Tag: japan

A Certain Scientific Railgun

  By

★★★
“Beware level 5-espers when they point their fingers at you!”

Have you ever noticed, when you are consciously looking for things that fall into a certain category, you find more and more of them? You may have seen it in action yourself after you discovered the “girls with guns” genre. Compare it to the time before you knew about it, how few movies/series there seemed to be there, and how much you realized were actually available after this site drew your attention to the specific genre. I have started to experience the same thing since I started to look into anime, and in particular the specific target of entries belonging to the GWG genre, that go beyond your usual Miyazaki-Ghibli production.

But then, anime seems like a bottomless pit; I recently saw a video by a German anime fan and publisher, who said there are thousands of anime being produced each year. For the year 2017 he spoke of 3,400 (!). I don’t know if that’s true: but considering, for example, how many Hong Kong martial arts movies I found when I really was looking for this specific kind of entertainment, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. Of course, he also admitted most of these anime series are garbage, get ignored and vanish as fast as they appeared. The Japanese manga and anime market is every bit as focused on turning an idea into a highly profitable product (including action figures, OVAs, soundtracks, etc.) as your average Hollywood franchise.

They may perhaps be even more calculated. The business is a highly competitive one, with studios opening and closing every year: they only stay in the business for as long as they produce successful series, and a lot of underpaid animators work free-lance. As enjoyable as this stuff can be, the production background is merciless. It’s maybe better to ignore it, especially as most of these series on DVD are just too expensive (though I never bought bootlegs, but if the Anglo-American territory offers a cheaper alternative, why should you buy over-priced German-dubbed volume boxes?).

But onto the subject of this review. This is a spin-off of another anime series, A Certain Scientific Index, which preceded Railgun. I’m not reviewing the original show, or its other spin-off, A Certain Scientific Accelerator, but would like to stress that while Index is a good show, Railgun is much better. All these series are based on the manga and light novels of author Kazuma Kamachi. He, obviously, is continuously working on his own fictional universe. There are so many volumes of the respective series out there, people on YouTube are making videos on what series to read/watch, and in which order, to get into it without having to consume everything that is on the market. The three seasons of the show I review here have alone already reached 69 episodes.

Index deals with a male character, Kamijou Touma, who has to solve problems of girls and other people, that are either of a magical or a supernatural (read: scientific) nature. Railgun puts a supporting character from Index, middle-school girl Misaka Mikoto, and her female friends to the center of the viewer’s attention. While Railgun might have been created to cater to a female audience, it may have become more popular for a general audience, similarly to how Xena overtook Hercules in popularity. Part of the reason may be Misaka Mikoto’s cuteness, for the Japanese love everything that is “kawaii”.

Misaka is an esper of the highest degree, level 5. And while she is one of only seven level-5 espers in Academy City, this is not as unusual as it may sound at first. For the whole city is filled with students that Charles Xavier would probably have called “extraordinarily gifted”! They are all learning to develop and use their abilities at school, though for what purpose I still have not found out; is there a job market for those kind of abilities? Still, given their powers it’s a very sensible thing to do, since otherwise the students might easily misuse their powers.

It’s understandable if this sounds a bit like your typical X-Men animated show from the late 90s. But those shows were primarily concerned with showcasing the abilities of these supernatural beings and adapting the most well-known comic book story-lines. Railgun is a bit different. Heck, it may not even really belong to the same genre as the X-Men, and very often puts its focus elsewhere. It may be the reason this series originally was of minor interest for many. While the girls from time to time show what they are capable of, the main narrative is telling nice little stories about the girls’ everyday life. Getting to know each other, their own little (or bigger) problems and oddities, going out in their spare time and… yeah… Occasionally solving some crimes and blowing things up!

This kind of tale is called “a slice of life story” and is its own genre in Japanese manga and anime. While we have that in the West too, I never noticed and probably would categorize this mainly as “drama”. But then this genre can obviously encompass more, as it is in part a social drama about girl friendships, part sitcom and (here) part superhero story. What to make out of this is, I think, up to individual taste. I can absolutely understand that, for many in the West, this kind of story is unusual; those expecting an ongoing superhero saga will likely be disappointed by this kind of storytelling. I personally found it charming and fresh, even though there certain elements did astonish me. The closest thing to this kind of show in the West might be something like Smallville.

