"A.Li.Ce"
Publisher: Artsmagic (USA)Format: Region Free DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 85 minutes
Production Date: 1999
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Prior to a DVD release, this was screened on SBS TV Australia in late 2001. I recall it was the first anime they’d actually shown subtitled since “Twilight of the Cockroaches” which was originally broadcast in 1993. Anyway this was released on DVD in the UK back in 2003, but for some reason has the last few seconds of the credits missing. Stupidly I bought the US DVD. I fully understand that this is one of the first fully CG anime (think it’s the first feature to be CG in Japan), but it’s kinda bland. The animation has really not aged well at all. The characters really all look like marionettes, and their faces look pretty strange at times. The mecha comes off much better. In fact there are a couple of scenes that were quite impressive looking, which kind of surprised me. However when viewed as a whole, the movie looks like one great big cut scene from a game. The story also is kind of weak and predictable. There’s not a lot of originality in there. Jonathan Clements appears on the disc (like all Artsmagic CG anime titles) talking at a film festival about animation to a small audience. Quite a good additional feature. There’s also a commentary track by Clements, but after listening to his commentary on this film’s sister disc “Blue Remains”, I just couldn’t go through with it. Love his work in anime magazines writing articles, but when it comes to critiquing anime, he’s a grumble bum and a bit of a bore really. The film gets 5 out of 10 for me.
"CLAMP School Detectives"
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 25 minutes
Production Date: 1997
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
Let's face it, this is one saccharinely sweet series. If "Cardcaptor Sakura" gave you diabetes, you're going to hate this show. I've read a lot of reviews on "Clamp School Detectives", and a lot of them don't seem to get it. Of course the kids are sickeningly sweet and wonderful. Of course the school they go to is picture perfect and is a heavenly place to be. Of course Nokoru is the ultimate ladies’ man (again in a total platonic way). The show is designed for women. Basically it's unapologetic wish fulfilment for women. CLAMP have created an excellent little piece of escapism and it translates very well into animation. Created a year before the "Cardcaptor Sakura" anime, the animation (by Studio Pierrot) and production values are very close to that series, but are just a fraction below it. Despite using a formulaic plot (practically in every episode, the detectives help out a lady in distress) the situations avoid becoming stale due to the fact new characters are introduced, and we see the complex personalities behind the characters. As with a lot of CLAMP shows, not everyone are what they seem, and some dark secrets are exposed along the way. There are a few slow episodes, but most are pretty entertaining. CLAMP fans will also dig the cameos in this show, in particular Miyuki from “Miyuki-chan in Wonderland” and Kentarou Higashikunimaru, Takeshi Shukaido and Eri Chusonji from “Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders”.
Originally released as "Clamp School", this was one of the initial titles Bandai Entertainment entered the US market with in 1998. For whatever reason, among the initial titles released by Bandai, this one didn't make the leap across to DVD. Finally we now have it on DVD, release some 10 years after it first came out in English. I’m really glad Bandai have decided to release this series again. It even comes with the super deformed “Day in the Life of CLAMP School” shorts which are pretty fun. The old tapes have gone off to landfill now. Fantastic series and one of my CLAMP favourites. 8 out of 10.
"Angel Tales"
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 14 Episodes x 22 minutes
Production Date: 2001
Currently in Print (as of writing): No
Seriously, this is one of the most bizarre concepts for an anime. Take the old milquetoast hero from titles like “Love Hina” and billion other dull harem shows and add girls. But where it gets extremely odd is girls are his guardian angels and are reincarnations of pets he used to own. Worse is you have a lot of the angels in love with him, so if you think about it, there’s this weird bestiality thing going on. Also the number of girls that eventually show up numbers 12. That’s a lot of dead pets for a person just out of high school. And then you add in some prepubescent girls, and it gets a bit weirder. Yes I understand it’s meant to “cute”. Yes there is no real sexual feelings for the girls from Mr Milquetoast, in fact it’s really, really platonic. The show is just freaking weird and creeps me out. The plot and story are incredibly weak. Nothing much at all happens until the last few episodes, and then it’s pretty bland and predicable. I did like a couple of elements of this show. The designs were really good and the animation was pretty good. The bonus parody animated shorts were quite funny and more entertaining than most of the actual show. I really can’t believe this show two sequel series and a spin off series that also had a sequel. Argg, so annoying! Why, why, why?! This’ll teach me to blind buy heavily discounted discs from the Right Stuf. 4 out of 10.
