Entry 125: "Parasite Dolls"

Dear Internet,

                "Parasite Dolls" is a three episode series that comes from an already popular franchise.  Specifically, it is the latest and last animated piece of the "Bubblegum Crisis" universe with emphasis on the AD Police section.  Considering that nothing short of a spinoff non-canonical light novel has come forth in the last ten years, it can be safe to assume that nothing is going to be done with the series anytime soon.  That does not mean that the franchise went down the drain due to quality or lack of sales, but what do I know.  This is the first time that I have come close to this series.  Thankfully, "Parasite Dolls" is a series that can be viewed independently of everything else in the series.  There need be no prior information concerning the "Bubblegum Crisis" universe to understand the episodes.

                The episodes follow Buzz Nikvest and the other agents of the Branch department of the AD Police.  Branch is a secret part of the AD Police who is able to operate without much of the red tape that the AD Police has to cut through.  Primarily, Branch deals with rogue Boomers, an intelligent android that is able to mimic human behavior despite not experiencing emotions themselves.  While the Boomers are generally programmed to protect and aid the human population, there exists a growing problem where Boomers have been found to be going wild and killing humans.  In the three episodes, Buzz and Branch tackle three specific cases.  The first has to do with a series of malfunctioning Boomers that all go wild at the same each week.  The second is the case of a mysterious Boomer that is killing other Boomers that specialize in prostitution.  The third episode is Branch's final case.  Within these three segments, "Parasite Dolls" creates a cyberpunk adventure that is both brutal and thought provoking.

                The narrative of "Parasite Dolls" is fast paced for nearly the entire length.  From the gunfights to the police work, the show does not spend much time sitting around.  On top of the action, the amount of information that gets handed to the viewer in both verbal and image format is quick and precise.  The information that is thrown at the viewer may be a bit much for some, but the best part of quick narrative is that it also knows how to be subtle.  Instead of handing everything explicitly to the audience, the show forces the viewer to think and come to the realization instead of requiring an explicit explanation.  Take the end of the first episode for example.  We learn about Buzz's wife who had died years prior.  However, we had seen a woman living in his home preparing a meal at the start of the episode.  In the last scene, we are able to figure out what had occurred off screen and what was the truth because we see the aftermath.  I would not like to say exactly what happens because it was such a smack to the forehead that I do not want to ruin the surprise.

                The art of the show has deep roots in late 80's and early 90's anime.  This era contained some of the most violent shows and had some of the most visually disturbing imagery of just about any other era.  Take my review of "Genocyber" for example.  Numerous people were killed on screen and off to the point that an entire ship was more blood and flesh than metal.  "Parasite Dolls" has its fare share of death and destruction.  The show knows how to use this imagery to its advantage instead of only suing it for shock value.  So not get me wrong, it uses the imagery for shock value, but it uses to illustrate a point.  While most of the broken bodies in the show are robotic, instead of making them inhuman on the inside to highlight their robotic nature, the show makes them appear as human as possible under the skin while remembering that they are metallic based.  When a Boomer is shot or torn apart, a humanoid skeleton is underneath with a metal piece for each bone.  When they are shot, black oil spouts out in place of blood.  If they are split in two, internal organs made from plastic spill out.  The show knows it can get away with more violence if it is towards non-humans but that does not mean that it has to make the audience unsympathetic to the androids.  The Boomers are characters despite not being humans.  With this in mind, the show knows how to make the audience care about the non-human characters.  It is a difficult tightrope walk that the show does.  If it depicts too much violence without taking time to portray the androids as character, there is no emotional bond between the character and the audience.  If the show takes too much time to foster that bond and leave out the violence, it halts the story and action to a standstill.

                The show's title is of course a reference to the Boomers and is the show's central theme.  It poses a few futuristic questions as to what makes a being human, like all cyberpunk stories do.  Instead of trying to argue that the Boomers are becoming human or that they are equivalents to human, the show firmly positions them as androids.  When they begin to think that they are human that usually signals that their demise is imminent.  If anything, "Parasite Dolls" is more of a showcase of the continual fall of man.  Remember: the show is about a police force, so they still deal with the criminal who is human.  Some of those criminals are barely human if you consider their crimes.  The only consolation that the viewer has is that the madmen of the story are still fictional as long as the technologies presented remain fictitious as well.

