I’m sure I don’t need to tell any of you about the horror of the recent events in Japan, the news has been as unavoidable as it has been upsetting. As someone living here in the west (who also happens to have family and friends in Japan), it is also extremely frustrating – what can we do to help?

The only thing, it seems, is to give money to the relief effort – and when that has been done try and encourage and inspire others to do the same. Its the latter part that is the hardest – words seem inadequate at times like this. Music, however, has always been one of the first places I turn to when in need of emotional support and expression.

Along with anime and manga, I have long associated Techno with Japan. Not just because it provides the perfect soundtrack to exploring Tokyo’s neon canyons, but also because the country has embraced the sound since it first emerged in the late ’80s. Much of the Techno I play is harsh, industrial and cyberpunk in its nature – dystopian even. While it provides disturbingly fitting background music to news reports of carnage and potential nuclear disaster, that is the last thing any of us need right now. So instead I have been digging in the (virtual) crates for tunes that feel positive, optimistic and – perhaps most importantly – futuristic and forward looking. The mix below below is not a soundtrack for catastrophe, but instead one for reconstruction and new beginnings. In many ways, the true essence of both Techno and the spirit of the Japanese people.

Listen, download – and then DONATE.

Click here to donate to Doctors Without Borders

Japan: Positive Future Frequencies by Shinohara H-Industries

This is my original review of The Sky Crawlers, reposted to coincide with the film finally getting a release on Bluray and DVD – as well as a limited cinema run – here in the UK. Since I first reviewed it I’ve watched it countless times, and I must say with each viewing I’ve come to love it even more. In fact, it’s become one of my very favourite of Oshii’s works.

If you’ve read this site before, or even just glanced over it’s archives, then my appreciation and admiration of director Mamoru Oshii is clearly laid out. As such it would seem not only redundant but also somewhat self indulgent to elaborate further on my love of his tense political sci-fi dramas Ghost in the Shell and Patlabor, or his low budget, live action masterpiece Avalon. Ever since his latest feature film The Sky Crawlers was first announced I have been gripped with excitement and anticipation – although, as always, resigned to the long wait us western fans must endure before we are granted an audience. This week that wait finally ended, and putting aside my deep rooted fanboy allegiances for just under two hours, I was able to sit down and see if anime’s most esteemed auteur could still deliver the goods.

Based on a series of novels by Japanese author Hiroshi Mori, The Sky Crawlers takes its time in revealing it’s true nature to the viewer. Oshii is famous for never rushing his narratives and giving his viewers time to indulge in his slowly paced cinematography, but tSC takes its time in revealing even it’s true setting. Much of the truth about what is happening in the world it’s characters inhabit isn’t made clear until it’s final act, and as such it makes it hard to elaborate without drifting into spoiler territory. Simply put, it is set at a time – possibly the future, or equally maybe an alternate past – when humanity has decided that the only way to avoid war is to stage an artificial, and seemingly endless, one. As a result an eternal air conflict is fought between two rival corporations using WWII style fighter planes and bombers, just to fill the war cravings of the global media, economy and watching public.

This concept is not a new one for Oshii, it being the main driving theme of his second, complex Patlabor movie. Then the subject was how small scale, but very real, wars were allowed to rage unhindered in the less developed parts of the world so that the industrial nations could create the illusion of a lasting peace, and made in 1993 it gives a chillingly clairvoyant portrayal of how easily this cosy illusion can be broken through acts of terrorism. To Oshii war is a vital force in modern capitalist societies, the secret fuel that drives their economies and cultures, but while Patlabor 2 meditates openly and explicitly on this train of thought, tSC is all the more subtler. Throughout it’s duration it only hints at it’s thematic backdrop, preferring instead to focus it’s other unique ingredient; it’s characters.

If eternal, staged war is the formula for peace, then one huge moral question faces the society that puts it into practice: who will do the fighting? For the tSC the answer is the ‘Kildren’, apparently genetically engineered clones of teenage children, raised to do nothing but fly and fight for the corporations that mass-produce them. It is through their eyes that we slowly learn not only about their world, but also the abusive psychological effect it has on them. Raised to know nothing but war, they fly routine, daily sorties while filling the gaps within with drinking and mindless, detached sex. In fact everything appears detached to them; their lives are so routine – the war so endless – that even the thrills of partying and combat seem to bore them. The fact that they are designed to never age – forever staying young, knowing that they will only, inevitably, die in battle – only compounding their increasing alienation from both each other and the world they are supposedly fighting for.