The girl group here consists of the following. Misaka, who is able to control, and more importantly unleash an enormous amount of electricity. Her room partner, Kuroko, who is a teleporter and has a very painful-to-watch crush on Misaka. Uiharu, whose power is somewhat vague, but it is indicated that she can control the temperature of things. And finally, her best friend Saten, who surprisingly has no superpowers at all. Which actually comes in very handy at the end of the story, because sometimes having such a talent can be your Achilles heel.

Other characters include, Konori, a normal teen working for “Judgement”, kind of a social service which Kuroko and Uiharu also join. These teens maintain order on the streets, ranging from helping find a lost bag up to preventing innocent people being harassed or beaten up by outcast rowdies. Then there’s the school director who regularly seems to break Kuroko’s neck (or at least it sounds like it!), when she and Misaka use their powers on school property. The strange Doctor Kiyama who turns out to be the local legend known as “The Undresser”. This means she regularly takes her clothes off without any embarrassment, for minor reasons like it being too hot. No, I’m not making this up, I swear. It’s part of the story.

In the beginning Uiharu and Saten get to know Misaka who, much to the astonishment of Saten, isn’t arrogant at all, as most high-level espers seem to become. Misaka is a cool, sympathetic girl, constantly angered by… the affections of Kuroko, whose feelings for her are definitely more than platonic. It’s kind of shocking sometimes for me, when behavior we would probably label as bordering on sexual assault, is depicted in an animated show, largely targeted towards teen girls. But then this is anime and we all know it operates with different parameters from Western entertainment! Also, the show never takes itself too seriously. Except when it actually does, but more on that later.

Misaka sees through all Kuroko’s attempted manipulations and when Kuroko goes too far, you can expect Misaka to throw her (virtually) out or use her electro-powers on her. The pair remind me in their strange “dog-cat-relationship” of DC’s Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, with the difference that the Japanese versions are the good gals! It’s just natural that hotheaded tomboy Misaka is the leader of the group. Though she mainly keeps her powers in check, she may from time to time break the rules, such as by duping the public vending machine or when hunting an evil-doer. You know something not so good is coming your way, when she tosses a coin with enormous power in your direction.

While she has a temper on the outside, she is a sweetheart on the inside, caring very much for her friends and the people around her, and is definitely in the process of learning to trust others and to open her heart. Her most beautiful moments are when she is emotionally touched and doesn’t know how to articulate what she feels. It grounds this over-powered character and makes her more human. Indeed this “over-poweredness” was the reason why Kazuma Kamachi originally wanted to make Kuroko the main character, but the publishers saw it differently. Mikoto is not perfect despite all of she is being able to and that makes her so relatable.

These powers are what gave her in the previous Index show the name of “Railgun”- in her words, “because even objects of a minor size can generate an enormous power when thrown with enough energy in one’s direction”. She also comes across Touma, the main character of Index, who embarrasses her when he tries to rescue her from the company of some teenage boys. Unfortunately for him, she takes his well-meant help as a personal insult, which leads her to constantly challenge him to a fight. Unfortunately for her, his special power is that the talents of others don’t really function when he holds up his hand. Hilarious scenes ensue.

It’s a good show in the GWG anime genre, though in my book no match to highlights such as Black Lagoon, Canaan or Mirai Nikki. If you are in the mood for something a bit different, that shouldn’t be taken too seriously, this might be something for you. It’s sometimes light as a feather, followed by solid SF action and intriguing plots, while still retaining its own certain charm. It may not sound like too much, but having recently watched the dense and sometimes difficult to understand Bakemonogatari, I actually enjoyed this much more.

The series consists of a nice mixture of stand-alone episodes and a very slowly building story-arc. I like that very much, as it gives time to build each of the characters, their relationships to each other and emotional connective moments for us, the audience. This kind of structure also did remind me a bit of the old X Files show with its single episodes, in contrast to today’s series, which tend to have a constantly developing story arc. You miss a few episodes and you’ve got problems catching up, and trying to understand what’s happening again.

