Tag: japan

Sexy Battle Girls

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★½
“Neither sexy nor battle-y. They are, however, girls. So, one out of three then.”

sexybattlegirlsIt takes real effort for a film that’s barely an hour long, significantly to overstay its welcome, but SBG manages to do exactly that, thanks to its woeful combination of shoddy action and tedious sex scenes. The heroine is teenager Mirai Asamiya (Hashimoto, about as much an actual teenager as I am), who has been transferred to a new school at the behest of her father. Little does she know, at least initially, that she is simply a tool for his revenge, headmaster Bush (Hotaru) having seduced Mirai’s mother away from her husband, and run off with her. To this end, Mirai has been brought up with what we should call, a very particular set of skills: we’ll spare you the details of exactly what the “Venus Crush” involves, but it does lead to the classic line, “He doesn’t know how dangerous your vagina is!” Before she can reach her target, she has to get close by dethroning and replacing his current enforcer of discipline, Susan (Taguchi), and also get past Bush’s lesbian daughter (Kiyokawa).

It’s clearly intended as a spoof of the Sukeban Deka genre, with the heroine wielding another Japanese toy, a kendama, rather than a yo-yo – in this case, her weapon also has a little phallus, and no prizes for guessing where it’s aimed. The resulting moaning and thrashing around, only slows the pace of this down even further. There are also subplots involving schoolgirls being prostituted off to Japanese politicians, and a truancy officer who looks the other way in exchange for sex. Maybe the former was of particular cultural significance in its native land at the time this was released in 1986; here, it’s just a dangling cinematic preposition, hard to put up with. The film does occasionally show some berserk invention: let’s just say, you don’t need to worry about slicing apples when Mirai around. However, I’d estimate a good half of its running time is tedious soft-core sex scenes of one form or another, and the action, when it appears, makes the original Sukeban Deka fights look like Bruce Lee at the peak of his career.

I guess it’s kind of churlish to complain about a pinku movie containing sex. But there are ways and means by which it can be used, and combined with the other plot elements in a manner that enhances them. The makers of this are apparently unaware of all such techniques, and prefer an approach which feels like a crap action movie crashed headlong into a crap soft-porn film, with the floor sweepings used to assemble the finished product. Never mind “uncut” and “unrated,” the finished product here is damn near unwatchable.

Dir: Mototsugu Watanabe
Star: Kyôko Hashimoto, Yukijirô Hotaru, Ayumi Taguchi, Ayu Kiyokawa
a.k.a. Target Campus: Attack the Uniform

Bayonetta: Bloody Fate

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★★
“Maybe it makes more sense if you’ve played the video-game?”

Bayonetta-Bloody-Fate-1I might have enjoyed this more, if I hadn’t recently sat through 25 episodes of basically the same plot, in Blood+. Generic anime storyline, #7: supernatural entity, trying to bring about the end of the world because… That’s what they do? In this case, there are sages and witches, who balance good and evil. 500 years ago, however, one from each side united, and the offspring was Bayonetta (Tanaka). She is now taking out angels, but there’s also a religious cult preparing for the rebirth of their saviour, a journalist who blames Bayonetta for the death of his father, and a mysterious, very whiny little girl, who keeps calling her “Mommy”. Who that turns out to be will surprise no one.

I had to piece together the above, and it’s kinda vague in some areas, I suspect largely because there’s an unspoken assumption that, if you’re watching this feature, you’ve played the video-game on which it is based. Now, that’s probably not an unfair assessment for the majority of viewers. However, any casual spectator (and I certainly fall into that category) is likely to be somewhere between confused and bored by the approach, which seems to gloss over stuff that warrants more exposition, and explains in details things that shouldn’t need it. For instance, at one point, Bayonetta is on a train, and is attacked by another woman, leading to a spectacular battle in, on and around the carriages. The attacker then vanishes from the movie for a long period, without explanation. Game players, I suspect, will know the who and why, far better than I did; to me, it just felt disjointed and badly constructed.