The image of robotic, innocence stripped children being used as weapons in this way is a disturbing one, and one seen to devastating effect in Madhouses‘ groundbreaking 2003 series Gunslinger Girl. Now, as then, it appears the target of critique is anime itself, and perhaps to some larger extent Japanese culture as a whole. For decades anime and manga have made children their assassins and war heroes, and both Gunslinger Girl and Oshii attempt to deconstruct these respective memes, showing instead the brutal reality of how that could manifest in real life. tSC goes a stage further though, coupling this with the earlier theme of the need for perpetual war, and perhaps turning it into an attack on the endless repition of anime subject material, the boredom of the characters representing Oshii’s own disdain at the stale offerings much of the industry produces. At times it even feels like an attack on himself; the use of character names from his previous works is jarring to any watching fan, and coupled with his frequent visual signatures it is almost as though Oshii-san is looking back at his portfolio of work with disappointment at his own lack of originality. If The Sky Crawlers reassures his audience of only one thing its that he shouldn’t be so harsh on himself.

Visually, the film is sumptuous and intoxicating as we have come to expect from the director and his highly experienced creative team at Production IG. The green fields and cloudscape filled blue skies mark a refreshing change of palette from their usual dark, urban environments – but while also maintaining the director’s trademark cold, stark and lonely atmospheres. While the character design is suitably minimal compared to previous IG works, the mechanical design is as phenomenal as expected, the retro-but-futuristic fighter planes betraying a Miyazaki-like fetishism towards WWII aircraft engineering and attention to detail. The dogfight sequences themselves are breathtaking, and again show IG’s mastery of the use of combining CGI and traditional cell animation. Here they had help from FX studio Polygon Pictures, whose recent portfolio shows they are clearly industry leaders – and I don’t say that just because I know someone that works there.

In fact, the opening and regularly punctuating dogfight sequences are perhaps Oshii’s greatest trick. Not only do they break up the mesmerising monotony of watching the Kildren’s routine lives unfold, but they also make the audience participants in their world. The action sequences are so exhilirating, so beautifully choreographed that the viewer ends up almost craving them to return to the screen, and thus becomes the gawping, voyeristic, war-demanding public of the Kildren’s world, and thus ultimately the guilty abuser. It’s a master stroke of manipulation, and a subtle one that perhaps doesn’t truly reveal itself until the films final, bloody dogfight.

Despite it’s deeply thematic nature and social commentary, The Sky Crawlers is perhaps Oshii’s most accessible film since Patlabor. Gone, thankfully, are the philosophical ramblings of GiTS 2: Innocence, instead the discussion is more subtle, the plot more linear. In many ways it feels that Oshii, although rapidly becoming what is considered a veteran filmmaker, is still learning from mistakes and honing his skills. Plus, as always with his work, it’s nothing else if not a visual masterpiece, the imagery and score from Oshii’s long time composer of choice Kenji Kawai combining again to make a compelling and memorable viewing experience. It’s not an easy ride at times, but The Sky Crawlers is certainly one you can’t afford to miss.

Bradley Meek has more interests than he has time. He likes reading about science and politics, playing PC games and discovering new music, reading novels and comic books, playing complex board games and obsessively checking his Twitter feed. But what he always has more time for is his primary love, animation, and for the last three years he has been a staff reviewer on THEM Anime, and has also recently joined the staff of Anime 3000. Old or new, cute or manly, he has no fear and is willing to tackle any anime. Though, as he details below, this one was a “whoozy.”

There is one completely safe kind of anime: the movie adaptation of popular franchises. Part promotion, and part glorious fan service, these movies are made under a long list of restrictions to keep them from taking the steam out from long running series. The main characters can’t see any kind of development, none of the ongoing plot threads can be tied up, and every character who placed high in the new popularity poll has to show up. You’ve seen the kind before, usually coming from big Shounen Jump series like Bleach, InuYasha or Prince of Tennis. These movies are essentially glorified filler episodes, where nothing is at stake or feels like it really matters in the grand scheme of things. At best, these movies can only aspire to an entertaining time waster that can’t quite replicate why we love the properties they’re based on. Sadly, the norm is closer to the worst case scenario: a flashy waste of time and celluloid.

That was the kind of movie Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer was supposed to be. But Momaru Oshii thought otherwise.

To be fair, Urusei Yatsura was hardly your average popular franchise. In fact, the series is a landmark of anime that rivals even the biggest names. It was the first series to successfully make the jump from a “kid’s cartoon” to a favorite of old and young viewers alike. It made a superstar out of the manga-ka, Rumiko Takahasi, who wrote the comic the series was based on. The main character, the cute, ditzy alien Lum, became an animated idol, with an unprecedented glut of merchandising and toys that was revolutionary at the time. It was the training ground for many directors and animators, including Katsuhiko Nishijima (Project A-Ko franchise), Kazuo Yamazaki (Maison Ikkoku, A Wind Named Amnesia, and the underappreciated Yume Tsukai), Kazuhiro Furuhashi (Rurouni Kenshin), and Junji Nishimura (Ranma 1/2). And probably most importantly, it was pretty damn funny.

