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+==================
+ Gatchaman Crowds
+==================
+:CreationDate: 2015-12-11 12:38:47
+:Id: anime/review/gatchaman-crowds
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 4
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/gatchaman-crowds
+
+
+The name Gatchaman has been around for quite a while: it was 1972
+when, for the first time, the five bird-inspired heroes of the Science
+Ninja Team appeared on Japan's televisions to fight the evil Galactor
+and their leader, Berg Katze. The set-up was quite standard: an
+international organisation backing them, a lone scientist leading them
+and providing their machines and weapons, the common 5-people
+formation (leader boy, good-looking boy, fat boy, little kid, girl),
+evil antagonist with faceless minions. It was a very successful
+series, running for 105 weekly episodes, followed by a movie and a
+two more series of 52 and 48 episodes. (By the way, if you only know
+the Gatchaman via one of the American rewrites, either "Battle of the
+Planets" or "G-Force", you haven't seen Gatchaman).
+
+I was, therefore, not really surprised when I saw it was getting the
+reboot / remake treatment: we've had Yattaman, Casshern, Yamato,
+Harlock, Cyborg 009; it was obviously just a matter of time.
+
+What did surprise me, however, is that Crowds has essentially no
+relation to the original Gatchaman: there's some bird imagery, they
+transform by saying "Bird, Go!", the main antagonist is called Berg
+Katze… and that's it. It's a new story, and it's the best thing that
+could happen to the Gatchaman.
+
+Let's face it: the team-of-five felt forced and dated in the '90s, and
+there's only so many times you can see the God Phoenix rammed into
+some giant mecha before you can't stand it anymore. And even if I
+still like the old Gatchaman (in small doses), I *loved* Crowds.
+
+The story is told from the point of view of ICHINOSE Hajime, teen girl
+who seems stubborn, distracted, and generally useless. The other
+members of the team wonder multiple times why she was chosen as a
+Gatchaman. Turns out, she's extremely attentive to what goes on around
+her, she's way smarter that what everyone could guess, she's incurably
+optimistic and always searching for better explanations of others' bad
+behaviours than "they're jerks" or "they're evil". And that's how she
+saves the world, twice. First lesson: appearances can be deceiving.
+
+The entity that chooses the Gatchaman is J.J., an alien with the
+appearance of an old man who speaks in prophetic riddles and throws
+around little paper birds.
+
+Hajime's first contact with the team is via TACHIBANA Sugane, earnest
+boy with a sword who has a very black&white view of morality and duty.
+
+When they get to the team's headquarters, we meet the other
+members. HIBIKI Jou, cynic young man with an office job. Utsu-tsu,
+alien looking like an under-dressed little girl, painfully shy, with
+the ability to cure by consuming her own (or others') life
+force. Paiman, tiny panda-like alien, nominally their leader, who can
+barely handle the pressure of command. And O.D., half-alien half-human
+flamboyant genderqueer whose home world has been destroyed, the soul
+of the group, always projecting good humour, the only one who seems to
+see beyond Hajime's appearance.
+
+The first enemy they fight is the MESS, weird things that capture
+people and objects. Hajime (SPOILERS!) talks to them instead of trying
+to kill them, thus saving the day. Second lesson: the enemy is not
+necessarily evil, they may just be ignorant and misguided.
+
+In this world there's no Galactor, but there's Galax, a social network
+(think always-on chat room with Mii-like avatars in isometric
+perspective). The most interesting feature of Galax is X, an AI who,
+among other things, nudges people into helping each other, from hugs
+to full-scale search & rescue operations. Behind Galax and X is
+NINOMIYA Rui, who may have a boy's body but is only comfortable when
+presenting as a very girly girl. Rui's goal is to create a better
+world through Galax, showing everybody the value of co-operation and
+peace.
+
+I kept trying to figure out why this completely benevolent social
+network had a name that was irrefutably a call-back to the evil
+organisation of the old Gatchaman: I'm not going to spoil the whole
+story by telling you, but rest assured that there's a reason, and it
+shows that the writers know exactly what they're doing.
+
+And finally we have Berg Katze, a fabulous superpowered genderqueer
+alien with a taste for destruction. Katze's style and
+single-mindedness are a thing of beauty, and although we don't see
+much of their motives, their eventual defeat is everything I could
+have wanted (watch the post-closing-theme scene of the last episode!).
