From: Kevin.Kline@ofa123.fidonet.org
Newsgroups: rec.arts.animation
Subject: Japanimation reviews (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)
X-Sender: newtout 0.02 Nov 17 1992
Date: 12 Dec 92  16:39:38

 I just went over to my Local Tower video and rented 4 different pieces o
Japanimation.  I rented Robot Carnival, Beautiful Dreamer, Orange Road, and
Nadia.  I will give my reviews of them here.  I got what I pretty much
expected some of it was very good, other stuff was just 100% trash and the
usual typical garbage people associate Japanimation with.
 Let's start with Robot Carnival:  It has 9 different stories from different
animators and directors.  Some people have compared this to the movie
Fantasia.   Some of the stories do rival that level of animation, but others
are nothing more than typical trash you fine in Bubble Gum Criris.  I will
give  a short reivew of each story: 
 1. OPENING to Robot Carnival (where the title appears): VERY well done and I 
really liked the part where the Robot Carnival sign comes up and all the
robots come out in a big celebration.  Nice music to it also. Grade: A
 2. "Franken's Gear" (by Koiji Morimoto): It's about a "mad scientist
that creates life" but instead of using flesh and blood, uses gears and motors 
to create a "living robot" it was very well done seeing the robot slowly
coming to life and seeing the "mad scientist" come to joy over it coming to
life.  Not to mention a weird twist to the ending of this.  No Dialgoue (only 
2 of the 9 had Dialogue) but it was well done and the music fitted the scene
prefectly.  This I would consider almost up with Fantasia in terms of quality 
animation and character design.  A perfect piece to show that animation isn't 
for kids without all the slut stuff and bloody violence.  Grade: A+
 3. "Starlight Angel" (by Hiryuki Kitazume): It's too bad they had this piece 
of garbage come right after the well done "Franken's Gear".  This one features 
2 sauecered-eye girls with tons of white specs in each eyes at an amusement
park.  One of them is be-friended by a robot (who really is more of a cyborg
like creature) and later on some big ugly robot comes along to try to kill
them both.  See saucered-eye girls fly and act paranoid.  See the usual battle 
between the robot (really a handsome guy) and the big ugly monster-like robot. 
 I thought this was nothing more than your typical robot garbage and the girls 
of course were saucered-eye BIG TIME.  Grade: F
 4. "Clouds" (By Mao Lamdo):  This one was VERY GOOD and shows a young boy
slowly transforming into a quiet, reflecting robot.  The clouds behind him
while he thinks is well done and shows pictures of what he is thinking about. 
 Towards the latter part of this feature, there is a mushroom cloud that
appears (when it gets stormy) and that makes you think a while about what the 
animator here is trying to show.  No Dialouge, but seeing the clouds change
shapes to what he is thinking and the mushroom cloud, really makes you think
here and pay attention.   another great example that animation isn't for kids 
and that it can be serious and make you think.  Grade: A
 5. "Deprive" (by Hideotoshi Ohmori): Again we have another piece of garbage
following a great piece of animation in "Clouds".  Typical saucered-eye slut
gets captured and needs help from a cyborg-like robot who ends up freeing her. 
 Nothing here that is different and this is a lot like "Starlight Angel". 
Grade: F- (Don't ask me why this was included in this series of fine stories).
 6. "Presence" (by Yasuomi Umestsu): One of the two features that has
Dialogue.  I won't comment on the dubbing but the story is rather strange
about an inventor that creates a beautiful (unfortantly saucered-eye) android 
that ends up having a mind of her own.  I thought it was pretty good
otherwise.  Inventor tries to convince the android she is only a machine but
things get intresting after that.  Grade: B- (too many saucered-eye people
ruined it in terms of animation quality and character design).  
 7. "A Tale of Two Robots" (by Hiryuki Kitakubo): This was rather humorous
(although the dubbing here was quite bad, and I did hear other people say that 
if is offensive to the Japanese, and in ways it is) and I thought it was quite 
funny to see two big robots go at it.  (considering they were built with 19th 
century technology!!).  The characters controlling the "good robot" (which is 
really supposed to be used in a Parade) are quite humorous and can't even get 
along with each other.  The bad guy was also very humorous in his reasons to
destroy Japan.  The only problem was the TO BE CONTINUED (really...)  Grade:
incomplete (I know the dubbing was very offensive to some people, but then
again it was supposed to be humorous).  This is a time I wish it were
subtitled instead (the voices sounded pretty awful).  
 8. "Nightmare" (by Takashi Nakamura): VERY WELL DONE, I liked how in the
beginning everything turns into robots and the scene where the robot chases
this guy is very well done and quite humorous.  The robots dancing around
reminded you of scenes of "Bald Mountain" in Fantasia.  The music fits
perfectly once again and this is one of the stories that is right up there
with Fantasia. Grade: A+
 9. "Closing" : I tought this was done prefectly also with the ROBOT CARNIVAL 
sign blowing apart with the "O" being buried in the sand with some travellers 
later finding the "O" and picking up some sort of round silver thing (which
turns out to be a beautiful robot dancing around like a ballet dancer).  Great 
way to close out these series of stories.  Quality animation here without the 
saucered-eye junk.
 I would say my favorite stories were "Franken's Gear" and Nightmare" as they 
were very well done and reminded you of Fantasia in some ways and the music
fit perfectly with the scenes.  And you could tell it wasn't done for kids
either!  The worst stories were "Starlight Angel" and "Deprive" which featured 
nothing more than saucered-eye girls and typical battles between good and
evil.  
 Overall, it was quite good and if they could of dropped "Deprive", "Starlight 
Angel" out of there, it would of been a lot better!!! But the other stories
show the good stuff in Japanimation and how to write stories that aren't for
kids without resorting to slut girls, sex, bloody violence, etc.  
 I'll review the other 3 titles I picked up in the next post.
 
s

--- Maximus 2.00