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Aug 20, 2023
I must be the only person out there who went into this not knowing or expecting this to be an ecchi manga (I have no idea how I didn't catch on), and yet... I'm still here, still reading, and still very much enjoying it!
While the plot does generally seem to exist for the purpose of the ecchi content, I actually ended up really invested in it. I really love the concept of the magical girl villain as the protagonist of the story and while there's a ton of characters who only exist as vehicles for, erm, sexy stuff/situations, Utena and Haruka (and later the rest
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of Tres Magia) are especially endearing and genuinely interesting characters to follow.
Since it's a vehicle for ecchi, the plot is definitely stretched thin - it's there and it's good but there's a lot of ecchi to sift through, so if you're really not into ecchi then it might not be your thing, but I personally find it quite enjoyable. Another thing to this manga's merit is the way in which it's sexy - it (probably) is meant for male readers but as a lesbian I still find a lot of charm to it. As another review points out, the sexiness often comes from the situations, and the characters' motivations, not just the actions on the page, or even the art itself. There's also a lot of kink stuff in there that is surprisingly accurate while still being a fantasy depiction of some really horny stuff, which is fun.
Additionally, while I don't think it was ever meant to be that deep, there are a lot of things in this manga that I personally see as an interesting exploration of sexual repression, and that's certainly made me enjoy it a lot more. Again, I don't think that was intentional, but it's to Mahoako's merit that there's room for readers like me to see such things.
I suppose my one yuck is the characters' ages but I've kind of learned to ignore it with ecchi manga and pretend everyone is an adult (and in its defence I suppose there ARE a lot of "noo, avert your eyes" jokes around the youngest character when a sexual situation arises, and she's never part of any of those situations herself so... that's something, at least).
All in all, is this a literary masterpiece? No, but it doesn't really have to be. It's ecchi, and for what it is it's fun, and cute, and actually engaging beyond just being sexy. If you're not into ecchi, maybe avoid, but if you are, I'd whole-heartedly recommend this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Jul 18, 2023
Disclaimer: I started writing this a few episodes into season 2, however my impressions of the show span the whole thing so they apply to this season too!
I saw the original Tokyo Mew Mew when I was about 11 as one of the very first anime I watched and it had me UTTERLY in its grip. Since then, as I grew up, I became more aware of just how cheesy it was and poked fun of it with the teenage/young adult sense of "ha ha, silly 11 year old me for liking something like this"... I wondered why I liked it so much.
Now, in my
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late 20s and without a preliminary rewatch, I decided to jump into the remake fairly blind for nostalgia's sake and I'm so pleasantly surprised! I can see clearly why I loved the original back in the day. Every aspect o the 2002 series that enthralled me all those years ago has come back to hit me in the face, and it may be saccharine and cheesy but I can't help but fall in love with it all over again.
I have no choice but to sink bank into the mindset of a pre-teen girl watching Tokyo Mew Mew New - and surely it's pre-teen girls that are intended to be watching.
The show feels more concise than its predecessor, and it's very charming indeed. While, as most magical girl series are prone to be, TMMN is somewhat a coming of age story, I'm now noticing just how much of a tween girl wish fulfilment fantasy it also is at its core. Each episode reveals something that I know I would have eaten up at 11 (and did!): from the cheesy romance and friendships, through the cute outfits, to the backdrops of each episode (11 year old me would have loved to be at a ball at sea), to the borderline harem of cute guys, and, oh, being a cat. Or was that one just me?
Additionally, one of the other significant changes I'm cognizant of is the main cast that isn't Ichigo. Each girl is a character in her own right and is made loveable and engaging to watch. You care about them. It's a change I really love, Tokyo Mew Mew New feels like a series about all five girls rather than just the one. And, even though Ichigo is still the main character, it's through loving her friends that we as a viewer can relate to her and the way she loves and cares about them. I'm excited to watch season 2 and see more of them all!
TMMN is by no means a perfect series. It's a magical girl show that has a fairly young audience to appeal to, but also the added weight of a dedicated older fanbase, and big shoes to fill. Personally, I think it does a great job of balancing those things. It's a great update that manages to keep all the charm of its source material while making it feel fresh and engaging. It's also, in my opinion, very pretty! Considering the 2002 Tokyo Mew Mew is what got me seriously into anime, TMMN had a lot to live up to for me and I'm delighted to say it's done damn well.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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May 19, 2023
Cobbled from my two Letterboxd reviews of the same:
I'm not a very good film reviewer. I really want to explain how I feel about Inu-Oh, but I'm not quite sure I have the words. Still, after catching the only screening of it in my town, I waited for the home video release then forced 15 people to sit down and watch it so I feel like I need to somehow articulate at least part of what I feel:
First things first, I'm a devotee of Yuasa's, so I might be biased. It's hard not to be. He has yet to let me down in any way,
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and while he says this project fell into his lap by chance, I literally cannot imagine anyone else doing it justice the way he has.
As an artist, Inu-Oh means so much to me personally. The first time I watched it I wept in the cinema several times. At first I cried because of the way animation itself is used - it's heartening and poignant and moving to see all this, when working professionally within animation's commercial side can make the medium feel so dead, especially when you know that it's an art form that can be so free. And then I kept crying, because it turns out Inu-Oh is, among many other things, a film ABOUT the freedom art offers. The freedom to have your story heard. The freedom to tell the stories of those whose voices have been suppressed. The freedom to define your own self. Freedom from what others have chosen for you, freedom from who or what others have decided you are. Freedom of expression.