That’s not the case with Railgun. The series initially takes its time, with the girls and their everyday life the focus of attention. Then, to my surprise, it moved to a bigger story with unethical experiments performed on helpless esper kids, and dark forces lurking in the background. It’s almost shocking, since the place we have been shown here mostly seemed sunny, funny and enjoyable. The biggest problems the girls ever faced, was how to deal with personal little insecurities. But where there’s light, there must be shadow, too! Local urban legends of a “level-upper”, a device said to improve or increase one’s esper abilities, make the rounds and while investigating these seem a harmless leisure activity for the girls, the outcome is much bigger than anyone could have foreseen in the beginning.

After a big climax it looks to go back to square one, and we return to small “what did XYZ today” stories. But then a new girl appears and so-called “poltergeist activities” happen around her, leading to another, much bigger challenge which also includes a twist. Not everyone you think must be put behind bars is evil; not everyone you trust is trustworthy; and sometimes the one with the least powers can be the savior of the day.

What I especially liked was that each of the girls is their own character and acts differently. They are not just bland copies of each other with only differing abilities. While I don’t think many people will ever get to know this series if they are not deep into anime, I especially enjoyed the way it structured its story. We in the West may have had our Kim Possible, the Japanese post-Sailor Moon have this. I liked it well enough to invest time and money in the second season, A Certain Scientific Railgun – S, which will also be reviewed here.

Dir: Tatsuyuki Nagai
Star (voice): Rina Satō, Satomi Arai, Aki Toyosaki, Kanae Itō

Baby Assassins

  By

★★★½
“We kill people so we don’t have to get these annoying jobs.”

I’ve read complaints that the trailer mis-sells this, over-hyping the action components. Fortunately, I went in largely blind, so had no such preconceptions. I can see how it could be fair comment: while bookended by solid action, the middle is much more an oddball Japanese comedy. [If you’d told me this was directed by Sion Sono, I’d believe you] I still found it largely engaging, while occasionally hilarious and – sometimes simultaneously – utterly baffling. It’s about two teenage assassins, Chisato (Takaishi) and Mahiro (Izawa), who have been told by their handler they need to start fending for themselves. That means moving into an apartment, and finding work which doesn’t involve killing people.

As the line of dialogue above suggests, these are tasks for which both young women are singularly unsuited. Mahiro, in particular, is a self-confessed sociopath, who can barely keep up a normal conversation for five minutes, without wanting to shoot somebody. And it’s an urge that usually wins. We see this at the beginning, when a convenience store interview turns violent, and she has to fight her way out, past the manager and his (surprisingly loyal) employees. In the end, Chisato helps her get a job at the maid cafe where she works. I’d heard of those, but… yeah. Not sure if the depiction here is exaggerated for comedic purposes: it’s startlingly bizarre. Things ultimately go awry there when a Yakuza boss visits, and does not follow establishment etiquette, shall we say.

I was reminded of Violet and Daisy, in that this is as much about the relationship between the two young hired killers, as their actual killing. However, here the duo’s background is entirely opaque. How did they become hitwomen? Who is hiring them? Where are their parents? These are all questions that the film is utterly disinterested in answering. To be honest, the concept is a little shaky. Surely murder pays well enough that a part-time job in a 7-11 is not necessary? However, if you can roll with it, there’s a lot of amusement in getting a glimpse of what assassins do when not assassining, especially if you’ve ever lived in a similar arrangement. 

Izawa, a stuntwoman who doubled for Rina Sawayama in John Wick 4, handles most of the action. In addition to the early convenience store brawl, there’s also a final fight against the much larger Mimoto. It works, because Mahiro makes no attempt to out-power her opponent or go toe-to-toe with him, instead opting to use her advantages in speed and agility to gain an edge. I would like to have seen more of this, and some of the humour here is perhaps trying too hard to be “quirky”, complete with air quotes. But these are a pair of characters with which it’s fun to spend time, and certainly provides more amusement than I needed. I’ll be checking out the sequel, Baby Assassins 2 Babies, in short order. 

Dir: Yugo Sakamoto
Star: Akari Takaishi, Saori Izawa, Masanori Mimoto, Mone Akitani

BLACKFOX: Age of the Ninja

  By

★★★½
“Fox hunting.”