                I was able to watch "Parasite Dolls" with the original Japanese audio.   It sadly pointed out some aspects within the original that I find annoying.  There is a strange fascination that the Japanese have with the English language.  They interject it into their songs and daily vernacular.  The former only shows their ignorance of the language while the latter at least stems from borrowing technical words from the word's natural origin.  The opening song intermingles Japanese language lyrics with English interjections and phrases.  As a natural English speaker, these grammatical incorrect phrases grate against my ears because they barely make sense within the context of the song.  They feel more like buzzwords than the meaningful lyrics that the composer wanted them to be.  Within the show, a few English words are used, but at least they are borrowed words where there is no Japanese word to fit in.  However, a few English interjections do occur when a character shouts.  These feel more in line with the poor English lyrics as well.

You have to feel bad for the poor guys that ended up as the "Normal" policemen.

                "Parasite Dolls" is a good series, although, a bit short, which is a letdown.  The show does such a good job of world building and constructing a cast of characters that I wish there had been more stories.  More time would have been nice, but at the same time that might have distilled the narrative too much.  It tackles a number of topics, many of which I have not covered.  While the show does not do a poor job of it, I also feel that it at times feel a bit generic.  The animation is spot on, being both detailed and smooth.  It is worth a watch, but I am hesitant to say that it has great lasting appeal.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Next is "Epic Mickey".

Entry 061: "Ichi the Killer: Episode 0"

Who in the world designed this logo?  It is like a cross between "Samurai Pizza Cats" and "Dexter."

Dear Internet,

                It has been some time since I watched "Ichi the Killer."  It is either one or two years since I saw that shocking film.  My memory of the plot may be a little hazy, so I hope you do not hold me responsible for any mistakes I make.  The reason I bring this up is because "Ichi the Killer: Episode 0" is a direct prequel of the aforementioned movie.  The plot of the original is not all that important in this context, but remembering that the two are linked directly is.  There are a few other bit of links that I will try to cover, but I should probably say a few words of what I can about the first movie.

                "Ichi the Killer" followed the story of the exploitation of a psychologically deranged murderer, Ichi, who kills because of his mental unbalance and because he is lied to about the people he kills.  The film also tracked the investigation carried out by a yakuza trying to determine who is killing of his fellow gangsters.  Then there is the man manipulating Ichi for his own personal goals.  That is about all I can off-handedly recall about the film's plot, but that is probably not what most people recall about that film.  The thing that usually sticks in people's minds is the absolutely over-the-top amount of violence and visual effects that the movie showcased.  People were sliced in two, had boiling oil thrown at them, and cut out their own tongue.  The amount of violence could make one vomit, and apparently did in early showings of the film.  When watching it, there are two ways to view it.  Either you can become absolutely horrified at what is occurring or you can realize that the violence appearing on the screen is so unrealistic in its quantity and quality that it becomes comical.  The story was originally made in comic book form, which the film's extraordinary scenes reflect.  Nobody in real life, when their carotid artery is cut, has blood shoot out like a pressurized hose.

                "Episode 0" does carry over this gratuitous level of violence.  People are beat up, cut and mauled in various ways.  There is no lack of want for action in this short film.  But adding to an already large repertoire of visually chocking scenes is not what this prequel is trying to accomplish, even though it does do this at least.  Episode 0" tries to elaborate on the back story of Ichi.  The film shows the various things that caused Ichi to become the mentally broken character that we have already seen.  Ichi was bullied, mocked, hazed and blackmailed by his peers.  His parents misunderstood him with little to no attempt in correcting their perceptions.  His teacher forced him into live animal vivisections.  The list goes on and on.  It almost gets to the point that the film wants to throw as much grease onto the fire.  Even after Ichi had murdered and entered a rehabilitation center, he was mistreated by nearly everyone he meets.  The film here gets to the point that there is not a single individual who is not a psychotic who does not care for anyone but themselves.  It paints a grim picture with no hope.

