Most of the shows that they air on regular basis are pretty good. They either are really funny and quotable, or damn good anime. They do experiment a lot though and I believe this is why they got Shin Chan. I’m not really a huge fan of that show, but I’ve seen worse. That’s besides the point though. As we were watching it, my brother commented on how weird it was that this Japanese cartoon was full of American pop culture references. He was right, the show made references to Britney’s meltdowns, popular reality TV shows and made jabs at more or less popular Hollywood actors.

“It’s Almost as if it was specifically targeted at the US audiences,” he mused.

That’s because it was.

You see, wacky comedy shows such as Shin Chan or FLCL cannot be merely translated into English. If you would do a simple direct translation, you would end up with a thick, incomprehensible soup of Japanese cultural references. Things such as various puns, word play, sexual nuances and language specific idioms do not translate well. Trust me, they don’t. Take any two languages, and you will end up with a lot of popular turns of phrase that make absolutely no sense. A good example here, is “the bees knees”. If you think about it, It doesn’t even make much sense in english. How do you translate it, so that will fit within the time frame, match the lip flops and convey the same idea? It’s difficult!

It’s even worse with pop culture references, especially if the source and target cultures are so different. This is especially evident for Japan which doesn’t share our common western cultural heritage. They have their own fairy tales, their own folk heroes, different proverbs and distinct traditions. There is a huge cultural gap there. This makes referential humor, funny allusions, nuances, puns and verbal jokes very culture specific. Slapstic, physical and situational humor tends to be universal, but anything subtler may often be impossible to grasp for an outsiders without the propper cultural background.

In literature (and graphic novels) you can always use footnotes to explain away the tricky jokes and references. For example, when I was growing up in Poland I used to read Spider Man comics which tended to be heavily annotated. The footnotes explained continuity problems, references to other events in Marvel universe that were not published in Poland, and often added little bits among the lines “in USA it is common to blah blah blah”. I’ve also seen similar things done in Manga – where a footnote will explain a joke or allusion to you by providing the necessary background information. This preserves the original intention, but likely looses on spontaneity. If someone needs to explain the joke to you, it is usually less funny. But, at least you get the gist of the author’s original intention which is good.

Unfortunately you can’t do that in animation. You just can’t stop the action to explain something to the viewer. So what do you do? You replace the jokes with equivalent or similar ones that will be easily grasped by your target audience. Yup, you go and change the meaning, tone and intention of the original hoping to preserve the funny, and try not to introduce inconsistencies to the story.

This is a very difficult task as you may imagine. A lot of jokes get completely lost in translation, and must be rewritten from scratch. Thus the dubbed episode of Shin Chan or FLCL may end up being quite different from the original. Sad part is that translators are usually not humorists (and vice versa), so the quality of jokes you get in the dubbed version may vary. You can take a show that was pure gold in original, and turn it into a below average comedy where jokes are hit-or-miss.

I believe that this is why so few Japanese comedy shows get rabid fan following here in US. They are just damn hard to localize well. More action/plot oriented shows such as Ghost in the Shell or Evangelion on the other hand do very well here, because they have less referential, culture specific contents.

It’s like this: forced attempts at humor made by localization teams usually can’t compete with American shows made by real virtuosos of obscure pop culture references and cultural in-jokes. They are out of their league. So shows like Shin Chan end up being only moderately funny and moderately popular. Especially if they are juxtaposed against Family Guy, Robot Chicken or South Park.

Still, next time you are watching a foreign comedy and it throws surprisingly relevant pop culture references at you, you should keep in mind these were not in the original. They were written by the translator(s). So if you found them funny, check the credits for who did the localization and give him some props. As a bilingual person, I can attest that their job is incredibly difficult. I often grasp at straws to translate simple idioms between two languages deeply rooted in western culture.

Seriously – I think that the worst thing that can happen to you as a translator, is when the two people your are mediating between decide to get clever, and they start throwing puns, and word jokes at each other – in their own respective languages of course. If that happens you either try to explain the jokes in context, or try to steer the conversation in another direction. And if you choose the former, it quickly becomes awkward. Someone throws a one-liner pun, and then you go into a 15 minute long conversation with the other guy trying to explain to him why it was funny.

Anyway, people who do these localizations for Japanese shows have it even worse. They have to reach across great cultural divides. The fact that they can still come up with something that makes sense, and works within the context is nothing short of amazing.

Rebuild of Evangelion is actually planned as a tetralogy in which the 4^th and last part will be a brand new original ending which will differ from both the original, and the movie End of Evangelion.