The series already had a lot to work with, putting colorful characters from Takahashi’s fertile imagination in increasingly strange situations. And once they ran out of manga to adapt, the series got even better- yes, Urusei Yatsura is the exception to the rule, where the filler was better than most of the canonical material. Under the guidance of Oshii, the series riffed on Japanese culture, politics, and social issues before truly going into the stratosphere, with some episodes that even shed their comedic shell for more experimental fare.

For the uninitiated, the story of Urusei Yatsura goes something like this: Ataru is the biggest high school lecher alive. He indiscriminately chases one skirt after another, much to the shame of his frazzled mother and spaced out father. And he isn’t suave or subtle about it; his pick up lines stop just short of “let’s do it on the street like animals.” And unfortunately, when aliens invade, the fate of the Earth rests on his shoulders.

Oni (a traditional Japanese monster similar to trolls) from space with vastly superior weapons and technology have landed in Tokyo, intent making this planet another addition to their long line of conquests. But these aliens have a strange tradition- before they can start burning national landmarks and enslaving the human race, they have to first play a game of tag against their would-be victims. The Earthlings pick one person to represent them, and that person has seven days to catch the oni‘s representative. If the Earthlings win, the oni go home and life continues as normal. If the oni win, the raping and pillaging will commence immediately. And because of a national lottery, Ataru is humanity’s only hope for salvation. Initially resistant, he comes around when he sees who is opponent is: the luscious oni princess Lum. And dude, for the chance to just touch a hot chick like that, what wouldn’t he do?

Through an ingenious last minute idea worthy of anime’s biggest perv, Ataru wins the game. But, of course, his troubles have only begun. When he let loose a howl to celebrate his victory, the princess Lum mistook that for a marriage proposal… which she happily accepted. And what do you know, at the age of sixteen Ataru suddenly has a wife who has moved in with him, a surrogate kid in the form of Lum’s little cousin, two frazzled parents, weird in-laws, and a whole lot of jealous classmates. But does that stop him from groping other women? In Ataru’s reasoning, “I don’t want just Lum. I want every woman in the world!”

That’s the gist of the first episode, but from there, anything goes. The series doesn’t have a plot so much as a giant canvas for far out comedy with little consequence from episode to episode. One day it can rain oil, then the next day sexy aliens fall from the sky. The town will be destroyed and magically rebuilt in time for the next episode several times over in the first season alone. Weathering the constant abuse is a core cast of rivals for Lum’s affection (though any chance that those relationships will ever go anywhere is all in Ataru’s mind) and several classmates who regularly get caught up in the wackiness. There’s Mendou, the heir to a conglomerate’s fortunes that was probably the origination of the “rich brat” stereotype we see in anime. There’s Lum’s Stormtroopers, a trio of “Lum otaku” who adore her who like a certain Police song. They don’t need Lum merchandise, because they create their own. Poor Shinobu is a girl who has been the object of Ataru’s affections since they were children, which helped her develop a lot of muscle to fight him or anyone else off. Ryuunosuke is a girl who has been forced by her crazy father to dress and act like a man for all her life, though she still dreams of wearing a sailor fuku to school. When these kids are in school, it’s up to poor Onsen-Mark to teach them, and he seems to age with every episode from the stress. Sakura is the school nurse who is also a talented priestess, and looks killer in her red-white miko habit. Her midget monk uncle Cherry, on the other hand, looks like a walking turd. The series ran for a 195 episodes, so this is hardly a complete list, but it should be enough to get you through the movie. But if you want a more detailed look, AnimEigo has posted their liner notes for the DVD release online.

Oshii directed the first half of the series, though you’d have to check the credits to figure that out. All the traits that made him one of animations biggest auteurs hadn’t shown up- no striking visuals, no hound dogs, no endlessly rambling characters talking well above their pay grade, and it’s not even very pretentious. It’s just pure, well executed fun. Oshii made a couple of major changes from the manga, though. Lum’s Stormtroopers were originally a throwaway gag, but presumably Oshii saw some potential in them that Takahashi didn’t, and made them regular members of the cast. Ataru’s best friend and partner in crime from the manga never shows up at all. Oshii also tweaked Lum’s character a bit to make her less bitchy, and more of an affectionate ditz. These are comparatively small changes, though; nothing compared to the liberties he would take when making the second movie.

