Tag: review

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Plato, Buddha, and Jesus walk into a bar . . .

I’m reading 10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights, a classic of Japanese science fiction by Ryu Mitsuse. It’s excellent. It’s one of those books that have so many big ideas, and happily it’s also one of those books that manages to do justice by those ideas.

Briefly, it’s about the universe, from the formation of the solar system to the heat death at the end of existence. In between, humans search for the cause of suffering and the solution to it. Humans like Plato, like the Buddha, like Jesus. They journey together and fight each other to find the righteous path and the better world of our dreams.

When reading this book I sometimes find myself agog at its breadth, its erudition, its cleverness, and its confidence. For example, when he is introduced, it’s revealed that Plato’s obsession with Atlantis is not some metaphor for the ideal state but a literal quest for antediluvian demigods. On the way he ends up debating philosophy with either a time traveller or an alien. This sounds very hokey in a postmodern reflexively ironic “pirates versus ninjas” mishmash, but somehow it’s earnestly un-ridiculous in context.

The book does presuppose a familiarity with the original texts it’s riffing on. You don’t need a degree in comparative theology, but knowing what Buddhist cosmological writings sound like helps in appreciating how deliciously inventive Buddha’s conversation with Brahma is, for instance. And having an ear for techno-babble does help, as well as some basic astronomy, though I understand the science in the book is out of date by now – not unexpected, for science has marched on since the book’s publication in the 60s.

Anyway, read it. I’m seriously enjoying this book. In a word, it’s mind-blowing.

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On violence, on anime, and on violent anime

Most giant robot anime, and most anime in general, seem to be anti-war or anti-violence (barring the relentlessly capitalist shows like Mazinger-Z and Voltron which say nothing beyond “explosions are cool” and “buy our toys”). The shows that luxuriate in violence, like Black Lagoon, make clear that the characters are psychologically damaged in some way. The shounen fight series are either about making friends (like One Piece), are comedic (like Ranma 1/2), or have a stick up their ass and continually remind the viewer that the hero is only fighting reluctantly (like Bleach). I suppose the atomic bombings and the enforced postwar pacifism are ever present in the Japanese consciousness.

Though two series that glory in war and violence are the right wing wankathons Total Eclipse and High School of the Dead. One of the characters from the latter show even remarks, as he’s using a baseball bat to bust open a cash register, “You know, this is pretty awesome”. And he’s right, it would be goddamn sweet to be running wild in a zombie apocalypse with a Humvee full of guns and big-tittied girls in high school uniforms. Or being encased in a mechanical womb and using swords, cannons, and other phallic objects to unleash death and figurative semen on hordes of invading aliens.

Of course, there’s no such thing as zombies or alien invaders, which is to say that there are no faceless Others one can morally slaughter; thus, in anime, the depiction of violence simultaneously demands an apology for its use. But it seems that it takes a right-wing dickwad to not give a shit about such distinctions.

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The Summer of Adventure

I just completed the adventure game Memoria, which I’d bought during GOG’s summer sale. It’s rather old school in its point-and-click control scheme. Were it not for the graphics and for the far lower number of game-crashing bugs (damn you, Quest for Glory IV) I might have thought I was playing something Sierra Entertainment made in the 90s.

But one glimpse of the visuals will let you know this game is from the 21st century. I mean, just look at this game:

A waterfall, a princess, a bound thief, and two Amazons

That’s too detailed to be anything but hand-painted. And this is a screenshot from the game itself. Something from the classic era of adventure gaming would be full of visible pixels. Even a lot of modern adventure games like Gemini Rue still use that older style of giant pixels. I suppose it’s both out of nostalgia and out of consideration for the development budget.

Memoria is about a princess trying to stop a demonic invasion and about a birdcatcher five hundred years later learning about her story in his own quest to solve a magic curse on his beloved. The latter protagonist is somewhat run-of-the-mill, but the princess is more savage and ruthless than the typical bland do-gooder you might get in this sort of game. It’s rather refreshing.

Daedelic Entertainment definitely went all in on this game. Even the voice actors are uniformly good. And as an adventure game it’s satisfying enough. The puzzles tend not to delve too much into that odd adventure game inventory puzzle logic, such as that infamously convoluted Gabriel Knight solution (number four on that list) which involves using cat hair to make a mustache to match the picture on a passport stolen from a man with no facial hair. No, I think experienced adventure gamers should be able to finish this without having to resort to a walkthrough.

However, while the game is fun, it isn’t very long. I only got it last week and have already finished it, after all. I remember taking a lot longer to finish an old Sierra game. This game is actually fairly linear, so you’re not wandering around a lot of different locations wondering which doohickey should be used at which place and in which combination. It’s pleasant to look at some pretty pictures with no real sense of urgency, but it’s hard to justify paying full price for something this ephemeral. It’s not like this game has a lot of replayability in it.

