Anime Friday: Ebichu

Americans are fickle and they demand variety in all things. It doesn't matter that all twelve brands of chocolate sauce taste exactly the same, just that there are twelve brands available. In fact, most would ask why there isn't a thirteenth brand on the way promising something extra. We're no different when it comes to television. Sure, there's a demographic that wants to see the same thing over and over again, but it's getting increasingly difficult to feed the American public the same premise year after year. We want new actors, new styles, new ideas, or at least a new twist on an old idea. We're not alone in this, mostly. Japanese culture is every bit as consumerist as our own. We don't really get a lot of their non-mainstream culture Stateside for the same reason they don't get a lot of our tiny independent films; there's just not enough potential distribution to justify the import. That's the category of anime to which today's entry belongs. Ebichu the Housekeeping Hamster is to Japanese television what Aqua Teen Hunger Force is to American TV. It appeared as a segment on a one-season series called Anime Love Bubble Bubble Hour that aired in 1999. I was introduced to this oddity of a cartoon after my anime advisers got me drunk and uttered those universal, chill-inducing words, "You've gotta see this". In short, Ebichu is about a talking hamster that acts as a live-in maid for a single, professional woman. She has a habit of interrupting her owner during sex and obliviously spilling embarrassing secrets about her to strangers. When I asked one of my other advisers to watch the show, the first thing he told me was that Ebichu is most definitely intended for a female audience. Research confirmed this. Based on just-shy-of-hardcore sex, graphic violence and a juvenile comic edge, I realized that my understanding of Japanese culture still needs a lot of improvement. No American media company would ever even think to market something like Ebichu to a female audience. This show is not the type of thing you'll see on a network channel in Japan, nor is it likely to ever cross the Pacific in an official capacity. All of the versions with Western subtitles are fan-made. Ebichu aired in six-minute segments once a week. Even then, the premise wears dangerously thin by the closing credits. The animation is so simple it looks tossed-off and the scripts near self-parody on a regular basis. In the sense that it's ridiculous it's great, but by any other metric it's about as much of an achievement as Assy McGee. Comprehension: 6/10- The plots are never that complicated, but the fan-subs are scatterbrained at best. Because this show was never intended to reach a large audience in Japan, let alone make it to other shores, the cultural references abound. I couldn't keep up most of the time. I honestly can't even tell you any of the other characters' names. Enjoyment: 7/10- Yes, it's amusing to watch a hamster getting uppity about anal sex... the first time it happens. That Ebichu stretches to more than 20 episodes boggles my mind. Most of my enjoyment of this show came from sheer disbelief. I had to remind myself that, no matter how absurd it was, this show employed real people. For several days, possibly weeks, some woman in Japan stepped into a sound booth to record tiny-voiced lines like, "Ebichu... wants... to eat... a whole box of... Camembert." Improvement of Understanding: 7/10- It's nice to know just how many different niches and dead-ends there are in the sprawling anime industry, but I've got a long way to go before I understand how demographics are determined. Next Week: Blue Seed