+
+Remember how I said the team-of-five was a thing of the past? Well,
+welcome to the future: 2 women, 3 men, 3 queer / non-binary
+people. And the men are the least interesting of the bunch. And the
+queers are not evil (*maybe* Katze is, but I'm sure Hajime can change
+that). Can we have a cheer for diversity, even if just on some
+aspects?
+
+The other very encouraging change from the classical formulas: a small
+team of heroes is not enough to protect a planet. You need everyone to
+take responsibility to help and protect their fellow people. The Galax
+system is an interesting approach: create mini-games in which you get
+points for making the world a better place; connect people in need
+with the ones who can provide; facilitate civil discussion. It's a
+technocratic ideal, sure, and I'm not sure I could trust a super-human
+AI without a lot more evidence than just "runs a social network pretty
+well", but in this story, it works.
+
+So: everyone's identity, presentation, and way of living is valid and
+worthy of respect; nobody is really evil, even when their actions hurt
+others; everybody is needed to build a better world; superpowers help
+but are not enough. What's not to love?
+
+Oh, and if all that weren't enough, there's a second season: I *so*
+want to see the wacky adventures of Hajime and Katze!
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+==================================
+ Nadia - the Secret of Blue Water
+==================================
+:CreationDate: 2015-12-11 12:38:51
+:Id: anime/review/nadia
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 4
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/nadia-the-secret-of-blue-water-complete-collection
+
+There are some works of art that force you to take notice. You may not
+have the knowledge, or the context, to fully appreciate the craft or
+the importance or the references or whatever, but you are still caught
+and gripped and you think «this is something special». And I'm not
+only talking about “proper art”, paintings and sculpture and
+“classical” music: comics and pop music and films can and do shine of
+significance even to the clueless observer.
+
+I grew up with science fiction and anime. The first books I remember
+reading on my own were abridged editions of Verne, and stories for
+children written by Asimov and Bradbury. I know that I was watching
+Yatterman and Polymar when I was four, and I remember watching Tetsujin
+#28 and Arale when I was six. But the first time that something made
+me stop and take notice was when I was fourteen, and I caught a
+fragment of an early episode of Nadia on TV. When I was younger, I
+used to watch TV most afternoons, and Italian TV at the time broadcast
+plenty of Japanese animation; then, over the years, my computer
+attracted more of my attention (no Internet! this was the eighties!),
+and I sort of lost track of what was on TV: the fact that anime was
+re-scheduled to coincide with mealtimes (as opposed to mid-afternoon)
+didn't help, as my parents controlled the TV while we ate. So it was a
+surprise, one evening just before dinner, while channel-surfing, to
+stumble upon an animated scene that screamed «this is good, pay
+attention». But my mother called, I went to dinner, and that was it.
+
+I actually didn't know what it was I had seen until about five years
+later, during my first year at University, where I finally met other
+manga and anime fans. I was finally able to watch the whole series,
+and the experience only confirmed my first impression: Nadia is
+special, it's an important cultural artefact.
+
+Of course, by that point, I also was better positioned to recognise
+the various sources of inspiration and references in the work: Jules
+Verne, of course, but also Ghibli's Laputa, Tatsunoko's Time Bokan
+series, and to a lesser degree the ship design of Macross and Yamato.
+
+The references to Verne are obvious and explicit: the opening
+narration in the first episode is essentially the same as the one that
+opens Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Seas, there's a Captain Nemo
+on a submarine called Nautilus, to say nothing of balloon travel
+around the world, and mysterious islands.
+
+The Grandis / Sanson / Hanson trio is of course modelled after Doronjo
+/ Tonzura / Boyacky and their other incarnations from Yatterman and
+the other Time Bokan series. In Nadia, though, the characters are not
+written as bumbling idiots, but as smart and resourceful thieves and
+fraudsters, with hearts of gold.