Why to remake the cult TV series from 13 years ago now? I suppose money is a huge factor. Hollywood has proven time and time again that a glitzy remake of a time honored classic, or a cult title simply cannot fail at the box office. Especially if it is a super, special directors cut edition with never before seen footage. Take the Star Wars: Special Edition – you wouldn’t think that people would pay a ticket admission price to see the same old movie with few CGI shots of wompa rats and Banthas superimposed over the old footage. But they did.

So Rebuild of Evangelion is a little bit like that – same story, but with brand new CGI effects, and vastly improved animation and a new musical score. That and of course blatant product placement:

Naturally, this is not the only reason. There is also merchandising and tie-ins. :mrgreen: But officially speaking, the reasons are a legion. You can read the official statement from Hideaki Anno (the mastermind behind this project) to see them for yourself. In short, he wants to tell the story from the beginning in a way that is more comprehensible, and more approachable to regular audience – and to sort of create the ultimate, directors cut, true version of the story with a definite ending where there previously was none. But mostly, I think it is about the money. ;)

So how is the movie itself? In one word, unavailable in US. Or at least that’s what I summarized after reading the wikipedia entry and a cursory googe search. I could not find any information about US release schedule, or even if one is planned for the future. If you are more in the know than me, please post any and all available info in the comments. For me, this meant that I can proceed to procure a fan-subbed version of the show guilt free via the magical vehicle of bittorrent.

I’d love to give credit to the subber but the video came without an NFO and there are no credits in the subtitle track itself. The only clue I have about the identity of whoever did this was that the file was labeled with the [NF_ITK] tag which is I suppose either a scene group or a fansubbing group – but google didn’t really return any results for them either. The subs are serviceable but not perfect. A lot of the background chatter (especially during the Eva launch sequence) is simply missing. Fortunately I didn’t catch any “mass naked child events” type blunders which is a good thing. That’s as much I can say. I don’t actually know a lick of Japanese so validity of the sub remains to be determined. It seemed ok to me – and I recognized some of the memorable dialogs from the series (eg. the hedgehog’s dilemma and etc..).

As for the movie itself, I am somewhat underwhelmed. The plot is essentially a condensed version of the first 3 episodes which depict the attacks of the first 3 angels (Sachiel, Shamshel and Ramiel). While all the scenes were re-drawn and animated from scratch, with much more modern style of shading, and much more fluid movement, it seems that the team pretty-much re-used a lot of story boards from the series. Watching You Are (Not) Alone is very much like watching A New Hope: Special Edition. It’s the very same movie with a healthy dose of shiny new CGI and that one new really cool scene that was not in the original. The main difference is that while the Special Edition of Star Wars actually ran slightly longer than the original, the new Eva movie actually tries to condense events that originally spanned 3 hour episodes down into a 90 minute feature. I believe that some of the high school sequences depicting Shinji’s and Rei’s daily life ended up being cut. This means that we are seeing a bit less of our main character moping around and being miserable, but we also miss out on the little interactions that give his relationship with his classmates a bit more depth. It also slightly distorts your sense of time passage. The time between angel attacks seems much shorter now.

In fact, the whole thing felt a bit rushed. Since I’m familiar with the series, I could easily fill in the blanks, and I knew exactly what was going on at any given time. Perhaps this is due to the fansub quality, but I felt like we were not getting as much info as in the original. Perhaps, they intentionally decided to turn down the level of details and technobabble to meet Hideaki’s goal of increased approachability. If that’s the case, then I would say this was a wrong decision. Such a move would make the movie even less comprehensible to a new viewer. But it is hard to say without actually seeing an official translation. Remember – not a leak of Japanese here. ;)

The new CGI is nice, but I’m not really someone who swoons over graphical fireworks. I saw Evangelion for the first time only few years ago so it was already a dated show. Still, I loved it despite the fact that it did not have flashy 3d effects which are so common in the contemporary anime. The combat is surely more dynamic and exciting, the angels have a new and improved look and you can observe the Tokyo-3 buildings rising out of the ground in painstaking detail. The original series had a tight budget, but this remake seems to be taking the “no expense spared” approach and it shows. Still, to me, visuals are secondary to the story itself. And this is where the movie is slightly underwhelming. Not that the story is bad in itself – after all it is the same store as before, which was excellent to begin with. It’s just that this is part of the problem – a brand new movie, with the same old story only in a more condensed mode. It’s a bit like watching that amateur Phantom Menace cut in which they remove all the stupid Jar Jar Brinks scenes – only this time, actually meaningful stuff gets cut or changed. There are notable exceptions though, which actually add to the story – some very ominous foreshadowing, and interesting tidbits here and there which almost make up for the loss of detail elsewhere.

