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Miyazaki has been a favorite of mine for many years. If there is one artist I can say has never let me down, it is Miyazaki (well, him and Tolkien, so you see how highly I regard his work). Every one of his movies are amazing, from his epic masterpieces Princess Mononoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, to his more down to earth family affairs such as Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. So how does Ponyo stack up against the other films in Miyazaki's arsenal?

Well, not as well as I was hoping, though far from bad.

Ponyo is something different ... from Miyazaki, a kind of movie he hasn't really done since Kiki's Delivery Service. This is a movie aimed at children and children alone. It’s a big change from Howls Moving Castle which, though enjoyable for kids, was aimed as much towards young adults as it was towards children. Ponyo is Miyazaki's take on the story in The Little Mermaid. A young goldfish, Ponyo, meets a boy named Soscay and decides against her father’s wishes that she wants to be human. What follows is a dazzling display of color and artistry that puts to shame most children’s movies made in America today. Let’s face it, American animation is mostly garbage with no style, no vision, and no heart. If Ponyo is anything, it’s a visually stunning work of art from a studio and director who don't mess around. Studio Ghibli and Miyazaki have been turning out amazing looking films for decades and Ponyo is simply the tip of the spear. Its visuals and creativity are outstanding in every way imaginable. It just leaves you lost in the moment in a way no other children's movies, with the exception of the better Pixar movies, can.

More than anything else, though, Ponyo is a cute film. Ponyo's character design is just perfect to portray a little girl of her age, and with her level of naivety considering she IS a fish who just recently learned to be human. Soscay's interactions with his mother during the first half of the film (and her interactions with her husband) are so real and heartwarming I couldn't help the giant smile that crept onto my face. This is a heartwarming film.

However there is a downside to this film. Miyazaki has always been one for incredible plots that, to the outside viewer, seem to make little sense. Trying to explain the plot of Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away to someone who's never seen those movies is next to impossible. But even those films had their right foot firmly planted in reality despite their fantasy settings. The people in those movies seemed like real people, and their problems like real problems. The plots, though fantastical, made perfect sense within the worlds they've created. Although it may seem like a trivial thing to point out in a children’s movie, Ponyo to be blunt is just nonsensical. For instance Soscay's mother, Leslie show's an alarming lack of concern for her five year old son who she leaves at home during a flood so bad it leaves her entire home town under water. Not only does she leave him there, but not once did she seem to worry about his safety. Miyazaki is famous for his incredible portrayal of realistic strong, independent women in his movies, so it’s a real shame that Leslie didn't a) have a bigger role in the film, or b) act all that realistic once the second act began. She's an extremely likeable and well-crafted character at the beginning of the film, but somewhere along the way it seems the writers forgot about her and just used whatever excuse they could to get Soscay and Ponyo alone together. Again, this may sound trivial considering it IS a children's movie, but again I would like to point out this isn't just ANY children's movie, it’s a MIYAZAKI children's movie, and that normally means it’s a family movie that everyone can enjoy. It also seems to me that the characters of Soscay and Ponyo could have been used better had they been a bit older. The plot centers around Soscay needing to love Ponyo in order to bring balance to the world (or something), but creating a love story like this around two five year olds just seems odd. Creating a love story between two young adults, ala Castle in the Sky, would have been more credible and would have made the stakes more real.

I just don't see many adults enjoying this film, or at least not enjoying it in the way they might enjoy Spirited Away or Castle in the Sky with their children. Don't let my negative tone fool you into thinking I didn't like Ponyo, by its own merits it’s a good movie and certainly better than the trash most children's films are these days. Hence the positive rating. But I come to expect a bit more than just good from Miyazaki, which may not be fair I know, but when a director has such a consistent record of excellence, when I get merely good it’s a bit of a letdown.

So if you’re going to see Ponyo, and you’re over the age of say sixteen, watch it with a kid. Any kid. I guarantee they will love it, and you'll get a kick out of watching them love it.

Replay value; moderate.

Last Exile is one of those shows with an amazing premise, some strong characters, good action, and an interesting lore and world for a story to take place in. Anime is a genra for strong imaginations, and Last Exile has that in spades, from the world the series is set in to the weapons of war which its nations use. So why only three stars? By all appearances LE has all the trappings of a great show, and has gathered quite the following, and for good reason. Don’t let my rating fool you, this is a good show which a lot of people will ... enjoy. It’s not one of those clearly overrated pieces of trash which I love to bash into (looking at you Elfen Lied) but it does have its share of flaws which, to me, held the show back considerably from living up to its full potential.