Anime Friday: Cowboy Bebop

One thing I've noticed since the beginning of this project is that anime producers really don't put enough energy into their shows' intro sequences. The overwhelming majority of them that I've seen have been high on the cuteness factor but otherwise pretty insufferable. The worst part is invariably the music. If I have to hear one more grating non-song with childish female vocals about riding along on stars and every day being a brand new day, I might just quit this endeavor altogether. A title sequence isn't just an empty space where the credits go, it's a way to both pull new viewers in and get returning viewers excited about your show. At best, a title sequence can do this while also introducing the central themes and characters of the series. Of all the anime I've watched, none even come close to Cowboy Bebop in this regard. I'll admit, the appeal of CB for me rests in its unapologetic Western-ness. I like the 60's throwback of the opening and really the entire show. I love the music and the fact that Spike is a happy medium between James Dean and Clint Eastwood. But even if it does take its cues from American action movies, Cowboy Bebop still feels like an anime. It has space ships and a few convoluted revenge plots, heck it even has an effeminate villain with silver hair. If that's not anime, I don't know what is. The real strength, though, of this series is that it doesn't really take a plot arch until the very end. The better part of CB is an episodic pick-up-and-play that requires practically no background knowledge to enjoy. In that sense it feels a lot like Firefly. The show is driven by its characters and its attitude, though it rarely glorifies the lives of our rag-tag bounty hunters. They're always strapped for cash and they exist in a permanent moral gray zone. You can't ask for much more on a ship populated (sparsely) by criminals, gypsies and orphans. I can't say I had as much patience for Ed as the series really demands. I like my blues-tinged pulp as free from random comic relief as possible. Of everything on Cowboy Bebop, Ed feels like the most forced anime convention. Things like that were amusing when I was 13, not so much today. The last thing I can say about CB is that it's shows like this that really demonstrate the worth of high-quality modern anime art. This show works best when it's moving fast and delivering beatings. The fact that the animation runs as smoothly as it does (and in time to the music) really makes it a complete experience. I guess the word I can use for this show is "coordinated". Everything matches, so it all feels a lot more cohesive. Comprehension: 10/10- No magical MacGuffin, no complicated histories. Just love, revenge and jazz music. Enjoyment: 9/10- One point off for Ed, but otherwise it's John Woo meets Cinema of Cool in a way that makes Kill Bill look like a floppy-haired hipster. Improvement of Understanding: 5/10- I had fun and I guess I learned a little bit about the shortcomings of traditional anime marketing, but Cowboy Bebop really is more of a broad appeal project than a hardcore anime. I'm going to stay away from stuff that's this familiar for a while. Next Week: Ebichu the Housekeeping Hamster

Pizza Cats with a different story

Those of you who remember Samurai Pizza Cats from their childhood will be wondering how this show applies as foreign entertainment. Please bear with me, it is going to get complicated. Samurai Pizza Cats, as it was famous in US and other parts of the Western nations, is a quirky and fun cartoon series about super duper cats who save the world, or Tokyo city at best. But what most of us (and by this I refer to those few who were not initiated into the SPC die-hard fan club) didn't know was this twisted little fact. That this show was a reenactment of a Japanese cartoon series. Let me explain. SPC was actually a dubbed-over Japanese cartoon show (Kyatto Ninden Teyandee) from the early 1990s.  Yes, it was a much loved show about three cats working in a pizza parlor. Their life was not all Anchovy and Cheese by the way; as I mentioned earlier, they made it a habit to save their city (Tokyo) from the evil cross-dressing Prime Minister. But here's where everyone lost the plot, so to speak. Apparently when Saban Entertainment nabbed the means of bringing this show forward to the American audiences, they went a tad creative. As the actual transcripts of the show was not included in series package, no one in the production company had a clue what the characters were going on about. So someone in the company said “Hey, we got the visuals, let's go wild with the audio”. And yes, that would be long and short of it. The dubbed version of SPC that Western audiences grew up with ... had absolutely no similarity to the original cartoon! This was not a remake or anything of that sort. This was a production company editing out bits of the cartoon and dubbing over a cartoon with their own story lines. How bizarre can it get? SPC was to its tiny fans what Twin Peaks was to viewers thirsting for a crazy plot line. In fact, many people credit SPC as the very show that got them hooked onto the colorful wonder that is anime. And so, this is one of the few instances, since Frankenstein got the good doctor's name, that a concept was able to breakaway from its very roots and create a niche for itself. By the way, for those who are interested, check out the two different  introductions here and here. The American SPC opening had an up-beat, I-just-had-my-cereal-and-I-need-my-cartoon-fix feel. Admittedly, the Japanese opening is also rather catchy, especially if you listened to it three to four times just to catch a glimpse of any alteration. However, its calmer flow makes you stop and wonder if this show is really about some super half-robot feline heroes. It's hard to explain but the concept of hero-work is my other job seeps through from this intro.

Anime Friday: Supa Roboto!