What are these exceptions? Well, for one, Rei has nipples this time around. Yeah, I was surprised too. If I can remember correctly, the TV series had all the ladies sporting busts akin to those of a Barbie doll – ie. perfectly smooth featureless orbs. I guess Rei fans will love this upgrade especially since she is showing plenty of skin. But that’s largely irrelevant. There is more.

I spotted several very striking, and important departures from the source. If you don’t want to be spoiled, just scroll down to the very last paragraph of the post real quick and close your eyes not to see the screen shots. Mega spoilers lurk below.

First minor detail I noticed was that Shinji was actually at one point training in one of the unarmored simulation Eva bodies which were dormant and seemingly abandoned in the original. This is interesting, but not very significant. Yet it shows that they are fleshing out these little details, possibly in order to make the story more cohesive.

There are bigger surprises ahead though. For example, Misato not only knows what lies hidden in the Central Dogma but also has access to it. To convince Shinji to fight Ramiel, she takes him all the way down there, and shows him the crucified angel correctly identifying it as Lilith. In the original Misato did not know about it until it was revealed to her by Kanji near the end of the series. Furthermore, both of them assumed the angel on the cross was Adam not Lilith.

Furthermore, the new Lilith does not have the characteristic, symbolic mask with the 7 eyes. She is now wearing the plain, smooth gray mask similar to those seen on all the other angels. Perhaps this is done to establish her identity as one of the angels more firmly in the eyes of the audience? She is also not bleeding LCL. To that tune I do not recall Shinji ever saying that the LCL smells like blood in this version, but this once again might just be the fansubber dropping the ball. Still, this may suggest that they dropped the idea of LCL being the blood of Lilith.

Another huge departure from the original story is the scene in which Kaworu wakes up on the surface of the moon which seems to be stained with blood or something like that. He says something cryptic about “the third one” never changing, and expresses that he looks forward to meeting Shinji. In the original this character didn’t show up till the very end of the series and we initially did not know about his un-natural origins. Furthermore he seems to be standing over a body of yet another angel who looks strikingly similar to Lilith, and in fact is wearing a mask that looks very similar to the one Lilith wore in the original. Is that Adam by chance?

Overall, the movie by itself does not really live up to Hideaki Anno’s promises of being the ultimate anime of all times. It feels much more like watching Star Wars: Special Edition. But it is not all just a condensed carbon copy of the original with shiny new CGI and animated nipples either. The last act of the film seems to suggest that the creators are taking the story in a very different direction this time around. The next 3 movies that will soon follow You Are (Not) Alone are likely to become progressively more original leading up to a brand new and unexpected conclusion. There are also rumored new characters on the horizon that are yet to be introduced. So I suggest adopting a wait and see approach here. I will reserve my final judgment until I see the whole tetralogy in it’s entirety. While this first installment is not totally mind blowing, it seems like a good start. What remains is to hope that someone out there will at some point secure US distribution rights, and do a popper translation so we can all enjoy fully and support the whole project with our dollars without worrying about region codes, and the ever-present language barrier.

[tags]evangelion, rebuild of evangelion, neon genesis evangelion, evangelon: 1.0 you are (not) alone[/tags]

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind is one of classic Anime works that was widely acknowledged around the world and recognized by people who usually don’t watch any Anime. Case in point – 3 out of my coworkers admitted to seeing Nausicaa and Howls Moving Castle (both by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli) despite never actually having any other exposure to Japanise animation. I also remember one of my professors saying something about Nausicaa after seeing me and my friend exchanging anime DVD’s. So this is a classic that somehow sneaked itself into public consciousness – and I haven’t seen it until now. So I decided to change that.

Just a small advice. If you do pick up this movie, watch it with the original Japanise audio and English subtitles. The DVD offers this as an option instead of the English dub, so I was able to compare both versions. Trust me, this is not just some sort of purist conviction that subtitles are superior. If you watch the same scene with English and Japanise audio you will see the difference. To me the original seemed stronger, more raw and emotional while the English was tad annoying. It had that “old Disney movie” quality to it which I personally didn’t like.

The story is actually quite interesting. A thousand years ago the earth was devastated by some cataclysmic war known as “Seven Days of Fire”. Now most of the planet’s surface is covered by a deadly toxic jungle populated by gigantic insects, while humans survive in small isolated pockets where the jungle didn’t reach yet.