The premise is quite simple, deceptively so even. There are few animes out there which have managed to grab my attention so early, yet lose it so quickly. Dusis and Anatore, two powerful superpowers who dominate what little land is left inhabitable on the planets surface, are at war. To open the series viewers are treated to a gripping opening scene of two fleets of enormous flying battle ships “sailing” side by side, as teams of worthless riflemen fire at one another from ship to ship. Right off the bat the idiocy of the politics in this world are brought to light (and I mean that as a compliment); the riflemen on board serve no useful purpose, they can’t sink the enemy ship, they are never used for boarding either, are simply forgotten about after their numbers start to dwindle. They really are not good for anything except catching bullets, yet the captains of these enormous battleships insist on sacrificing them by the hundreds in order to fulfill a sense of chivalry, and “obey the rules of war” as it were. We are thrust into the boots of one lonely foot soldier, huddling afraid in the bowls of the ship as they prepare to open the doors and march out into the line of fire. It is a truly harrowing setting that reminded me not only of the battle formations made famous by Napoleon, but also of the charges across no man’s land in WWI. The riflemen fighting all know that their chances of survival are slim, and they know how pointless their sacrifice really is, but they march into the line of fire anyway prepared to give their lives away. It presents a very antiwar message, while also treating audiences to a very beautiful battle scene. Of all the things Last Exile got right, the opening is high amongst them.

Then there are our two main characters, Clause and Lavi who are two orphaned children who’ve taken up Vanship piloting as a means to support themselves (a Vanship being a sort of airplane with anti-gravity technology of the same kind the battleships use). Of all the characters in the show, early Lavi is my favorite (and there’s a big difference between early Lavi and late Lavi). She’s a confident, strong, take charge type of characters with a very close relationship to her best friend, Clause. The reason I liked her most I guess is because out of all of them she seemed the most believable. Whereas other characters go around doing stupid things to save girls in distress Lavi early on makes it clear she wants nothing to do with the dangerous missions Clause gets them into. This may seem selfish to some, but it’s also the most realistic portrayal in the series. Why should she want to risk her life for a mission she cares nothing about, or people she’s never met? No one else seems to have a problem with doing just that, so Lavi’s reluctance stood out in stark contrast to the sometimes baffling illogical decisions some of the characters make. But more on that later.

While taking part of a race in their home town Lavi and Clause unwittingly rescue a young girl name Ai (at least that was her name in the sub I watched) and become mixed in with a plot to destroy The Guild, an almost supernaturally powerful organization which controls the technology to all flight. After an all too brief battle with a Guild starship (literally planes that look like stars) they end up on the legendary Battleship Sylivanna captioned by the personality less Captain Alex, his love struck second in command Sophia, and his head fighter pilot the emotionally unbalanced Tatiana and her (supposedly) lesbian lover. Okay, that last part isn’t really said outright, but it did give me that vibe. When Clause and Lavi deliver Ai to the Sylivanna, which was their mission from the start, Clause for some reason suddenly distrusts the crew and decides Ai needs rescuing.

And this, in my opinion, is where the show starts to fall apart. See, Clause from the very beginning has no reason to think Ai is in any danger, or that she needs rescuing. In fact the Sylivanna crew just saved Ai from being killed, and were taking her on board their ship for protection. Sure, one of the men handles her kind of roughly, but he’s quickly scolded by the Captain for doing so. Despite doing exactly it was he was supposed to do, IE delivering this girl to the Sylivanna, Clause now thinks it a good idea to risk his life, and the life of his best friend, to rescue a girl he hardly knows from the very people he’d risked his life to deliver her to. For no reason.

It’s these kinds of lapses in logic that really hold the show back. Characters have little to no motivation to do half of what they do (especially Clause). What’s more, their goals and what little motivations they do have are in a state of constant flux, changing from episode to episode. For instance Moran, the rifle man from the beginning of the show, decides after the opening battle to quit his job as a rifleman. This makes sense considering the dire circumstances under which we were introduced to this character. However when they make him a mechanic on the Sylivanna all he does is reminisce about the “good old days” when he served as a rifleman before actually going back to the job he’d made such a big deal about leaving. Why does he want to go back? What is so terrible about being a mechanic on a ship where his captain doesn’t useless sacrifice his men? The people he works with are all really cool people, his commanders are descent, and there’s very little danger compared to his previous job. So what’s the problem, Moran?

Now let’s use Clause as another example. First he wants to bring Ai to the Sylivanna, but then he wants to rescue her from it. Then he doesn’t want to rescue her, he wants to keep her safe. But then it’s not about keeping her safe anymore, it’s about “seeing what’s in these skies” or some other nonsense like that. What’s the end result of all this? Characters who have no idea what they are doing, why they are doing it, or what they wish to accomplish. This is the main problem with the show.

Now to touch on what the show does well. The lore and backstory to Last Exile is really quite interesting. It does a really good job in creating a mystery for the viewers to try to piece together with what little info is given us. What is Exile? What does it do? Hoe does Ai play into all this? How is it that the Guild manages to hold such a stranglehold on the world? Last Exile does not reveal too much too early, which gives us the satisfaction of piecing the mystery together as we go along. But the real treats are the battle scenes. Fleets of huge floating battleships flying through the clouds as they fire their enormous cannons at one another. The battles in this series are some of the best I’ve seen. If only the show had more battle scenes and less bipolar characters I might be able to justify a higher rating. I also found the tech to be extremely fun. It’s a steampunk show, so you already know the general idea, but they use it in such inventive ways (such as a giant listening device that acts like a sonar).

