Pascoite gets bored and reviews anime, vol. 65 · 2:01am February 28th
I don't typically like to have both featured items be movies, since that doesn't provide a lot of wall-clock time of entertainment, but such is my lot this week. Features are Nimona, from last year, and Penguin Highway, from 2018. Some other decent stuff as well, plus some more YouTube short films, after the break.
Nimona is a non-anime Netflix movie from 2023—well, it didn't start that way, but I don't want to get into the politics of how it came to be. And wonder of wonders, Netflix just put it on their YouTube channel for free. Legend holds that a brave knight defeated a dragon, but due to the magical nature of monsters, you can never be sure that it's gone for good. Society must remain wary.
Fast forward a millennium, and a futuristic society still has things like knights, and it's walled off to protect itself from the outside world. Knighthoods are traditionally hereditary, but one, Ballister, has bucked that trend and is coming out of the ranks of commoners. The queen fully supports this and likes the idea that casting a broad net for heroes is likely to be a more fruitful endeavor.
Not everyone feels this way, however, and in one of the movie's weak points, the motivation for the bad guy is never given any more than perfunctory context. They set up Ballister to be framed for a very serious crime, turning him into a fugitive from not only the government, but from another of the knights, his love interest. And yeah, I get that in a Disney-ish movie (actually, it was Disney, but again I don't want to get into the politics of it) there's going to be a certain tongue-in-cheek treatment of a lot of things, but naming the guy Goldenloin? That's laughably over the top, and not in a good way.
While on the run, Ballister encounters Nimona, a very chaotic girl who likes to break things for no more reason than to simply upset the system, and as she assumes he's guilty, wants to help him usher in a blood reign. But once she's convinced he's innocent, breaking things in the name of clearing him is a good enough substitute. Except it turns out she's a shapeshifter, which opens up a lot of doors for how he can go about exposing the truly guilty party.
The plot doesn't exactly go anywhere unexpected. Heck, few Disney movies do, but it still does it well. Of course Nimona's been ostracized for her nature, and finding acceptance, much less changing society's view of her, shares the spotlight as a main plot thread. And for me, it was the more interesting one. Solving the mystery, along with the action involved, is fine enough, but it's the personal identity issue that forms a connection to the character. And she has some very stark things to say about her own attitude toward it. That was both a strong and weak point to me.
First, one other weak point, and one that often plagues movies/shows that use a shapeshifting character, and that's lack of variety. Nimona can change into any form she likes, and while the total number she uses (I didn't count, but probably around a dozen) isn't too limited, it comes up often enough that she repeatedly chooses the same ones. And yeah, there can be an explanation for that. Taking on a new form means learning how to use it well, and maybe her regulars are just the ones she's most comfortable with, but then say so. Lampshade it. It takes all of five seconds.
But back to the climactic issue. Nimona, of course, has been harboring the thought that maybe the public is right about her. And she comes to a decision point for what to do about that. It's powerful seeing her struggle over it. Given the Disney(-ish) connection, of course there will be a moment of redemption. But the movie kind of skimps on that. She's caused lots of destruction, but so have the "good" guys. The public will understandably be conflicted, and while she does become a hero in her own right, that doesn't negate the bad stuff she did. So when public opinion of her changes, it's vague as to how that came about. Presumably in the interim, the truth circulated and people understood, but again, lampshade it.
The overall thread of overcoming prejudice felt like it played out very similarly to Frozen or Zootopia, for all that it's a long-standing one instead of new (for the former) or resurgent (for the latter), which is another reason it didn't seem terribly original, but the execution was good. It's not predominantly a comedy, but the humor notes do land consistently.
Art was very good, kind of in a deliberate polygon CGI fashion, and music was also very good, both as the more classical background music and the more pop-style songs.
Rating: very good.
Movie, relevant genres: drama, sci-fi, fantasy, thriller.
Penguin Highway, a movie from 2018, often has the sci-fi tag on it, and while I understand why, there really are no sci-fi elements to the plot, just a possibility that sci-fi might affect how things got the way they did in the first place. And, I guess, because the main characters look at things from a scientific viewpoint, though the actual happenings feel closer to fantasy.
