Video Backlog: “The Rolling Girls”

Publisher: Funimation (USA)
Format: Region A and B Blu-ray, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles. Region 1 and 4 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with optional English dub and English Subtitles.
Length: 12 episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2015
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

A decade after the Great Tokyo War, the majority of the political and economic leaders mysteriously vanished. Japan’s prefectures became inward looking and eventually became ten separate countries. Instead of police or military, countries had vigilante squads to protect the land and sort out disputes with other countries in regard to boarders. Teenager Nozomi Moritomo is the daughter of a family who runs a local Japanese sweets store in Tokorozawa. She’s also a new member of the local vigilante group, the Hiroshi Town Propellers. Grabbing some dango for the fellow members to eat, she rushes off to a battle between two “Bests” (super powered fighters who are leaders or representatives of local vigilante groups); Maccha Green a masked anonymous hero who fights for the Propellers and Kuniko Shigyo, a hired Best from Tokyo who now fights for Higashi Murayama. Kuniko believes that Maccha Green is actually the leader of the Propellers, Masami Utoku, and is determined to unmask her. The battle continues with Maccha Green nearly loosing. However the Propellers launch their “giant robot” (actually a helium filled balloon), and the Higashi Murayama members retreat.

Later at the Propeller’s headquarters a young woman on a bike called Yukina Kosaka crashes into the front door. She tells them that she has been riding for three days in search of the Propeller’s headquarters. Mistaking her for a new recruit, the fellow members sign her up and give a staff jacket. Soon after a bus arrives to pick up the members for a surprise trip to the local amusement park. However this is a trap set up by the Higashi Murayama. After a confrontation with Kuniko at a local ramen restaurant, Masami realises that her underlings have been held hostage and hurries to the amusement park. The members including Nozomi and Yukina are being held hostage on a roller coaster ride which the Higashi Murayama have planned to derail and crash to the ground. Kuniko demands that Masami fights her. However she refuses to and says that Maccha Green will be the one to fight her. Meanwhile one of the Higashi Murayama members, Ai Hibiki, decides that what they are doing is too cruel and attempts to stop the roller coaster to save the Propeller members. Her plan is thwarted, but Maccha Green arrives to save them. The ensuring battle between her and Kuniko, which also unmasks Maccha Green as Masami, is so fierce that both Bests end up in hospital.

It is revealed that Masami hid under the Maccha Green garb so as not to influence her friend Nozomi, into fighting. However that plan has now failed. Knowing that Masami will be out of action for a long time, she decides to take a trip in answer to several letters to Maccha Green asking for help from various vigilante groups in other countries. She also wants to become stronger not rely on Masami for help and believes this trip will help her in that regard. Setting off in her bike with a side car, Yukina asks if she can join her on her bike to Tokyo. They soon spot Ai hitchhiking. Having been kicked out of the Higashi Murayama, she wants to move on from the town. In park up the road they discover a girl in gas mask on a Vespa. Her name is Chihaya. She is after the heart shaped stones that apparently give the Bests their super human strength. The four head off to their first stop, Tokyo, where the country of Always Comima now resides. However the four girls are mistaken as members of the terrorist group Dynamite Bomber and are hunted down by the local Best called Thunderoad. Meanwhile the president of Tokorozawa has sent out an agent to buy up and collect all the heart shaped stones he can find.

Wit Studio certainly has made some really interesting anime since they were founded a short four years ago. While this show was rather unfairly criticised by the majority of anime fandom, I think this is another great show by the studio. The first two episodes lull you into believing this show will be a fighting show a la “Kill la Kill”, except a lot lighter, but then it ends up as a rather fun road trip adventure. The set-up is pretty simple. Nozomi and her “gang” go to a new country to answer calls for help as per the letter sent to Maccha Green. While they don’t usually solve the problem at hand, their arrival and presence becomes the catalyst to solving the issue. Generally there are arcs of two episodes each as the girls travel from country to country. In the universe of “The Rolling Girls”, communication now seems to be really limited and the countries (formerly prefectures) really patriotic and inward looking. There are a lot of stereotypes of certain prefectures (especially Kyoto and Okayama) and at times it’s a bit too absurd and silly. However it’s always fun.

The show is brimming full of great ideas and the artwork is really colourful and fun. I especially liked the rather colourful attacks and explosions (some take the shapes of flowers) and the background art. Much of it is rather impressionistic watercolours, especially for the Kyoto and Hiroshima arcs. There’s also the music with songs from now defunct 1980’s rock/punk band The Blue Hearts. All of the songs are covers by the four lead seiyu, but they certainly do the songs justice. There’s a lot little interesting things in the show which I think a lot of reviewers have missed. For instance Chiaya is able to see other’s dreams while they are sleeping using device similar to what Maetel had in “Galaxy Express 999”. In the Kyoto arc there is a lead singer of a band called Misa Ichijo, which sounds awfully like a married name of a certain character in the original “Macross” series.