The animation, though passible, is nothing to write home about. It’s really quite dull and colorless. A lot of browns, blacks, grey’s, more grey, dark grey, white, greyish brown, you get the idea. A little more color might have helped to liven things up a little bit. The music as well I found underwhelming. There are times I found the music to be quite inappropriate for the scene, in fact, and in other cases it was simply too loud. It’s not very often that the music actually manages to detract from the overall experience, but I found this the case for Last Exile.

So what’s the final verdict? Though I can fully understand why people love this show so much, personally I didn’t find it to be all that impressive. The world was interesting, the battles were awesome, and the tech was inventive, but the most important aspect of any story, the characters, just didn’t resonate with me. They were too bipolar, too wishy washy, too prone to doing dangerous things for unexplained reasons. The pacing was also quite dull; I honestly think they could have made this into a 13 episode series and it would have been the better for it. There weren’t 26 episodes worth of story to tell, so it just seemed to drag at times.

Will I recommend you see it? You betcha. It’s a classic anime series which I think most fans of the genra owe it to themselves to see at least once. Will I recommend that you buy it? Well for that the answer is no, especially at the inflated prices anime DVD’s go for. It’s a good show with many high points and positives that many people will find enjoyable. I personally didn’t, but that does not mean you will not.

Replay value; medium.

This show is very interesting if you have the patience and attention span to go through it from beginning to end. warning, if you like Akira (Special Edition) (yuck) Ninja Scroll (yuck) or any of those super action sex filled movies and shows that have someone dieing every two minutes, you might as well skip this show as no one dies, no one gets their arms cut off, and there are no explosions during the entire 13 episode series, which is just fine with me but may turn the more superficial anime fans off.

the story is mostly about a young Haibane (pronounced Hi-ba-nA) named Rakka ... who is a new born Haibane who is trying to figure out her place in the world she lives in. the Haibane are an angelic race with seeming less useless wings and halos that hover over their heads making look like biblical angles, but other than appearances, these creatures have almost nothing in common with the angelic being of the bible; instead they act and look just like normal human beings just with a different set of rules and pasts. Nobody really knows what they are, or where they came from, but each has an uneasy feeling that they don't belong, that they came from somewhere else before becoming Haibane. This sense of unease is what drives Rakka for most of the beginning of the series. She tries very hard to figure out who she was, where she came from, and why she is now a Haibane. Sadly, the answers never come to her, but we are given some rather depressing hints on what she was before.

So what is this series about really? What is the plot? Well, that's a little hard to explain. Its not so much what this story is about, it's who it is about. The plot is almost none existent in the first half of the series, and even when it gets more involved it's not really that interesting. No, the plot is not what makes this story good in any way, it's the characters. Each character is very likable and sympathetic. There is no "bad guy" in this series, and there are no "heroes" either. Each character here is a person, with a unique personality and view on life. Each has their own quirks, fears, likes and dislikes. Each is as real as a fictional character can be, and I applauded the writers of this show for achieving this. The depression Rakka goes through half way though the series when she looses her friend is very real, as well as Reki's fear and loneness at the end. They are so real that when they went though pain of any kind, no matter how much or how little, I felt my heart break for them. I felt pain when Rakka's wings burst though her back, I felt sad when a character left, I felt lonely when one of the characters was alone, afraid when they were afraid. So in short, this story isn't really about anything in particular, it's about people. The begining of the series is mostly just a set up, but trust me, once Rakka's wings start turning black, it gets very dramatic.

The animation reminded me a lot of Full Mettle Alcamist and Serial Experiments Lain - Boxed Set (Signature Series). I've never seen a lot of Alcamist, but the backgrounds are very similar, and there is a striking resemblance between Lain from Serial Experiments Lain, and Rakka from this series. Both look young, alone, innocent. The character designs are a notch above average. They aren't eye candy but they do go above a lot of amines I've seen before, and no two characters look alike which makes remember their names a lot easier. The backgrounds are really the eye candy here. It's simply beautiful. I've always love scenery shots of green meadows, or large forests, or a windmill rotating in a gentle breeze. This show is chuck full of such shots. Once again, if you're looking for large cities and fancy sci fi machines, look elsewhere, this show isn't for you. You'd probably just end up being board.

However, it isn't' perfect. There are some things that really got on my nerves. The first thing is that there aren't any male leads. There aren't any dudes in this series. The biggest male role in this whole series doesn't show up until half way though the series and play a lack luster role at that. He shows up on screen at most ten times in thirteen episodes, and even then most of the time he's there for a whopping 1 to 3 minutes. As much as I love female anime characters, there needs to be a guy playing a main role in there somewhere just to get a little bit of a different perspective. They try to make up for this by making two of the girls tomboys, but I'm sorry, tomboys, although cool, do not count as guys. One of these tomboys, Kuu, only dresses like a boy but acts like any other girl. The other, Kana, I actually mistook for a boy at first because she acted so much like a boy her age would, but sadly she turned out to be a girl after all. All I'm asking for is to have a male lead here, instead of just a bunch of girls. Is that so bad? this series could have very easily tuned into just another chick flick, but managed to stray away from that by refusing to be a romance (thank god for that).

