions and easy smile.

The first couple of stories feel more like one shots, but they are really there to build up the reputation of Wolfsmund as a place without mercy and a master who is charming and frightening. The running thread is a woman in town providing hospitality to travelers hoping to pass through Wolfsmund’s gates. Later in the volume, Willem Tell and his son arrive in the town and that is when the story really begins.

It was refreshing seeing a different bit of history being called on as a compelling backdrop. You really wouldn’t call it “forgotten history” but at the same time there isn’t a ton of manga-ka tackling the Swiss peasant rebellions either.

Wolfsmund is brutal historical fiction/fantasy executed with a deft artistic hand. Easily one of the best, and my favorite, new manga titles out. If you’re sitting around waiting for Vinland Saga, this should be your next purchase.

hisui_icon_4040 It is often said that a well crafted villain is more interesting than a well made hero. Wolfsmund seems to take this philosophy to heart by centering the narrative around a truly despicable villain and having him act as a thresher against a wide variety of heroes. That means that characters who would be protagonists in any other story have a very transitory feel as they are more foils there to be inevitably defeated or at least set back by Wolfram, the man in charge of Wolfsmund. So when Wolfram’s inevitable defeat comes you feel his punishment is well deserved after you have seen the number of lives he has destroyed.

Then again this is seinen. It is always a little unusual but not totally unheard of for the villain to never get their comeuppance in a series for older readers like this. Will the story end with Wolfram being taken down and Wolfsmund finally broken? Probably. But you never know. And that is what keeps the story interesting.

Willem Tell is one of those interesting characters like King Arthur and Robin Hood that might have at one time been based on a real person but whoever that person (or amalgam of people) was is nowhere near as important as the legend that sprung about around the figure that exists because of the stories. That means Mitsuhisa Kuji has a character with casts a fairly large shadow but can be worked with since he is far more legend than real man so you don’t have to worry too much about pesky sticking points of history. But as The Rose of Versailles has shown with someone like Duke du Orleans that you can have a decent amount of leeway with real people like The Duke of the Hapsburgs if you make the story compelling enough.

It is always worth pointing out that Mitsuhisa Kuji started working as an assistant for two very different mangaka. She was an assistant for Kentaro Miura of Berserk fame and Kaoru Mori best known for Emma. So you have the hyper violence and grittiness of the dark fantasy series and then soft touches and attention to historical details from the Victorian romance. As contradictory as those styles may seem at first you can see both influences clearly blending together in Wolfsmund. The characters have a gentle almost shojo feel which exacerbates their suffering when really horrible things happen to them. At the same time there is a distinct amount of research given to the details of the setting that make it feel very real. And everyone can die. And I mean anyone. And so two very different styles blend together to make a third type of story very different from its mentor’s but borrowing many of their best traits.

After one book I am curious to see where the story goes. It is a unique historical series with a very different flair. But also buy Vinland Saga. Just buy both series for different reasons ans support more historical manga in the end.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

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Ongoing Investigations: Case #224

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narutaki_icon_4040 Hey everyone, did you know that the Axe Cop cartoon is now on? I have been looking forward to this ever since it was teased. With eps. 1-2 you get a great sampling of what you’re in for if for some inexplicable reason you have never read the comic.

The opening of the show gives you a very quick rundown of how Axe Cop became Axe Cop, a perfectly necessary thing to do. What elevates it is the kid narrating, who may very well be writer Ethan Nicolle, giving just the right amount of gravitas to the premise. So already each and every episode starts off on the right foot.

Axe Cop’s voice is perfect and the delivery of the absurd dialogue is spot on. The animators capture the world of Axe Cop quite well and they have a good idea for funny background details.

The stories so far are an amalgam of what has been in the comic but put together in different ways to create semi-new insane tales with different interactions and jokes. Flute Cop’s role comes off as the most changed as he is a straight man to the wackiness often times. I hope that he turns into Dinosaur Soldier in an upcoming episode.

This show is a perfect fit for Fox’s animation block.

hisui_icon_4040 If there is one thing you cannot accuse Axe Cop of it is a slavish devotion to the conventional narrative structures we all know. I mean there is some semblance of your standard plot. It is not Ulysses or Gravity’s Rainbow here. (Somewhere a literature major threw up inside their mouth when I put Axe Cop in the same paragraph as those two books. But they are a literature major … so no one cares.) It is just a show that hops from plot point to plot point with an extremely stream of consciousness sense of progression.

That actually makes sense since Axe Cop in the creation of the adult Ethan Nicolle, who does the art, and his young son who is the writer. Is it theoretically about a cop who has an axe that fights crime. It is actually about the strange adventures of testosterone laden Gary Stu who goes around being a man’s man in a way that would make Brock Samson and Golgo 13 look like the forgotten members of the Golden Girls. That means he kills zombies, ninjas, dinosaurs, and the King of all Bad Guys with extreme violence and kid logic.

And that is the selling point of the series. When Bat Warthog Man’s friends are all eaten by the King of All Bad Guys it is up to Axe Cop to assemble a team so he can blow a horn inside the huge villains head. This lets dinosaurs can eat the villain’s brain. Mr T, a dinosaur rental store, scatological humor, and giant chicken bodied generalissimos get involved along the way. And that is the first episode. The second episode has super intelligent poop as a villain. Also we learn that Axe Cop is too cool to defecate like normal people.

I think the real question comes down to  how does this compare to the original comic. The original comic just feels tighter. Things just HAPPEN. But since it is all centered around one page stories so it just feels odd organic despite its almost absurdest nature. With 11 minutes to fill they try to keep that same vibe while centering everything around an actual plot structure. In a way that loses a bit of the original’s charm. Not enough to kill the momentum but enough to make one a clear winner.

Also at 11 minute half episodes this still works but if they take these plots and try to make them half an hour episodes they are just going to meander most of the time. Maybe two 11 minute half episodes in each episode would work but full episodes would stretch the premise too thin. Also something makes me roll my eyes at the thought of Axe Cop episodes trying to have B plots.

Also despite what Naruatki says the real reasons she likes this so much is because they often involve dinosaurs in the comic. It really makes you think how badly Terra Nova had to botch things up for her not to like that series.

The Ongoing Investigations are little peeks into what we are watching and reading outside of our main posts on the blog. We each pick three things that we were interested in a week and talk a bit about them. There is often not much rhyme or reason to what we pick. They are just the most interesting things we saw since the last Ongoing Investigation.

Continue reading →