Perhaps at times there is an overabundance of ideas and it does lose it ways at times. The Always Comima arc is probably the least interesting in the series. But the criticism from fans regarding show sort of annoyed me. Accusations of it being confusing I found odd as the show pretty much explains everything; the power of the hearts, why they are being collected etc. It’s all there. Then there’s the criticism of the four leads getting sidelined and not actually doing anything. This is bunkum as well. As I said before they are the catalysts of the story in each individual arc. If there weren’t there the show wouldn’t work and they are always key players in each story. Sometimes I feel I don’t really understand anime fandom anymore. Do they think stories can only be told in one way? They just seem so closeminded to lot of ideas and concepts. If anything slightly off-kilter or left of centre is presented to them they reject it.

The series was directed by Kotomi Deai who has also directed the latter series of “Natsume's Book of Friends” and second season of “Silver Spoon”. Yes, another female director with a female character designer, tanu (“Flip Flappers”) providing all the designs. I think it’s great that there’s a lot more women in key roles in anime series now days. Certainly the direction is very good and the show just looks so vibrant and colourful. Perhaps the girls might have been portrayed quite differently with a male director and character designer. I note that there is no fanservice at all to speak of. Funimation’s set is on par with their other DVD/BD combos. They replace as much Japanese text as they can get away with in the opening and closing credits and as per usual there is at least some banding in the video which is pretty disappointing. I must admit it’s not as bad as some of their previous releases. Generally I find little to none in Sentai’s releases, yet I see a fair wack of fans ripping into Sentai for being “cheap”. Whatever. One of the things which frustrates me about recent Funimation releases is their insistence of subbing the songs on the textless opening and closing animation, then blocking the option to turn off the subs. It’s really, really annoying and makes a mockery of the fact they’re including creditless opening and closing animations.

Summing up, “The Rolling Girls” is a far more engaging and fun series than most of the professional and fan reviews make it out to be. I concede some of it doesn’t work, however more often than not it does. I think it's a real shame that series like this one will end up lost and forgotten in a couple years time. 7 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: Three TV series. In addition I am also waiting for the second part of one TV series to be released before viewing it.

Video Backlog: “Girl Friend Beta”

Publisher: Madman Entertainment (Australia)
Format: Region 4 DVD, NTSC, Japanese Dialogue with English Subtitles
Length: 12 episodes x 24 minutes
Production Date: 2014
Currently in Print (as of writing): Yes

Kokomi Shiina is a second year high school student in a Tokyo high school. In the rhythmic gymnastics club, she feels that she is gaining weight, mostly due to her mother feeding her up for an upcoming competition. She resolves to go on a diet but seems to be failing. She asks various friends for ideas on how she could lose weight and the exercise club ends up helping her get the kilograms off. However her friends reward her and the club with melon bread which undoes all the hard work. Later Kokomi enquires about how her friends, the hyper Erena Mochizuki and literally bookish Fumio Murakami became best buddies. Erena tells her the story of the first meeting. Spotting Fumio in the library, she starts snapping away with her camera (as Erena is the in photography club). Erena wants Fumio to be her model for an upcoming photography competition; however Fumio is not keen on the idea. However Erena is quite persistent (though in a playful way) and keeps taking candid photos of her whenever she can. Eventually Fumio can’t take anymore and politely asks Erena to stop bothering her. But Fumio has regrets and eventually she agrees to Erena’s request.

A box of kittens is found by one of the students a brought to school. Akane Sakura of the broadcasting committee takes it on herself to find homes for the five little cats. While five girls put up their hands to takes them, most of their parents place conditions to take them in their homes; mainly they get better grades at school. It is decided everyone should study together at some’s house. That someone turns out to be Isuzu Shiranui, a reserved second year student. When the girls arrive at her family home, they are surprised to discover a very traditional looking Japanese home with Isuzu waring a kimono. As the afternoon flows into the evening, no real studying is actually getting done. A 10 minute visit to a convenience store for snacks ends up being more than half an hour. Eventually night turns into early morning light with scant study actually done, but friendships made and strengthened.

