| This Sunday, fellow anime club member Moose7100 had picked the movie Spring and Chaos which is the animated life story of Kenji Miyazawa. This winner of two Japanese awards was to say the least like a 57 minute explosion of metaphors. I personally am not one to remember the names of many anime directors or character designers, but some whose work I respect are intact in my mind and one of those people is Shoji Kawamori, loved Macross, loved Macross Plus, loved Escaflowne, so why not buy Spring and Chaos, written and directed by Kawamori himself. I don't know much about Kenji Miyazawa other than what the dvd extras told me and that he wrote Night on the Galactic Railroad (so any fans of Miyazawa forgive me for what I am about to write). The main character (Kenji) as was shown in this movie was either the most influential poetic genius of our time or a guy who ate one to many bad mushrooms. This 57 minute life story which was mostly padded or filled minutes with crazy symbolism and metaphors has a somewhat decent story of a man (or cat in this instance) that sees the world in a different way than others. He wants to find the real meaning of life and why do things live, so though his life (no spoliers) we see his journey of self discovery. How this story led him to becoming one of Japan's most beloved poets and storytellers was totally omited. While his journey did bring up some interesting thoughts, I believe most of it was lost in translation (which was bad by the way...thanks Tokyopop). All in all, it all comes down to a hype comment written by EX MAGAZINE: "anyone who is WILLING to suspend disbelief will be treated with a breathtaking hour of EXPERIMENTAL animation and inspirational story-telling". |
| To me, this movie was just a mess. Too many useless scenes that I felt led nowhere. Sure the "experimental" animation looked nice at times but that didn't improve my opinion much in the end. On the plus side, I loved the rendition of Bach's Air on the G String. Also, it turns out xacess was correct when we he mentioned the lead's voice actor. A quote from a Spring and Chaos review When Tokyopop first presented Spring and Chaos at Otakon in 1998, fan reaction to the dub was not good. Without a doubt, Mixx took a big risk casting Ron Jaxson as Kenji. Jaxson is a skilled voice actor and delivers his lines very well, however he has a noticeable African American accent and it is generally recognized in the film dubbing industry that accents should be kept out of dubs. According to Stuart Levy, "The idea of using an African-American voice for Kenji came from Kenji being so different from those around him." Personally I had no qualms about the voice acting in this one. I've heard much much worse. |
 ...even a saint needs a soldier to do the dirty work. |
More topics from this board
» Anime 360 2013 4th Year anniversary club Review (only 3 years late to be posted in 2013)chaosemperor - Jan 3, 2016 |
0 |
by chaosemperor
»»
Jan 3, 2016 8:19 AM |
|
» ANIME 360: 3rd year anniversary special - The year in review.chaosemperor - Jan 10, 2012 |
1 |
by tainteddonut
»»
Jan 31, 2012 1:49 AM |
|
» 2nd year anniversary of the Anime 360 viewing club.chaosemperor - Jan 15, 2011 |
2 |
by Nira_kun
»»
Mar 30, 2011 11:25 AM |
|
» Know thy club members - 2010chaosemperor - Jun 28, 2010 |
0 |
by chaosemperor
»»
Jun 28, 2010 6:09 PM |
|
Sticky: » Club homework - completed anime serieschaosemperor - Dec 28, 2009 |
0 |
by chaosemperor
»»
Dec 28, 2009 11:39 AM |