+
+That a very similar group of enemies-but-not-quite is found in Laputa
+(the sky pirates Dora / Charles / Henry / Luis) is almost certainly a
+consequence of the original concept on which both works are based: in
+the seventies, the production company Toho commissioned a young Hayao
+Miyazaki to propose a few ideas for television series; the series were
+never made, but on the one hand, Miyazaki used some of those concepts
+in Future Boy Conan and Laputa, and on the other hand, Toho gave the
+same concepts to Gainax (already famous for Honneamise and Gunbuster)
+to make Nadia. So the two works are not directly inspired one from the
+other, they're more two different developments of the same premise. I
+always suggest watching both, to see how different people can tell
+what is essentially the same story, and send very different
+messages. Then you may also want to watch Disney's Atlantis, for
+another different take on very similar premises.
+
+So, is this important cultural artefact without faults? Oh, of course
+it has faults!
+
+For starters, it's way too long. 39 episodes are too many for almost
+any story: at the time, 26 was the norm, and these days I look askance
+at anything longer than 13. The probability of there being filler
+episodes and useless story lines grows sharply beyond about four hours
+of animation. Nadia is no exception: episodes 32-33 can be seamlessly
+removed, the whole Lincoln Island sequence could be seriously
+shortened, and after a while the chase / fights with the Evil Guy feel
+repetitive.
+
+Then, the Evil Guy, Gargoyle, is not much of a character as a
+caricature: very thin back-story, minimal motivation, apparently
+unlimited resources, petty vengeance… mind you, Laputa's Muska and
+Conan's Lepka are not much better written, but being a wide-spread
+problem does not make “cardboard bad guy” less of a problem.
+
+There's many other issues with this series, but I feel they do not
+detract much from its best feature: the characters.
+
+Jean is, in all aspects, a 14 year old techno-nerd. Naïf, socially
+awkward, innately positivist, looking for technological solutions to
+all problems… how many of us have been there? And, just like Jean, how
+many have grown out of the destructive and isolating aspects of such
+youth, helped by friends and loved ones?
+
+Nadia, orphan, adrift, a young black woman surrounded by white people,
+exploited, sold, afraid of loving others. But with a strong moral
+sense, a clear feeling for what's wrong and what's right, which helps
+her navigate the upheaval of her world when she realises that not
+everybody is out to get her, and that she can be loved. Nadia is as
+close to a self-insert as you can get (Anno has stated on the record
+that many aspects of her personality are based on himself), but I
+can't think of any other who came out this well. Also, she's one of
+the very few non-white characters in anime.
+
+I have already spoken of Grandis's trio, but they also work as adult
+guidance and examples for Nadia and Jean, being much better at it than
+the crew of the Nautilus are.
+
+And, finally, Marie, the little girl, who literally gets the last word.
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+=================================
+ The tale of the Princess Kaguya
+=================================
+:CreationDate: 2015-12-11 12:39:27
+:Id: anime/review/princess-kaguya
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 4.5
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/the-tale-of-princess-kaguya-alt
+
+
+TAKAHATA Isao (高畑 勲) is the other big name of Studio Ghibli: he has
+explored the devastation of post-WWII Japan in Grave of the Fireflies;
+the challenges growing up during the urbanisation and
+industrialisation of the '70s in Only Yesterday; environmentalism,
+integration and assimilation in Pon Poko; daily familial life in My
+Neighbors the Yamadas. For his latest work, he brings to the screen
+the tale of the bamboo cutter, believed to be the oldest Japanese folk
+tale, dating from the 10th century.
+
+As befit the age of the story, Kaguya is drawn in a style reminiscent
+of Japan's traditional watercolours, with charcoal contours and very
+soft tints. The result looks more like a beautiful series of moving
+paintings, than just an animated movie.
+
+The story is simple enough: an old bamboo cutter finds a thumb-sized
+baby girl inside a bamboo stalk, and brings her home to his wife; the
+couple adopts the little girl as their own, calling her Princess. She
+grows rapidly, and befriends the other children in the area.
+
+The cutter finds in other bamboo stalks gold and fine silks, and
+interprets this as a divine sign that his girl must be brought to the
+city and treated like a proper princess. She'd much rather stay in the
+little village with her friends, but her wishes are not considered.
+
+She sort-of settles in the life of a city noble, with private tutors
+and maids, but she keeps a little garden in the back of the house that
+reminds her of the countryside she grew up in. She's given the name of
+Kaguya, and tales of her great beauty start to spread.
+
+Five princes come to ask her hand in marriage, but Kaguya requires of
+the impossible tasks before she'll marry any of them, and none
+succeeds. She even refuses the Emperor's own proposal, always thinking
+back to her happy childhood in the woods.