Which is a shame. I used the word “spectacular” in the previous paragraph, and there’s no questioning that aspect of proceedings. The look here is very stylized and elegant, especially during the numerous fight sequences, both imaginative and well-animated. in a way that reminded me, in some aspects, of the early Aeon Flux animated shorts. It’s just a pity this obvious effort wasn’t expended on a feature which provides little more than fan service, both in the storyline and a rather leering approach to its lead character, that is significantly less mature than the subject matter deserves. While I understand and accept Bayonetta herself is, to a certain extent, intended to be a parody of this kind of OTT character, the movie is probably only recommended if you’re looking for an animated superheroine who resembles Tina Fey impersonating Sarah Palin. I get the feeling that is likely to be just a little bit too much of a niche market.

Dir: Fuminori Kizaki
Star (voice): Atsuko Tanaka, Norio Wakamoto, Tesshō Genda, Mie Sonozaki

Tokyo Ballistic War

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★★
“Long live the new flesh.”

tokyoballisticI’m on the fence with regard to the Japanese uber-gore films, most notably, by the Sushi Typhoon studio, which have achieved renown (or infamy) of late. While some (Mutant Girls Squad) are entertaining nonsense, others (Helldriver) are pretty tedious. So, the concept of lower-budget, exploitation-er versions of these, already low-budget exploitation flicks, is a mixed blessing. Enter Zen Pictures, and their formula, which appears to consist of costumed heroines who alternately fight and get tortured. The story here is split into two volumes, but with each barely an hour long and containing plenty of filler, probably better to consider them a single, feature-length entry.

I do like the central story, which is daft as a brush, yet executed with the right level of straight-faced intensity. In order to market his half-human, half-machine cyborgs to the military, Koumoto, chairman of the Dainippon company, comes up with a cunning plan: create a set of female athletes, who will smash all existing records. However, he has forgotten the Japanese Sports Association, under chief Gondo, who don’t take kindly to these performance-enhancing shenanigans. The solution? Naturally, build their own (eco-friendly!) cyborg to fight the Dainippon team. Except, due to an administrative cock-up, the original candidate, Megumi Asaoka (Taki), is accidentally replaced by Ai Asaoka (Noda). Initially, Ai is successful, but after being captured by Koumoto, she is reprogrammed, and her friend Megumi has to battle to rescue Ai.

The first volume is significantly better, though still has its weaknesses, not the least being more evidence that crappy CGI is far less endearing than crappy practical effects – and there’s enough of both to be seen here. However, it whizzes along with sufficient energy, and contains plenty of action, to merit forgiveness for the obvious poverty-row origins, and everyone involved chews scenery to amusing effect. After the break, unfortunately, things slow down, with a pair of lengthy torture sequences which had absolutely no value for me whatsoever, and the fights seemed, to a large extent, repeats of those from the first volume. Both parts also have another severe weakness – taking an idea and running with it, well past the point where it stops being interesting. Case in point: one of the battles includes the participants each releasing a cyborg arm, which then stage their own fight, independently. For 15 seconds, it’s kinda amusing. After a minute, it’s dull. But the film keeps going far beyond that, and there are plenty of similar cases; the surgery which turns Ai into a cyborg is also depicted at far greater length than necessary. Maybe this is some Japanese fetish thing, of which I was previously unaware.

tokyoballistic2This is definitely a case where less would have been more, and with a more enthusiastic hand on the editor’s knife, this could have become a decent eighty-minute feature – and possibly an even better 50-minute one. Kamikura does often demonstrate an awareness and acceptance of exactly how ludicrous the entire scenario is, and the film is at its best when wholeheartedly embracing its own insanity. For instance, each of the cyborg athletes’ talents is influenced by their sport: Hitomi Oka is a tennis-player, so whacks people with an over-sized, pneumatic racket, and lobs exploding tennis-balls at them. Additional helpings of that kind of imaginative lunacy – and considerably less tied-up schoolgirls being prodded or whipped – would certainly have made for a more entertaining end product.

