From: MARK.CHILENSKAS@OFFICE.WANG.COM ("Mark Chilenskas")
Subject: Ryokunohara Labyrinth
Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs
Date: 06 Oct 92 11:41:54 EST

Sorry if this has already had a lot of review time, but i didn't see it
mentioned in the archives i scanned, so...

The laser disk prominently displays "Sparkling Phantom" at the bottom;
possibly this is a subtitle to a longer work called Ryokunohara Labyrinth.

C 1990 Victor Music Industries, CLV LD price Y7800 (VHS 7500?)
Joint production between AIC and FinnVox, 39 min of animation with 5 or
so min of "special appearances" (see below).

Character Designs:  Kakinouchi
Art Directory and Director may be Kunimoto and Hoshino;  this is implied
in the "special appearances" section at the end.

I don't speak any Japanese, so take the following with a grain of salt.
It's not based on any plot summary or other articles, but on a single
viewing Saturday and two viewings last (Monday) night.

Story:

This is basically a ghost story with three characters.  Hikaru and Kanata
are male and have been very good friends "for ever".  Quite possibly they
are also brothers.  They seem to be currently late junior high schoool
or first year high school.  The spirit (probably the "Sparkling Phantom"
of the subtitle) is quite female with a wonderfully unbelievable cascade
of red hair.  There are other characters to provide props during outings,
but they don't really affect the story.

The opening credits and initial animation establish friendship between
Hikaru and Kanata.  On the way home, The Incident occurs.  A small girl
runs into the street, chasing a rolling apple.  Hikaru rushes out to
protect her and shields her from the truck.  Sparkling Phantom now
inhabits his body, making Kanata quite pleased that Hikaru is not dead,
but leaving Hikaru with something of a problem.  This provides the
tension for the rest of the film;  Sparkling Phantom as Hikaru
interacting with Kenata, and Hikaru as Ghost watching over his body
and trying to tell Kenata.

The middle section has layers of reminiscences of Hikaru and Kenata
together when they were younger, Kenata and Sparkling Phantom as Hikaru
going about their normal life, and Hikaru as Ghost trying to give Kenata
visions.  There are two brief scenes where Sparkling Phantom as Phantom
attempts to seduce Hikaru as Ghost, which leads to the best scene of the
film.  Hikaru as ghost has a dream (or possibly the whole gang has a
shared dream) where their school building takes flight.

The triangle is finally resolved, not necessarily to Sparkling Phantom's
liking.  It involves a flashback and some very nice drawing in a
Surrealistic landscape, complete with clocks.

The story as seen by Kanata and Hikaru is pretty clear from the drawing.
Indeed, the flash-back scenes have virtually no dialog.  However,
Sparkling Phantom's motivations are not clear.  It seems she may be a
prisoner, or have some task she must perform.  It also seems that she
offers a choice to each of the boys.  This is a film that would do well
with an extended summary (like the An-ni-me summary of Megazone-23 pt II)
with just the three Sparkling Phantom conversations translated.

Drawing and Annimation

The character drawings are done with a strong black line style.  This is
not my prefered style, although it does allow the artist to show a lot of
small details, which the animators use heavily.  Ghosts and spirits are
rendered in grey scale rather than color, which works.  Interior backgrounds
have a lighter black line style.  Outdoor backgrounds have no black lines
and are pastel or water-color in feel, not unlike Kimagure Orange Road.

The use of light and haze to produce a feeling of depth is excellent.
This also hilights the surrealistic portions, where everything is in
sharp focus regardless of distance, and the spirit-to-spirit
conversations, which are done on a flat black background with no details.

The story is told with a mix of static frames, "normal" animation and
"high class" animation.  The static frames are detailed and interesting
in themselves, so like Sazan Eyes they lighten the budget for the film
without hurting the pacing too much.  There are significant portions of
animation about the same style and detail as expected in a Lovely Angels
or Urusei Yatsura movie;  one person moving at a time, no really complex
motions.  However, some of the flashback scenes and one confrontation
between Hikaru and Kenata are done in really detailed full motion.  The
hand motions in particular can be quite complex, and they are not afraid
of having both characters moving at the same time.  There were two points
where i was really unhappy that this was not a CAV disk.  I am going to
have to dump the scenes to VHS tape so i can look at them frame by frame.
Oh, even in the "normal" animation sequences, the characters blinked often
enough that i forgot to say "thank you" after each blink after a while.

And then there are the space shots.  Clouds, sky, stars and planets figure
prominently in the immagery of the film.  Either some of the pictures are
actually photographs, or they have a really good astronomical artist,
maybe as good as Ron Miller.  And the super realism of the space and sky
shots do not interfere with the enjoyment of the animation;  there is no
clash of expected details like in the photographic sections of Venus Wars.

Score

This is, to my taste, an above average score.  Better than say Orange
Road or Beautiful Dreamer but not so well integrated as Sazan Eyes or
Silent Mobius.  It starts with an upbeat rockish thing, with a steady
beat that is obscured by enough cross-riffs to avoid boredom.  The high
emotion scenes are done in a "pure electronic" style.  Not quite squawks
and pops;  more like the Morton Subbotnik pieces "Sulfer Butterflies" or
"Return:  A Triumph of Reason".  Reminiscences are usually accompanied
with "movie music", relatively uninspired orchestral work.  Really, this
is the low point of the score, as the orchestration doesn't play one
instrument group's timbre against another, and so it all sounds pretty
bland and homogenized.  However, one remeniscence has a music box behind
it, and that works quite well.

The closing BGM starts out really nicely.  The vocalist uses a reedy
timbre to her voice, and it's the kind of melody usually described as
"haunting".  You know what i mean;  lots of subtle changes in tonality
so it is clear while you are listening to it, but you really can't
reproduce the long lines afterward.

But then the bass drum starts, hitting every beat with a single minded
sameness, and this time no cross-riffs to cover the mistake.  As if to
protest being buried by this crud, the vocalist proceeds to blow her
next two high notes (she makes the long one in the final measure, but...)
This is the kind of thing one can overcome in a live performance if the
vocalist has a lot of charisma and audience contact, but in a recording
it just sounds bad, period.  Unfortunate;  with better execution this song
could have been quite nice.

Special Appearances

The last five minutes or so are a glimpse of the production staff.
Mercifully, it is done to the opening BGM not the closing.  You get to
see the building in Kobe that was used as the model of the flying school
building, the four primary voice actors, the initial character sketches
being faxed hither and yon, a couple of clips of animators at work,
crowd scenes in Helsinki.  A nice montage.  I got the name of the
character designer from an explicit title in the montage;  the people i
think are the director and art director are also metioned in titles, but
not with their assignments.

Overall Assesment

This work is not worth the US$2.00 a minute Sight & Sound originally
wanted for it.  However, i bought it on sale, and am quite glad i did.
As a "feel good" movie it is not quite in Kiki's class, but the artwork
is quietly spectacular.  The story is absorbing enough to watch three
times in two nights without getting bored, and there is enough ambiguity
(at least if you don't know Japanese) to let you think about it the
next day.  I'm going to pull the electronic portion of the score onto
audio tape so i can listen to it without being distracted by the story.
It is at least high class wall paper, and quite possibly music.  So go
find a copy you can rent, borrow or share!

R Mark Chilenskas
Chilenskas@Office.wang.com