Overall? I say buy it if you’re into adventure games, but wait until there’s a sale on.

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The Angel of Future History

Alita, the cyborg angel rising from the scrapheap of history

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another new recommendation. This one isn’t very obscure but it’s rather old, so it might have fallen off the radar by now. The manga I’m talking about is called Battle Angel Alita. It’s about an amnesiac cyborg making her way in a post-post-apocalyptic world, which is to say a world where the end has ended and a grimier, crappier version of civilization has been cobbled together.

There’s a formula to this type of thing: mysterious hints at the origin of the protagonist, savage battles of survival rendered in loving detail, betrayals, reversals, friendships, death. Alita follows that formula to the letter.

Still, I only started reading Alita on the recommendation of the fellow who makes the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court – read that posthaste, by the way – so I knew there was something to the manga. And it delivered on that front as well.

Picture a murderous rollerball tournament played by cyborgs (and don’t overthink the premise). Picture our heroine fighting with gritted teeth and desperate urgency. Then picture genuine character growth in the midst of this frenetic shounen action sequence. Whilst reading I had to stop and take a moment to admire what the comic was doing.

There’s a reason James Cameron is making noises about doing a live action adaptation. I think the story is best early on, when its setting and its conflicts are smaller and more immediate. The latter portion of the series isn’t bad but by the end too many battles have passed by to give the climax its proper narrative weight. Apparently the author was dissatisfied with the original ending (something about being ill at the time) and has rebooted the series as Battle Angel Alita: Last Order. I’m only talking about the first series and have no idea if the semi-continuation is any good.

The English translation is from that older era when translators would put more of a stamp on the finished product. For example, in Japanese the protagonist’s name is Gally and the series is called GUNM. I prefer the alliteration of the alternate title, and honestly, what the hell is a GUNM?

Overall, I would suggest reading at the very least through the first four volumes. That’s what made this series one of the early seinen sensations in English. Give the manga a skim, let its images assault you, allow its battles to excite you, and imagine what it would have been like to see this kind of thing for the first time in translation. This series is remembered for a reason.

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Back to cat videos

More thoughts on His Girl Friday. The dialogue zipped and zinged, fast and furious. It was obviously adapted from a play. I forgot how paranoid the middle and upper classes were about a Bolshevik/working class uprising in the early part of the 20th century. I do recall Hitler was trying to get the Brits to join him for a crusade against the reds before things fell out the way they did. Also, who were those speakers in the park mentioned as driving Williams insane? It sounds like they were union organizers or some kind of socialist agitators but would like to know more.

And the guy on death row killed a coloured policeman but no one seems to feel bad about it. It’s all about poor pathetic Williams who wouldn’t hurt a fly (but apparently he would kill a black guy).

Anyway, I just had my Internet finally hooked up last night. During my hiatus, when not checking email on my phone like some starving Eritrean I’d been watching highfalutin’ movies and TV shows I’d been planning to get to like His Girl Friday, Another Earth,and The Borgias. I have weeks of brain rotting to catch up on so I may need to take a sick day to watch all those Youtube videos I missed.

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World without end

Cover to Volume 3 of Eden: It's an Endless World

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eden: It’s an Endless World is one of the standout manga in my many years of experience with the medium. I’ve wanted to write about this series for years. It’s just taken me this long to digest its ideas, as you can see from the meandering summary I wrote a while back. The story is so big and its scope so grand that I’m daunted at the idea of ever reading the series again, but it’s also so compelling that I know I will revisit this manga someday.

Eden is a science fiction story about a world where the apocalypse didn’t happen, which is to say that it’s a science fiction story about our world.

In this cyberpunk future the Closure virus has ravaged humanity, killing two percent of the global population (which, let us be reminded, means the death of millions). The old order is dead, and the new order – the New World Order of the conspiracy theorists – has descended upon humanity in the form of the leviathan named Propater. Opposing Propater are an eclectic mix of drug lords, terrorists, and gangsters.  Mostly they fight not out of ideological zeal but because they also want their cut.

The near-apocalypse of the setting invites millenarianism in its fictional universe, which the story covers extensively. In fact, the series draws heavily on Gnosticism, though not gratuitously and not gratingly. It’s possible to enjoy the manga without having any idea of the theological significance of aions, for instance.

The creator, Hiroki Endo, is an unrepentant leftist, and his politics suffuses every page. This is the only manga I know of which invites readers to check out Noam Chomsky in the appendix. The story is better for being overtly political. Otherwise it would be the type of reactionary fantasy that makes vague calls to fight for great justice while being so naive and so divorced from the everyday that it invites the opposite action. It’s heavily cyberpunk in that it’s a science fiction story distrustful of the establishment, but it also avoids the provincialism of much of cyberpunk. Be it New York, Los Angeles, or Neo-Tokyo, the classic cyberpunk stories are rooted in particular and specific urban geographies.