A crisis occurs within the school when the cafeteria staff end up stranded on a trip and unable to return. Student council president Kanata Amatsu decides that the student council should run the cafeteria. Though the other member’s voice objections to this, the ditzy and almost unstoppable Kanata forges ahead with her boundless enthusiasm. Though Kanata gets in the way and often manages to cause more trouble than solve problems, somehow the first day of operations is a success. However word spreads amongst the students and the customer numbers double the following day. Members of the cooking club and indeed anyone at all who can cook are recruited to help out. However Kanata ends up being a spanner in the works by recommending dishes to customers that aren’t even on the menu.

This series is unsurprisingly based on a dating simulator from a few years back. Essentially the aim of the game is to date one of the over 100 girls in the game. It was a free online game, but of course required payment for sections of the game or events. While the original game did have more than a hundred characters, this anime adaptation pares back the characters to just under 50. The series is episodic and has some pretty bog standard scenarios for this type of show with various characters having to deal with weight issues, getting ready for the school festival, working part time at a café, dealing with hardships at school etc. It’s a show that you couldn’t exactly say breaks any new ground.

While at times I did feel it was little bit slow going, for most of its length it’s reasonably fun. Though the promotional artwork highlights five characters, the stories don’t always focus on those five. A large number of side characters flow in and out of storylines with relative ease. While a lot of them aren’t really fleshed out character wise, I’d say more the most part they aren’t clichéd or are shallow and have no personality.  There are some really interesting stories in the series such as the one where the shy Tomo Oshii has to be an emcee for a school beauty contest and her friends rally around to help and support her. Another fun story has quiet writer Natsume Mahiro writing a novel for fun since primary school. A friend reads her incomplete novel, and though thinks it’s a bit bizarre, is intrigued by the story so much she encourages her to complete it. However Natsume has writer’s block. Eventually the story gets distributed around the school and Natsume is overwhelmed with fans begging her to complete it.

There are some really silly stories as well. French exchange student Chloe Lemaire can be a bit grating at times. She’s butt of jokes for the screenwriters as she constantly misinterprets Japanese culture and gets sayings mixed up. You know the usual “these gaijin know nothing” attitude. Apart from the very, very dodgy French Chloe speaks, there’s also one episode when her father misinterprets Japanese New Year celebrations as dangerous and decides to take her back to France. Of course the other girls sort everything out and explain everything to the dumb gaijin, but it’s an episode which was pretty bloody silly.

While the scenarios, setting and story for the most part seem firmly rooted in reality, there are some really weird fantastical elements to the show. For example Miss Monochrome who is an android (and also had her own short spin off TV series) and Ishida Isuki who loves ammonites. However most of these elements are in the background of the series.  Like many of these types of series, men are an endangered species. Even though the school is co-ed, most of the male characters are background characters. Some of the latter episodes there isn’t a male to be seen or heard. You could probably count all the lines in the show spoken by men on one hand and have would have a couple of fingers left over.

This is the only commercial English language release of this series anywhere in the world as far as I’m aware. While it is an Australian release and coded for region 4, the video is indeed NTSC, not PAL. Another curious thing with this release, and a lot of the more recent subtitle only anime Madman has put out on DVD is that it is hard subbed. While the disc seems to indicate that there is a subtitle track (that curiously can’t be switched off), it’s patently obvious that the subtitles are matted onto the video. They are far too sharp, clear and occasionally too multi-coloured to be “soft” DVD subtitles. Remember when dopes on the Anime News Network forum called sub only DVDs “fansubs on DVD”? Well I suspect this set is “streams on DVD”. I’m really not too sure but it seems that with many of their recent sub only releases they’ve just slapped the streaming video from their streaming service, Animelab, on to DVD. It just seems rather lazy, cheap and nasty. Concluding, “Girl Friend Beta” really isn’t anything new in the genre. It’s relatively fun and is quite amusing at times. It’s a pleasant way to fill up a couple of evenings. Unfortunately it’ll probably be forgotten by fans in a few years’ time.  6.5 out of 10.

Remaining Backlog: One movie, one OVA, four TV series. In addition I am also waiting for the second part of one TV series to be released before viewing it.

Tokusatsu On the Big Screen: “Shin Godzilla”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Saturday 15 October 2016
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese with some English and German dialogue with English Subtitles
Length: 120 minutes
Production Date: 2016
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): No

It’s an utterly rare event that a Japanese live action special effects (tokusatsu) film is screened in cinemas. But you could say it’s becoming a more regular occurrence with a number of manga to live action adaptions having one off special screenings in the last year or so such as “Paraysite” and the two part “Attack on Titan” films. Interestingly Madman has decided to have a limited theatrical release for this film over a week or two. It’s quite significant as I don’t think there has been a proper theatrical release of any Japanese film (Studio Ghibli and Mamoru Hosoda films being the only exceptions) for nearly five years. It’s a pretty sad statement on modern Japanese cinema.

