From: rmc@wang.com (rmc)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime
Subject: Mamono Hunter Yohko Review (Long!)
Date: 8 Jan 93 19:42:11 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Wang Laboratories, Inc.

The second part of my Nikaku order was Mamono Hunter Yoko.  As usual
i'll try to make this review detailed enough for people to make buying
decisions.  Some folk may feel that the plot information at the end
contains "spoilers".  Most people will disagree with me on many
points, and if you agree with all of it, well, in Sakura-san's words,
"the Universe is indeed Vast".

Umm, how does one characterize this movie?  There's certainly a fair
amount of martial arts display, a bit of high school humor, a bit of
magic...  Maybe A-ko in Shinjuku Land?  There are no monsters, and
nothing really gorey, so that's not a really good description, but
close.  How about a modern day sword and sorcery fantasy with a crisp
lemon scent?  

Characters

If i were feeling really harsh, i would say there aren't any.  The
main point of this movie is the narrative story.  But that would be
excessively harsh.  Certainly Grandma is given some character, and of
course Yohko as well, but there aren't really enough non-action scenes
for any of the supporting characters to develop much.  However, i also
suspect that the script writer intended stereotypical characters from
other series to fill in your understanding.

I hope i didn't misspell any of the voice actresses's names.  The
dark red on dark blue credits looked quite nice, but for accuracy were
not so great.

Yohko (Hisakawa Aya)
High school girl, her 16 years are emphasized several times.  She is
thin - about like Lum on a thin day.  She is plenty enthusiastic.  She
is quick and dextrous when fighting - maybe about like Shampoo in
Ranma.

Chigako (Honda Chieko)
High scool girl, probably Yohko's best friend.  She tries to provide
the breezy, down-home sidekick to Yohko's slightly more exotic
personality.  In some ways she seems a bit like A-ko when A-ko is just
being a girl and not being strong or fast.  Maybe it's just the red
hair.  She's not underweight like Yohko.

Osamu (Yamaguchi Kappei)
High school boy, has known Yohko and Chigako "for ever".  Indecisive
(gee, where have i seen this before?  Except he doesn't have to
choose).  If this were a Lovely Angels OAV, he'd have a building fall 
on him about 2/3 of the way through...

Mano Madoka (Mitsuya Yuji)
Yuhko's grandmother, and the current Mamono Hunter.  Clearly the
character with the most personality.  Gruff, scruffy, quick, given to
complaining.  Drawn shorter than the other characters.

We also have the high school principal (female) (Doi Mika), Sagoko
(Yohko's mom) (Tsuru Hironi) and Reiko (another gal from the High
School, drawn strong and well rounded;  Yohko considers her quite
beautiful) (Matsui Naoko)

Art

Characters are all reasonably detailed.  The black outlines are not
too heavy.  Costumes tend to be plain but fully drawn.  Some attention
is paid to lighting effects, but only two-tone shading is used on
characters, making them look slightly flat.  (Contrast for example the 
Maison Ikkoku Final Movie, using 3 or 5 skin tones to round out limbs
etc.)  

The backgrounds tend to be less detailed than in many OAVs and movies.
This is not KOR and certainly not Sazan Eyes or Ryuukunohara
Labyrinth.

The color palette is actually quite balanced.  No color scheme seems
to predominate.

Animation

Some of the fighting sequences are quite detailed.  For example, the
opening credits show a spin move on one leg, converting from a full
body thrust to a slash.  The balance of the figure changes during the
move, all the clothing and hair move believably, and the sword appears
to have mass and inertia.  The beginning of the climactic sword battle
is not quite as detailed, but since it's a lot longer that's not
surprising.  (The middle and end of the battle are, to my taste, badly
animated.  One character goes on the offensive with a "flashing
swords" style suitable for a singles exhibition or reducing pencil
time, but not for a serious fight where the intent is to cut
someone...  Compare Kahm's battle with Battia.  When Kahm goes on the
offensive she uses a flurry of cuts, but they are distinct, not just
waving the sword.  And so her body and shoulders move with the cuts,
she doesn't just move forward with the sword flailing.)  Another
sequence which i found interesting was the "mecha transformation
scene".  No, there are no mecha in this movie, but Yohko changes into
her uniform and gets her "soulsword" through dance-like invocations.
I suspect this is normal for people who have seen "Sailor Moon" or "St
Seiya"; for me it was novel.  (On the other hand, this may be a neat
parody on the two above series, i honestly don't know.)