Oshii wasn’t happy with the first Urusei Yatsura movie, which, while a great movie in its own way, was exactly the kind of safe, simple exercise in fanservice I described above. He wanted to do something different, something daring. Inspired by a chapter of the manga where a rogue god of dreams plays a prank on the characters, he wrote the script to what would become Beautiful Dreamer. Takahashi didn’t like it, and Oshii barely got the approval he needed to start the project. And when the movie came out it tanked hard. Fans were incensed- Oshii had essentially kidnapped their beloved characters for his own story, a story that didn’t represent Urusei Yatsura as they knew it at all. It looked like an exercise in egotism. Critics slammed it. The movie lost money, and Oshii lost his job.

It’s a lovely story: the tortured, visionary artist is exiled from the cold world of commerce where they don’t understand his great art. They don’t understand, man! Those ingrates, those ijits, those fools! They don’t understand art, man, they don’t understand his greatness! I like to imagine that Oshii left the building of Toei Studios with his fist in air, cursing the capitalist system and the greedy CEOs and whatever else came to his mind. They don’t understand!

It’s the kind of story we tell ourselves to feed a misplaced sense of superiority- something to tell ourselves as artists or as an audience to a small art that we just get something the rest of the world doesn’t, or can’t. There is some truth to that- what a world it would be if visionaries like Oshii could take risks with a lot of money and not worry about the consequences. But there’s truth on the other side of the coin, too. Urusei Yatsura had a huge built in fan base, and these fans went into the movie expecting something very different. And when they didn’t get it- well, you know the feeling. And no matter how great your art is, it’s pointless without an audience. This is a movie that has benefited from growing old and moving out of the context it was released in; years later, we can fully appreciate watching Oshii’s budding growth as an artist onscreen. This was the movie where he seemed to fully realize what it was he wanted to do as a director.

I’ve only seen a small number of Oshii films, and to be honest, most of them were a turn off. Ghost in the Shell is simply overrated- the pretentious, stuffy dialogue and ponderous pace drags down the movie despite the incredible visuals and mind opening themes. Innocence was even worse- I tried to watch the movie twice, and fell asleep at both viewings, even when I thought I wasn’t tired. Dreamwork’s botched release certainly didn’t help things. I thought I was done with Oshii- until I fell in love with the Urusei Yatsura franchise and was surprised by Beautiful Dreamer. Here was an Oshii movie that engaged me- accessible yet profound, thoughtful but suspenseful, funny and awe inspiring, daring but not intimidating.

The school is preparing for the big spring festival, and the building is stuffed with students in costume who clog up the stairs, strange machines are being built outside, and there’s even a Nazi-themed tea room. The latter, of course, belongs to our heroes’ class. “Think we should have gone with Ataru’s suggestion of a naked ladies cafe?” asks one of the Lum Stormtroopers, now a Nazi-Lum-Stormtrooper hammering Nazi paraphernalia over the door. Perm, also a Nazi-Lum-Stormtrooper, is pretty sure that anything Ataru suggests is sure to end in disaster. So instead, let’s decorate a tea room celebrating those cool looking Nazis, and Mendou can even bring a WWII tank that he can put in our small classroom. It’ll be a hit!

Naturally, the day before the festival starts, the whole thing blows up in their faces, in a series of events that involve Ataru sleeping in places he shouldn’t be, groping women in his sleep he shouldn’t grope, and pissing off a certain alien you never want to piss off. The tank falls through the floor and several others below it. Over stressed teacher Onsen-Mark now has a disaster on his hands, and he really can’t do much about, since as his students constantly remind him- “the school festival is about student self governance!” The festival starts tomorrow. Maybe they can put it back together by then.

The next day, the tank is back in place, the Nazi paraphernalia is up, and the gang is almost ready for the festival. But Onsen-Mark has been sent home- the recent events have simply been too much for him. Realizing that she made a serious mix-up in the medication she gave him- a giant jar of laxatives instead of a giant jar of sedatives; really, it was a mistake anyone could have made- school nurse Sakura races to Onsen-Mark’s house. In the first of many surreal scenes that also serve as biting satire, she finds him in an apartments so covered in mold the floor is as slick as ice. The ceiling, the windows, the closet- everything is covered in a sick-green coating. Only the TV escaped untouched. Onsen-Mark is sitting in the filth, watching a soap opera with a glazed look in his eyes. The only way to save him, Sakura realizes, is to physically throw him out of the window and several streets down the block, mold and all.