I’d not heard of this, and we pleased to find it was directed by Sakamoto, a well-respected action choreographer, best known for Power Rangers, but who also worked on 009-1: The End of the Beginning, among others. There’s an interesting back-story here, in that this was created as a live-action spin-off to accompany the anime film BLACKFOX, and was released on the same date. It’s a prequel, with one of the heroines here, Rikka Isurugi (Yajima), a distant ancestor of the heroine in the contemporarily-set anime movie – they have the same name. This, however, takes place back in feudal Japan, and we start with Miya (Yajima), a young girl with an unusual, if uncontrolled, power to manipulate electricity.

Her father was teaching her to use it, until he was killed by the Negoroshu clan, under Lady Hakku (Fujioka) – they are also after Miya. To get revenge on them, Miya seeks out a mercenary gang called the Foxes, run by Hyoe Isurugi (Kurata). They agree to take on the mission, and Miya befriends Hyoe’s grand-daughter, Rikka. However, Hyoe gets a better offer, and hands Miya over to Hakku. This causes a rift between him and Rikka, who feels they should honour a deal once struck. She sets out to rescue Miya, though that’s going to be tougher than ever, since she has now been passed on to the person who hired the Negoroshus in the first place.

While most of the plot unfolds as you would expect, there are enough twists and surprises along the way to sustain interest. In particular, loyalties are not necessarily what they seem, and as well as our saintly heroines, there’s more moral grey on view here than I thought there might be. Never mind the plot though. We are here mostly for the action, and Sakamoto does not disappoint, with Yamamoto doing most of the heavy lifting. There are perhaps too many times when she’s masked – albeit, usually with masks that are necessary to the plot – to give her full credit. But she definitely is executing enough of her own stunts to make me interested in seeing her elsewhere.  And she’s a World Junior Wushu Championship gold medalist, so there’s that.

Fujioka also does well, both in action and acting, making Lady Hakku perhaps the most interesting and well-rounded character in the film.  I will confess to initially suspecting I’d seen this before. But I was clearly confusing it with another film which had ninjas and/or samurai running around in the forest. There are quite a few, to be fair. It is clear that this was not a large-budget production, and the ending is a little too sequel-leaning. Yet the limited resources don’t often distract from the important things: the story, characters and action, which are all decently-handled. My expectations were low going in, until I saw the director’s name, and for something stumbled across by accident in the depths of Tubi, it punches well above its weight. It’s also available on YouTube, and is embedded below for your viewing pleasure.

Dir: Koichi Sakamoto
Star: Maimi Yajima, Chihiro Yamamoto, Yasuaki Kurata, Mami Fujioka 

Beautiful Weapon

  By

★★½
“The world’s laziest assassin.”

By that, I am referring to the unnamed heroine of this film, because she doesn’t have to leave the house. She works as a hitwoman for Yakuza boss Yasuhiro Kokubu (Katô), and he delivers the targets to the front-door of her rural home, on the pretext of her being their entertainment. She then gives them the Black Widow treatment, having sex with them, before a couple of post-coital shots. She barely has to get out of bed, literally. In some way this makes sense, since she’s blind – I guess it’s nice to see the disabled being given equal opportunities in the assassin field. But she’s not exactly happy with her lot; her cleaner and handler Masahiko Yoshizawa (Murai) is concerned about her spiralling into alcoholism.

Of more immediate concern though, is Kokubu’s paranoia, which has convinced him that his trio of killers need to be disposed of, before they become a liability. His sent one assassin to visit her, only for her to prevail. So he follows up by dispatching the other one, Kenji Sakagami (Kusakari), to finish the job. Except he had followed the first killer and knows all too well what’s going on. Unsurprisingly, he suspects that once he kills her, his name will be next on his boss’s list, and so makes other plans, which involve him escaping with his target. However, Yoshizawa will need to be handled, and Sakagami also needs to convince her of his genuinely good intentions.