Dir: Eiji Kamikura
Star: Ayaka Noda, Arisa Taki, Masahiro Saito, Shinya Nakamura

Zero Woman: The Accused

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★½
“Putting the zero in Zero Woman”

zerowoman4After the genuinely impressive bleakness of Assassin Lovers, the series comes crashing back to earth with a splat like a rotten tomato for this entry, which fizzles out early on, and then manages to lumber on for another 45 minutes. Rei (Tachihara) spends her time between missions hanging out at a gay bar, and rescues one of the rent boys, Mitsusu (Kitagawa), who ply their trade there after a vicious assault – accompanied, it has to be said, by the least appropriate music in the history of cinematic homosexual rape. He ends up moving in with her, to the latest in a series of unfurnished apartments provided by Section Zero, and the two damaged individuals start creating a life, of sorts, for themselves. However, there’s a serial killer, apparently with a deep hatred of men, operating in the area, and Rei is given the mission of tracking down and eliminating the psycho.

It’s hardly less than obvious who it’s going to be, but almost everything here is played at such a low-key, with no measurable intensity, so it’s even hard to be annoyed by this lack of subtlety. About the only moment with any energy is when Rei’s boss Mutoh (Yamashita) smacks her across the face for a bit of backtalk. However, my ennui was overcome by the scene where Mitsusu gives Rei a haircut. Considering this film is less than 80 minutes long, I think I could have very easily done without this – and, ideally, rather more action. After an opening which might impress upon you the importance of not getting stuck in an everyday routine, Gotô seems to lose interest in staging any set pieces, and the final few minutes certainly don’t make up for what has gone before.

Inexplicably described by Tom Mes as “the best” in the series, I found it severely uninteresting on just about any level, being badly hampered by poor performances, direction which struggled to reach workmanlike and, in particular, a script which is largely bereft of ideas. This and Assassin Lovers feel like the Jekyll and Hyde of the series; it’s as if all the good stuff somehow ended up in its predecessor, leaving this installment with just the inept film-making.

Dir: Daisuke Gotô
Star: Mai Tachihara, Yuujin Kitagawa, Shinji Yamashita, Daisuke Yamazaki

Kite Liberator

  By

★½
“Half a star deducted, for being only half a movie.”

KiteLiberatorAnd not a very good movie at that, suffering from such multiple personality disorder, it sometimes feels that two completely different anime were spliced together in some mad scientist’s laboratory. If so, he clearly got bored and drifted off while the project was half complete, because this ends in a way which doesn’t so much suggest another part, as demand it unconditionally. Six years on, that still hasn’t materialized, making this about as appetizing as a half-cooked chicken. Oh, and speaking of mad scientists, there’s one of those in here too.

We’re a decade on from the events of the original Kite, and it seems Sawa has – without explanation – morphed into Monaka (Inoue). In between tracking down and killing paedophiles, she has a regular identity as a klutzy waitress at a cafe, where he co-worker Mukai (Okamura) protects her from the sleazy patrons. Monaka’s father is an astronaut, who has been in space for years. His space-station is visited by Kōichi Doi, a researcher investigating ways to preserve bone density in zero-G. However, it appears a combination of factors such as radiation, results in the astronauts mutating into monstrous creatures. After a firefight, Doi and his team bail out as the station disintegrataes, but the monster that Monaka’s father has become, is also on their craft, which crash-lands – conveniently right in her neighbourhood. A cover-up ensues, despite a trail of corpses, and Monaka is given her next mission: to kill the monster, unaware that it’s actually her father.

Which is pretty much where it ends, after a first battle between Monaka and him. Really: WTF? On its own, this is such an entirely pointless release, you have to wonder what happened. Even up to that point, this is problematic in a bunch of way, not least that Monaka is almost a minor character, and it appears to be a sequel in little more than name. While I’m not normally one to criticize a film for a lack of sex, this also lacks the severely transgressive or original qualities which made the original infamous. This is mostly a monster mash, which we’ve seen any number of times before. There is some potential for a second half, but I doubt it will ever happen. This is like tearing a book in two, selling the first half and never publishing the rest. If I had actually paid any money for this, I would be righteously pissed.