Since the beginning of this project, I've been pretty dismissive of anime featuring giant robots. Of all the common tropes of the genre, that was always the least accessible and interesting for me. It always just seemed to lack artistic or narrative subtlety. Then, all of my "anime advisers" started bugging me about Neon Genesis Evangelion, telling me how it's one of the best anime ever made. I'll reserve judgment for whenever I sit down to grind on that one, but one thing is for certain: I'll need to learn to embrace giant robots before I can embrace giant robots associated with angels. So, I took it upon myself to do a sort of crash course in the Super Robot sub-genre. My approach is mostly academic, but worthwhile nonetheless. To start out, I decided to research the origins of Super Robot. It turns out that Super Robot and the evolution of anime's image in America are intertwined from the beginning. In fact, the first anime to ever reach American shores was arguably the first Super Robot cartoon ever made. A cheap B&W anime from the early 1960's called Tetsujin 28-go came to the States in the form of Gigantor, a now iconic bit of 60's camp. In it, a sort of man/boy person operates a clunky iron giant by remote control to save the world from various evil-doers. Like so much post-war Japanese science fiction, Tetsujin is a thinly-veiled commentary on nuclear weapons. The big robot is the cutting edge of military technology. It's no wonder it had an appeal to both the defeated Japanese and the ever-imperious Americans. Watching both Tetsujin and Gigantor, I realized something odd. Anime wasn't always the slick, overwrought cartooning that it is today. In fact, before the 1980's it was downright cheap. Gigantor has a similar feel to Speed Racer. So, I decided to fast-forward to the next generation of Super Robot hits in America. While the likes of Voltron and various knock-offs dominated the US market for decades, the late 1990's saw the introduction of some very popular series. I ultimately chose Gundam Wing over the original Mobile Suit Gundam because I think it better demonstrates why Super Robot is appealing. The Gundam suits themselves aren't the clunky mechs of old. They're graceful and full of detail. Also, the series itself re-embraces the origins of Super Robot. The Gundams are, without a doubt, weapons of mass destruction. They scare people and they are often responsible for the deaths of thousands. In one particularly affecting scene, the otherwise gentle pilot Quatre goes crazy and blows up an entire space station, which is exactly like nuking a city. Gundam Wing may be about giant space robots, but I'll be damned if it's not emotionally loaded. The last Super Robot anime I watched brought me full-circle to the search for an American audience. The Big O (besides being unintentional innuendo) was, according to its creator, basically intended to hit it big on the other side of the Pacific. It did just that, failing in Japan but developing a significant cult following in America. It's easy to see why. The protagonist, Roger Smith, is a Western icon if I've ever seen one. He's kind of a James Bond/Tony Stark figure and he lives in a sci-fi noir. That's an American fanboy chubby just waiting to happen. The appeal of Big O is, ironically, not the giant robot. Like Gigantor, the robot doesn't come out unless it's absolutely necessary. It's not the A-bomb analogy it used to be, just something of a selling point. The show's premise, an entire city struck with amnesia, is interesting enough that the big, dumb robot doesn't even need to be there. In fact, I wish it wasn't. Watching Big O made me interested in Smith and the cast of characters around him. The robot was nothing but a distraction. Stylish, but a distraction nonetheless. Comprehension: 8/10- Again, giant robots do not equal subtle. Gundam can be a little hard to follow for all of the usual JRPG-style reasons, but other than that it was easy enough to know what was going on. Enjoyment: 3/10, 7/10, 8/10- Gigantor doesn't have any nostalgia for me because it aired two decades before I was even a gamete. On its own merits, it's a slow, badly-animated show that pales in comparison to anything coming out of America at the time. Gundam is just so darn pretty and I like the emotional core, though it did get fairly repetitive after a while. Big O has some awesome style and great music, but once again, big, dumb robot = distracting. Improvement of Understanding: 7/10- Alright, I get the appeal of giant robots. They're heavy with metaphor and they blow stuff up reel gud. Some time soon I'll take on Neon Genesis Evangelion with a decent enough understanding to take it on its own merits without constantly shouting, "What do giant robots have to do with anything!?" Next week: Cowboy Bebop, 'cuz I wanna smile.