And now that I've said something vague, I'll complain that the summary I originally read of this was so vague as to give me a completely incorrect impression of what it'd be about. I mentioned long ago that I took a number of recommendations of non-Ghibli family-friendly movies from a blog, and this was one. Despite that vague summary, it was recommended emphatically enough that I put it on my watch list, though my impression that it'd be a low-stakes slice of life about penguins in nature or at an aquarium had me worried it'd be kind of dull, hence it taking me so long to finally watch it.
This was really good.
I'd place main character Aoyama at around 9 years old. He's very precocious, always intently involved in some kind of research project. Several of his classmates play prominent roles as well, including his best friend, an ordinary boy named Uchida, and an equally precocious girl, Hamamoto, with whom he hasn't engaged that often, but they're friendly to each other and enjoy chess matches.
And then there's an unnamed young lady. She works at the dental clinic, but she also often meets Aoyama after school to play chess with him at a cafe. It seems like she almost acts as a babysitter for him when his father will be home late, and it creates the feeling that their friendship goes back a way, but nothing concrete ever comes to light. He's got a big crush on her and is fascinated with her boobs, but the rational side of him tries to deny and reject that. It's an interesting angle.
One day, the town is surprised by a bunch of penguins stampeding through. That sure jived with my prior impression of what it'd be about—surely they've escaped from a transfer truck or something. But no, there's no explanation for why they could possibly be there. Scientific Aoyama can't accept that, so he's determined to get to the bottom of it with Uchida in tow, only to find that Hamamoto has been investigating another matter, and their efforts converge.
It's fun watching the clues they pick up and the logical threads they follow as they compare notes, plus the dichotomy between how adult Aoyama and Hamamoto in particular think they are and how they can't help but be childish about some things. The writers did a good job about doling out information steadily so that the mystery never stagnates.
The movie is really more about the interpersonal relationships, and there are a lot of threads going on, several of them in conflict with each other, especially at an age where some of the characters are just starting to develop the potential for romantic interest. If I have one complaint, it's that of the large number of plot threads going on, very few come to any sort of firm conclusion. The completionist in me wants to know the how and why of all of it, but I can't really fault them for leaving it how they did.
Art looked somewhat simplistic for how new it is, but it seems like they were trying to evoke a Ghibli look, and it's not too far from that. The music was great. It's classical in style, and I repeatedly noticed how good and fitting it was.
Rating: very good.
Movie, relevant genres: drama, mystery, fantasy, coming of age.
And the extras, nothing too noteworthy this time, but not bad either.
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova (Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova, 12 episodes), Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova DC (movie), Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova Cadenza (movie)—series from 2013, and both movies from 2015. I haven't seen the first movie, and as I understand it, it's just a compilation of the series. Given the musical terminology in the titles and some musical imagery in the opening, you'd think it'd be a prominent theme, but it is not, except in one minor way. This just ends up skimping on too much detail. It begins with a group of students at a military academy, and one, Gunzo, the son of a legendary admiral, is shown a captured enemy submarine that's gone dormant, but at his touch, it reactivates and says it will follow only him. Thus he and his friends crew it against a menacing enemy. That's a lot to unpack, and the backstory never gets more than a vague development. Autonomous copies of actual vintage naval vessels with very advanced tech suddenly appear all over the world and deny humanity the use of the sea, and they jam international communications as well, due to some message about how humanity is destroying the environment. Gunzo's father was seen as a traitor who tried to work with the enemy. But Gunzo wants to defeat them with the use of this submarine. However, a number of these vessels emulate a female avatar in order to interact, including Gunzo's submarine. This enemy, The Fog, can defeat human ships through brute force, but they suffer some setbacks due to not understanding how to do it any other way, i.e., they have no concept of strategy. Thus Gunzo's submarine, I-401, emulated by the girl Iona, finds that she's far more effective with a human captain. As more of The Fog's ships decide there must be some truth to that, they get conflicted about their roles in the war. Thankfully, the potential harem aspect of this really doesn't develop. Iona is devoted to Gunzo, but not really in a romantic way, and only one other ship has a similar attitude. Eventually, the plot turns to them needing to deliver a weapon prototype to the US, which is the only power with the resources to mass-produce it. That all comes to an implied conclusion that could have stood on its own. Then the second movie adds a new conflict of some higher-up bad guys looking for revenge while also filling in what happened with Gunzo's father to make Iona available to him. Though where the bad guys originally came from and what their goal is remain nebulous. Naval combat isn't too common a focus in anime, so that was a nice change, but other than that, it doesn't differ much from any other combat show. Art was obvious CGI and reminded me most of Estab-Life and had quite a bit of fan service. I did rather like the character design of the show's main antagonist, Kongo, who looked appropriately elegant yet quietly menacing. Music was average to a little better. Rating: good, though lower in that range, relevant genres: sci-fi, drama, war.