I hear this new piercing thing is all the rage with young adults.

                The animation should definitely be addressed.  The original film was live action with minimal computer effects only used when stage effects could not get across the image needing to be shown.  "Episode 0" is completely animated.  In a reasonable way, this would make sense since the original story had been done in comic book form.  Taking static drawings and reinterpreting them into animated ones is a common decision.  The problem arises with the quality of the animation here.  The original comic was extremely detailed.  It had to be with the kind of content it was depicting.  Creating a stylized comic that reflects the aesthetics commonly found in ones aimed at a younger audience would not work well in a comic that was specifically aimed at adults.  "Episode 0" loses a lot of detail and line work that made the original comic so graphic and engaging.  The animation is constantly taking shortcuts.  The characters have very little amount of values and hues.  Expect to see at maximum only three shades for each character: the highlight, the shadow, and the midtone which is not even a midtone but the local color.  The characters are drawn with next to no detail and can vary in style sometimes in the same scene.  A majority of the time, only one character is on screen at a given time with their head taking up most of the image.  There are repeat cells throughout that you can start to spot the same shot after a while.  The whole thing is such a deviation from the standard set by the comic that the end result is laughable.

Like a cross between Mr. Potato Head and Clayface.

                About the only thing that that is of a high quality is the music.  The background songs are wonderfully done.  They create a technopop exhilaration during the action sequences, which is a relief considering the story.  I want to say that the music is taken from the first film, but I cannot make that assumption.  I would not be surprised if "Episode 0" took the score directly in an effort to cut costs even further.  The original songs from the first film are sporadic and eccentric, reflecting the unstable minds of the various characters being showcased.  Here, they do much the same which is a good thing.  

                "Episode 0" wants to explain further about how Ichi became who he was.  The problem is that the first film did a good enough job at explaining him.  Ichi was a man who had been abused for most of his life and taken advantage of.  "Episode 0" merely paints a black canvas with black paint.  It beats an already dead cat, hoping to kill it further.  The fine details of Ichi's past never mattered to the extent "Episode 0" hoped to illustrate.  All it ends up being is an add-on to a movie that did not need an extra film riding its coat-tails.  As a standalone work, "Episode 0" is a miserable failure that cannot hold its own.  It relies on themes that the first movie went into great depth but does not do anything better or equivalent.  To a certain extent it does explain why Ichi is a sadist, but did anyone ask the question?  All in all it was a great let down whose only redeeming values are the few action scenes.  I just keep wondering why this was made.  Is it just for the sake of making and watching violence for the sake of violence?  If it is, then it falls into the trap that the first film set.  People get a kick from gore.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop,

P.S. Tomorrow looks like a mixed day with a record album being first.

Entry 052: "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki" Ep. 14-20 End

Dear Internet,

                Are you doing well?  I am not, so I will have to keep this brief.

                I split watching "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki" between yesterday and today for two reasons.  The first is the very obvious reason that it took about ten hours to watch everything.  The other more important reason is that the last seven episodes were made eight years after the previous batch.  This gap of time creates a few differences.  The most notable is the different visual style.  While both sets of animation draw inspiration from the same source material, the minute differences stand out.  The differences are especially apparent in episode 14 which uses a number of flashbacks.  Each flashback is footage taken from earlier episodes rather than creating new material.  While I understand that there is a need to refresh the memory of the viewers, the fact that they decided to recycle footage worked against them.  It is not a big problem, but since even the process of making animation had changed so much since then, the change in style becomes an itch brought to the foreground very early.