By contrast, this manga spans the globe, from brothels in Peru to private schools in Australia, with the story being the most compelling when it deals with the dispossessed. The manga even touches upon what the Zapatistas call the Fourth World, or the indigenous peoples so far out of the orbit of the powerful that they don’t fit into the totalizing categories of First and Third World.

As well, Endo is fascinated by the interface between humanity and its technology, personified in the form of the cyborg. He’s fond of images like the one above, where the hard and mechanical is revealed underneath the feminine and organic.

As you may guess, the subject matter guarantees that this manga is full of violence, but of the more grounded type. This is an example of the seinen genre, which is targeted at men. I guess it might be characterized as a thriller in the vein of a more leftist Spartan or Ronin.

This is not a story for everyone, but at times it felt like it was made for me. Perhaps I misspoke when I said that I’ve taken years to digest the ideas in this story, for I’m still grappling with them. Too many action stories and too many manga retreat into fantasies of empowerment and away from actual political engagement. It’s refreshing to read one that faces the political head on.

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Tetsuo and Kaneda’s Excellent Adventure

Last weekend, I saw Akira for the first time in probably twenty years. It held up very well.

The film is essentially about Japan in the 1960s, complete with violent gangs, mass protests, and regular terrorist bombings. Despite that temporal specificity, it still feels timeless. This is impressive for a sci-fi film made in 1988, especially since a lot of cyberpunk from that era feels very dated. I think an American cyberpunk story from that time would probably be full of coded racial paranoia about the rise of Japan, or it would have embarrassing Orientalist stereotypes about honour or some shit. This movie, of course, avoids that.

Anyway, I’d forgotten that there are no heroes in Akira. Everyone is either an asshole, a fuckup, or both. The protagonists are violent bikers who gleefully engage in street duels that injure bystanders, while the climax involves a guy wanting revenge on his best friend. That best friend massacred hundreds of people and is about to kill an entire city, but as far as the participants are concerned their fight is about nothing more than their petty and personal grievances.

Plus the animation still looks incredible. A festering shithole has never looked this beautiful in cartoon form.

Overall, the movie was a worthwhile thing to revisit. I’m glad I saw it again.

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In the Darkness

I tried out a couple of episodes of Brynhildr in the Darkness. I thought the manga was okay so I hoped the anime adaptation would at least be on the same level. I can say that it is, but like most manga to anime adaptations, I prefer the version with the moving pictures. The creator also made Elfen Lied, if that means anything to you out there. 

Briefly, the show is about an ordinary boy who’s fallen in with teenage girls with psychic powers on the run from the sinister organization that created them. Also, one of the girls may be the boy’s childhood friend who he thought had died years ago but who seems not to remember him.

You could probably guess most of the story beats from that summary, and you would probably be mostly right. Still, the show is unexpectedly subdued for a series containing psychic duels and time travel and teenagers in love triangles. Well, perhaps it’s not unexpected, since the manga is also not very flashy, but there’s a certain type of anime one might expect from the summary. You know what I mean: repeated vows to protect one’s friends, liberal use of the word "nakama" (comrade or close companion), endless battles spaced out over several episodes, heterosexual romance enacted through stubborn denials of its existence, constant flashes of tits and ass, and a theme song written and sung by an idol singer who drops English words into the lyrics to make everything sound cooler. You know, the usual.

Brynhildr isn’t that type of show. Well, it’s mostly not that type of show. It’s ostensibly aimed at boys, making it a shounen (boy) anime. But for a shounen anime, it treats things rather a bit seriously.

This is not necessarily a good thing, because I think the subject matter deserves a little razzmatazz in the presentation. Fantastic things deserve fantastic display. Perhaps not all the time, but at least some of the time. The animation, though, can be workmanlike. It’s not terrible and it tells the story like it’s supposed to, but it’s just kind of there. There deserves to be at least one or two sequences where I can gape at the marvels I’m witnessing, but so far I haven’t seen one yet.

Other criticisms apply. The comic parts don’t elicit much reaction beyond a polite chuckle. The male protagonist doesn’t have much of a personality beyond having a stick up his ass. The show doesn’t say anything beyond what the plot is saying. And is it perhaps a law in Japan that healthy romantic relationships cannot be depicted in anime targeted at boys?

Perhaps I sound like I hate this show, but I really don’t. It’s not a classic of our age, but what is? I do like the song from the opening sequence well enough.

Still, like its animation, the show is just kind of there. Somehow, I feel like something exceptional is just slightly out of reach, like the show is trying to be something and kind of has an idea of what that something is but isn’t quite sure how to get there. I’ll keep watching, since I have a rather high tolerance for imperfection, but this show is not something I can unreservedly recommend.