Mirai (Mirai no Mirai, movie)—from 2018, the title is often only halfway translated, as "mirai" literally means "future," so the full title is Mirai of the Future. It rates highly for audiences but gets a little more mixed response from critics. And I have mixed feelings as well. Kun is a very young boy, and as the movie begins, he's awaiting his mother's return from the hospital after the birth of his little sister Mirai. In what's not a new twist at all, he soon decides he doesn't like her because he feels neglected in the face of all the attention she requires. There's additional tension at home, as Mom wants to return to work quickly, and Dad freelances, so he can work from home and watch the kids, but he has no experience managing a household. Problem 1: I totally understand Kun's mindset, but the trick is to get the viewer sympathetic with him, yet he comes across as so whiny that at no point was I rooting for him. I also understand that kids that age will behave in irresponsible ways and, frankly, are often not sympathetic at all as a result. But there's a point where you have to trade off complete realism for the needs of storytelling. When significant chunks of the movie are enduring yet another of Kun's temper tantrums, it can become somewhat of a chore to watch. Kun finds that when he goes into the house's courtyard, he meets up with other family members from some other point in their lives, including Mirai as a teenager. It's through those explorations that Kun learns to appreciate what family means and that his fears are unfounded. (One critic saw these as daydreams and felt they were too advanced for someone of his age to invent, but I took it as real "magical" encounters, or it's unlikely he'd be able to see the deeper meaning in the scenarios presented.) Mirai is really the only enjoyable major character in this, and yet I do respect the ultimate message. I've liked a lot of other things by this director in the various studios he's worked for, but this wasn't one of his better efforts for me. Art was very good and resembled a Ghibli style, at least for the characters, and the music was good. Rating: decent, but high in that range, relevant genres: fantasy, drama, adventure.
RErideD: Derrida, Who Leaps Through Time (RErideD: Tokigoe no Derrida, 12 episodes)—I added this 2018 series because I like Yoshitoshi Abe's character designs, and it was the only thing he worked on that I hadn't seen yet (there's another currently in development). Derrida and his father are key designers of androids, but he gets caught up in a conspiracy to weaponize them, then pulls a Philip J. Fry and wakes up after being frozen for ten years. He finds the future world to be a strange schism of regular city life immediately adjacent to war-torn wastelands, with those androids at the center of it. Yet when he gets nostalgic, a strange mist surrounds him, and he gets briefly transported back to the same era where it all started, somewhat focused on a pet theory about time travel he shared with a friend. So he goes searching for the friend's daughter Mage in the present. He meets up with Mage's friend Yuri and a former policeman who both help him, and the policeman's own daughter is really adorable. Every time he flashes to the past, he can try to change history, yet he discovers he can only do little things that don't have much of an effect, but he's convinced if he can find Mage, then he'll have the knowledge to change the one key thing and set the present straight. I like the idea behind it, but it's kind of rushed, the combat is only occasionally good, the bad guys are laughably cliched (including one that I'm guessing is a parody of Donald Trump), and people make incredible leaps of logic to understand what's happening or believe Derrida. And way too much clicks into place due to convenient coincidence, which is a sign of lazy writing. Various characters are interesting, but the plot doesn't hang together very well. Art was mostly good, and the music was average. Not much going for it here. Rating: decent, relevant genres: drama, sci-fi, thriller, action, mystery.