The dub may not be the best dub in the world, certainly not up to par with Lain or Kino's Journey - The Idle Adventurer (Vol. 1), but it is passable for the most part. There were times when Rakka's super (and I do mean super) soft voice just annoyed the hell out of me, but most of the time I didn't really notice. The other characters voices were good, especially Kana's, who stole the show with her constant attack on the crows that scavenged though their trash. As for the dialog, the middle part of the series had some really cheesy moments, but only a few, but they were pretty bad. Other than that, it was mostly real and believable.

This show isn't about action and it isn't sci fi. It's a character drama. Its really hard to compare it to other anime when the only other hard character drama's I've seen are Now and Then, Here and There (Complete Collector's Boxed Set) and Grave of the Fireflies (Collector's Edition), and this series has none of the horridness situations, nor the anti war themes of those two anime's. If I had to compare it to something, I'd say it has more in common with Miyazaki's Spirited Away than anything else but it's really different at the same time.

So, if you are looking for a drama with characters you can love and sympathize with and don't mind a slower pace and lack of action, by all means, pick this baby up and enjoy. but, and I've given you people fare warning, if you are an action junky who needs someone killed or something blowing up every ten minutes just to keep you watching, SKIP THIS SERIES!! I guarantee you, you will not like it. To truly enjoy this series, you have to be able to pay attention to the characters and their emotions because when it comes right down to this, this series is all about them, not you.

Replay value; high.

Barefoot Gen is at the same time a compelling visual of the horrors of war and a cheesy soap opera; a devastating tale of courage and survival and a badly written one dimensional flick. Gen can be seen as the polar opposite of the epic masterpiece Grave of the Fireflies, for although they deal with similar subjects the way they go about doing it are completely different in both style and quality. Where Fireflies focuses on the small picture, one brother trying to care for his litter sister, Gen is bent upon showing the "big picture" of the war, the devastation that it brought upon ... the whole country. The difference is that in Gen, to get the desired emotional response they had to kill over 200,000 people, and when the mass deaths stopped so did the films quality; in Graves they only had to kill one, and that one death was more meaningful and more heartbreaking then all the millions of deaths in Barefoot Gen.

Gen is an energetic ten years old boy, living with his pregnant mother, his pacifist father, his overbearing older sister (about fourteen) and his loyal disciple, Shinji, whose maybe six years old. The war with America hasn't yet reached them in Hiroshima; they have food shortages, and every now and then they are rudely awakened by air raid sirens, but other than these inconveniences they are able to live their lives without the threat of being killed on a daily basis. But their mother is getting sicker, and baby in her womb is in danger of dying. Gen and Shinji take it upon themselves to find good, healthy food for her to eat. The movie is a feel good, heartwarming story about family trying its best to live their lives while their country falls apart around them; that is until August 6, 1945. On that fateful day Gen is on his way to school when he glances into the sky and sees a lonely B-29, the sun reflecting off its wings, flying overhead. A young girl beside him comments on how strange it is to see an American bomber all alone. Gen drops a pebble and bends down to pick it up; a moment later the sky turns white, a thunderous boom splits the air, and Gen looks on in horror as the girl who, seconds before, stood beside him took the full force of the atomic blast, her eyes melting out of their sockets, her skin instantly turning charcoal grey, skin peeling off her arms and legs. The visuals of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima is almost enough to make me a pacifist, its devastation so real and unquestionably brutal that only a heartless monster could watch it and not think about how evil war is. It’s all too much for anyone with a weak stomach; a small girl instantly turning into a skeletal; a baby suckling on the breasts of its already dead mother; a young boy trapped beneath the weight of his own home, screaming, pleading, for his mother to save him before the atomic fires burn him to death. A dead infant in its mothers arms; zombiefied children, transformed by the radioactive fire, shambling about in the ruble, their eyes and skin melted away, seeking out the relief of water and drowning to death once they find it. Gen survives by sheer luck, but his family isn't so fortunate. The death and sorrow of these twenty minutes of film are almost unsurpassed in film, anime or otherwise.

Unfortunately once the initial shock of the bomb subsides the weaknesses of the film return in full force, driving the memory of those twenty minutes away and forcing the viewer to suffer though another hour of bad writing, bad acting, and an overall bad war commentary. No attempt is made to make Gen into a rich, three dimensional character; he serves as a plot tool only, the eyes though which we are shown the devastation of the war, but little more. The film takes the most illogical plot turns, and the characters act and speak in ways that will make most people scratch their heads in confusion. When the filmmakers realize this, they kill someone else off, but this time the emotional impact is more like a cheesy soap opera then anything else.

Barefoot Gen is simply the cartoony version of Grave of the Fireflies. It is in every way Graves’s inferior, in animation, music, character development and plot, it fails in every way to match the creative guineas of Ghiblis classic film. Those who have never seen Graves might find this a breath of fresh air, but to those who have Gen will be nothing more than a cheap imitation, void of the same life and warmth which resonated so well with Graves. If not for the twenty minutes of death and suffering, this film would be nothing more than a bad war movie.

Film one; 3/5.
Film 2; 2/5.
Overall; 2.5/5. Rounded to three.

Replay value; low.