When Sakura finally sits Onsen-Mark down to talk to him, it seems that the teacher’s mind has finally snapped. He starts rambling about reality and dreams and turtles and old Japanese legends and why are people always saying the festival will be the next day it will always be the next he can’t even remember what day it is. “I feel like I’ve been repeating the same events over and over again,” he says. An hour later, in a certain classroom, a tank has fallen through the flimsy wooden floor because a certain student was sleeping in places he shouldn’t be, groping women in his sleep he shouldn’t grope, and pissing off a certain alien you never want to piss off.

Shortly after his dazed discussion with Sakura, Onsen-Mark disappears.

Sakura realizes that something is wrong, and tries to find her uncle Cherry, who should know what to do. But he’s gone as well, his hobo tent gone to waste, and his cooking pot broken and rusting from disuse. Sakura tries to send the students home. But whether they were going by bus or taxi or limo or train, they all find the city eerily empty, and none of them could find their homes. Well, except for one- everyone ends up crashing at Ataru’s place.

Later, over breakfast, Sakura tries to explain what is happening to the city. There is an old Japanese legend of a man named Urashima Taro who once helped a turtle god, and to thank Taro for his assistance, the turtle god carried Taro on his back to the pleasure palaces of the dragons. The pleasure palace was filled with everything a man could want, and Taro reveled in his reward. But when he returns home, he finds centuries have passed and his village is gone.

Now say a man has a dream about being a butterfly, then wakes up to go to work. Who’s to say it wasn’t the butterfly’s dream of a working man? And have you ever noticed how time flies by when you’re having fun, or slows to a crawl when you’re miserable? Keep following me here- what if, instead of one man, the entire city was riding on the back of the turtle god? What if the events of the last few days have been repeating over and over again, and we never noticed because we were too tired or too busy? What if all of our reality is simply someone’s dream? Are you following me, Ataru? Ataru? ATARU?!

Naturally, only the diligent Mendou understands what Sakura is saying. The rest are happily oblivious.

That’s only the first thirty minutes of the movie. There’s many more memorable scenes, including the founding of a great socialist utopia, roller skating in the strangest post-apocalypse you’ve possibly ever seen where the atom bomb was the steady march of time, and the gang exploring a schoolhouse haunted not by ghosts, but by weird twists in reality and perception.

Watching Beautiful Dreamer is like looking at a photo album of a good friend’s childhood. You recognize maybe their hair and eyes, and that rogue grin, but the album can only hint at the features of your friend’s adult life. The movie is prototypical Oshii; you can see him developing the themes and ideas that would later make him famous. The movie asks ponderous questions and is filled with striking visuals. It does strange things with our sense of time, space and reality. There is still no hound dog, though. But interestingly enough, what makes the movie successful may not be what we would recognize as an Oshii film today.

Oshii may have tried to make something deeper than the light comedy that made Urusei Yatsura and the movie Only You such hits, but in Beautiful Dreamer, comedy is one of its best assets. Oshii and his staff were dealing with characters they knew very well, and because of that, they had the comedic timing and reactions down to a “T.” It’s a perfect way to offset the gravity of the plot, and it makes the entire movie much more entertaining. Obviously, latter Oshii movies would be missing any kind of comedy entirely. The movie is also very sentimental, though how that comes about is something of a spoiler. That makes the movie more heartfelt and humane; contrast that with the cynical philosophical ramblings in Innocence. These traits might have simply been carry-overs from a clever low brow series, and they may take they movie “down” a notch from high art, but it makes the whole thing work very well. It may have seemed to fans that Oshii had taken characters they knew and loved and inserted them into a strange artsy film where they acted in strange ways, but without the traits of the original series, the movie would have been less successful as a memorable piece of art.

Before the glorious days of the Internet, before certain fans would selflessly sweat over a three thousand word synopsis of a sprawling franchise simply so that a near stranger can have content for his blog, some people would see Beautiful Dreamer cold.  The Sci-Fi Channel ran the movie back in 1998, when only those who dared to endure small dark rooms with sweaty old men knew who any of these characters were. Many of them still fell in love with it, and claim that it’s the best introduction to the franchise. While I’m not so sure about that, the options as I see it are this: if you watch the movie without seeing the series, you will see one of the great works of anime, but miss out on all the subtleties that only a fan of the series will pick up on. But watching the series is a huge investment of time, and not all of us have that. So I suggest this: if you’ve never seen the movie or the series, pick up copies of Only You and Beautiful Dreamer. Only You is a good introduction to the series and the characters, and will make your viewing of the next movie all the more rewarding. Or don’t. Either way, in my mind, this is one of the canonical series and movies of anime, and any fan who hasn’t seen these are doing themselves a disservice.