Dir: Yasuomi Umetsu
Star (voice): Marina Inoue, Akemi Okamura, Masakazu Morita, Setsuji Satō

Blood +: Episodes 1-25

  By

★★
“Bloody mediocre”

bloodThis is the third version of the same concept I’ve seen, following some years after the first animated version (released in 2000), but a couple of years before the live-action movie from 2009. What they both had over this was commendable brevity. If I’d realized the degree to which this was true, when I started the series on Netflix, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. The main problem, for anyone who has seen the other two takes, is that you know what’s going on. You’re well aware that the heroine Saya is a human-vampire crossbreed, who has now sided with humanity and dedicated her life to taking out the monsters. This was taken care of, quickly and efficiently, in the alternate versions, and we could move on to the kicking of vampiric ass. Here, however…. Not so much.

After 25 episodes – eight hours of story, even discounting credits – I still haven’t seen Saya in full-on attack mode. Indeed, I really don’t know a great deal more than I did after the first two parts, because the story unfolds at a glacial pace. A military group is trying to weaponize the “Chiropterans,” alongside a shady industrial conglomerate, Cinq Flèches. Opposing them is the Red Shield, dedicated to wiping out the Chiropterans, who can only be killed with a sword dipped in Saya’s blood. And then there is Saya’s own history: she may be a teenage girl in modern Okinawa, but she gradually remembers that she goes back through the Vietnam War, all the way to pre-Revolution Russia. Of course, telling this in chronological order would be too simple: not when she can have dramatically convenient amnesia, and recall things at whatever leisurely pace is needed by the plot.

Instead, we get a lot of chat about her not being fully “awakened” and, even more irritatingly, all the characters seem to know what’s going on, they just refuse to enlighten the audience. For instance, there’s a diary, started by the founder of Red Shield, Joel, which contains all his research; successive generations have kept it, to share with those who commit their lives to Red Shield. Do we get to know what’s in it? No, not even after Saya’s brother Kai is given the diary to read. It’s something which can be sustained for a short time, but as the episodes roll on, and information continues to be dribbled out, the approach becomes increasingly irritating. It’s a shame, since the core idea is imaginative, with scope for plenty of development, and the animation is solid, and better than I expected. There’s one wonderful episode in the middle, where an attack on a research facility unleashes children which turn into… things. I was all ready for this to be Saya’s blossoming, and the next dozen episodes to hurtle towards a thrilling conclusion. Didn’t happen.

Instead, we got more in the show’s ongoing series of inconclusive battles, with the villains muttering something dark and meaningful, before flying off into the night, and Saya recalls another incident from her past. By the time episode #25 rolled around, with the heroine finally getting to face off against the uber-mysterious Diva, I was wondering how it would all be wrapped up, but hardly unhappy to have finally reached the en… What? There’s another 25 episode chunk hidden elsewhere on Netflix? You have got to be kidding me. And, from the reviews I’ve read, these make the first batch look like masterpieces of storytelling. Don’t expect a review any time soon. Life’s just too damn short.

Dir: Junichi Fujisaku
Star (voice): Eri Kitamura, Akiko Yajima, Hiroyuki Yoshino, Junichi Suwabe

RIN ~Daughters of Mnemosyne~

  By

★★★
“Harry Potter, with more lesbians.”

mnemosyne2There’s something to be said for not laying everything out on the line for your audience from the get-go, and only gradually revealing pertinent information. But do it too often, or for too long, and you run a significant risk of driving them away in bafflement. Such is probably the case here: for rather too long, it’s clear that the characters know a great deal more about what’s going on than the audience. The central character is Rin (Noto), a private investigator who, we soon discover, is immortal. We find this out because she keeps coming back after getting killed by Laura (Ohara), an assassin employed by the mysterious “Apos,” who thinks he/she is a god, and is intent on proving it. Turns out, this immortality is the result of Rin ingesting a spore from a tree known as Yggdrasil – yep, that’s ancient Norse. In Japan – which normal people can’t see. If a woman is infected, she becomes immortal. If a man does, he turns into an “angel”, a monster that hunts and eats the immortals, who have an irresistible urge to have sex with the angels.