                Style is a big thing when it comes to "Tenchi."  Whenever the setting is taken away from the farm or house and brought above the stratosphere, there is a grandeur that naturally comes with space operas.  Space operas deal with the romanticism of exploration and the vastness of the universe.  You could probably trace it directly to the same romanticism that makes sweeping narratives of conquistadors and sailors who brought back tales of adventure to a new world.  "Tenchi" is a space opera no matter how you look at it.  The only difference is that it tries its hardest not to be.  Whenever "Tenchi" moves to space, mentions space, or deals in any way with space, the viewer is treated with space fleets cruising through star studded black velvet which explode in deathly blooms of red.  Giant trees take root on a planet half its size.  Whales the size of battleships swim through an ocean in the vacuum of interstellar space.  There is a beauty to each scene that occurs in space.  However, "Tenchi," like I said, does not want to be a space opera, despite being one.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of spacecraft next to a ring shaped world.

                Numerous characters are introduced.  You can look up "Tenchi Muyo family tree" and pick some of the first links.  You will find a collection of relationships that rival the complexity of the average South Korean weekday drama.  A close inspection makes the "Tenchi" family tree start to seem like some sort of redneck family convention the way it keeps linking back on itself.  There are family members whose lineage dates back hundreds of years and is not even a generation skip.  The point of all of this is to maximize the amount of characters that one show can possibly obtain.  Is there a point in having all of them be related somehow?  The show could easily have had all the characters meet through unconnected circumstances.  At first the show comes across as such, but as time continues, characters start making direct connections with each other.  There are numerous "You mean you are my ___" throughout that would make a soap opera have a go for its money.  After a while it begins to look like the family lineage of certain feudal European kingdoms with siblings and cousins marrying nearby to keep the political power from escaping.  One would think that having an entire universe of people would allow more disconnected individuals to come together, but "Tenchi" wants to illustrate how small the universe can be.  

                The show makes an entire universe of connections fit within a single house.  However, this is somewhat impossible considering that the source of all conflict in the show comes from without rather than within.  All the show's problems stem from space.  All the enemies, evil doers, and mistakenly intended come down to Earth to destroy the various characters or in the least wreak havoc.  They come from that great unknown beyond the sky.  Space is just filled with trouble, and perhaps that is why Tenchi stays on Earth instead of going off into it.  But alas, trouble eventually comes to him.  Tenchi would be quite content with plowing his fields of carrots and continuing with the status quo of his growing household.  By the end of the show, there are over eight people living at Tenchi's house.  Every one of them has no expressed dream or desire save for one, continuing to live with Tenchi.  Washu might have some other final goal, considering that how the series gets an almost shoehorned final plot, but I can go into that later.  The point is that space is a reluctant possibility for a majority of the cast.  "Tenchi" treats space as a dreadful thing filled with things waiting for Tenchi to have to fight against.  However, it is from space that all the major female characters come from.  These same characters are what make "Tenchi" what it is.

                "Tenchi" is a harem show.  There is no two ways about it.  One guy somehow gets a menagerie of females flocking to him.  There are like chicks scurrying to a farmer carrying a forty pound bag of feed.  Japan harem stories can go at least as far back as "The Tale of Genji."  The important thing is that all harem stories are dramas.  Even the comedy harem shows are dramas.  Harem stories are filled with unrequited love for another individual who might not understand the feelings of the other, know about those feelings, or might not care about those feelings.  There is pining for the love of another.  There are the repeated situations with minimal difference occurring time and time again.  All of these are elements of dramas.  "Tenchi" does have some problems that all harem shows are filled with.  The problem is that they never quite give enough credit to the female conscienceless.  All it takes for the women in this show to fall for Tenchi is a few kind words and a tender moment.  It is somewhat of an insult to think that the hearts of women are so easily won across the board.  Ryoko has about the only viable excuse since she had watched Tenchi grow up.  With so many characters hoping that he falls for her, we get numerous elements found in soap operas.  Coincidentally, all of these elements can be in space dramas.  The only difference is, well, space which comes from the reluctant plot.