(Quotes are paraphrasing, not exact wording).

Welcome to the Social Welfare Agency, a top secret part of the Italian government which, despite its name, has absolutely nothing to do with the Social Welfare of the nation’s people. Instead, this agency deals with terrorists, the mob, and other such criminal organizations, by assassinating their leaders.

Now meet Harrietta, possibly the cutest little girl in the world, trained by the government to be the perfect killing machine, a weapon of war and destruction, a tool and nothing more. She is the perfect weapon, skilled in her trade, unquestionably devoted to her handler, Josay, able to go unnoticed because ... of her innocent and harmless appearance. After her parents were brutally murdered she was taken in by the Agency, her memory wiped clean, her organic body replaced with cyborg parts making her very much like Darth Vader from “Star Wars” or the Major from “Ghost in the Shell”. She is a tool to be used and disposed of when her usefulness is done, but at the same time she is still the little girls she once was.

Gunslinger Girl is a show that I’ve been meaning to see for some time now. I’ve known about it since I started watching anime two years ago, but not until now have I had a chance to actually sit down and watch it. I thought I’d like it, after all sad and depressing anime’s like “Now and Then, Here” and There” and “Grave of the Fireflies” are among my all time favorites, but I had no idea how completely amazed I’d be with it.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way; this is one shockingly grotesque show. Think about it, it’s about little girls, some maybe as young as ten, being transformed from cute little school children into coldly efficient killing machines. Is there anything more disturbing then seeing a little pre adolescent girl wielding a machine gun and killing at will dozens of people? Is there anything sadder then said girl pleading to be allowed to do so again?
“I know I’ve only killed six people this month, but last month I killed at least twenty, so can’t I come back to work?”

Although this show relies on its action and disturbing content early on to draw the viewer into the story, it doesn’t dwell on it throughout the shows entirety. It isn’t about the gun slinging at all, it’s about the gunslingers and their handlers. None of the characters are wasted, especially the cyborg girls, each of whom received adequate detail to their characters and plenty of history. Herrietta, Triela, Ricko, Clide, Angelica, even the reclusive and barley mentioned Elsa (who looks a lot like Sara from “Now and Then, Here and There”) were treated with just enough love and care to make their characters more then killing machines and into confused, emotional, and caring little girls simply doing their best to please those they love and feel needed. Their stories are the real meaning for this shows existence. One was born paralyzed; another was nearly killed by her parents who needed the insurance money. One by one their stories unfold. Each character has at least one episode devoted to them with Harrietta acting as the sometimes silent, sometimes active observer. Unlike other shows which try this approach, such as “Air TV”, these characters aren’t dropped once they’ve produced the desired emotional effect. They all have a part to play in this story; each one relies on the others in order for the show to move forward. They need each other. But despite the attention to detail put into each character, in the end its Harrietta’s story. She is the common denominator which glues the characters and events to one another.

Where the emotional stories lie exclusively with the cyborg girls, the moral, ethical, and philosophical dilemmas are for the “handlers,” the men whose job it is to raise, train, supervise, and care for the girls, to deal with, and they are as different from one another as the girls they train. Josay, Harrietta’s handler, feels guilty about the dehumanizing conditioning the girls are forced to go though and tries his best to alleviate that guilt by trading Harrietta as a little sister. He takes her on vacations to the Italian countryside, buys her expensive gifts, and tries his best to have her act as if she were a normal little girl. But deep down he knows that he, and the agency he serves, is merely using her as a tool; a means to an end. He deals with this guilt more and more as Herrietta’s affection and emotional attachment to him grow stronger. He is a man torn between his duty and his love and affection for her.

Other handlers deal with their girls very differently. Some act cold and menacing towards their girls in order to instill fear and discipline, others simply treat then as if they were machines.
“They’re cool and all; they can get you a soda if you ask them to, but it doesn’t go beyond that to me.”
No matter what the approach they take, the girls always develop a strong emotional attachment to their handlers and desire their affection above all else, with devastating consequences sometimes.

The animation in this show may not be flashy, but it’s more then adequate for a show of this nature. The battle scenes are done extremely well, as one would expect, as well as the stunning scenery of Italy. The characters are drawn as cute as possible to make their actions all the more shocking. The music isn’t worth making a big deal out of. Although the background music serves its purpose and sets the mood very effectively, it isn’t something to listen to by itself. It’s rather simplistic. The opening and closing songs are likewise less then noteworthy.

Gunslinger Girl is not a show to be missed. Although it is very much like Ghost in the Shell in regards to the philosophical questions it raises, the depth of its characters and the attention to detail the creators put into making them is well worth the time, energy, and money. It may not be the best anime ever made, but it certainly is one of them. Good to see a depressing anime that doesn’t drop the ball at the end.

Questions to ponder while watching.
1. Is Josay, Harrietta’s handler, a moral person? Is his using Harrietta as a tool negated by the fact that he tries to make her happy? If he makes Harrietta happy, is he still acting immorally by using her, as the agencies pawn, as a tool?
2. Are the girls really human? If so, then why? What is it that makes them still human beings?
3. Do the ends justify the means? Does the fact that the agency uses these girls to foil potential terrorist plots which could kill innocent people make it right to use these girls as tools and weapons?