Facial animation relies on distortion to show emotion.  This is an OK
style, but i like Maison Ikkoku and KOR better for their ability to
show emotion.  Characters blink, their clothes and hair move,
sometimes someone changes facial expression while someone else is
talking.  Not much is done with hand motions.

Running and other moving figures seem to show more variation in their
moves than i remember in other OAVs, which was a nice change.

Lemon scented scenes are in standard Lemon style.

Overall, the animation is reminiscent of "Outlanders" and "Capricorn"
for the level of detail.  Which brings us to the problem - the time
honored trick of using still shots during dialogue.  Now in the Manabe
works this occasionally interrupts the flow, but the spaceships and
the Emperor's planet and the dragons have enough detail to cover most
of the time.  Or "Sazan Eyes" and "Ryuukunohara Labyrinth", where the
detail is just about always interesting, you hardly notice the trick
at all.  In Yohko, howerever, There were definitely a couple of scenes
where it got tiresome quickly.

Score

The score is adequate but not exciting.  There are a couple of jazz
and orchestral numbers, strangely usually paired with seduction
scenes.  (The climactic duel also gets orchestral music).  The pop
oriented numbers seem better than average to me, because they
sometimes use traditional Japanese instruments and the rhythm is more
varied than in most pop.  Certainly nothing complex like
"Kyuuketsuhime Miyu" or "Sazan Eyes", but different textures and
patterns, sort of like in "Fade Away" on the "Silent Mobius:
Emergency" CD.  The vocals are passable, about like the vocals on the
"Capricorn" CD.  With the exception of the ending song, which i would
gladly pay to never have to hear again.  (And the lyrics on the song
are worse.  Had i been the translator, i might have put up "you don't
want to know", or maybe used an unreadable color...)

Physical quality and miscellaneous

The tape is in a blue AnimEigo style cassette, with a real plastic
box.  There are no liner notes.  The exterior drawings are
forgettable, with the best being the tiny one on the spine of the
case.  The color print transfer to the tape seems fine, with no
registration problems and rich enough colors.

The subtitles are outlined yellow, readable, seem synched with the
action, are readable during the time they are displayed, and didn't
insult my intelligence.  I can't evaluate whether they match the
dialogue, but they fit the situations.

There is a four minute "music video" after the credits.  I liked it;
it's a condensation of the movie, like "Chance on Love" condensations
of "Urusei Yatsura" episodes.  Since "Yohko" is longer than an "Ususei
Yatsura" episode, the resulting summary is a bit choppier and more,
well, episodic.  But the editors made up for that by placing similar
sequences together rather than sticking slavishly to the time sequence
of the movie.  This was much more fun to watch than the trailers at
the end of later A-ko installments or "Silent Mobius".  They didn't
use the ending theme, so it is listenable.

Other Credits

Again, the color contrast during the credits may have led me to 
copy some of this wrong.

Script:   Tomita Yoshihiro        Executive Dir:  Yamada Katsuhisa
Character Design:  Aoiki Tetsuro  Producers:      Japan Computer Systems
                                                  Toho        
Art Dir:  Takeshi Waki            Music:          Watanabe Hiroya

Translator:  Arakaki Ichilo       English Writer: Matt Greenfield
             Jones Dwayne (:-}

Overall Conclusion:

By all means try to see this one.  Certainly rent it, borrow it from a
friend, pool money to buy a copy, get one for your local club etc.  I
wouldn't pass up a movie or OAV from "Urusei Yatsura" to get it though.
I am over paid, so i expect to continue buying the series.