One interesting detail I noticed were huge hulking skull like formations scattered all over the landscape. Initially I thought these were just aesthetic touches, but in fact they were petrified remains of enormous organic constructs called “God Warriors” that were used in the ancient war. Their silhouettes are shown in the opening credits, but you don’t put these things together until much later in the movie when it turns out that one of these things actually survived in a dormant embryo state. And that dormant embryo lands in the titular Valley of the Winds – an idyllic, peaceful village due to a freak accident. As the result, all shit breaks loose. Other nations want the weapon, valley gets invaded, crazy stuff happens.

In the middle of all of this we have a likable, strong, brave and determined princess who has a unique gift of emphatically communicating with all kinds of creatures, including the huge insects from the toxic Sea of Decay jungle.

The core of the story is a strong ecological message. Quite predictably the jungle turns out to be something different than it appears to be. No one remembers exactly what happened during the “Seven Days of Fire” and even much less of what was before that.

That time theme is particularly interesting to me. I always wonder how civilizations in the distant future will sift through the archaeological remains of current times, and make assumptions about how we lived. I think it would be hilarious to see a documentary on the 20th century produced 2-3 thousand years from now.

It’s a good movie and one that is definitely worth watching.

[tags]anime, nausicaa, Hayao Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli[/tags]

Last Exile

As anime series go, this one is exceptional.

There are some very good anime series out there, and also some very bad ones. Last Exile is one of the former. I put it in the same bracket as Fullmetal Alchemist and perhaps even Evangelion.

The genre of Last Exile is a little bit hard to define. When you first start to watch it it seems like some sort of a steam-punk setting. You have a Victorian era styling, clothing and uniforms, pneumatic muskets, WWI like planes soaring in the sky and gigantic floating air-ships. Then you see the ultra-futuristic, star shaped Guild fighters with electronic HUD displays and you think it is some sort of Science Fiction with a twist. Then you find out about the mythical exile, and the mystical invocations that are supposed to “unlock it”. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that the show breaks conventions, and cannot be simply classified with a single label.

The action takes place on a strange world inhabited by two nations Anatoray and Disith. One is a warm and an arid world, while the other is a frozen wasteland. Both nations struggle with lack of resources, and arable land and thus they are in a state of perpetual war. The funny thing is that they do not share a border. Instead, one is situated above the other. If you take a play from Anatoray and fly it straight up long enough, you will reach something called a grand stream – a very tumultuous storm like formation that is almost impossible to negotiate. If you pass through it you will find yourself flying down toward the frigid lands of Disith.

In this strange world there are no seas – instead, people sail the sky on gigantic ships powered by poorly understood Claudia units maintained by a mysterious Guild. If you thing about the Spacing Guild from Frank Herbert’s Dune, you will have an idea of what we are dealing with here. They are both very similar including the secrecy, private agenda and monopoly on communication and travel. All Claudia units belong to the Guild and they can remotely deactivate and recall any of them at a whim. The only airships that are beyond Guild’s influence are small WWI biplane like varships. Because of a small size and versatility they are mostly used for carrying messengers between ships, racing or personal transportation.

The protagonists, Claus and Ravi are a team young pilots working for a small currier company, just like their fathers did. They have big dreams of one day becoming the first varship crew to cross the Grand Stream. One day the stumble upon a crash site, and rescue a small girl Aru, who turns out to be more important than they thought. She is sought after by the guild, whose agents will stop at nothing to get her. They decide to transport her to the intended destination – infamous airship Silvana and become implicated in a complex plot involving the Guild, the governments of Anatoray and Disith, the fate of the world, and survival of the mankind.

As with many anime series, Last Exile has a very strong “coming of age” theme. Claus just like Ed from Fullmetal or Shinji from Evangelion starts up as an innocent, bright eyed kid with great ambitions. This aura of innocence is slowly and painfully removed by the choices he has to make, the harsh reality of war, and the truth about the nature of Guild, and the world that turns his belief system upside down.

Most of the characters in the series have their own agenda, own dreams and ambitions. They are all motivated by different things. Claus will do anything to protect Ravi and Aru. Alex, the capitan of Silvana is haunted by his past and driven by revenge. Sophia, his second in command is tragically in love with a man who just can’t forget and move on.

Deo, a rebellious exuberant guild youth seeks freedom and escape from the Guild indoctrination, brainwashing, bloody rite-of-passage rituals and his destiny. Lucilla, lowly Guild slave/servant must make a choice between loyality to the Guild or to Deo – his only friend, and the only person in the world who treats him as a human being.

Tatiana, young varship pilot looses herself in an endless pursuit of her career, and then finds herself again. Morran, a simple, lonely and unlucky Rifleman, veteran of countless battles goes through an existential crisis only to find something worth fighting for. Ravi must learn to deal with harsh realities of the war, and also re-evaluate her feeling for Claus.