                The plot is one of the most complex ones I have seen.  I do not want to spend time going over it, since it would take about three more paragraphs just to cover the basics, so all I will talk about is how the show addresses the plot.  There are quite a number of times that foreshadowing occurs throughout the show.  I am sure that if I were to watch it again, I could spot even more forward references.  There is a constant understanding on the part of the viewer that there is a bigger story going on.  The show only allows very brief moments where the overarching plot seeps through.  The majority of the time, the show wants to play up the character interactions that occur at Tenchi's house or spend time introducing another character.  It is like the show is teasing the audience like one might do with a cat and a cattail.   It can get a little frustrating when the show spends only a glimpse at the bigger picture.  I might not feel this way if it was not for episode 19.  In episode 19, the show decides to lay everything onto the table to the point where one can feel bludgeoned with information.  Ulterior motives are revealed, galaxies unravel and space goddesses appear.  It all connects perfectly in the end, so I cannot complain about many missing pieces.  However, the magic tricks I mentioned yesterday are pulled for a full 30 minutes.  It all feels forced because the show is trying to make up for all the time it could have spent slowly feeding the information to the viewer but was instead showing hot springs.

At least the show is willing to admit its viewers might have trouble following the plot.

                In the end, "Techi" refutes its identity as a space opera.  It wants very much to stay on Earth and keep making harem episodes.  It does this to the point where the underground plot had nowhere to go until it all accumulated into one episode.  It prefers to spend time showcasing quiet moments of rural life than the giant spaceship battles that take the lives of hundreds of people, something that often seems to get trivialized.  "Tenchi" prefers to keep the status quo just long enough to introduce another girl to repeat a formula.  Eventually "Tenchi" would return to space, but I constantly felt that it just wanted to portray domestic life rather than accept the grandeur of the sky above the sky.    

                "Tenchi" is a good show.  There is something there for most everyone.  I would even go as far to say that I wished it lasted longer, but that would stem more from the fact that the plot feels super concentrated.  If it took the all the time it spent on going in a circle with the harem plot device and utilized it to portray the underlining story, the pacing would be a lot better.  The show weaves together a story with enough coincidences that the eventual reveal required a hat trick to pull everything together.  You can take it for what it is, but in the end it still is somewhat enjoyable if not a bit unfulfilling. 

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop

P.S. Tomorrow is an entry for a music album.  I Might pull another card and work on another entry because the album is so short.

Entry 051: "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki" Ep. 1-13

Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki 

Dear Internet,

                I remember when I had first seen a "Tenchi" show.  It was back when Toonami was a respectable programming block that ran during the week.  It was way back before I even had access to the channel at my home and had to watch the odd episode when visiting relatives or friends.  Since I could never watch it consistently and that it was dissimilar to other shows which had no over arching plot, I paid little attention to it at the time.  Years went on and I learned that there are at least three "Tenchi" series, not counting spin-off series.  On top of that, the episodes I had only glimpsed were edited and cut apart for TV format.  With the recent conclusion of "Tenchi Muyo! GXP," it seems fitting for me to go back and watch the series that started the whole thing.

                "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki!," which also doubles as a nice tounge twister, follows around a boy named Tenchi Masaki who accidentally releases a demon, Ryoko Hakubi,  from her 700 year imprisonment.  She in turn tries to kill him in effort to fill out her vengeance.  Well, actually that is all wrong.   Ryoko is not a demon, and she does not want to kill Tenchi, despite nearly burning his high school to the ground and trying to cut him in two.  She is in fact a space being that acted as a pirate and was sealed on Earth.  Shortly after the start of the show, other characters begin to appear from space looking for Ryoko.  They are all women hailing from slightly different backgrounds, but they all end up living at Tenchi's house.  Thus the premise of one of anime's most beloved harem genre animations begins.

Going clockwise from top left: Mihoshi Kuramitsu, Ryoko Hakubi, Tenchi Masaki, Ayeka Masaki Jurai, Ryo-Ohki, Sasami Masaki Jurai, and Washu Hakubi.