Alex Leavitt writes for The Department of Alchemy, while working “for real” as a research specialist in the Comparative Media Studies department at MIT in Boston, MA. After studying abroad in Kyoto, Japan in 2008, Alex returned to the States to travel around the country speaking at major anime conventions such as Anime Expo (Los Angeles, CA), Otakon (Baltimore, MD), and Anime Boston. Follow his eccentricities over on Twitter at @alexleavitt.

Back in 2006, as a college freshman downloading anime with his roommates, I happened across a short subtitled series called REC. Since I like to encourage fans to seek out shows that are not mainstream (like the Anime World Order offerings of Fist of the North Star, Legend of the Galactic Heroes, etc.) but in particular also those that do not have large fan followings (for example, Dennou Coil), I want to revisit REC, because it’s an interesting case study for a show of its type — romance, seinen, and (strangely) extremely short — because we can understand how this anime works with its novel format and lower budget.

REC aired on TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) from the beginning of February 2006 to the end of March 2006. A small run for a small show: the series only adds up to nine episodes, plus one additional OVA episode included with the DVD packaging. In addition, though, each episode only lasts 12 minutes each, a very different format from the approximately-25-minute episodes we normally view on television. At under two full hours viewing time (without including the extra episode), you can watch the entire series in an afternoon. REC’s length therefore provides its viewers with a much faster narrative flow than other ordinary anime series, a change with which modern ONA (original net animations) are currently experimenting and succeeding.

And with its quick movement, REC’s story is neither difficult nor demanding to follow. The plot follows the interwoven heartstrings of Fumihiko Matsumaru, a salaryman that works for the advertising section of a confectionary company, and Aka Onda, an amateur seiyuu (voice actress) beginning to make her mark in the industry. The two meet as a passionate Aka stops a stood-up Matsumaru from throwing away his absent date’s ticket to a local Audrey Hepburn film. After the two return home (how coincidental that they live in the same neighborhood), Matsumaru wakes in the middle of the night to sirens down the street. He finds Aka outside her burning apartment building and, as she has nowhere to go, brings her to his place for the night. Then, in an (un)expected fit of emotion and desperation, the couple kiss, introduce each other (they hadn’t before this moment…), and have sex. A strange turn of events that only escalates the following day, as Matsumaru’s project at work is accepted: his half-tree-half-cat mascot will be featured in a commercial for a new leaf-shaped snack. And who will voice this mascot? None other than Aka Onda, budding voice actress extraordinaire. Now, the two must attempt not to conflate their business and personal relationships while Aka remains in Matsumaru’s bedroom for the next month while refusing to continue any sort of romantic relationship (even though everybody knows that one is developing without even having had to begin watching this television show).

The immediate verdict? Watch it. It will not be a waste of your two-hour afternoon break. The show might, however, suffer from what I would like to call “otaku sentimentality.” To explain, let’s turn to the manga.

REC was adapted from the •REC manga (yes, there’s a dot at the beginning, just like how it appears on any video capturing device), written and drawn by Q-taro Hanamizawa, also famous for such works as… well, they’re pretty unknown. The comic was serialized in the relatively-new seinen (older boys’/men’s) magazine Sunday GX, which has also featured RahXephon and Black Lagoon. SHAFT (yes, the company behind such recent hits as Bakemonogatari, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, and… well, there are too many, so hit that link!) ended up producing the series, directed by Ryutaro Nakamura, who also directed Kino’s Journey, Ghost Hound, and Serial Experiments Lain (see these three shows for better directorial work).

As a seinen work transformed into an animated series, you won’t find much moé here, but the manga doesn’t diverge from straight-up panty-flashing, shower scenes, and a breast here and there. However, the subject matter — voice acting and everything that comes with it, including Japanese animation — might throw off a few American anime fans if they were to “analyze” the show. This series does not pander to moé fanatics, regardless of how much you want to peg Aka with that term, just because she has big eyes and a short stature. Helped by some excellently-bad lines like, “Just because we… did it once doesn’t mean we’re together or anything like that…,” “When I hear Aka saying ‘Welcome home!’, I’ll be very happy,” and “Deep inside, he is longing for a girlfriend,” Matsumaru’s somewhat creepy obsession with Aka (particularly visualized in the manga) might come off as pandering to a subset of fans (I mean, there are a number of people out there who want to hear their favorite seiyuu moan in their ears), but in my opinion it’s just poor writing. You shouldn’t come to REC expecting anything spectacular.