Anime Friday: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

Aside from last week's jaunt into the bizarre world of Akikan, I have largely avoided the high school drama subgenre of anime. I've never really heard enough good things about it to justify sitting and watching more than a few episodes of any particular series. The exception to this rule is The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, a show adapted from a series of light novels written by Nagaru Tanigawa. Up until I watched Haruhi, I had no concept of the light novel, at least not directly. Western literature has always had the novella, which really just straddles the line between novel and short story. Certain writers have been known to pen thin volumes out of habit, like Marguerite Duras and Stanislaw Lem, but that was always more of a stylistic choice of the individual author than a genre on its own. In Japan, light novels are targeted to the teen market. It's fluffy fare they read on the train and during lunch at school. Unlike a lot of anime adapted from long fiction, Haruhi retains its literary tone. The story is told from the perspective of a young man nicknamed Kyon who becomes fascinated by an eccentric girl at school named Haruhi Suzumiya. Haruhi has a lot of strange habits and she doesn't really mix well with others. She has an open contempt for those she deems "regular" people and often mentions how she would prefer to interact with elements of the supernatural or creatures from science fiction. This leads her to start a school club, the SOS Brigade, with the sole purpose of finding such weird things, but eventually serves to reveal the actual supernatural qualities of some of the people in club. Without giving away too much, there's magic and robots and shadowy agencies, only it's not as bad or as over-done as that sounds. At first I knew there was something different about this anime, but I couldn't put my finger on it. Then I got to the key scene at the initial creation of the SOS Brigade. Haruhi essentially kidnaps a girl from another class named Mikuru and forces her to be a part of the club. Her reason? Because Mikuru is quintessentially Moe. I had a friend explain Moe to me. It's pronounced "moh-eh" and it's an increasingly ridiculous convention in manga and anime to make a female character who is shy and weak, but also inherently sexualized, often to the point of fetish. In her introductory scene, Mikuru stands silent and sheepish while Haruhi explains Moe to Kyon.
Haruhi: It's a rule that in stories with strange things going on, you have to have one Moe character...
After that, Haruhi proceeds to grab Mikuru's breasts and rave about how awesome it is that she's completely out of proportion: tiny body, huge tits. Add shyness to that and you've got Moe. The above is why Haruhi works as an anime for me. It's a smirking, postmodern approach to what is essentially a long procession of cliche. Once again, it seems the best of the genre comes from a mind that has more than a little contempt for it. Comprehension: 10/10- The weirdness here is right out in front. Maybe I'm just getting used to it, but nothing really confused me here. Enjoyment: 8/10- It was still a high school plot and it was still very anime-ish, but the punky genre references rescued Haruhi for me. Improvement of Understanding: 10/10- More than its willingness to make fun of otaku and modern anime conventions, I loved the solid narrative. It made me realize what I feel has been missing in so many other anime series and movies. A strong voice with more than a rudimentary understanding of words is required to make a decent story. Tanigawa's literary bent sets Haruhi apart from the crowd. Next Week: Because it must be done... Three animes about giant robots.

Unintentional foreign entertainment

Is it a sad day in television history when people scan the news in hope for an embarrassing news gaffe? Perhaps it is. I must confess, it is quite entertaining to come across a blooper. Maybe it is because of the 'don't smile principle'. You know what I mean, those serious, career-building situations where you must not, cannot, should not laugh or blurt out something horrific. And when someone does, it just makes it funny.

And thus, in my mindless wandering, I came across some superb BBC bloopers. Some of them are absolutely brilliant; some are funny but harmless gaffes; and others are just terrible.

1. The famous 'technical' glitch

This became such a popular news clip that everyone must have heard of it by now. Let me recap. BBC was supposed to interview someone in the know about an Apple-related legal battle. It was meant to be one of those “Is the court case making your teeth grind”? sort of Q-and-A sessions. Except for the fact that something went horribly wrong. There was a major hiccup along the way, because, instead of ushering in the IT expert, someone brought in the wrong man. Incidentally this man was there for a job interview. Watch the clip and catch his expression at the beginning of the interview. It must be said that the gentleman, Goma, carried himself rather well given the awkward circumstance.

Click here to watch the Guy Goma Clip

2. Awkward blunders

This is a medley of bloopers from past BBC shows. Most of them are harmless gaffes ... yes, even the one about a politician's 'erection' expense. Sometimes it is not their fault. If I had to sit there and talk about the increase of tea cozy accidents, I would have trouble looking somber and serious too.

Click here to watch the BBC blunders clip

3. Pee Protest

I wonder if the poor news reader had other thoughts on his mind. After announcing that some folks walked out over something related to pee, he corrects himself without flinching. It was quite a 007-worthy save, if not for the fact that he covered his face just at the end.

Click here to watch the pee protest clip

4. Walk-outs

Speaking of people dodging an interview, here are some classic examples of people walking away from the presenter. To his credit, I must admit that a younger looking Micheal Douglas looked immensely apologetic.

Watch the clip here

5. Behind the scenes

The real gem in this medley video is the cut scene to “James in Downing Street”. I would call it the unintentional depiction of a spoof comedy moment. All you needed, right then and there, to complete the moment was Rowan Atkinson in the studio and perhaps some thunder sound effects. I suppose it could have been worse; he might have been groping around his shirt.