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Hits and Misses

In the name of efficiency, I thought I might just do a roundup of anime that I’ve recently watched and my reactions thereof towards them. I know, I seem to be talking about anime a lot lately. I’ll have to write more about communism or something, otherwise this will turn into just another anime blog, though perhaps that ship has already sailed.

Stuff I liked:

  • Guin Saga is basically Conan the Barbarian without the misogyny or the gratuitous sex, which isn’t exactly a criticism. The setting is essentially a fantasy version of the Silk Road. A leopard-headed warrior with amnesia becomes the protector of two royal children on the run from their kingdom’s conquerors. This series shows that the author has extensively studied the dynastic politics of medieval Europe and all the backstabbing feels like the Byzantine Empire with magic thrown in. It’s based on a series of novels, and the author clearly knows quite a bit about European-style dynastic politics (you know, marriage alliances and whatnot).
    • Furthermore, politics in anime tends to be weirdly bloodless, by which I mean the causes and motives seem too insubstantial to deserve all the violence the characters are enacting. Not so for this series, the backstabbing and struggle for power feels more real. I think the opening gives you a good idea of what the series feels like. I like how you can’t tell who the bad guys are, although there aren’t really evil people in the series per se — it’s all just politics and who’s on what side. Don’t ask me why the titles are backwards in the video, though.
  • Now, as for The Twelve Kingdoms, it’s basically The Chronicles of Narnia mixed with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: a Japanese schoolgirl ends up in some weird kung fu fantasy version of China. It’s based on a series of novels as well, I think half of which have been translated into English. The fan trailer below does a fairly good job of showing the epic scope of the series, though the music is from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Granted, the main character is kind of whiny and homesick for the first three episodes, which is probably realistic for a proper Japanese schoolgirl from the late 80s who’s been dropped into fairyland, but it can get annoying. What’s amusing is that one of her companions is a genre-savvy fantasy fan who insists that she’s the Chosen One when all signs clearly point to the protagonist. Never fear, it doesn’t get metafictional and no 4th wall breaking occurs, it’s there so that fantasy girl’s unwarranted eagerness can serve as a foil to the heroine’s reluctance.
  • Shiki is basically Salem’s Lot set in a Japanese village, with a clear homage to Stephen King in one scene (the bedroom window scene if you were wondering). The series again is based on a novel and it’s also about vampires overrunning a small town. Unlike Salem’s Lot the series also shows things from the vampires’ perspective. King never showed his vampires hiding in terror from bloodthirsty lynch mobs or begging for their lives from their former neighbours as they’re dragged into the sunlight. There’s one particular scene where a vampiric little girl is being chased by a burly bearded vampire hunter shouting for her death which is just uncomfortable to watch. Although let me just say that the character designs are rather, err, unique in aesthetic. But the story is aces. And the book series was written by the same author of The Twelve Kingdoms.
  • Black Lagoon is a series about a smuggling crew trying to keep their company afloat in the South China Sea. Which makes it sound like Firefly on a boat but there are a lot more violent sociopaths in this show. It’s violent and exciting and cool, but it makes no excuses for the sort of people who’d actually live in the world of its setting.

Stuff that fell flat for me:

  1. Legend of the Legendary Heroes. Jesus, why did I even try? Google it for yourself if you must, but don’t make me think about it again.
  2. Bakumatsu Kikansetsu Irohanihoheto. It’s a show for history nerds, but the type of history nerds who obsess about names and dates. Watching it was like this: “On this day this historical figure did this thing in this place, but little did he know that so and so was actually in the same city just two days earlier doing the exact opposite thing. As for this other historical figure, he–” and at that point I stopped watching. I didn’t like having to do homework to watch a TV show. The music’s pretty good, though.
  3. Noein. The first episode is a collection of insipid clichés about an affectless male protagonist who listlessly enacts grotesque violence while cocooned inside a giant war machine and is inexplicably romantically intertwined with a girl too afraid to admit to her feelings for him. If you look at the edges closely, you’ll see the parts where the cookie cutter’s edge is starting to dull.
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It is accomplished

I have finally watched all non-filler episodes of Bleach. I’ve been watching this show for most of the 21st century, so realize that I feel like I’ve hit some kind of personal milestone. A dumb and inconsequential milestone, but still one nevertheless. Like many other anime series in the genre of boys’ action (shounen, for the initiated), it dragged on for far too long, not least because the anime’s production of episodes quickly outpaced the manga’s story. Yes, the anime was based on a comic book series that wasn’t finished yet.

The ending didn’t feel essential. The final bit is basically a season-long epilogue, with the real ending being the one two seasons ago where the actual central villain was defeated.

But, it’s done now, so kudos to Kubo Tite for joining the ranks of creators who have successfully brought a long-running series to a close. I’m just glad I can finally cross this entry from my lifetime list of unfinished stories. Onwards to the next one.