When Rango first came out, I was skeptical, but great reviews poured in. Finally, I got the chance to decide for myself. Rango is the story of a great big fake who becomes a great big hero. Amazingly, when we meet our scaly friend we don’t know his name, and actually still don’t know it, because “Rango” he makes up along with a series of amazing exploits that he sells to the folks in a little desert town called Dirt. This is a town in trouble as their water supply is drying up and the mayor is plotting something. Rango is the stranger who appears and changes everything. All things after the accident that puts Rango into the desert is a riff on the classic Western almost as if he has been thrown back in time (though of course he hasn’t). There is a clear knowledge of the reference material and it gives a little bite to some of the twists that you expect as well as great humor. The animation is all out incredible, there is a particularly flying scene that blew my mind with detail. Great film and certainly one of the best animated features of the year. Oh, and the owl mariachies are the best. I need a shirt with them.
I just read Princess Knight volume 1. When Narutaki and I read volume 2 we will probably do a full length editorial about the manga as a whole but I thought I would throw out a few thoughts before then. The oddest thing about Princess Knight was that Osamu Tezuka almost seems of have ADD with his storyline. I always knew that Osamu Tezuka liked to do episodic series like Black Jack and Astroboy. When I read the somewhat scatter brained plot of Swallowing the Earth I assumed that the fact that the plot was all over the place had to do more with Tezuka being new to Gekiga. But in Princess Knight jumps from plot line to plot line without really ever stopping for a breath. It is very clear to me that he is making up Princess Knight as he goes along while borrowing from Disney every step of the way. The main character goes from trying to hide her gender, to being a prisoner, to fighting a witch, to being on a pirate ship with hardly any transition. I think he clearly Tezuka had a beginning and an end mapped out but everything in between seemed to be decided as he was writing it. You can’t ever say you are bored by the book but it does feel a bit disjointed. Still the story is worth reading for the fact that it is a major milestone in manga history. While it was not the first shojo manga it was highly influential in the foundation of the genre. The book is just best enjoyed if you know going into it that the book reads very young and has a scatter shot plot. I think I enjoyed the book a bit more than Narutaki because I went in with a more informed view of the book and knew what to expect.
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