Click here to watch the clip

6. Itchy and Scratchy Show

I spoke too soon. Here you come across Jane Hill adjusting her attire and poking around a bit whilst reporting a power cut. It's probably a technical glitch ... I meant the fact that this video was broadcast, not the groping around in an embarrassing manner.

Watch the clip here

Anime Friday: Akikan

I've been doing this project for a few months now and I realized that I needed to establish a more solid metric with which to judge my developing understanding of anime. I'm not really here to make myself like the genre more than I previously did, nor am I here to prove that my original assessments were justified. Rather, I'm trying to improve the depth of my overall appreciation of what is, admittedly, a fairly pervasive art form. I wouldn't be pursuing this endeavor in good faith if I only subjected myself to the best the genre has to offer or the fan favorites. So, when I recently read reports on a forum of what was called by many "the worst anime I've ever seen", I had to check it out. Now, before I get into Yuji Himaki's TV adaptation of Riku Ranjo's manga Akikan, I have to confess something. I have a history of embracing bits of pop culture just because they rub people the wrong way. I'm on record claiming that 12 Oz. Mouse is my favorite animated series ever, and by my junior year in high school I was no longer allowed to select movies among my circle of friends thanks to a few admittedly questionable choices. I have to include this preface to contextualize the following statement: Akikan is indeed the worst anime I have ever seen and I absolutely love it to death in a completely non-ironic way. First, let's talk about the story... the delightfully ridiculous, they-can't-possibly-be-serious story. A boy named Daichi Kakeru who lives by himself in a swinging bachelor pad despite being a sixteen-year-old high school student acquires a magical Lolita who is actually a can of melon-flavored soda given human form. Still with me? Good. Kakeru is a lech and a virgin with a propensity for tearing off his clothes at the drop of a hat. This angers Melon (the magical can girl), causing her to frequently attack him with balls of compressed carbon dioxide. Soon, a government official from The Department of Commerce tracks down Kakeru and Melon, explaining that there are other magical can-girls and that they will be forced to fight each other in order to determine whether Japanese manufacturers will be required to use only steel or only aluminum for their canned products. Did I mention that the g-man is scandalously gay with no scruples about molesting boys while they're unconscious? Now, I'm usually not very tolerant of anime plots. They're often absurd without being fun and they embrace cliche like an otaku embraces his Girlfriend's Lap Pillow. But when one show loads so much ridiculousness into one plot, I don't see hackney, I see reckless abandon. Akikan makes no attempt at dignity whatsoever. It is juvenilia to the extreme. Every other joke is a dirty one, homosexuals are depicted as being perverted and/or scary, and the plot is pure wish fulfillment. On top of all that, Akikan is loaded with some of my favorite insane lines from any anime, ever. Example:
Kakeru: What are you doing? Yurika (with an intense, scary background): An experiment to see if a human is able to live solely on supplements
Make no mistake, Akikan is epically terrible. The animation is cheap and full of recycled sequences, the voices are silly and the premise is downright worthless. Still, when something is this bad, one wonders whether or not the badness was intentional. Imagine going to a restaurant with a date. Your date receives an overcooked, under-seasoned piece of chicken. That's bad, but it's really just the result of incompetence. You, on the other hand, order a steak and the chef decides to serve you a hunk of clay covered in tartar sauce and skewered with lit sparklers. That's bad in an entirely different, much more insane way. That's what Akikan is. Comprehension: 4/10- I don't even think Riku Ranjo knew what was going on when he wrote this story, so I don't feel so bad being at a loss. I'm just going to have to accept that a Japanese upbringing allows for a lot more suspension of disbelief than an American one. Enjoyment: It's a spectrum beginning at 2, jolting up to 10 then settling somewhere around 6. I began absolutely hating Akikan for all the right reasons, then slowly grew to love it for all the wrong ones. Improvement of Understanding: 8/10- I now have a solid foundation for how bad anime can get. I found that metric I referenced at the beginning of this post. No matter what I see in any future anime, I can ask myself, "Is this more or less absurd than a sentient soda can that moans when you put a straw into it?" Next Week: Haruhi