When I do write ups of cinema screenings, I usually talk about the overall experience. This time there really isn’t much to talk about. I had some difficulty trying to get a ticket online (Dendy somehow cocked up the online ticketing for the film which meant I couldn't order a ticket for any session and had to ask them to fix it), but it was a lovely clear sunny Canberra October Saturday. About 20 people showed up to watch the film. No otakuish types at all. There was nothing of real note to report. So it’s time to talk about the film.

Local police investigate an abandoned cruiser out in Tokyo Bay. Belonging to disgraced zoology professor Goro Maki, a number of curious personal items are left on board, but no clues to his whereabouts. Suddenly the boat rocks violently as a large explosion not far away send jets of water hundreds of meters into the air. A strange blood-like substance pools around the area. Part of the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line roadway collapses and floods apparently due to the explosion. The government begins emergence action and decides how to deal with the crisis. All flights are halted to and from Haneda airport and people are evacuated from the collapsed tunnel and the surrounding area. The high ups declare that the phenomena in the bay is due to undersea volcanic activity, however Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Rando Yaguchi (played by Hiroki Hasegawa) alerts everyone to amateur footage found on social media sites which seems to show a giant tail flicking out of the ocean. He concludes that a large creature is the cause. However the older bureaucrats mock his theory and announce publicly that the cause is underwater volcanic activity. Their reasoning being that no creature could withstand the boiling water seeping to the surface.

But the government press conference is halted when TV stations start broadcasting live footage of a large creature making its way through Tokyo’s canal system, which eventually causes significant destruction and havoc once it makes landfall. The strange creature seemingly lumbers through Tokyo without rhyme or reason demolishing residential blocks, causing fires in its wake and killing more than a hundred people. Meanwhile government bureaucrats bicker over who should take control of the situation and under what part of legislation could they deploy the self-defence force. Strangely the creature soon returns to the bay. As if it was never there, life in Tokyo soon returns to normal. Inspecting the damage with government officials, Yaguchi laments that in the two hours the creature caused this damage, the government could not figure out a course of action to stop it.

After dealing with a small band of professors and experts that provide no real help in determining what the creature is or how to stop it, Yaguchi is tasked with building a research and countermeasures group. His choices are unconventional with mostly young staff with little experience; however the group soon collectively discover that the creature is emitting radiation. One junior staffer from the Environmental Department, Hiromi Ogashira (Mikako Ichikawa), theorises that the creature could be powered by a natural nuclear fission reactor in its body. Though initially dismissed, the theory later seems more plausible when further information arrives. This is in the form of material brought in by US special envoy Kayoko Ann Patterson (Satomi Ishihara). She reveals that Goro Maki had prophesied that such a creature would appear after hundreds of barrels of radioactive waste had been secretly dumped into the bay many decades ago. Maki had left a very strange document which apparently shows the DNA structure of the creature. However none of the staff can make head or tale of it. Patterson does a deal with the Japanese government to provide Maki’s research in exchange for samples the creature left behind. Maki’s documents also give a name to the creature; Godzilla.

Yaguchi’s team theorise that Godzilla went back to the ocean in order to cool down as it is in its next stage of growth. They discover it uses its blood and fins as a cooling system for its internal fission reactor. They suspect that they could freeze Godzilla using a coagulating agent and kill it or at least stop it in its tracks. But before they can come with a workable plan, Godzilla returns in its next stage. Twice as large as before, it lays waste to three of Tokyo’s wards. The self-defence force proves ineffectual. And though the US military via its use of stealth bombers seems to making headway, Godzilla soon wipes them out and causes a major disaster within Tokyo. With the government and the capital in taters, the UN, with a push from the US, decides to use nuclear weapons on Godzilla. However Yaguchi is determined that his team can stop the monster before they strike.

Only two years after’s Gareth Edward’s rather good Hollywood version, surprisingly Toho decided to yet again resurrect the Godzilla franchise. Of all dates to do so, on 1 April 2015 they announced Evangelion director Hideaki Anno would be helming the project with Shinji Higuchi (“Attack on Titan”) who would co-directing and be special effects director. While some fans were concerned, Anno and Higuchi are certainly no strangers to tokusatsu. Daicon Film, while mostly known for their two short animated pieces for the Daicon conventions in the early 1980’s, made mostly tokusatsu shorts. Higuchi would later work on the 1984 “Godzilla” and was the special effects director for the 1990’s “Gamera” trilogy, considered by many as the pinnacle of daikaiju tokusatsu film making. We all know Anno is a tokusatsu tragic, but also directed the short film “Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo”, a 9 minute short which was screened with “Evangelion 3.0” in 2012. A lot of the shots in that film do feel similar to those in “Shin Godzilla”. Perhaps that film was a demonstration for Toho as some have theorised.

