MOVIE: Castle in the Sky (1986)

Castle in the Sky Year: 1986 Rating: PG Length: 125 minutes / 2.08 hours Having only seen a handful of Hayao Miyazaki films, I finally got around to some of his earlier works. Castle in the Sky (1986) might not seem special by today’s standards, but in the era when it was released, I’m sure it was quite a bold statement. As a steampunk-styled adventure, there’s a lot in this movie that has since been copied and adapted into other works (case in point, my younger brother noticed that it’s almost an identical plot to Mega Man Legends which came out a decade later). As Miyazaki’s third film, Castle in the Sky sees many of his established visual styles and themes (like flying girls) that he has used in many of his following projects. Even with a relatively simple plot, the gorgeous animated visuals are always a major draw for Miyazaki movies like this. There’s a charm that’s hard to describe, but it’s there in...
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MOVIE: RRR (2022)

RRR Year: 2022 Rating: Not Rated Length: 182 minutes / 3.03 hours While I have watched some of the “classics” of Indian cinema, I haven’t kept up to date on this brand of foreign cinema. Nothing stood out enough for me to seek it out and watch it. That was until a friend of mine suggested I watch RRR (2022). He described it as the most “anime-style live-action movie” he’d ever seen. This intrigued me, so I watched it. He wasn’t wrong. It oozes machismo while also telling a compelling story about fighting against British occupation. And just to make sure that you know it’s an Indian film, there’s a great song and dance sequence that won an Oscar for Best Original Song. RRR reads a bit more like an American action film, especially in how ridiculous it is. Of course, that’s part of the reason I really love this movie. Sure, there’s a lot of violence, but the creative ways that it’s used made...
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MOVIE: One Piece Film – Red (2022)

One Piece Film: RedYear: 2022Rating: PG-13Length: 115 minutes / 1.92 hours One challenge of making movies for such a long-running anime series like One Piece is that there are so many characters and aspects of the canon that it's hard to make a film that includes fan-favorite characters in a way that makes sense with the overall story. With Eiichiro Oda on board for One Piece Film: Red (2022), we finally have a movie that could easily be part of the canon for the series while also having stakes high enough to warrant the characters who appear to save the world. While I definitely enjoy One Piece movies that string together powerful moves from the best characters, like Stampede (2019) did, most of the time the villains for these movies are so separated from the series as to be completely inconsequential. For Red, including Shanks' family was a smart way to make the story relevant to the wider One Piece world without...
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VIDEO GAME: Genshin Impact (2020)

Genshin ImpactYear: 2020Rating: TTime Played: 350+ hours Having played many free-to-play games, there’s usually a point where you run out of stuff to do and the game ceases to be fun. Usually, this is when the time-based resources run out and you have to wait to keep playing the game. It surprised me how many hours I put into the free-to-play action-adventure game, Genshin Impact before I hit this wall. Even when I reached this point, I still had plenty of diverse activities to do to keep me occupied for hours at a time. With regular story updates, it’s almost overwhelming how much you can get out of this game without paying anything. Part of Genshin Impact’s appeal is its somewhat Breath of the Wild-like open world and visual style. While it leans a bit more on anime influences for its character designs (of which there are plenty of characters to play as in this game), Genshin Impact‘s world might be even...
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MOVIE: Redline (2009)

Redline Year: 2009 Rating: Not Rated Length: 102 minutes / 1.70 hours Redline (2009) is one of those films that I saw a few clips of and decided it looked interesting enough to sit down and actually watch the whole thing. After all, I enjoy a good anime, and if I don't have to get invested in a multi-season show, all the better. Of course, anime can also be quite weird. As long as it looks cool, though, it doesn't really matter. Sometimes, the more stylized an anime movie is, the more entertaining it is to watch. And Redline is certainly a stylized anime. Produced by Madhouse, Redline has a distinct visual style that aligns with their other works. I'd probably say it's closest to Trigun in terms of overall feel, but that's likely because Trigun was one of the first anime I watched while growing up. There's an almost manga-like quality to the visuals here. Plenty of hard black outlines and shadows, but with...
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MOVIE: Evangelion – 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021)

Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time Year: 2021 Rating: R Length: 154 minutes / 2.57 hours One of the classic series of anime, Neon Genesis Evangelion, is both exceptional spectacle and moments of "WTF?" It balances the line between post-apocalyptic survival and psychological horror. While it's always exciting to see large "robots" fighting alien creatures, a lot of Evangelion's appeal comes from the struggles of its characters. Sure, there's plenty of fan service (which is a staple of the series), but there is also an equal amount of philosophy that makes you question what it means to be human. Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time (2021) is the last movie in the Rebuild of Evangelion series. This series has attempted to bring the flashy 1990s action anime into stunning HD while also attempting to fix some of the original's more confusing aspects. It's difficult to pin down Evangelion's "true" version. Still, I think the Rebuild series does a fine job of maintaining some of the...
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MOVIE: Mewtwo Strikes Back—Evolution (2019)