L'Origine de la Tendresse and Other Stories

The Seattle International Film Festival at Seattle Center (a stone's throw from the Space Needle) recently screened a series of French language shorts, L'Origine de la Tendresse and Other Stories. The screening packs six continental shorts into 97 minutes to mixed results. The opening film is a winner by Guillame Martinez. At a svelt eight minutes, Penpusher is a clever use of cinematography that benefits from its short run time. The film finds two young strangers on Le Metro communicating via underlined words in the novels they carry with them for the long train ride home. It's a sweet, romantic gimmick that would have gotten old if it passed the ten minute mark. The conceit is also nice for the symbolist in us all. The two characters manage to meaningfully connect using a medium typically intended to shut other people out. It's quite an uplifting way to open the series. What follows is an unfortunate slog through three non-fiction films. The best among them is the first, Filipe Canales's My Mother, A Story of Immigration. That said, My Mother is little more than a slideshow with compelling narration. It's a quick jaunt through the major themes of Farida Hamak's novel of the same title, using photographs Hamak took of her life and family beginning in her teens. The story of Hamak's Algerian immigrant experience through the lens of her mother's gradual transformation is a genuine family chronicle; So much so that it deserves a little more than a series of stills. The screening's obligatory animated feature is One Voice, One Vote by Jeanne Paturle and Cecile Rousset. Squiggled, simple cartoons give the eyes something to do while recordings of two French voters play in fragments. One is a genial but otherwise apathetic man, the other is a slogan-spouting female activist. Neither the animation nor the commentary supporting it are really interesting enough to keep more than half the theater from falling asleep. The last of the non-fiction pieces is The Last Day. In it, Olivier Bourbeillon captures the final day of operation for a naval yard smithy. Three iron workers basically walk us through the creation of a machine-ready hunk of metal, a process that is only as captivating and romantic as it seems because it's the first time most (or all) of the audience has seen it. The workers are humble, likable and competent, but we don't really get to know them. All in all, it feels like they were short changed. The Last Day plays like a dull educational film from middle school minus any informative narration. The screening's titular film The Origin of Tenderness is a subtly artful, if typical European independent short by Alain-Paul Mallard. It follows a casually frumpy woman named Elise as she lives a dreadfully uneventful life, all while extending a casual brand of kindness to everyone she meets. She's not oblivious or bubbly, so she doesn't come off as a cheap plot device. Her weirdness and quiet desperation recall the early scenes of Punch-Drunk Love, only not as quirky. In the end, it's a dreary slice-of-life that makes its point without really raising the mercury. By far the most interesting film of the series is the closing piece, Alice Winocour's Kitchen. It begins like an endearing goofball piece but soon crosses into some gut-busting domestic macabre. A woman finds herself at the mercy of the main course when her husband requests a special lobster dish for dinner. The recipe calls for a rather unsettling series of knife flourishes applied to a live specimen. When she brings the unfortunate crustaceans home, our nameless protagonist finds that she can't bring herself to do the deed. What ensues is a hilarious string of mishaps, including a lobster taking up residence in a dust pan and the other disappearing completely for a time. The whole exercise would be too fluffy if it weren't for the film's grotesque turn in its final minutes. One moment in particular involving a bathtub has the fearless staging of a true comic auteur. As it stands, SIFF's screening of L'Origine and Other Stories is half a good shorts collection. Its entertaining moments don't balance well with its preachy conscience, but I dare say that it's worth sitting through the interminable middle to get to the fantastic end.