                To be fair, the show does a good job for the most part in balancing all the characters.  Each one feels unique and well made, even though it can take a few episodes to before they are discussed or shown to have some sort of backstory.  From the universally known scientist to the princess of a space kingdom, each one handles the current situations differently.  After a while, the various jokes that the show makes between the characters begin to feel repetitive.  Anytime that the show steps aside of the plot and takes a break, the show is certain to follow a set pattern.  Tenchi goes on being Tenchi, working the carrot fields or tending to his family's Shinto shrine.  Meanwhile, Ryoko and Ayeka fight over who gets to go after Tenchi or who has more right to him.  The bit ends with neither of them getting what they want and Tenchi never getting wind of what they are up to.  To a certain extent, this is what all harem shows are based upon, and it is a tired out collection of tropes and backstabbing schemes to me.  The only reason that "Tenchi" stays out of this muddy pothole is the fact that there really is a plot backing up the premise.

                I do not want to go too far into describing the plot more than I have, partially because I was only able to get through 13 of the 20 episodes.  There is also the fact that the plot can range from being very subtle to a downright kidnapping arc.  Most episodes, so far, can be divided into two categories.  There are the ones that introduce new characters and then there are those that expound on those characters.  The ones that introduce new characters are enjoyable and have the plot element to them.  From outer space battles to galactic police shenanigans, it all comes together to form a tight knit storyline.  The ones that expound upon characters fall very closely to the repetitive aspect I mentioned.  Some episodes feel very close to one another to the point that if the show did not give a glimpse into one of the characters, it would be all very pointless.  When the show looks at its characters, it does a very good job of it.

                I realize that I am going in circles right now.  This show is made up of a lot of either-ors.  The only thing that I can really criticize right now is how the show is sometimes inconsistent or has a few holes in its narrative.  Ryoko desperately tries to kill Tenchi in the first episode.  There is no way around this.  She does everything she can to make him the recipient of her 700 years worth of captivity.  A few episodes later, she is shown to having been watching over Tenchi while he grew up through some sort of astral projection method.  On top of that, she had been steadily growing fond of him before they met face to face.  None of this correlates with how she acted in the first episode.  Then there is the whole part of the plot that points Ryoko as having not only attacked capital of Jurai, a planet, but also having destroyed numerous other places.  Eventually, the story gets to a point where a big shot space pirate is shown to take control of her completely, making her attack Tenchi against her will.  The show implies that this is why she had attacked all those outposts and cities, which also lines up with the fact that Ryoko's creator had been captured since before Ryoko was made.  The problem with this is that it relies a bit heavy on implication instead of objective storytelling.  This problem would not be so big if it was not for the fact that Ryoko is such a troublemaker and destroyer of personal property.  So far, she has destroyed a high school and a hot spring at least while clearly under no one's influence besides her own.  On top of that, she has no apparent regret for her actions.  There is not even some sort of regret for the countless people that suffered for her actions while being under the control of someone else.  None of the characters call her out over her apparent ennui with the bulk of the reason being that it was all so long ago.  One of the main characters of the show, Sasami, is being shown to have nearly died in the attack against Jurai, but it is all glossed over.  Until it gets addressed, which will probably never happen for the sake of keeping things light and airy, it will remain as the elephant in the room for me.

                Another thing that pulls on my mental pant leg like a dog wanting to go for a walk is the near inexhaustible powers that everyone seems to have.  Ryoko at least has her magic gems that the whole show admits to being too overpowered.  Everyone else seems to get similar treatment.  Tenchi even gets larger powers than Ryoko at one point.  The story never sets a limit to the various characters abilities.  This works just enough to create a visual spectacle to enjoy, but comes at a price.  Between Ryoko and Tenchi, rabbits are pulled out of a hat constantly and rely on how willful the two are rather than making a plan.  Planning before going into battle is not something that occurs here.  When Washu tries to enter with a plan, it does pan out well, but when things get worse, another rabbit gets pulled.  Perhaps I am being too hard on this point since the show does do a good job in building tension before the magic trick is pulled.

                Tomorrow I will finish "Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki" and get back to you.

Yours in digital,

BeepBoop