There’s more. A lot more, spanning a century or so. Probably too much more than should be crammed in to six 45-minute episodes, but as I noted with AHS: Coven, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s fairly clear where it’s all going to end: a battle between Rin and He-who-must-not-be-named, Apos. Before we get there, however, there’s a lot of sex, much of it of the girl on girl variety, though with a significant quantity of BDSM as well, befitting is apparent origins on a Japanese version of Skinemax. That certainly makes this unsuitable for minors: some is necessary to the plot, but a lot of it feels more like fan service – a bit of a shame, because it needlessly devalues what’s a fairly intriguing concept, containing a good deal of imagination. Rin’s daily business, such as finding lost cats, always seems to end up dragging her into much more complex affairs, linked either to Apos or some big corporation.

Some of these are well done and are capable of standing alone, such as the third episode, which covers biological weapons and human testing, still something of a taboo subject in Japan (Don’t mention Unit 731. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it).  However, the closer we get to the big bad, the more confusing and less interesting things become. One review put it beautifully: “It feels like you’re just watching the characters explain what the hell is going on, while raping and eating each other.” I think the creators are trying to up the ante, but there’s little or no emotional wallop to the sexual sadism, with the result that it becomes kinda dull. However, it does also play to anime’s strengths, in that whatever the mind conceive, can be depicted. If you don’t get a frisson when the angel wings start sprouting, you’re a more phlegmatic individual than I. Overall, it’s worth a look, though you may want to track down the episode synopses first, and use them as a cheat-sheet.

Dir: Shigeru Ueda
Star (voice): Mamiko Noto, Rie Kugimiya, Nobuyuki Hiyama, Sayaka Ohara

[Random amusement: while looking for pics, I did a Google Search for images with “mnemosyne anime”. One of these things is not like the other. #AmyPondWTF?]

Travelers: Dimension Police

  By

★★
“Explanations? They’re vastly over-rated.”

Travelers_-_Dimension_Police_PosterThis doesn’t so much hit the ground running, as plummet into it at top speed, to such an extent I genuinely stopped the film, to check if this was perhaps part two of an ongoing series. It isn’t: it’s just that unconcerned about explanations. What seems to be going on, is a universe where the different dimensions are now connected. Hence, there’s Retro World, Fairy World, Lost World, etc. This offers new criminal possibilities; to counter these, a trans-dimensional police force is also created. One such officer is Ai (Nagasawa), but her mission, to protect a psychic (Takayama) against the terrorist group Doubt is thrown into… Well, doubt after she meets her former partner Yui (Kinoshita), who appears to have thrown her lot in on the side of the villains.

At least, I think some of the above is probably fairly accurate. I am not prepared to commit any more strongly than that. Easily the best thing this has to offer are the actual fight: Sakamoto did a lot of work on Power Rangers, and also the cult classic Mark Dacascos vehicle, featuring a young Britney Murphy, and the style here is fast and frenetic, with people being punched hard enough to fly into things. A lot. Credit both lead actresses for doing a good chunk of this themselves. Less successful, are just about all the other elements, led by the confusing plot, that appears to think whizzy SFX will remove any need for coherence. Admittedly, it’s not helped by subs, even the official DVD English ones, which are borderline illiterate, and on at least one occasion appear to contradict directly the on-screen action.

I was also more than a little uncomfortable with the apparently leering approach taken to the heroines. Chris, breezing through the living room, airily dismissed it with a roll of her eyes as “Oriental women in shorts,” (see the cover on the right for a good example). While part of me wanted to argue the point, the cheesecake quotient here was just too high for any credible defense: I mean, do you really need skimpy clothes for inter-dimensional travel? The final battle is kinda decent, but I’ll confess, my brain had largely given up on the entire exercise by that point, my attention only being somewhat regained whenever things e.g. fists or actresses started to fly. Sakamoto’s credentials as a fight choreographer are fine, just not in the director’s chair.

Dir: Koichi Sakamoto
Star: Nao Nagasawa, Ayumi Kinoshita, Yuko Takayama, Kenji Ebisawa

Sailor Suit and Machine Gun

  By

★★★½
“Lured in by the title, stay for the well-acted drama.”

sailorsuitThe novel by Jirō Akagawa which spawned this has proved rather popular in Japan. It also inspired two television series, in 1982 and 2006, but this film was the earliest adaptation, coming a year before the first show. Izumi (Yakushimaru) is in a funk because of the death of her father, but gets a shock when dozens of yakuza suddenly show up at her school. Turns out, he had a rather shady past, and had just been named heir to a gang, on its boss’s death: his own departure suddenly leaves Izumi next in line. Initially reluctant to take over, she does so, simply to spare the members from a futile death. And it’s not as if they’re a massive organization anyway: most of those at her school were on loan to them for the day(!), so how much trouble can really ensue…?