And then I cried again because it's also about how threatening that freedom is to others, how dangerous it is to embrace, and what lengths people will go to to take it away from you.
It's about that, and about so much more.
Inu-Oh is many things. Among them, for me, it's a film to feel understood by, for those who may not often feel understood.
I could go into all the things I personally loved in terms of style, storytelling (Yuasa said F*** your three act structure), music, even casting, but I think that would require me to meticulously describe the entire film and it's not one that should be described, it should be seen, and heard, and felt. And maybe, if you're me, cried to.
I saved face this time because I was screening it for quite a large group, but I'm going to rewatch it by myself very soon and have a good cry.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 11, 2017
This is another film I saw at Annecy, and a considerable part of my review is going to focus mainly on the audience's reactions to it since I think they were pretty telling. I will also be reviewing this as a person who has not read the manga the film is adapted from.
I was fortunate enough to go to the very first screening of this film at the festival, which featured a short talk by Mr Katabuchi and, needless to say, the audience was very excited to watch the film. French isn't my best language but what I got from it was that Katabuchi believes
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younger generations in Japan don't realise how the war affected people, and it's perhaps likely that foreigners don't either (as a foreigner, I feel this is true of me). He felt that the original manga helped educate people about it through a very personal lens, by immersing them in and exploring how it affects the life of an ordinary woman from Hiroshima, and he hoped the film would do the same.
Well, that it certainly did. The film itself is slow, and beautifully so. The actual plot, as in most slice of life, is minimal. There is no big conflict to be resolved. Just life, and the war that affects it. And this was all extremely unnerving.
From the very beginning of the film, you could feel the tension in the theatre. We, as an audience, didn't all know about how the war affected individual Japanese people, but we all knew about the war, and certainly about what that meant for Hiroshima in particular. As the film progressed, and more and more time passed, the tension in the room grew stronger. People were, quite literally, at the edges of their seats. It's an awful feeling - you know what will happen. You see all this stuff happening to people but you know it's not the culmination, because you KNOW what will inevitably happen in Hiroshima, and you're just waiting for it to happen. With most films, there's often the potential of something terrible happening, and you're waiting to see if it will happen. With In This Corner of the World, a slow-moving 2 hour masterpiece of a film, you don't wait to see IF the big bad thing (that the characters don't even know about) happens. You wait to see WHEN it happens, and that is the most unnerving feeling in the world.
And I think In This Corner of the World knows how unnerving it is, and it plays with that. At several points in the film it builds up the tension and the feeling that something bad will happen, and you could hear little gasps in the audience. We were being played with in a very cruel way that only a very good film could. Once a character is invited to go to Hiroshima for a festival, and I heard someone whisper "oh no".
And when IT inevitably happened, it was... brief, and unspectacular. It was not the huge culmination we had all been waiting for which, instead of underwhelming, made the whole thing even more uncomfortable. The entire theatre felt more silent than it had been the entire time.
I suspect we, as a majority of foreigners, expect that the bombing of Hiroshima would be the absolute worst thing to happen (I know I sure did), but it wasn't. The aftermath, of course, was another deal, but that's what I feel is so special about In This Corner of the World. It's not spectacular in the sense of being a spectacle, it's spectacular in the sense of being quietly real. We know the experience of an entire nation, more or less. We know what happened. But what we're shown is the experience of just a handful of people. It makes it personal, and it makes it special.
And, through all the suffering you see in this film, in the end you can't help but feel a certain... hope. In the end, even after all the hard-hitting stuff you see on screen, you're left with a feeling of it gets better. You know it gets better, and you remember not just the hardships of the characters but also the message of sheer human resilience, and hope, so much of it.
In This Corner of the World is an absolutely beautiful film. It truly is a masterpiece, for any film - animated or not, and if you have a good supply of tissues, I can not recommend it enough.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Aug 11, 2017
I watched this film at Annecy Animation Festival, right after I'd seen two other anime films (In This Corner of the World and A Silent Voice) neither of which I will be reviewing or spoiling here but both of which were, while wonderful films, not particularly cheerful. Therefore, as the last anime film I was seeing in the programme I kind of expected that kind of tone to be present in Lu also.
I had also seen the trailer for it and it very much made the film seem to me like a bootleg Ponyo... yet I somehow really wanted to give it a chance.
And I
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am so, SO glad that I did. All my expectations were subverted and the trailer does the film no justice. The only way I can really describe Lu Over The Wall is by saying it simply feels like the feeling of sheer joy, in film form. I'll admit, when it started off, with the slightly sulky male protagonist and his musician friends right at the start I thought "oh no, what did I get myself into", but the moment Lu enters the scene that was all gone and the film was an absolute joyride. At points when I thought I couldn't be having more fun, it got more fun. I was grinning for a solid 60% of the film and the audience was laughing at multiple points and if that's not proof that this film is pure joy, I don't know what is.
Catch me buying this film on DVD and playing it if I'm ever down, and in the unlikely event I ever have children I promise you they will be raised on this stuff.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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