JPN101 - Introduction to Anime
Study of the Modern Visually-Oriented Culture (with DVD Reviews)By Chris Kern
Preface: It has taken a while, but the acceptance of Japanese Animation ("Anime" to most of us, now that "Japanimation" has thankfully gone the way of the dodo) seems to be arriving in the modern American media collectives. While the formula of Robots-Joining-To-Become-A-Big-Kick-Ass-Robot is still alive and well, there are as many different genres to Anime these days as there are in regular movies. Yes, there are still Toy-Plugging and Card-Game-Plugging cartoons for kiddies, but you can just as easily find more adult-oriented storylines and characters. (Which is to say more complex and mature, which is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than the implied pornographic slant. That's called "Hentai" and it's a topic for another day.)
Robotech
The problems with watching Anime in the old days were numerous: American Television networks would only have a handful of shows, they would be played at odd hours and often shifting schedules, and episodes were rarely played in order, much less to the series' completion. For your average kiddie anime, that had little to no story arc; this was fine, but did anyone else pull their hair out trying to make sense of the episodic grab-bag that was ROBOTECH? I imagined the studio executives playing a game of BINGO with the tapes in a big tumbler..."Season 3, Episode 12!...Season 2 Episode 5!") Modern DVD distribution has thankfully changed all that. Just like you can pick up entire seasons of 24 or THE SOPRANOS in a DVD Box set, even the most hesitant of DVD sellers now has a shelf or two dedicated to Anime. So if you missed all the pithy nuances of THUNDERCATS, you can now pick up the entire series and watch it at your convenience.
For the first-time inductee, I have two recommendations:
- ) Pick up an Anime Magazine at the newsstand. My personal pick is Anime Insider, because I found NewType to be too expensive and skewed to a slightly younger demographic. Read some reviews and see which titles interest you. Then proceed to step 2.
- ) Netflix.com. It goes with Anime like Chocolate goes with Peanut Butter. Anime DVDs run about $20-25 for a "volume" containing anywhere from three to five episodes. Try to watch more than one series, and you'll realize why the phrase "Anime: Crack is Cheaper" sells so many T-shirts. Instead, pay $25 a MONTH for all the Anime you can watch from Netflix. Even with a 4-year-old in the house, my wife and I still find time to get through at least one Anime disc a week. Then just buy the DVDs of the series that you want to watch again.
With the introduction out of the way, here's the first batch of Reviews
GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX - 2ND GIG
This is possibly the longest title that this mag has received to date. I'll break it down for you: GHOST IN THE SHELL was a groundbreaking 1995 feature-length Anime about our heroine, Major Motoko Kusanagi (thankfully addressed as "Major" for us English-speakers), as a cybernetically enhanced cop working for Public Security Section 9. While not universally praised as a film (even by me), it succeeded like few others in creating a robust universe where the use of cybernetics has blended technology and humanity so far that characters often have to wonder which side their motivations come from. A prequel Anime was adapted in 2001 under the name GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX to moderate success, and ran for 13 episodes. The series name is often shortened to “GitS:SAC" which doesn't really help, in my opinion. Three years later, the series was continued (uncommon in Anime, once production is stopped) in the increasingly cumbersome GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX - 2ND GIG. ("GitS:SAC-2G?")
On a personal note: I was given Volume 5 of the second season from the DVD from its distributor about six months ago. So my apologies for this review being late, but I've had to catch up on the first 10 discs through Netflix (See #2 above).
After seeing both, I can recommend the series over the film wholeheartedly. The Major's dealings with Section 9 before the events of the 1995 movie are a great deal more coherent and engaging. The episode format lends itself well to clever one-shot stories, as well as episodes that deal with the main story arc, well-dispersed through the seasons. However, the main arc is exceedingly complex and the plot progresses very slowly. Mostly, it deals with a shadowy criminal organization called "The Individual Eleven" and a notorious Hacker called "The Laughing Man" who takes control of citizens' bodies by hacking into them. Even a good way into Season 2, I'm not certain where things stand with either.
Thankfully, we have some very likeable and fleshed-out characters that save the series from collapsing under its own weight. If the term "Techno-Noir" isn't already coined, I'd use it here to describe the casual treatment of far-future technology, as well as the shadowy characters and lighting used in most episodes. (Production I.G. also gave us the killer Anime segment of KILL BILL and the excellent BLOOD: THE LAST VAMPIRE). The characters don't beat their chests and proclaim their cleverly-named cybernetic powers, the agents of Section 9 are far more down-to-earth and each one's technology is just an extension of themselves. One agent suggests that another get prosthetic eyes with the casual air of suggesting Lasik surgery today. The only downside of this casual dialogue is that you have to listen fairly closely and do a little mental work to follow the plot, because they aren't going to stop the pacing to explain what "Getting your cyberbrain back-hacked" means.
"Inconspicuous" attire for secret police
GHOST IN THE SHELL: STAND ALONE COMPLEX - 2ND GIG volumes are available in standard and 3-disc Limited Edition releases from Manga Entertainment/Bandai Entertainment.
TACTICS - VOLUME 1
Part Scooby Doo, Part X-Files, complete with the Pros and Cons of each.
Oh, you wanted more than that? Fine.
TACTICS (one of a number of a poorly-named Anime that has nothing to do with the subject matter) is the story of Kantaro, an anthropologist who turns to his demon-banishing skills to pay the bills. But not everyone believes in the old folklore about demons and evil spirits in post-feudal Japan, so Kantaro sometimes has a hard time convincing people that the paranormal is the root of their problems. He is a reserved, sometimes comic leading man, but he pulls out the stops and sends evil spirits back from whence they came when he needs to.
Right in the first episode, we dive straight into the plot, where Kantaro sets free a powerful goblin named "The Demon-Eater" from centuries of imprisonment. Conveniently, this "goblin" turns out to be a handsome, raven-haired man with black wings. He names it Harukah, and, in doing so, seals the goblin to be his servant. The two have a bumpy start dealing with each other, but they settle into their pattern in a few episodes: Kantaro sets up the local folklore about the spirits, does all the investigating, and battles the demons while Harukah mostly grumbles about being endentured to such an idiot, but comes in with the big guns at the end to save Kantaro's ass. The stories are surprisingly good for an anime of this type. More than once an ending twist totally took me by surprise and that's fairly rare. Some of these are traditional ghost stories, but it's all new to we Americans ("us Americans"?). Nearly all of their cases are engaging and the tension well played out.
Harukah Brings the Pain
Unfortunately, the series does have a tragic flaw. The characters are rather flat and their interactions uneven. You just can't sympathize with any of them, and even the supposedly charming Harukah comes off as just a selfish jerk. The secondary characters add nothing in terms of plot: An 8-year-old girl from the first episode shows up at Kantaro's house and apparently starts living there because she has a crush on Harukah. Harukah has a friend who is somehow married to a teddy-bear-sized green creature that only says "Mu," and frequently gets into fights mistakenly defending her honor. And Kantaro's super-spirit-bashing move is set to a bow-chick-a-chick-a soundtrack that is straight out of a 1970s cop show chase scene. I can't keep from laughing whenever he goes into it.
Last and most perplexing of all, TACTICS flirts with the idea of Kantaro and Harukah as a couple. There are no overt romatic plots between the two, but in one episode, Kantaro suddenly declares "I would die for you, Harukah." In another, they're seen running off together holding hands. It's odd, because the Manga (Japanese comic) that this is based on has no such boy-boy content.
A series can hold itself together with a shoestring plot and strong characters, but Tactics proves that lack of character development can sink a series, no matter how good the story. 
