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 The MADMAN REEL ANIME 2008 FESTIVAL begins in Brisbane this week, bringing the best of recent Japanese animation to the big screen for a limited season. TOPHER HEALY looks at the highlights of the special selection.
With four main titles screening at Reel Anime this year, audiences will get a double-barreled dose of 2D traditional and 3D computer-generated features. Appleseed: Ex Machina and Vexille provide cutting-edge visual examples of anime development, while The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Batman: Gotham Knight prove that 2D anime still has a lot of life, and in many ways remains superior to the new breed.
Both Appleseed and Gotham Knight are interesting examples of franchise properties in anime. The Ex Machina sequel to 2004’s first 3D Appleseed (itself an update of a 2D version of Masamune Shirow’s original stunning tech-heavy manga) pits Deunan Knute and her cyborg companion Briareos against more threats to the post-human utopia they live in, while Gotham Knight is clearly a Batman film, with short stories designed specifically as a bridging device between Hollywood’s Batman Begins and the soon-to-be-released The Dark Knight. With Hollywood and Japanese animation crossing over more and more often in a somewhat scattershot exchange (Kill Bill, Speed Racer, the upcoming 3D Astro Boy), Gotham Knight continues the trend in an interesting fashion.
On this scribe’s part however, the two original features prove to be the most exciting propositions.
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time – directed by Mamoru Hosoda (One Piece) with character designs by Neon Genesis Evangelion’s Yoshiyuki Sadamoto – is a warm, funny, enjoyable and genuinely moving time-travel comedy-romance. Completely family-friendly like the best of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, it likewise features an engaging and complex storyline. Makoto is a high school senior who leads an unassuming life tossing baseballs with her best guy pals Kosuke and recent newcomer Chiaki, until a mysterious incident during a day of terrible luck sees her pick up the ability to briefly time travel. Instantly enchanted by the superficial possibilities of time travel, Makoto uses the ability to change her luck by going back in time. Hilariously she also uses it to eat her favourite meals over and over again and indulge in a marathon 10-hour session of karaoke. She soon learns, however, that the ability to change events has a downside, as she tries to avoid responsibility, the possibility of romance with Chiaku (ie, growing up), and accidentally causes problems for nearly everyone around her.
One of the greatest things about The Girl…, beyond it’s humour and humanity, is the wonderful expressiveness of the animation. For a 2D drawing, Makoto is one of the most richly rendered animated characters of recent times, filled with a sense of real life.
Which leads us to Vexille, perhaps the antithesis of the former film in several ways. Set in a future in which Japan has completely cut itself off from the rest of the world for a decade – both physically and electronically – except as a supplier of essential robotics technology to the West through the DAIWA corporation, the film introduces us to SWORD, a special ops team who gatecrash a secret meeting between DAIWA and international delegates. It appears something sinister is afoot, causing SWORD to be assigned to infiltrating Japan’s intense security. SWORD agent Vexille ends up seemingly a lone survivor of this mission, and finds herself in a Japan completely changed from what the world knew 10 years ago. The entire country has been leveled, huge robot worms known as Jags cover the wasteland, and only a small pocket of humanity exists in a shantytown that was once Tokyo. At least they appear to be human, unlike DAIWA’s executives, who are known to be perfect human-android hybrids.
Packed with eye-popping CGI action, Vexille is an odd beast. Borrowing elements of the Terminator, Mad Max, Blade Runner, Dune and other sci-fi touchstones (plus Japan’s long-term post-atomic bomb obsession with apocalyptic devastation), it somehow creates an affecting storyline from a hodge-podge of elements. Like Appleseed, the central concept of a post-human world is explored, but philosophy never overshadows the pulse-pounding and tightly constructed action sequences that remain the film’s main strength. Some may complain that it looks like an extended video game cut-scene, and that the characters’ features are strangely soulless despite some clever semi-cel shading (especially in comparison to The Girl…), but the film is directed with such verve you’ll find yourself swept along and entertained despite the shortcomings.
While the four films featured in Reel Anime perhaps don’t give the widest impression of Japan’s current anime output, they do identify the central strengths and manipulation of trends that ensure anime remains a vibrant force in the post-Pixar world of feature animation. Great stories and sci-fi action with big robots will never get old as long as anime creators hold the reins.
The REEL ANIME 2008 FESTIVAL screens at Dendy George St cinemas July 3-16, opening with Appleseed: Ex Machina. Bookings on 07 3211 3244.
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