Replay value; High.

Few movies I've seen can bring me to the brink of tears, and only a handful of those can actually haunt me days after seeing them. Grave of the Fireflies is one of those rare movies I've seen that did this to me. Very few films have EVER made me feel as bad as this one did. Try to think of the saddest movie you've ever seen, Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition), Saving Private Ryan (Widescreen Two-Disc Special Edition), anything, and this movie blows it out of the water. This film has the power to devastate you, to move you, to bring you to the brink ... of tears and then push you over into a chaotic world. This is Grave of the Fireflies.

Set during the last days of WWII, while the US Air Force was fire bombing Japanese cities, Grave of the Fireflies is a movie about a young boy named Sata and his little four year old sister Setsico. When their mother is killed in the firebombing of Tokyo Sata is forced to care for his little sister in a nation ripped apart by war and famine. With his father far away serving in the Japanese navy, Sata is the only one who can care for his sister. The love shared between these two siblings is something that will forever leave an impression on me. As an older brother myself I could very easily put myself into Sata's situation. His need to give his sister the very best he can while not being able to provide for her is a very real feeling.

There are no heroes in this film, and there are no villains. Sata and Setsico are no heroes; the only heroic things they do throughout the movie are love and take care of one another. And, their aunt, although harsh and unfair, is no villain. At the same time neither side of the war, American or Japanese, is portrayed in a negative light. This is not a war movie and doesn't exist to condemn one side or the other. This is a movie about two orphan children trying to survive while the society they grew up in crumbles to dust around them.

Many critics of this movie complain about how annoying little Setsico is. Yes, I can admit, sometimes Setsico can be annoying, but really, what little girl isn't? She's a child, and children can't understand everything that's going on around them. Setsico doesn't understand that there is a war going on and that she can not have everything that she wants, she doesn't understand that Sata is killing himself trying to provide for her. As an older brother I find it absurd when people complain about how annoying little brothers/sisters can act in movies without even realizing that siblings are annoying in real life. Sata is no different. if you read this review, please leave a comment.

A major letdown from the supposed 'Next Miyazaki'

I was skeptical about the assertion that Makoto Shinkai was the next Miyazaki, and although I really liked he two previous works, Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, I could not bring myself to lavish him with such high praise until he made a movie that blew me away and that would become an instant favorite. It would seem that I made a wise decision. Miyazaki is undoubtedly one of the greatest anime directors to ever live, and his films (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) rival those of any genera, animation or ... otherwise. He's been said to be on par with Disney, but that is a lie. Miyazaki is BETTER then Disney. So obviously I'm always skeptical to people comparing an up and coming director to Miyazaki.

I watched Shinkai's carrier with great interest from his debut film Voices of a Distant Star to this new film. His strong suits have always been animation and music. No anime director I've ever seen can create such beautiful animation as he, and few can combine such stunning and magnificent animation with just the right music to set the tone and take his viewers far away to walk the snow covered streets along side the characters. He's great at this, but for all that talent he also has a critical flaw to his style which makes his movies miss their full potential; he has no idea what pacing means. Being only 23 minutes long, Voices was paced very well and never had a dull moment, but the follow up Places, being full length, was paced so badly it made me want to skip large portions of the film so I could see some more beautiful landscaping. If the animation and music weren't so great, I doubt so many people would love that movie so much, even though I personally gave it 4 stars.

But now, with his third film, I expected him to have found away around that weakness and create a film that wasn't just visually beautiful, but also well paced as well. Well sorry, but he hasn't done it, and my patience with him is wearing thin. In this three part film Tonoo and Akari are best friends in grade school who spend all their free time with one another, but as they grow up they slowly drift apart, contacting one another at first through letters and then falling out of contact altogether. It is, surprise, surprise, another romance. This would not have been a problem if this new film didn't seem like a carbon copy of Voices and Places, especially places. Guy and girl fall in love at an early age, guy and girl drift apart as life goes on and they grow up, guy and girl never get over each other and miss the other, guy and girl sit awake in their rooms all night thinking about the other, guy and girl never see each other again. If you've seen Places you can pretty much see everything that’s coming. There are no surprises here, just gooey romance.

It’s a real disappointment to see an animator with so much promise get bogged down in these silly romances again and again and again. Voices was good, Places was as well, but Shinkai always tells the same exact story. Its not that he likes telling a certain kind of story, it’s that he likes telling only ONE kind of story, every single time. Get a grip man; make something a little more original. Its bad enough that his pacing is so bad but why even bother making new movies when you’re just going to tell old stories again and again and again? If this is all Shinkai has to offer then it’s not worth my time seeing every film he comes up with.