+
+Finally, she remembers her story: she came from the Moon, to live
+among humans for a while, but now she must go back. Guards and
+fortifications are prepared to defend against the heavenly beings
+who'll come to take her back, but in vain: her fate is with the people
+of the Moon.
+
+The story, and especially this adaptation, explores themes of love and
+family and friendship, the dynamics of power and riches, the dignity
+of work and the dissolution of nobles. As with Takahata's other works,
+Kaguya is less a story than it is a bag of feelings delivered
+masterfully to the audience: you will feel happy, sad, nostalgic,
+exhilarated, dejected, together with the characters. And even without
+any kind of happy ending, you'll still be glad to have experienced all
+of it.
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+=============
+ Short Peace
+=============
+:CreationDate: 2015-12-11 12:38:33
+:Id: anime/review/short-peace
+:tags: - anime
+       - review
+:rating: 4
+:original: http://www.easternkicks.com/reviews/short-peace
+
+
+The `Japan Foundation <http://www.jpf.org.uk/>`_ has been, for years,
+organising many events to promote Japanese culture, including `touring
+film showings <http://www.jpf-film.org.uk/>`_. Sometimes they
+show anime in London at the `Institute of Contemporary Arts
+<https://www.ica.org.uk/>`_; last year I watched "Colorful" there,
+this year, as part of the "It Only Happens in the Movies?" series, I
+watched the 2013 anthology "Short Peace", a project of OOTOMO
+Katsuhiro (大友 克洋).
+
+Ootomo should really need no introduction: he wrote and directed Akira
+(1988), and that's enough to guarantee him a place in the general
+anime knowledge of English-speaking people. Of course, he's done a bit
+more than just Akira: he's written Roujin Z (1991), written and
+directed Steamboy (2004), designed Freedom (2006). What is more
+topical for this review, though, is his work on anthologies.  In 1987
+he worked an two episodes of `Robot Carnival
+<http://anidb.net/a1163>`_, a set of 9 shorts on the theme of robots,
+ranging from the surreal, to the whimsical, to the tragic.  In 1989 he
+directed one of the three shorts of `Neo Tokyo
+<http://anidb.net/a713>`_ (Manie-Manie 迷宮物語), all based on stories
+written by MAYUMURA Taku (眉村 卓).  In 1995 he wrote and coordinated
+`Memories <http://anidb.net/a262>`_, probably the most well-known of
+his anthologies in the West.
+
+Short Peace is a multimedia project: in addition to the four animated
+shorts, it includes a videogame, Ranko Tsukigime's Longest Day (ショー
+トピース 月極蘭子のいちばん長い日), and the five parts are sold
+together. Interestingly, I have seen reviews of the game that
+mentioned the four shorts as "additional material", instead of
+recognising the work as a whole. On the other hand, I'm here reviewing
+only the shorts, since I have not played or even seen the game. We can
+all be partial in our own way :)
+
+The anthology begins with a girl playing hide and seek in a temple,
+who gets surprised by a… dimension hopping white rabbit? Something
+like that. This title sequence is about two minutes of trippy changes
+of scenery, with very little relation to the rest of the work.
+
+The first actual piece of the anthology is Possessions (Tsukumo, 九十
+九), in which a travelling repairman gets lost during a storm, and
+seeks refuge in a small hut. Inside, the spirits of old, worn objects
+lock him in and play tricks on him, but he takes it all stride and
+fixes them, or prays thanking them for their services. The following
+morning, as he is leaving, he finds that the spirits have left him
+some of the renewed objects, as thanks for his help. This story builds
+on the very Japanese concept of `tsukumogami (付喪神)
+<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami>`_, the spirits of old (or,
+sometimes, neglected) objects. The animation is done in rather good 3D
+CG, even if it has the usual weirdness of movements. The director,
+MORITA Shuuhei (森田 修平) also directed Freedom and Tokyo Ghoul.