"Dan Doh!! (The Super Shot)"
Publisher: Bandai Entertainment (USA)Format: Region 1 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English Dub and English Subtitles
Length: 26 Episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2004
Currently in Print (as of writing): No
Golf; the second most boring spectator sport after cricket (maybe third after lawn bowls). I know there is a ton of golf based manga, but why in hell would you make an anime about this wretched sport? As this is show is based on a shonen manga (from Shonen Sunday), you have the typical tropes of the genre; the main character which strives to become an elite player usually from an underprivileged background, you have the rather mean challengers who ultimately become friends with our hero, a sports journalist that sees potential in our hero (only mildly touched on in this show), a coach that also sees that same potential, superhuman feats of sports prowess, a love interest and clueless hanger-on’s who are pretty much there to fill in those watching who have no idea about the rules of the particular sport. Yup, all boxes ticked. This show is a bit different though. The first arc has out hero Dandoh going from complete amateur to winning a title (which is absurd in itself), then the majority of the rest of the show has our young hero (he’s 12), becoming a caddie for player who’s down on his luck. Naturally Dandoh has this superhuman ability to tell the adult professional golf player how to play his shots (despite the fact Dandoh has had less than four months experience playing golf). The final two episodes put the focus back on Dandoh’s career in golf. The pacing is odd. At the beginning it looks like the show is going to be a about Dandoh and his two friends playing golf, then it switches to Dandoh being a caddie for almost the entire show. It feels really unsatisfactory and as if several seasons of the show are missing.
It’s odd that Bandai decided to release this one, but apparently they were looking into bringing more sports anime over. Though the only other thing they released after this one was “Dear Boys (Hoop Days)”. As I said before, this show was an odd choice to bring over to the US. The animation is pretty mediocre and it’s a bit of a chore to watch. It’s a bit of a kick in the guts to those who enjoy dubs that this title was dubbed, yet something far superior like “Cyber Formula GPX” was only given the sub only treatment. How can a futuristic car racing anime sell less than one about golf? The entire English adaptation production was farmed out to Odex in Singapore. Everything; translation, menus, dubbing, DVD mastering etc. As a result you have weird localised stuff in the subtitles like the use of the word “fellas”. They’ve also left in weird Engrish phrases used in the Japanese script like “Green On” which is apparently what Japanese golfers say when they’ve got the ball on the green. Overall it’s a rather poor anime, but somehow it managed to entertain me a bit, especially the arc were Dandoh was the caddie for the professional golfer. 5 out of 10.
"Gold Wing 1.2.3 (Hwanggeum Nalgae 1.2.3)"
Publisher: DK (South Korea)Format: Region Free DVD, NTSC, Korean Dialogue with optional English and Korean Subtitles
Length: 66 minutes
Production Date: 1978
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes
The Korean animation industry does make some great looking animation and has done so for more than a couple of decades (check the credits on any anime going back to the late 1980’s). However their own productions (unlike their live action output) are substandard a lot of the time. Now you have to remember that from 1945 to 1998, Japanese culture was banned in South Korea. However this did not stop Koreans using bits of Japanese culture as their own, in other words ripping off Japanese stuff. From the mid 1970’s to the mid 1980’s, various anime were ripped off to create a number of really substandard Korean animated features. In 1978, “Gold Wing 1.2.3” was released. This is mostly a rip off of “Casshern” (originally broadcast in Japan in 1973), but there’s also a bit of “Kamen Rider” mixed in. Unlike a number of Korean rip off animated features of the time, this one is rather competent. But hell, that’s not saying a lot really.
The animation is still rather mediocre and amateurish at times and the camera direction is just strange. The script, plot and acting aren’t exactly great either. However the biggest problem is state of the film. This film was thought lost many years ago, but was unearthed a year or so back. However absolutely no restoration work was done on the film, so we have scratches galore AND missing scenes and audio AND no end credits sequence. It’s pretty dreadful. The film has been released on limited edition BD and DVD with the covers of both stating it’s a “HD Marster” (sic). Admittedly it’s a great transfer, but of a very awful film print. The disc does include English subtitles which are OK, but are not by someone who is a native speaker. Every time someone gets hurt, they exclaim “Och!” instead of “Ouch!”. I was thinking that maybe the entire cast was made up of Scottish people. Or maybe it’s just shitty subtitling. For some bizarre reason Harmony Gold’s 1980 English adaptation “Gold Wing” appears as a bonus, taken from a UK VHS tape. No, I’m not kidding. So you have the choice of either a schizophrenic and highly damaged original print or a NTSC transfer of some 30 year old PAL VHS tape. Hmm, great choices. Still, the disc is kind of fun, in a stupid way. 5 out of 10.
Remaining Backlog: 22 months (it's much easier this way than listing the number of discs).
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