The animation, as always, is brilliant. I just don't know how much more I can gush over his amazing art. I've been saying this since Voices, but his three films are THE BEST animated films I've ever seen, and I've seen my fair share. Unfortunately this film is missing something; the music. Both his previous films have amazing musical scores that made the film just that much better. I never fail to catch myself humming their main themes after watching them without even noticing. Well I'm not going to end up humming these tunes, that’s for sure. For one thing there wasn't enough BGM to begin with, and what little there is was just a remix of old themes. But the biggest disappointment was the ending song. It’s just not pretty; I'm sorry, but Japanese isn't the most beautiful language to listen to. The ending song was nowhere near beautiful, in fact I found myself turning the volume down and playing a song of my own instead. If they had only play "Don't Say Goodbye" from Skillets album Comatose then it would have been the greatest scene ever (trust me, listen to the song and watch the scene and you'll see what I mean).

So no, this is not the next Miyazaki, not even close if this film is any indication. I don't think I've ever given a Miyazaki film less then 4 stars, he is far and away the most consistent director I've ever watched, so if Shinkai can't pull it off after three tries I think its an unfair comparison.

Replay value; low.

***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***

Don't you absolutely HATE it when you find a movie online with an absolutely irresistible plot that's almost too amazing to be bad, and then see it only to realize the person who made it had no artistic talent whatsoever? I don't know about you, but it happens to me a lot, and all I can think when finished is how much better I could have made it.

A Wind Named Amnesia is one of those kinds of movies. Set in 1999, six years after the movies original release, humanity has been completely devastated by a mysterious wind which blows across the world, ... wiping clean the memories of every person on the planet. In an instant every bit of knowledge we as a species have gained over the course of millions of years is gone, even our language and family ties are severed in the chaos that follows. Planes fall from the sky as pilots forget how to operate their aircraft, cars crash, the world burns. In an instant the thriving civilization we've created is reduced to rubble and its creators to bloody savages who poses nothing but their most basic and unexplainable instincts.

Wataru is just another helpless victim to this terrifying disaster; alone and starving he stumbles upon an old military facility where he meets the one person left alive that retains some memories. His name is Johnny, a genetically enhanced boy whose brain acts as a super computer which allows him to function like a normal human. Johnny teaches Wataru as much as he can and sends him on a journey across a deserted world to observe the human being in its most basic state and find what it is that drives us. Is it pleasure? Life? Power? With the protection of civilization stripped from us what is it that will motivate us to act?

A Wind Named Amnesia is has a lot in common with Kino's Journey - The Complete Collection. The main character, Wataru, travels across America in a jeep with a strange women he meets in Los Angles. There are about three different mini stories within the film giving it the feel of a much longer show. It was have been a lot more interesting had it been an actual show, or at least an OVA. There is simply too much potential for this story to be packed into a two hour movie and it often felt rushed and jumped around far too much. One second their sitting at the Lincoln Memorial discussing life the next their in New Your City running from a killer robot. It was just too fast and way too ill conceived to make a satisfying film. The entire journey through the Midwest and from Washington to NYC is skipped completely leaving the viewer wondering just what happened. Weren't they just in Las Vegas? What are they doing in DC? Very, very annoying.

When I first saw this plot line my first thought was "I have GOT to see this movie" and can you blame me? I mean really, is this not one of the best ideas for a sci fi film ever? If this film had been made by someone with even an ounce of creativity then it would have been great, but NOOOO! Whoever did this film is, quite frankly, a moron and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word.

The beginning of the film was pretty good when the Amnesia Wind blew in and the world collapsed in chaos and confusion. I'll admit it was more then a little bit bone chilling, but that's about the only good thing I can say about the film. So for pros we have amazing idea, and a good beginning. So now lets get to the cons.

First off, the main characters. I've seen my share of bad anime characters, and while this lifeless bunch may not be the worst I've ever seen, their far worst then average. If the film had been plot driven I may have been able to forgive this flaw to an extent, but as good as the plot is they decided instead to make the film character driven. Wataru himself is your stereotypical male lead from any old anime film. I you've been watching anime for a while you'll know his type; young, handsome, impulsive, moralistic, and extremely stupid. In his defense he's still smarter then the mindless cannibals running around, but by our standards he's dumb as a brick. Oh I'm not talking about his lack of knowledge, I can certainly understand why he doesn't know a lot of things, I'm talking about his lack of common sense. Really, who gives a gun to a cannibalistic savage? You guessed it, Wataru does. Yeah stupid, nets just wait until he decides to turn it on his little tribe.

Sophie, his companion, isn't much better, and neither are any of the supporting casts, such as they were made up of mostly crazies. More stereotypes.

The biggest disappointment though was that the plot was barely fleshed out. The film got bogged down in these silly mini stories that it lost focus on the overall theme of the film. What is humanity? What drives us to do what we do? How would a world such as this look like? Wataru starts out on a journey to discover answers philosophers have been arguing about for centuries but gives up quickly saying "it's too complicated for me." You have got to be kidding me. A film with so much promise to dig deep into the human mind and really examine what it is to be human and they decide to make it about car chases and scantly clad women. Give. Me. A. Brake. Like I said, no imagination.

SPOILERS.
And don't even get me started on the end. It wasn't that big of a shocker to figure out aliens were responsible for the amnesia and that Sophie was one of them, but when she tells him (Wataru) that her people destroyed the world and might not give them back their memories he just sat there. Didn't get mad, didn't want to kill her or rip her head off, just asked why and when she told him they don't even know he just sat there. *sigh* how unrealistic. And then the, uhh, love scene at the end was completely unnecessary, not to mention random and unexpected. I'm telling you it came out of absolutely nowhere as if the creators just wanted to "spice it up" a little bit. It was stupid, didn't add anything at all to the film, and was out of place. Bad idea.