While a lot of reviews bizarrely consider this film to be deeply nationalistic, anti-American and pro-military, I think those comments are almost totally off the mark and totally misunderstand the film makers. First up, Anno is an otaku, through and through. He’s not really pro war, but he certainly does love military machinery. You can see that quite clearly in the film's battle sequences. They lovingly show off the machines in question (complete with on screen text giving the full names of the battle machines in question), especially the tanks. But in the end the military are completely ineffective against Godzilla (perhaps more of an abysmal failure), pretty much the same as most other Japanese giant monster films. The nationalism claim doesn’t hold much water either, especially when you compare this film to mainstream Hollywood features. There is some anti-American sentiment, however it isn’t really pronounced except for a couple of sequences.

There are some really interesting themes in the film. The major theme is the battle of the old guard and the young who feel they aren’t being listened to. This is most apparent in the way the older government staff treat their younger counterparts. The Japanese government bureaucracy is really given a belting and is portrayed as bunch of public servants who can’t take decisive action in times of crisis. This of course is an obvious criticism to the government response to the 2011 Tohoku tsunami and earthquake and the scenes of the initial destruction are an allusion to the disaster itself. Some reviewers have claimed that this film is a satire on the bureaucracy; however in the end Yaguchi’s team wins the battle, so I think its false claim. The most interesting part of the film though is that while the old guard and the military fail in defeating Godzilla, Yaguchi’s rag tag group of otaku, misfits and other assorted people society reject, actually triumphs in the end.

While it is very dialogue heavy and is mostly shot of groups of people around tables and in conference rooms, it really held my attention for the two hour run time. It is literally about the government trying to deal with a situation beyond their comprehension and trying to solve that problem. Somehow it just works as a film. There are three major sequences that involve Godzilla and all three are quite spectacular. It would seem that Godzilla was purely CG in the film. I don’t think there are any suits or models in the film at all. I think it was pretty ballsy for Anno and Higuchi to show a juvenile Godzilla. It does look a little weird (like a salamander), but the idea and the effects seem to work well. The reveal in the second major Godzilla sequence was quite stunning. The actual physical look of Godzilla here is reminiscent of “Godzilla Vs Destroyah”. The new powers may be a little over the top, but I enjoyed it immensely. The climax was a little too much considering the rather realistic portrayal of what had come before.

The acting is pretty good and cast don’t ham it up (thank god). Satomi Ishihara's English is decent, but poor for an American born woman, which she was portraying. A couple of her English lines really need subtitles and were almost unintelligible. At time the film does really feel like an Evangelion film with Anno’s use of onscreen text and even variations of the music track "Decisive Battle" from Evangelion being used in the film (during sequences involving Yaguchi’s team, adding to weight of the theory Anno is championing otaku in the film). A couple of Akira Ifukube’s pieces from the original Godzilla films also make an appearance. Anno also adds in a few other references such as the old Toho titles and having the opening title reference the original 1954 Godzilla film title. This film can certainly stand on its own two feet and I didn’t think this blatant nostalgia was needed. You could also probably say that the film feels very much like an Evangelion film or TV episode to a degree with Godzilla in place of an Angel (and with no actual Evangelion to fight the creature either). Apart from the use of "Decisive Battle", note that Mikako Ichikawa's uniform bear some resemblance the colour scheme of the NERV members uniforms. I also felt this film at times had the same feeling of dread as the Evangelion films had.

The cinematography is quite good (some really interesting POV shots keeping in with our social media saturated world), however there were some rather strange shots and far too many close ups. I also thought that some sequences could have been trimmed (Ishihara’s English quips were grating after a while). The other major problem I had was that final battle. Parts of it were a little too absurd to take seriously. It’s a bit of shame as the film is relatively believable and realistic (or suspension of disbelief was easy) for the most part. It's also interesting to point out that this film was made for less than a tenth of the cost of Gareth Edward's 2014 film. In my opinion it's a far more engaging and interesting film than Edward's. I also think this film easily outshines all of the millennium series Godzilla films. Finally I must say Funimation’s trailer (I’m assuming Madman used that one) for the film is utter shit. The Japanese trailers are far better. Overall, it’s pretty good film. I’m going to give it a solid 8 out of 10.