As you can imagine, given her static nature, it’s not exactly action-packed, though does ramp up nicely down the stretch. Until then though, it’s of an angsty drama, with more than the normal amount of sex. The focus is perhaps more on Sakagami than anyone else, with the heroine being quite passive. While this is perhaps inevitable, given her particular set of circumstances, it doesn’t make for thrilling cinema. The director seems fond of depicting things in real time, which is a bit of a mixed blessing. I could have done without a lengthy depiction of Sakagami’s first journey out to her home, but when the love-making between them gets a similar treatment, it’s an interesting variation on the way such things are usually depicted.

This is the first of the series which would give us Beautiful Beast a couple of years later, but is a little lower key and, in general, less interesting. The elements are all reasonable enough in themselves, it’s just that they are combined in a way which occasionally borders on the soporific. Action is probably not a secondary consideration here, likely ranking below both the drama and the eroticism, and very much of the “blink and you’ll miss it” kind. The finish is strong, though this too seems over-extended beyond what it might merit. As a portrait of a damaged assassin, it just doesn’t convince, perhaps because we do not spend enough time with her, and even her blindness doesn’t matter much. 

Dir: Kazuo ‘Gaira’ Komizu
Star: Masumi Miyazaki, Masao Kosakari, Kunio Murai, Takeshi Katô
a.k.a. XX: Beautiful Weapon

Rise of the Machine Girls

  By

★★★
“Rage against the Machine Girls.”

A decade after the splattery joy which was The Machine Girl, we get this – not quite a sequel, not quite a reboot. Creator Noboru Iguchi helped on the script, but hands the directorial reins over to another, and… Well, it’s amusing and moderately entertaining, rather than the jaw-dropping and ground-breaking spectacle which was the original. Part of this is simply the passage of time: what was fresh and original at the time, has now become much more familiar. There is still no shortage of invention here, but it does seem  haphazard. It’s less a story, than a series of skits, albeit ones heavily drenched in gore – unfortunately, a lot from blood group CGI-minus.

It takes place in a futuristic dystopia, where the poor are left to sell whatever they can to make ends meet, including their children, limbs and internal organs. Sisters Ami (Nagimiya) and Yoshie (Kanon)  are both a bit short in the body-part department, but make a living as idol performers. Less the singing kind, more as combat performers, though they yearn to be one of the more kawaii (cute) variety. Yoshie moonlights as a vigilante, taking out the organ traffickers she feels responsible for her plight. This brings her the wrath of Aoyama Dharma (Negishi), leader of the local ring, who captures Yoshie. Fortunately, help for Ami is available, in the form of wandering assassin, Matsukata (Sakaguchi) , ranked the #5 hitman by his company.

There are certainly some cool moments here. The pregnant killer… though pregnant with what, I can’t even begin to describe. Or the Battle Bust Sisters, who are exactly what you think they would be from their name, e.g. one sibling’s bosom is capable of inflating into a pair of large, bullet-proof airbags as a defensive mechanism. But it never manages to gel cohesively, and I occasionally even got the feeling that new director Kobayashi was frankly bored of the whole endeavour. For instance, there’s what should have been a glorious, extended one-shot when Matsukata and Ami storm the Dharma HQ, dispatching minions with fists, swords and head-shots. But half of it is played out in fast-forward, entirely negating the point of the whole exercise.

There are some dry jabs at things like idol culture, fans being admonished pre-performance, “If you must jack off, please do so in your pocket.” [This is somewhat ironic, given the copious number of panty shots present!] It seems to lack a forceful personality at its heart, with neither of the sisters having the same presence of Ami v1.0 from the original. Negishi does deliver an enjoyably villainous performance, chewing scenery in a way that’s fun to watch. I certainly wish they had gone with a more practical approach to the effects; while some things obviously need CGI (those airbags mentioned earlier), there’s really no excuse for ever using it to fake arterial spray. It’s fun, but forgettable, and probably won’t stray across my screen again.

Dir: Yûki Kobayashi
Star: Hina Nagimiya, Hanakage Kanon, Tak Sakaguchi, Kimono Negishi

Nowhere Girl

  By

★★½
“Slow, slow, slow-slow, quick…”

For the first hour, you may be forgiven for wondering if there has been some kind of mistake, because the poster bears almost no resemblance to what happens in the film. Oh, it’s the same actress, to be sure, and she is a schoolgirl. But it appears, rather than the war story promised, you have strayed into a teenage drama. In it, Ai (Seino) is a talented but troubled student, who seems to be suffering from some kind of post-traumatic stress disorder. The special treatment she receives at school brings her enmity as a result, both from her class-mates and the er homeroom teacher (Kaneko). Though she finds solace in art, including a mysterious major project on which she is working, housed in the school auditorium.