Of course, the answer is more than she expects, since it turns out her father may have been holding a large package of drugs, and its owner, Fatso (Mikuni), now believes Izumi and her gang have it. Her place is ransacked while she’s out, and there’s also the questionable Mayumi (Kazamatsuri) who claims to know Izumi’s father, but whose past is even murkier. Let’s just say that, by the time the film ends, their numbers will have been reduced from the already fairly feeble count of four, with which they start. It’s not exactly a glamourous life at the bottom of the organized crime pyramid, and the movie doesn’t portray it that way. There is, however, an odd unevenness of tone and style, which swings from drama to comedy to art-house. Sômai seems to have a fondness for setting his camera up some distance – in one scene at the end, a very great distance – from the characters, and letting things unfold. It’s certainly striking on occasion; there’s a sequence where a cop wants to interrogate Izumi, but her bodyguard won’t let him in, despite being obviously and horribly over-matched, and another achingly long-take that flows effortlessly from pedestrian to motorcycle traffic.

However, if you’re looking for action, even at the cheesy level of Sukeban Deka, you’re better off elsewhere. Despite the attention-grabbing title and poster, there is only one, brief moment of machine-gun madness. While that may be part of the point – it’s almost Izumi’s last hurrah, giving her very few options – it is a shame that such a striking concept was not more enthusiastically embraced. We do still have a heroine who is brave, loyal to her friends, and through Yakushimaru’s solid portrayal, comes to three-dimensional life. Finally, if Kazamatsuri looks familiar, that’s probably because, 20+ years later, she played the proprietress of the House of Blue Leaves in Kill Bill, Volume One…

Dir: Shinji Sômai
Star: Hiroko Yakushimaru, Tsunehiko Watase, Rentarô Mikuni, Yuki Kazamatsuri

Zero Woman: Assassin Lovers

  By

★★★★
“Grimly fiendish yet effective killers’ romance.”

zerowoman3Mob boss Daidohji (Yutani) has the city almost within his grasp, thanks to a minion promising him material he can use to blackmail the mayor. But his success is short-lived, as the minion is taken our by Rei (Takeda), who is then ordered by her boss Takefuji (Nishioka) to finish the job, taking out Diadohji and the rest of his gang. Not that the mobster is sitting back and waiting: he hires his own assassin, Katsumura (Matsusa), to get to Rei before she can get to him. However, neither killer is exactly happy with their role as pawns in the bigger scheme of things, and when they meet, it’s time for a little R&R. As in “romance and rebellion.”

This is the best of the saga which I’ve seen to date, mainly because it does a better job of striking a balance among the various elements. The storyline and characterization are not lazily ignored in preference for more easily exploitable elements; not that there’s any shortage of either sex or violence, but they seem to flow naturally from the plot, rather than appearing to drive it. The relationship between Katsumura and Rei has some credibility to it, with each seeing a reflection of themselves in the other. But will that be able to over-ride Rei’s strong loyalties to Section Zero? The film does a good job of keeping that in doubt, right up to the very end, where Rei is given the ultimate in ultimatums by Takefuji, and it’s not clear what way she’s going to jump.

There’s also a nice, slick look to the film, which unfolds under an apparent endless array of neon lights, and on perpetually-moist streets, a visual style that helps conceal the low-budget nature of proceedings. While the story may rely to heavily on the clichés of the genre, those involved, on both sides of the camera, execute – pun not intended – their responsibilities with enough flair and energy to counter-balance its shortcomings, and the end result is certainly a significant improvement on the first two films in the revived series.

Dir: Masahide Kuwabara
Star: Kumiko Takeda, Keiji Matsuda, Charlie Yutani, Tokuma Nishioka