As for appeal, if you want a cute romance, REC should be right up your alley. If you’ve come for the next hit, you won’t be surprised when you see that the BitTorrent stats for this series’ fansubbed translation are hitting near zero seeds. The animation is pretty average, only augmented by a few instances of unnatural CG, and a lot of scenes — particularly those romantic, emotional, or memorial ones (aka. half the show) — are whitewashed in an attempt to shoujo-ize this bit of seinen entertainment. Also, the low-quality backgrounds are a bit apparent: they look almost painted from a five-year-old’s watercolor set. But for a “late night show” (it appeared on TBS at around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning), REC follows the conventions of most shows appealing to a slightly older male audience.

The more interesting aspect of the show might have been the voice acting, but for a show about an amateur voice actress, the producers certainly went out of their way to find an… amateur voice actress. Not that the voice acting in the show is poor, but it’s not going to hit any high notes either by featuring Sakai Kanako, who has most recently voiced Akari on the hot, mechanical-bishounen haremfest, Miracle Train. Personally, I liked Aka’s “Audrey Hepburn” voice better than her own, but if you’re looking for a critical look into the Japanese animation industry, go check out Animation Runner Kuromi.

Watch this show to add it to your mental repertoire. One challenge might be to pick out all of the Audrey Hepburn references throughout the series. Of course, it’s always nice to have seen average shows more than once, especially since REC has that 12-minute novelty going for it. Or, I suppose you could always play the anime’s visual novel adaptation. But if you’re looking for a recent romance that’s sure to keep you on your toes, I recommend Toradora wholeheartedly.

Having never been imported into the English-speaking realm, REC is still available over at AnimeSuki, though you might want to beg someone to seed you a copy. Just be prepared to deal with your average fansub design clichés:

(Note: This is the second part of an ongoing review of RideBack. The first part can be read here and the final part here.)

If you read my review last month of the first three episodes of Atsushi Takahashi‘s teenage mecha series RideBack then you’ll remember that I was pretty impressed with it, especially it’s more mature take on what is quite an established genre. One element that intrigued me was the way the show’s political backdrop was being slowly introduced; news reports and media clips played out in the background, while it’s teenage protagonists seemed blissfully disinterested. Well, you can only ignore global totalitarian regimes – and the inevitable insurgents that spring up in reaction to them – for so long; both have a habit of making you pretty damn aware of them sooner rather than later. And usually not in a good way. It’s certainly fair to say this is true for ex-ballerina Rin Ogata and her college pals by episode 4, when they start to find it pretty hard to ignore those news reports – especially as they’re in some of them.

For a start, when Rin breaks through an army blockade on her RideBack to get her roommate out of a terrorist attack on a shopping mall, she doesn’t just grab the attention of the media, police and the GGP (the aforementioned, shadowy fascistic regime) but also the piqued interest of the so-called terrorists themselves. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg; despite pleas from club boss Tenshirō Okakura to keep her head low, things start to take a turn for the even more serious when her kid brother Kenji falls in with a gang of RideBack riders on an Akira style rampage, and she steps in to try and bail him out, not realising that the whole stunt has been a set-up to allow the GGP to publicly show off it’s new (distinctly Patlabor like) police RideBacks. It doesn’t end well, with her arrested and being forced to watch her brother being tortured by GGP secret police. With just that one brief scene, both the tone and focus of the show shifts permanently.

I won’t say too much more – I’m not here to give a you a blow by blow account of what happens in every episode or reveal spoilers – just to say that Rin gets busted out by some new allies, we learn some more about Okakura’s murky background, the GGP flexes it’s military muscle, and Rin decides to never ride a RB again. Well, presumably until another friend or family member is danger again in episode 10, at a guess. We also, unsurprisingly, get to see a lot more of the RideBack’s in action – including combat – as well as learning a little about the software and hardware that makes them work, and why young Rin has such a natural talent for riding the things. While the designs – like the initial premise of the show – seem a little outlandish at first, the way the RBs move and operate is fairly convincing, the whole concept of a mech balancing on two tyres and being controlled by its pilot shifting their weight might might seem harder to swallow if we weren’t all familiar with the sight of a Segway and its advanced balance control systems.

And that’s still RideBack’s biggest win: taking a typically unlikely anime premise and making it believable and compelling. If there’s one concern it’s where exactly does the plot go from here – its only just got into gear, and there’s only three more of it’s initial 12 episode run left. It seems that so much as been started that can’t be finished that quickly – or is Madhouse betting on the series being popular enough to get an extended run, a second series or an OVA? Time will tell. Check back in a few weeks when the season has ended and I’ll be sharing my final impression and concluding thoughts.