It’s all very subdued. There’s a lot of scenes of people standing around talking. Or, for variety, sitting around talking. The camera is considerably more mobile than the characters, engaging in stately pans and tracking shots around the dialogue, accompanied by classical music that’s positively soporific. Yet, it’s clear there’s something “off” about the whole situation. The school is frequently shaken by earthquakes, and it’s apparent that Ai has a tendency to outbursts of violence, which is bubbling just below the surface. The staff and other students don’t pay attention to the warning signs, and continue to push Ai’s buttons. You’ll understand where I thought this was potentially going to end up, delivering on the image with her going postal on the school.

Not quite.

Trust Oshii to make something which confounds expectations, while still somehow managing to disappoint. See  Avalon or Assault Girls, both films with massive potential, that fall short of realizing it. Here, you have a film which would potentially be a classic, if it started at the hour mark, then built on what follows, for another hour after the credits actually roll. Because what kicks off – at the 67-minute mark if you’re interested in fast-forwarding to that point – is beautifully staged. There’s a spectacular sequence of kung- and gun-fu, whose highlight for me was Ai taking the term “human shield” to a whole new level. Then a revelation to set up a whole new scenario, one that looks very interesting, and… The End.

I do have to mark this down for the film trying to pull off the most clichéd of clichéd twists which, to a significant degree, renders everything previous to that point a waste of everybody’s time. You need to be a supremely confident film-maker to pull it off; while it’s clear Oshii doesn’t lack in confidence, pulling the carpet out from under the viewer really needs to have happened 10-15 minutes in. The longer the conceit is sustained, the more likely the audience’s reaction will be “You’ve got to be kidding me” – and there might well be an epithet dropped in before “kidding”, too. Some day Oshii will deliver on his undeniable talent and imagination. Just not today.

Dir: Mamoru Oshii
Star: Nana Seino, Nobuaki Kaneko, Lily, Hirotaro Honda

The Glorious Asuka Gang!

  By

★★★
“Red Nose Day?”

Dir: Yôichi Sai
Star: Miho Tsumiki, Yôko Kikuchi, Kumiko Takeda, Mikari

This is based on a 34-volume manga series by Satosumi Takaguchi, which began publication in 1985. It is far from the only adaptation. There have also been two OVAs, a live-action drama series, a different feature version made in 2009, and even a pair of drama CDs. This feature, however, is the only one available in the West to date with subtitles. It takes place at an indeterminate point in the future – the year is given as 199X – when “the streets are overflowing with drugs and violence”. There’s a battle for control, which conveniently seems to be along gender lines. The unfortunately naned male “Red Nose Gods”, under boss Toki Masamune, are going up against the all-girl Hibari Group. They are named after their leader (Mikari), who speaks only through her lieutenant, or with the aid of an artificial voice-box.

Out heroine, Asuka (Tsumiki), has just peeled off from Hibari, along with her best friend Miko (Kikuchi), seeking to make their own way on the streets. They quickly gain the enmity of the Red Nose Gods, but more troubling, is that Hibari has ordered Yoko (Takeda) to kill them both. For Yoko is Miko’s sister. This is established quite quickly, and the rest of the movie is various shenanigans as the two groups struggle for power, while the local corrupt police run interference on their own agenda. Will there be betrayal, plotting and heavy use of a Rolling Stones song? The answer is yes, to all three elements.

This feels like it ought to be a straight-to-video title, of which there was no shortage around the time this came out (1988). But the production values are considerably better than normally present in that kind of thing. The cost of merely licensing the Stones’s Satisfaction would have exceeded the entire budget of many V-cinema entries. There are also some quite spectacular sets built to represent “New Kabuki Town”, after the apparent near-collapse of normal society, and the photography is positively theatrical in quality. If you’d told me this was a Japanese remake of Streets of Fire, I would have believed you. Elements like Hibari’s voice-box indicate there was a decent amount of thought put into the various elements too.

