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Feb 26, 2024
E.Y.E.S. of Mars has an interesting premise that is unfortunately bogged down by very heavy-handed, very un-nuanced, and often hypocritical environmentalist and anti-technology themes. The only thing that really saves it for me is the sheer power of nostalgia.
At first, you'd assume this takes place in the distant future, but nope! It's actually the distant past, and the origin story for modern humanity that bears more than a little resemblance to Scientology. The people of Mars are originally from the planet that used to exist where the asteroid belt is today, which is a pretty interesting take I don't think I've seen done before. They
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destroyed their home planet and fled to Mars, living in a dome city that they're also slowly destroying. Not a bad premise if done correctly.
Unfortunately, there is very little nuance to the issues of environmentalism and technology. The message is very bluntly "technology bad, nature good." There's outright talk of future generations living *without* technology.
The major problem with this is that Mars is quite literally uninhabitable without their little dome city. The movie makes a point to show that the massive forest under the city is completely propped up artificially, complete with air vents and everything. They *can't* live without technology, the point of no return was reached a long time ago.
I can't really talk about E.Y.E.S. of Mars without talking about the ending. It's a blatant deus-ex-machina, with everyone dying in an attempt to leave for Earth and their spirits going to Earth instead to start humanity. Like I said, a lot of similarities to Scientology. The ending narration says they created the civilization of Atlantis, but that didn't exactly work out either, did it?
The personal enjoyment I get out of this movie is the nostalgia factor. It's extremely 90's in a weirdly American way - nothing about this feels particularly Japanese. The heavy-handed environmentalism and animation style all feel very quintessentially 90's American. If you like that sort of thing or even enjoy it in an ironic fashion, go ahead and give it a try.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Feb 23, 2024
Star Dust is not a good anime. However, that doesn't stop it from being an unintentionally hilarious parody of every 90's PSA and after-school special ever.
We have a future Earth that's been completely ravaged by pollution, and now garbage is thrown into sun and hazardous material is thrown into Jupiter. There's something about how radioactive waste dumped into the sun illegally is making sunstorms worse. I don't think that's how stars work, but whatever. The anime is not subtle or nuanced at all about its environmentalist themes, it's just a blunt "STOP POLLUTING!" message like every 90's PSA. Okay, but where *do* we throw our
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trash? Yeah, it's good not to litter, but what do you do when the landfills have gotten so big they cover the entire Earth? There's a lecturing monologue at the very end about how pollution is even going to make space uninhabitable, so clearly they *don't* want the solution to be "throw it into space." There's never an actual solution proposed, just a lecture on what *not* to do.
What elevates this from preachy to unintentional comedy gold is that almost every character in this is a wildly over-the-top racist. Like, racist in ways that would make your hillbilly uncle from north Florida go "Hey now..." There's zero explanation as to why race relations have deteriorated to this point, it's really just to make every character look like an unreasonable jerk compared to the protagonist, and I guess tell the audience about how racism is bad?
The main character, who is very obviously meant to be a role model for how people should behave, is against violence to an absurd degree. There's a space dogfight in which a guy is trying to shoot him and another pilot down, and he STILL insists the other pilot not kill the enemy! He's constantly lecturing about how killing is ALWAYS wrong... even in self-defense, I guess. He even talk-no-jutsu's the enemy pilot into surrendering.
By the end, everyone apologizes to the obviously-right-all-along protagonist, having seen the error of their ways. It's the most after-school special ending I've ever seen in an anime. "I'm so sorry, you were right all along! I'll immediately stop being a violent racist who loves polluting. You have truly shown me the error of my ways." Absolutely amazing.
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Feb 21, 2024
I've watched plenty of bad anime. I'll gladly watch stuff like Chargeman Ken, Crystal Triangle, and Twinkle Nora Rock Me precisely because they're so bad they're fascinating. I've sat through some of the vilest anime ever made like Shoujo Tsubaki or Datenshi-tachi no Kyouen and came away feeling less exhausted than after watching Dark Myth. This is because Dark Myth is the worst thing an anime can possibly be - painfully, mind-numbingly boring. The runtime is heavily, heavily padded with road trips and some of the longest, driest exposition I've ever seen.
The main problem with Dark Myth is the same problem I have with much
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of the contemporary fine art world - if your work requires a wall of text (or for Dark Myth, walls of exposition) for the viewer to have any hope of knowing what's going on, then you've failed at the most basic aspect of art: to communicate something effectively to the viewer. If you have to have a detailed knowledge of ancient Japanese mythos to understand what's going on, then your anime isn't for general audiences. If your goal was specifically to cater to ancient Japanese mythos buffs, then you're just telling them everything they already know. Even with the walls of exposition, the anime still fails to weave a coherent narrative and ends up a confused, boring mess.
The only other anime I've seen that dragged on for this long and was almost as boring was Odin: Photon Sailer Starlight. Odin at least had some really nice visuals, but Dark Myth can't manage even that, with painfully dull character designs and art direction.
There's simply no reason to watch this - It's not bad in any way that makes it interesting or unique, it's just... *bad.*
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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