Anime Friday: Blue Submarine No. 6

This project and the conversations that have resulted from it have brought me to something of sticking point. When is anime no longer anime? As a genre it's heavily based on adapted materials. At least half of all anime is based on manga, which itself creates something of an issue. Manga comes in both single-shot and serialized forms, but the transition to anime doesn't necessarily retain that original format. Serials become feature length movies and graphic novel manga become TV series. Confounding the problem further is the issue of artistic medium. It's easy enough to retain the feel of the original manga using hand-drawn cartoons. But by the late 1990's, computer animation was about the most fashionable thing around. These days CGI and other computer animation techniques have been toned down and allowed to flow with the long-established styles surrounding them. Take for instance the transition in South Park from stop motion using paper cutouts to computer animation that effectively mimics stop motion. That certainly has had more staying power than, say, the Canadian cartoon Reboot. So, what happens to anime when computers start to muscle in on the handcrafted territory? Studio Gonzo and director Mahiro Maeda practically developed the thesis on this topic with their adaptation of Satoru Ozawa's manga Blue Submarine No. 6. Released in mid-2000, the Blue Sub 6 anime is easily one of the most stylistically impressive examples of the genre I've ever seen. The computer effects are used sparingly and only to create a sense of dimension, scale and depth that would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve by hand. The story's expansive ocean environment practically requires such visuals. Rather than being frothy and acrylic-colored, the world of Blue Sub 6 just looks wet all over. Watching it made me feel like my clothes were soaked through and everything around me was hopelessly sodden. In a good way. The success of this anime has everything to do with Ozawa's excellent story. Set in the not-too-distant future, a scientist of the mad but not absurd variety named Zorndyke uses Earth's oceans to swallow most of human civilization and then wages war on the survivors using bizarre hybrid creatures. Giant wale-like attack ships filled with monstrous crews pop up out of nowhere to break whole cities apart. The humans defend themselves using some hi-tech but still outdated submarines. The story opens with a fantastic battle scene and the attempted recruitment of our young but world-weary hero, Tetsu. Before you know it, we're on our way to the South Pole to stop Zorndyke from basically ending the world. Last week, I talked about how the industry behind anime pressures storytellers into accepting a visual style whether they like it or not. Along with that style usually come distracting cliches of the genre. That the adaptation of Blue Sub 6 avoids pretty much every one of those cliches is as much an accomplishment as the excellent animation. The ending is especially satisfying, and not just for an anime. The concluding moments of Blue Submarine No. 6 are as poignant and, dare I say, meaningful as any great novel or work of live action cinema. In a story all about conflict and death, the ending is fittingly funereal. Even its villains become heartbreaking, sympathetic figures. Comprehension: 10/10- A good story is universal in its appeal and good direction transcends cultural boundaries. If you want a sharp, clear anime, this is your best bet. Coming from a doubter like myself, that should mean a lot. Enjoyment: 10/10- Good is good, regardless of qualifiers. Blue Sub 6 is pretty, it's atmospheric, it's well-plotted and the voice acting is good enough to make a dub worthwhile. It's just too bad the premiere of this film was on Cartoon Network and not in major theaters. Improvement of Understanding: I'm leaving this one alone for now. Continuing with the discussion of adaptation, Blue Submarine No. 6 is set to be given the live-action treatment for just shy of $90 million. I don't know if we'll ever see it, considering the entertainment climate in the States. Anime adaptations are scarce around these parts and people are even getting tired of movies made from beloved, familiar comic books. With the upcoming Dragonball movie, we'll see if the public can stand the idea. Of course, I myself could think of about a dozen animes more deserving of adaptation than Dragonball. If Blue Sub 6 with real people ever gets made, I'd be interested to see if the story and atmosphere managed to survive so much processing. Until then, my grasp of anime and its place in mixed media will have to remain incomplete. Next Week: Akikan

Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off ... a bit much

Imagine a milk carton that is distributed exclusively in travel-based circles. If missing kids or warning notices take pride of place on ordinary cartons, then an unflattering mug shot of Giles Wemmbley-Hogg will grace the other milk container. To what purpose, you ask? It might be a sad “Last seen in Munich” sort of notice or it could just be a fervent “Keep away from him at all costs” kind of warning; that sort of question could take months of debate.

Point is, Giles Wemmbley-Hogg, two M's, two G's, is the bane of the tourism industry. Perhaps I should retrace my steps and introduce the topic properly. The aforementioned gentleman is the main character in this fantastically funny BBC show called Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off. Made for radio, this quirky show follows the adventures, or rather mishaps, of this upper-class simpleton. You'll cringe, shake your head, laugh out loud and, in the worst of cases, cover your face just in case you end up imagining that scenario! By the way, the show lasted 5 series so there's plenty of crazy adventures to go through.

GWH Goes Off ... what is the most fitting way to elaborate about this show? Well, have you ever come across a politically correct traveler who has the best of intentions (why some of my best friends are elves, he seems to say) and yet, he blurts out the most inappropriate comments at the worst possible times (just pick some of the more colorful comments by Prince Philip)? GWH is an exaggeration of this archetype. To this effect, I recall a somewhat misguided comparison between a biltong and a belt. On that note, I must admit that this show does the best Afrikaans accent this side of the equator.

For those interested in experiencing a bit of Wemmbley-Hogg fiasco's, check out Series 2 of GWH Goes Off on BBC Radio 7.

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