So why is it… kinda dull? Or at least, it seems like it should be considerably more exciting. While there are occasional upticks in energy, it feels considerably more chatty than I wanted. Yoko, in particular, seems to act in ways that defy any kind of internal logic, yet are necessary to propel the narrative forward. What is her motivation? What, indeed, is anyone trying to accomplish? For a time, it looks as if Asuka is seeking to take over from Hibari, or replace Toki. This all goes away quite quickly, left by the wayside, and leaving a vacuum in terms of character goals. It ends instead in a straightforward duel between Asuka and Yoko, and there’s a definite sense that, once the dust settles, nothing much will have changed. Maybe that’s the point.

Ouija Japan

  By

★★
“Battle Royale, with cheese.”

This is a film with a really interesting idea; unfortunately, it’s one where the execution (and, indeed, the executionS) is not good enough to do it justice. There are just too many missteps to consider it successful, in more than intermittent spurts. These begin with having a heroine called Karen (Sekiya). I’m not sure if writer/director Kato is aware of the implications that name now has in the West, but I did spend much of the film waiting for her to ask to speak to the manager. Here, she has moved to Japan with her husband (Abe), and six months in, is having trouble fitting in. She’s struggling between her limited knowledge of the local language, and the bitchy behaviour of the other local wives, led by Akiyo (Kodaka).

She does have one friend, Satsuki (Chiba), who has her back. Still, it’s with some trepidation that Karen agrees to go on an overnight trip with the group. She has good reason to be concerned, as a session with Kokkuri-san, the Japanese version of the ouija board, brings down the wrath of a local fox spirit. In an rather odd development, the spirit pits the 16 people present against each other, in a Battle Royale style hunt from which only one can survive. As an added, technological twist, each gets an app on their phone, where they can, in effect, trade their own life-energy for power-ups, such as weapons or the ability to see what other players are doing.

In the right hands, with the right actors, and the right budget, this could have been immensely satisfying, perhaps along the lines of the glorious slaughter which was Tag. I’m unsure Kato is the right hands, am certain these aren’t the right actors, and it definitely needs more money to deliver on the concept. The story unfolds in an awkward mix of English and Japanese, and a lot of the time, the actors seem to be reciting their lines phonetically. Sekiya is the main problem: it says something that Chiba delivers a more convincing performance in English, her second language, than Sekiya manages in her native tongue. Even discounting the knee-jerk reaction to her name, you’re given little reason to root for Karen.

I would have been happy to forgive much of the above, had the carnage been up to much. There are no shortage of actresses in Japan who know their way around a fight sequence. I guess they were all otherwise engaged the weekend this was shot. Even at the lower end of the budgetary spectrum, the likes of Hard Revenge Milly or High Kick Angels show what can be accomplished. This rarely reaches the level of competent, and the whole app mechanism feels more like an excuse for lazy plotting. Quite what the fox spirit – which is, incidentally, just someone in a mask – gets out of this is equally vague. For a first draft of a script, this is excellent. For a finished movie, not so much.

Dir: Masaya Kato
Star: Ariel Sekiya, Miharu Chiba, Eigi Kodaka, Takeaki Abe

Asura Girl

  By

★★★
“There will be Blood“

This is part of the Blood universe, which previously gave us anime series Blood +: Episodes 1-25 and Blood: The Last Vampire in both animated and live-action versions. That’s small beer compared to the Blood-C segment, which began as a 12-episode anime show, subsequently becoming two manga series, a novelization, a stage play, and three live-action movies. The other two, set in the current day and entitled Blood Club Dolls 1+2, aren’t of interest here despite their title (and aren’t very good), since at least the first only includes a brief cameo by Saya, the heroine of the series. Her role here is considerably more substantial, and it’s basically a better production all round. Not least because most of it works reasonably well with no prior knowledge.

It takes place not long before the outbreak of World War II, in a small rural village, plagued by a series of mysterious deaths. Brutal military policeman Amakatsu (Furuta) is charged with investigating, blaming local communist sympathizers. However, two elements suggest otherwise. Firstly, the arrival of Saya Kisaragi, member of a vampiric race called the ‘Elder Bairns’, who hunts her own kind. Then there is the contraction of a mysterious blood-based disease of Ran (Aono), the sister to village resident Ren (Matsumara). He encounters Saya when she meets a police squad, and tries to rescue her. If you’ve seen any of the entries linked above, you’ll know that she isn’t a character exactly in need of rescuing.