I'm a sucker for apocalyptic films such as this; unfortunately though most turn out to be pretty awful, this one included. Two stars for an interesting idea and a good beginning and nothing else. Beginning good, middle bad, ending HORRIBLE!

Replay value; VERY low.

I had mixed feelings about this show after I finished watching it last night; on one hand it isn't a perfect series and has some really obvious flaws that kept popping up over and over again. On the other hand those flaws seemed rather insignificant when compared to the overall quality of the show. Docking this show a star because of those flaws almost felt like taking a star away from Cowboy Bebop because ED was an unrealistic character. I mean, who cares?

Beck is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen. Apart from Cowboy Bebop I don't think I've ever seen an ... anime that was as much fun as this one was. It has a lot in common with Bebop in fact; both share similar strengths (although Bebop doesn't really have a weakness and Beck does), namely great characters and soundtrack.

Kyukee is a middle school boy meandering through life without a sense of purpose. He, like many his age, lacks anything to be passionate about or any real hope for the future. That all changes one day when he runs into an ugly mutt named Beck and his owner, Ryuskee, who introduces him to the world of rock and teaches him how to play guitar. From that point on Kyukee is a driven young man who spends his every waking moment honing his skills. Ryuskee meanwhile has just broken up with his old band and is on the lookout to form the perfect band. The end result is Beck, or the Mongolian Chop Squad as it's known in America.

The music is far and away the best part about this show. If Beck were a real band, I'd probably be a fan, and you can bet that I'm going to buy the soundtrack for this show. From the soft melody "Full Moon Rises" to more hardcore rocker songs like "Typhoon" (which was a bit silly with its whole "Typhoon twenty four, twenty four seven" lines but it sounded great) almost every song is amazing; which helps disguise the limited animation it had. It even defeats Bebops jazz music, a shocker I know considering how amazing Bebops music is, but I honestly think Beck has it beat, at least if you like rock music. Otherwise I'd skip this show completely. This is a show you'll want to watch in English, and trust me the dub is as great as any show out there. The mouths don't match the words when their singing (so it's like watching a Godzilla movie almost) but that's a small price to pay for the great music you'll get.

At times during the show it annoyed me that when the bands were playing they wouldn't play the whole song and would stop them mid way through. Well don't let this bother you too much because each volume has its own music video with the complete song just for your listening pleasure.

Along with the music the characters are the second best part of this show, with my favorite being the lead singer, Cheeva. No matter what kind of person you are there will be someone in this show you'll be able to love. Tiara the bass player who's really quiet and introspective, the crazy and charming older friend to Kyukee (sorry, can't remember his name right now), it doesn't matter; most of the main characters are great. But there is also a problem with the characters; there are too many and lots of them don't play any special role or add anything to the overall story. Many characters that are important in the opening volumes suddenly disappear later on, leaving the viewers wondering just what happened to them. A lot of back story is put into some of these characters and a lot if time is invested into them only to have them dropped completely. Izumi is a good example. During the first volume she serves as a love interest for Kyukee and takes up a lot of time, which led me to think she would play an important role during the rest of the show. That wasn't the case however. After the second volume she only made one more brief appearance and its one of those blink and you'll miss it kind of deals. Another character that didn't make much sense was Hiro, who apparently was yet ANOTHER love interest for Kyukee, to go along with Izumi and Mahoo (Ryuskee's younger sister who's also fourteen). Her character didn't do anything during the show, didn't make the main characters grow at all, and really didn't do anything, and yet a lot of time is invested into her. Why? Why bother dropping an already well established character and introducing anther one? Some characters play really important roles yet only show up a handful of times; others play an insignificant role and yet show up almost every episode. Now what's the deal with that?

Also one more oddity I found was the age of all the characters. Kyukee is only fourteen years old at the beginning of the show, while the older members of the band are sixteen, and yet there is no sign of any parents, they act as if they were much older, and are even allowed into bars. The absence of parents was a bit unusual because you'd hear Kyukee's mother all the time and yet you'd never actually see her and she'd never do anything. She never even went to hear him sing. This was probably done on purpose but it was still a bit weird. If all the characters involved were just two years older all those problems would have been solved, but as it was I couldn't help but remember that even the most mature characters in this show are three years younger then me.

It might sound like I didn't like the show, but I really did and it's probably one of my favorites, but I have to point out its flaws for those thinking about buying it. It's a great show, with amazing music and some really great characters. It's very similar to Bebop in so many ways, and yet has some flaws that I could not ignore. Overall it's a great show though and I could not recommend it enough.

Pros.
-Great rock music.
-Some really interesting characters.
-The best dub since Cowboy Bebop.
-Very funny at times.

Cons.
-Characters are too young, there are too many of them, and many great ones are dropped while the bad ones are kept on.

Replay Value; EXTREMELY high.