Plot and spoilers follow:

The movie opens with an innocent "high schoolers under a tree" dream.
However, they get attacked by tentacles, and the guy dries up and
dies.  Scene two has Grandma wake up Yohko by martial arts attack
before she's fully awake.  Scene three is the breakfast table, where
mom hands Yohko a string of condums, and then gets into a martial arts
fight with Grandma.  Weapons consisted of frying pan vs rolling pin,
base ball bat vs golf club, then pick axe vs large wooden mallet.
About this time you get the idea that the movie moves quickly, and
doesn't take itself too seriously.

The next group of scenes on the way and at school, where Chigako and
Osamu are introduced.  It seems Yohko has a somewhat innocent view of
high school guys, and Chigako's impishness is introduced.  The really
important event is that Osamu is seduced by the school principal.
Yup, Lemon scene #1.

At the pool, Yohko banters with Chigako and gets pushed into the pool,
where she is attacked by demonic tentacles.  The juxtaposition of this
rather breezy scene right after Osamu's seduction is what promped my
earlier characterization of "A-ko in Shinjuku Land".  The drawing here
is not as nice as similar scenes in A-ko, as there are no gags and
random events happening in the background while the primary characters
talk.  

After the pool, Yohko must deal with a transformed Osamu.  This is the
psychological high point of the movie.  Had more of it been done in
this style, i would have liked Yohko significantly more.

We now get to the mediocre point of the movie;  Grandma explaining
about Yohko's lineage and mission.  It seems that the Demon and Human
moon will come into conjunction in around 15 hours.  When they do, the
Dragons will cross over from Capricorn and enslave the Earth.  (Well,
close enough.)  They will do this through a ritual empowering the Dark
Queen.  Yohko must either interrupt the ritual, or dispose of the Dark
Queen.  

Stylistically, the problem is that all of this is done through
Grandma's narrative, inside of a secret Mamono Hunter crypt that
serves no purpose except to let Grandma talk to Yohko in a different
setting.  Possibly it will figure in movie 2 or 3, but here it didn't
even make the dialogue seem more spooky or the lineage seem more
ancient or shrouded in tradition.  No flash backs, no rituals,
mediocre drawing.  Not as big a disjunction as Mendo's War in "Lum the
4Ever", but still and all a distraction i could have done without.
Just having Grandma cooking while explaining would have been an
improvement - there would have been more motion and interesting
irrellevant detail.  Or better yet, let Yohko discover it slowly.
Though that would be really hard to do in a 45 minute OAV.

We now come to the climactic battle, which really is nice.  The set up
has Grandma against Bad Gal #1, and then Yohko gets to take on the
mantle and take on Bad Gal #2.  There are lots of acrobatic moves with
enough frames to make them interesting when slowed down.  The
beginning of the sword play choreography shows some understanding of
how swords work.  Yohko loses her battle three times, to be saved by
the sadism of Bad Gal #2 (i can't kill you yet - i haven't gloated
enough!) before her pure heart gives her the force needed to overcome
all.  

The ending scene is anti-climactic and should have been skipped by the
script writer or director.  But it does bring things back to the
breezier feel of the beginning, so i understand why it was done that
way.  

For H factor counters there are two longish seduction scenes, the pool
scene, places where panties get exposed (about as innocent as
Kanrinin-san's panties being exposed while playing tennis in Maison
Ikkoku), one short bondage scene, and - get this - no rapes and no
shower scenes.  Unlike A-ko and Ikkoku, there are no exposed males.  I
like Kahm.  I think "Outlanders" is sexier, even though "Yohko" is
more explicit.

Yup, this was too long.  Gomen nasai.

R Mark Chilenskas
rmc@wang.com