Wisely, the film doesn’t stretch out the “who” aspect of the mystery, since it’s not exactly hard to guess. The “why” does turn out to be a bit more unexpected, and at the end, there are a few moments where it does feel like some familiarity with the world in which it works would be helpful. Generally though, it’s fine as a standalone piece. I would have liked to have seen more of Sana in action: after taking on the police, she takes a back seat to Ran and the struggles of the village to convince Amakatsu they’re not better off dead than red. However, it certainly qualifies for the site, with some solid sword-fights at the end, which make up for in very enthusiastic, crunchy sound design, what they may lack in explicit gore and impalement.

Outside of Sana, it is a bit bland in terms of characters. Ran doesn’t make much of an impression and, until the final third, neither does his sister. There were points where this reminded me of a Hammer film, albeit one obviously set in a different time and place, with the concept of a small village plagued by a terrible evil. Twins of Evil might be the closest, as it also had a strong authoritarian figure (played by Peter Cushing), who was correct about the presence of evil – just terribly wrong in regard to its source. Amakatsu doesn’t have anything like the same arc, though this remains a considerable improvement, in most ways, over the contemporary live-action film.

Dir: Shutaro Oku
Star: Ryūnosuke Matsumura. Kanon Miyahara, Kaede Aono. Arata Furuta 

Go For Broke

  By

★★½
“The Seven Schoolgirl Samurai”

I have so many questions about the Japanese education system after watching this. It takes place in a high school whose student council is repeatedly being squeezed for extortion money by the Yagyu, a local biker gang. They ride up to the place, beating up and terrorizing the students, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Where, exactly, is the principal when all this is going on? Teachers? Concerned parents? There is a throwaway line about how reporting things to the police would only make the gang attack harder. But you’d think some adult might notice and want to get involved? Mind you, outside of their chosen mode of transport, the gang themselves are largely indistinguishable from pupils, except for perhaps having slightly longer hair. Apparently in Japan, collar-length hair is like wearing a jacket with a Hell’s Angels patch.

Fed up with all this, the council hire a yojimbo or bodyguard – explicitly referencing The Seven Samurai as they do so. To the council president’s surprise, this is Saeka Agawa (Usami), a bit of a delinquent herself. She recruits a number of her female friends, including a joshi pro wrestler and a stunt-woman. Under the guise of a “music club,” they train the pupils in the fine art of school self-defense, and successfully repel the Yagyu. However, the gang don’t take defeat easily, and this is where things get complicated, because it turns out that Saeka has previous history with Leopard (Ninagawa), the woman who runs them. They retaliate with a kidnapping, demanding both money and that Saeka stay out of their business, pushing the council’s resolve close to breaking point. However, Saeka insists they stay the course, setting the stage for a final battle, as both sides marshal all their resources into a winner-takes-all conflict. I should mention this includes the pupils driving around campus in a van converted to use both artillery and a flamethrower. Once again, where are the adults?

Sadly, it’s not nearly as much fun as the above scenario may sound. It’s the kind of thing which echoes the classic pinky violence scenarios. Yet despite what the poster may suggest, instead of being uncompromisingly for mature viewers, there’s hardly anything in here which would push it above a PG rating. That’s when you can see anything at all, with Nakamura being far too fond of backlighting and smoke for the film’s good, though he does manage a number of stylish shots. Also of note, both the dialogue and a canonically eighties pop song on the soundtrack echo the poster by saying “Go for break”, which annoyed me much more than it realistically should. At north of 105 minutes, it definitely drags at point, and few of the “samurai” beyond Saeka are given even the slightest bit of development. It’s the kind of film I’d love to see remade by someone like Takashi Miike or Sion Sono, who could bring out the undeniable potential, which this version mostly leaves on the table.

Dir: Genji Nakamura
Star: Yukari Usami, Kozue Saito, Yuki Ninagawa, Rikako Murakami
a.k.a. V Madonna: War