Mewtwo Strikes Back: EvolutionYear: 2019Rating: PGLength: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours Growing up with the Pokémon franchise during the peak of its fervor, I definitely remember going to see the first movie when it came out in theaters. Consequently, there is an amount of nostalgia that I associate with this first forray of the franchise onto the big screen. When I saw that Netflix had recreated the 2D anime of my childhood with their style of CGI animation, I was intrigued enough to check it out. Much like in the recent CGI version of The Lion King (2019), just because a movie was faithfully recreated using newer animation technology does not make it a better movie. Additionally, I believe the fact that I had aged since I first watched this movie made it so I could see it through a more objective lens. What I found was that the story was incredibly light, and the only thing that made it worth watching...
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MOVIE: One Piece – Stampede (2019)

One Piece: Stampede Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 101 minutes / 1.68 hours It’s interesting how different Japanese franchises handle their 20th-anniversary movies. In the case of Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You (2017), a nostalgia tactic was used to bring in those viewers who might not have seen a Pokémon movie since the anime started airing back in 1997. Two years later, and another well-known anime (or at least it should be well known) has a movie that celebrates the 20th year of its animated series. One Piece: Stampede (2019) takes a somewhat different tactic here and embraces everything that turned it into what it is today. While anime movies rarely interact with the canon of the series they’re based on, it is essential to note that the author of the original manga did help create the story for Stampede. The reason why this is important is that this movie was able to bring together 20 years’ worth of extraordinarily overpowered and unique characters in a way...
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MOVIE: Alita – Battle Angel (2019)

Alita: Battle Angel Year: 2019 Rating: PG-13 Length: 122 minutes / 2.03 hours With the plethora of successes that the comic book movie has seen over the last decade, it’s a little disheartening to see the Japanese equivalent fail to make much headway. There are just as many interesting and action-packed stories from manga and anime that deserve the treatment given to comic book movies. Instead, busts like Dragonball: Evolution (2009) and Ghost in the Shell (2017) have shown that live-action adaptations are challenging, especially when there’s already an animated counterpart. This was why I was excited to see Alita: Battle Angel (2019). While many manga/anime film adaptations fail to grasp the feel of the source material, Alita appeared to be a passion project for James Cameron. The fact that Robert Rodriguez directed this movie helped as well, considering how well he brought the graphic novel Sin City to the screen in 2005. Of course, he also directed Spy Kids (2001), which was colorful and full of fun action. In the end, I found Alita to be somewhat...
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MOVIE: Pokémon the Movie – I Choose You! (2017)

Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You! Year: 2017 Rating: PG Length: 98 minutes / 1.63 hours Over 20 years after its debut, it seems that Pokémon is not a fad and will be here to stay for the long haul. Of course, considering the mania surrounding the first games in the series back in the mid-1990’s, by now enough time has passed for nostalgia to be a contributing factor to the franchise’s continued success. The children who grew up with Pokémon are now adults in their late-20’s and early-30’s (i.e., “millennials”). In an attempt to cash in on this nostalgia, Pokémon’s latest movie, I Choose You! recounts some of the memorable first moments of the anime, but with a slightly different storyline. Initially, I was worried that this plot would be a pared-down selection of key moments from the anime, much like what has been done with other anime movies like One Piece’s The Desert Princess and the Pirates (2007) and Episode of Chopper Plus(2008). Fortunately, this film managed to...
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BOOK: The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (1994)

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Year: 1994 Author: Haruki Murakami Length: 1,572 minutes / 26.2 hours A coworker of mine suggested this book to me a few months back. The title sounded interesting, so I put it on my Overdrive wish list and waited for it to become available. Both he and I have a somewhat thorough understanding of Japanese culture, so once I got into this book, I found myself imagining it as an anime. Of course, because The Wind-up Bird Chronicle was originally written in Japanese, there are plenty of cultural idiosyncrasies that might be hard to understand from a different cultural viewpoint. At times, the content is a bit weird, the sex awkward, and the violence strangely surgical. What was quite refreshing with the narrative in The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, was its timelessness. Written in the early 1990’s and set in the mid-1980’s, only a few technological items (i.e. a land line, an early computer, etc.) haven’t held up well over time. Everything else...
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MOVIE: Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Ghost in the Shell Year: 2017 Rating: PG-13 Length: 107 minutes / 1.78 hours Having only seen the original Ghost in the Shell (1995) film (and its 2008 remake), and not having read the manga on which it was based, most of my comparisons of the 2017 live-action adaptation are from the anime film adaptations that came before it. For its time, the original Ghost in the Shell movie was revolutionary. Along with similarly violent anime films like Akira (1988), Ghost in the Shell showed the world that animation wasn’t just for kids. The adult and more psychological aspects of these films are what helped set them apart as some of the groundbreaking films in the anime genre. Regarding the live-action remake, I think it honestly took too long to get here. The concepts of cybernetically enhanced humans are surprisingly close to realized technology today. Given that these ideas seemed quite futuristic in the early 1990’s, the fact that they are plausible within the next...
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