+
+The second piece is Combustible (Hi no Yōjin, 火要鎮), directed by
+Ootomo himself. It tells the story of Wakana, daughter of a rich Edo
+family, and Matsukishi, son of the also-rich neighbours, who wants to
+become a firefighter. Given that all houses were built with wood and
+paper, fires were frequent and extremely damaging, and firefighters
+were very important, in Edo. After Matsukishi gets kicked out of his
+house and gets into the fire brigade, Wakana is forced into an
+arranged marriage. Saddened at the loss of her childhood friend and
+probably first love, and at the prospect of marrying a stranger,
+Wakana semi-accidentally sets fire to the neighbourhood. In the end,
+despite all attempts from Matsukishi and the other firefighters,
+Wakana dies in the flames. Before the fire, the animation is
+reminiscent of traditional Japanese scrollworks, with flat colours and
+simple perspective. After the fire starts, the style shifts rapidly
+into a fully dynamic animation, which underscores the change of pace
+from slow day-to-day events, to life-threatening terror.
+
+The third piece is Gambo, directed by Andou Hiroaki (安藤 裕章), who
+had worked on Steamboy. A young samurai is defeated in battle, but
+left alive, by a giant white bear. Some time later, he's asked to help
+rid a village of a terrible red demon who's taking all the women. He's
+reluctant to help, obsessed with finding the white bear, but the last
+girl in the village goes into the woods and finds both the demon and
+the bear. Turns out, the bear is not evil, and the demon has been
+using the women to breed more of his kind. In a long and violent
+battle, the white bear fights the demon and defeats it, helped only in
+small measure by the samurai and some other warriors with
+firearms. This piece is drawn with rough brushwork against clean and
+detailed backgrounds, producing a strong contrast between the
+environment and the characters.
+
+The fourth piece is officially titled "A Farewell to Weapons" (Buki yo
+Saraba, 武器よさらば), but it should probably be called "A Farewell to
+Arms", since the Japanese title is identical to the translation of
+Hemingway's famous novel. I don't think there are many parallels
+between the two works, apart from the war theme. In this short,
+directed by KATOKI Hajime (mecha designer on many Gundam series) from
+a manga by Ootomo, a crew of trained soldiers / technicians drives on
+a desolated post-apocalyptic landscape scavenging and disabling all
+sorts of weapons from the last war. They get ambushed by an autonomous
+tank, and despite all their efforts, all of them but one are
+killed. The only reason the last person survives is that, having got
+out of his armoured powersuit, he's considered a civilian: he tank
+ever gives him a leaflet about the war and how rational it was. In the
+end, he's left, naked, raging against the tank, reduced to throwing
+rocks. In the background, Fuji prepares to erupt.
+
+The ICA screening of Short Peace was accompanied by an introduction
+and a Q&A with Helen McCarthy (`Wikipedia page
+<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_McCarthy>`_, `personal website
+<https://helenmccarthy.wordpress.com/`_, `Twitter account
+<https://twitter.com/tweetheart4711>`_), an internationally renowned
+expert on Japanese anime. I first heard about her back in 1998, on the
+`Nausicaa mailing list
+<http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/mailing-list/>`_ for fans of Studio
+Ghibli, but I had never met her before. She's very knowledgeable,
+although I may disagree with some of her opinions.
+
+She remarked how all the parts of Short Peace take place around the
+Fuji, and how they revolve around quintessentially Japanese themes:
+spirits in everyday objects; the contrast between family obligations
+and personal wishes; the struggle between nature, people and the
+supernatural; the consequences of war. I'm not completely convinced
+that the area around Fuji is representative of all of Japan: I'd like
+to know the point of view of people from Hokkaido or Okinawa; after
+all, London is not representative of the whole United Kingdom!
+
+McCarthy also said the each short showed a different era of Japanese
+history, but from my profound ignorance, I could only distinguish
+"sometimes in the past" from "sometimes in the future". The
+present time is apparently represented by the videogame, so I can't
+comment on that.
+
+All in all, Short Peace is a very good anthology, in which different
+themes and styles complement each other and produce an artistic whole
+that any anime fan should see, together with the other anthologies
+already mentioned. In the Q&A, McCarthy also recommended watching
+`Genius Party <http://anidb.net/a2972>`_ (2007) and `Genius Party
+Beyond <http://anidb.net/a6037>`_ (2008), both from Studio 4°C.
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+++ b/src/anime/review/short-peace/du2html.xsl
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+../../../../templates/du2html-review.xsl
\ No newline at end of file