All their stories are interleaved with each other, and their destiny is intertwined. The characters are memorable, three dimensional and complicated. The plot is tightly woven, and unveils at an even, although not very rapid pace. There are quite a few cliffhanger moments, exciting combat scenes and unexpected plot twists.

The artwork is absolutely superb. The character designs are great, drawn with great attention to detail and consistent style. The CGI effects still look great despite being a tad dated. The ship designs are also exceptional. Each faction involved in the war has their own unique ship design. Big naval battles are never confusing because the silhouettes are so distinctive that a quick glance is enough to figure out what is going on on either side.

The ending is a bit confusing, so make sure you watch it 2-3 times. Not much is explained, but the visuals give us some important clues about the nature of the world, the origin of the exile, and what happens next. Fortunately you can figure out what is going on. Unlike the ending of Evangelion for example, this series does deliver some closure. You don’t just sit there stumped, but it does make you think and wonder. And unlike some other series it does not drag forever. Like all good stories it has a begging, a middle and an end. The pace of the storytelling and the timing is impeccable.

So to summarize: great story, great characters, awesome setting, and great animation and CGI. What’s not to love here? If you look for a new Anime series, or just some good TV to watch, definitely pick this title up. I give it 5 stars and big thumbs up. And I don’t give out my stars so easily. You will probably have to go back quite a bit in the archives to find the last review that got 5 stars. Go watch it. It is a good show!

My rating: 5.0 stars

It’s not accident that I compare this show to Evangelion and Fullmetal. This “innocent boy must face harsh reality” seems to be a recurring theme in a lot of anime shows. Actually, if you think about it Ender’s Game closely follows this same model. Did Orson Scott Card know that he was writing an anime script? I wonder… LOL

[tags]last exile, exile, anime, tv, show[/tags]

Either way, I managed to track down and identify that movie. It is called Achi and Ssispak (or Achi-wa Ssipak). If you google it, you will find quite a few other clips from that movie on Youtube. I’d recommend staying clear of the official website unless you like to be assaulted by criminal amount of flash, and javascript – including poppups, dynamically resizing windows (ie, the onHover action is to move and resize the window), and etc.

I haven’t written a review in a while, so:

Apparently a subtitled DVD of this movie is currently available in US. You can order a copy for around $33. But I guess I should mention that this video is out there *cough*tv-links*cough* and the quality is decent (hosted at DivX Stage 6).

[tags]aachi and ssipak, anime, animation, korean animation, defecation, poop, diaper gang[/tags]

youtube link

It’s reeealy old. On top of that, if you watched the Italian dub, with subtitles or lector you get another 10 geek points – cause that’s how I seen it. This might actually be relatively easy if you were growing up in Poland in the late 80’s or early 90’s. You are bound to remember it cause it used to be pretty popular at the time. It appears to have also aired in Spain and Italy. No clue if it was ever shown in US…

Gigi la Trottola (originally Dashing Kappei) is actually a sports-comedy anime, in which the main character competes in various games such as basketball, ping-pong and etc, and totally wins everyone by developing devastating special moves. Oh and he is a perverted liltle midget with a pantie fetish. :P

Here is another anime from my childhood:

youtube link

Once again, Italian dub – just the way I used to watch it. I found the original somewhere on Youtube but the opening song is not even half as catchy, and it does not remind me of the good old days. :P

[tags]gigi la trottola, dashing kappei, chicho terremoto, yattaman, anime, classics[/tags]

img © spacecoyote

How about Futurama?

img © satomi-chan

Or an alternate version:

img © spacecoyote

I don’t know about you, but I found these amusing. :P

[tags]anime, fan art, simpsons, anime simpsons, futurama, anime futurama[/tags]

found on the internets; author unknown

If you can’t figure out what it is, here is some much needed education for you.

[tags]tachikoma, tachikoma plushie, plushie, ghost in the shell, gts, toys[/tags]

found @ myconfinedspace.com; author unknown

If you don’t get the reference, go educate yourself!

[tags]calvin and hobbes, trigun, vash the stampede[/tags]

I am serious when I say this, do yourself a favor and skip the last two episodes of the series. After watching the complete EOA I can honestly tell you that they are inessential. Episode 26 covers the Shinji’s internal struggle during the instrumentality event quite well. And this time, his monologue is much more real, and tangible. You can relate to him, and feel his fear, pain and etc…

That, and you get to see what is going on in the outside world. This is possibly one of the most vivid, disturbing and mind boggling apocalyptic scenarios ever depicted on the screen. This is a perfect ending for the series. Creepy, disturbing and bizarre – and but much more comprehensible than the abstract mind fuck we saw on TV.