(Note: This is the second part of an ongoing review of RideBack. The first part can be read here.)

(Note: This is the second part of an ongoing review of RideBack. The first part can be read here and the final part here.)

Shinjuku seems to be littered with tiny pet stores and street stalls selling hyperactive puppies and kittens in plastic cages – simultaneously both one of the most disturbing and kawaii things I’ve ever witnessed. Hand written signs proclaim both the breeds and the age in weeks of he animal – there’s a slight sense of sadness when you notice that the ages have had stickers over the top of them; the number of layers showing how long the poor creatures have gone without finding a loving home…

Loiter around for long enough and it’s worth it though, just to see fully grown men fawning over the adorable prisoners…

So we’re here. Finally.

Actually, we arrived about 48 hours ago, after what seemed like a week of travelling. Hellish. But, of course, with hindsight completely worth it. Shinjuku is everything all the cliches say it is – Akira, Bladerunner and Neuromancer all rolled into one, but somehow weirder for not actually feeling that futuristic. Or at least, it’s a kind of retro futuristic, a reminder of the that 80′s cyberpunk vision that it inspired but never quite happened anywhere else. Like all sci-fi, they got some things wrong. Example? Well, it seems damn near impossible to find any public Wi-Fi round here. But why would you need it when everyone’s had 3G capable phones for over ten years?

Anyway, there’s another cliche about pictures and word counts…

Miyagi Prefectural Police officials in northeastern Japan have announced on Monday that they discovered a man dead in his apartment underneath several hundred manga volumes and magazines. They are investigating the cause of death and whether the 37-year-old male company employee is another casualty of last week’s earthquake in Miyagi.

From Anime News Network.

This one slipped past me apparently. Ether that or Production IG have been keeping it very, very tightly under wraps.

Either way, apparently July 12 will see a Japanese theatrical release of Ghost in the Shell 2.0; a new special edition of the 1995 classic featuring some re-done CGI visual effects and a whole new, remastered 6.1 soundtrack. Anime News Network has all the precise details, and the one thing that worried me most is in that list of names there is no mention of the film’s original director Mamoru Oshii. Presumably he’s been far too busy with Sky Crawlers – which this release seems to be aimed at promoting – to have got involved himself.

Looking at the comparison images, it looks like most of the visual work has been done to bring some of the original’s scenes more in line with the aesthetic of the 2004 sequel, Innocence. And so far it looks like it’s been done quite subtly and effectively- that’s if you don’t mind things being a bit darker and, erm, more orangey.

I can’t say it doesn’t worry me though. GiTS is a film very close to my heart, for many reasons. Plus, and this may just be particularly bad timing, but less than a week ago I was sitting with a very good friend of mine, watching an HD encode of Star Wars: A New Hope that I had, ahem, obtained. We were quite happily sat there ohhing and ahhing over how amazing it still looked after all these years, and how Lucas obviously once had an amazing eye for colour and lighting, when the first fully CGI’d newly shoehorned in scene jarred us out of our nostalgia. I swear, the second I saw that Jawa hanging off that rope from that lizard thing, a little part of me died.

And don’t even get me started on that Greedo bullshit.

Another month, another Intrigue…

But a slightly special one this time, for me at least. Not only was it the launch party for the new D-Bridge album, but second on the bill was Belfast drum and bass deity Calibre. Anyone that knows me in person knows how my appreciation of the man’s production skills borders on the near obsessional, but surprisingly I’d never seen him DJ before, managing to miss his previous, fairly rare appearances in Bristol. Despite a heavy week and feeling pretty whacked out, there was no chance I was going to miss him doing a 2 hour set at my favourite night.

And getting in the club just after eleven, it was obvious I wasn’t the only one – with the place already close to rammed while guest DJ Tasha rolled out the warm-up set. By the time The Insiders themselves took control it was wall to wall in there, with Joe and Ben dropping their usual, precise selection of deep D&B, gulley b-lines and the occasional dubstep slo-mo breakdown. Anticipation for the headliners was visibly building though, with Calibre (featuring newly enhanced hair) and DRS stepping up at just after 1am. Even just a few minutes into their two hour set it was clear they weren’t going to disappoint; DRS chatting over Calibre’s signature mix of dubby FX, soundtrack samples and fresh jazzy breaks. Even with a perfect mix of previews from his new LP Overflow, unreleased dubs and old crowd pleasing classics, I was flagging by 3am, and am embarrassed to say I had to bail before D-Bridge hit the decks. Like I’ve said before, I must be getting old, but I’ll still be back next month…

Big thanks to The Insiders, the chilled as ever Dojo staff and everyone that made it such a buzzing night….as always…