Shiki (22 episodes + 2 OVAs)—2010 series based on a novel. A shiki is a death spirit. This show had a number of fakeouts at the beginning, which kept my interest up, but it ends up going pretty much the way you think it will. It starts with a high school girl, who hates living in the rural area, crushing on the new guy in town. He has zero interest in her, though. She soon takes ill, and nobody can figure out what's wrong with her as she wastes away. It's painfully obvious this will be connected to the reclusive rich family who built a European-style mansion on a nearby mountainside and moved in during the dead of night. And just from that description, it's painfully obvious this will involve vampires. It turns out they're not technically vampires, but there's functionally no difference. And it spends a number of the early episodes just waiting for the characters to realize that, to the point I wondered if they were going to hold the idiot ball the entire way, but no, they do catch on and decide to fight back. There are a few interesting characters along the way, but that characterization occurs mostly in small bursts. The main problem I had with it is that both sides are terrible. Yes, we get the "humans are just as bad as the monsters" lesson, which is fine, but it's not told in a way that surprises, and it leaves you with nobody to root for. It takes a lot of skill to make terrible people sympathetic—I've only seen it done truly well once—and otherwise it can make the story grating. Those flashes of characterization did keep my interest overall, though, and it was pretty good in that regard. I've only seen one other thing by this studio, and the art is pretty unique here, most notably in the deliberately over-the-top hairstyles that reminded me of One Piece at times, and in how it goes to extremes to make characters look either really attractive or really ugly. It's also oddly fan-service-y in places, even on the deliberately ugly ones, like a nurse who's shown multiple times in her sleepwear, which is some see-through lingerie and thong. The opening and closing songs were just okay, but the incidental music was effectively creepy. Rating: good, relevant genres: drama, horror, psychological thriller, mystery.
To three animated shorts on YouTube!
A Story Only I Know (short film)—of course since I've watched so much ChungKang now, that's what keeps turning up in my recommended videos. So as I did with the very good series Maria Watches Over Us some time ago, I'll address the elephant in the room right away. These videos are from South Korea, which is a predominantly Christian country, so when the first scene is about two girls attending Mass, I can see this immediately turning off viewers who have an aversion to religion. If you press forward, I don't think it'd bother such people, though. One of the girls keeps nodding off, and when she awakens, she sees everyone around her transformed into animal forms. One's up near the altar and looks like a goat, so there's the obvious demonic symbolism, but the rest mostly are things like rabbits, ducks, deer... not things that keep running with that symbolism, though still dark in how they're presented. But the girl's best friend, who'd been sitting beside her, appears to be in the midst of some kind of wedding ceremony up front. (Most videos I've seen by this school are subtitled (or have no dialogue anyway) but this was not. While there's little dialogue, I do still feel like I've missed out some by not understanding.) But then the girl wakes up again. Yeah, we've got some Inception-type stuff going on. Add on several more instances of not being able to tell what's real and what's dream, then it ends ambiguously. I liked the art, the music was appropriately unsettling, and it's done well as one of those Weird Tales that typically won't come to a conclusion, just letting you stew in the possible implications. Rating: good, relevant genres: horror, drama.
Bluefly Dream (short film)—yes, more ChungKang. This one confused me somewhat. A guy gets ready for work and interacts with his cat, but when he arrives, he sees a small stuffed bear. When he picks it up, he pops into a dream world where he's a woman. It made me wonder if it was a masculine-looking female remembering her past, or a biological male fantasizing about wanting to be female. But then he pops out of the dream, sees one of his coworkers is a dead ringer for the woman he was in his reverie, so maybe the bear triggered him into seeing her memories? It did seem to lead up to her designing that character. So I guess it's like seeing something through another's eyes, yet it's unclear he learned anything from it, other than perhaps making a new friend. I'm grasping here. Art was simplistic but good, and the music is never going to be amazing for these things but was fine enough. Rating: decent, relevant genres: fantasy.
And I (short film)—yeah, I've gotta watch some other than ChungKang, but theirs more consistently look enticing. I first found them by watching shorts labeled as "award-winning," so maybe I need to stick to the ones that say that. This one went over my head. A girl on an alien world meets a guy trying to grow flowers in the wilderness, and they strike up a friendship over it. But then while wandering, they encounter a monster, but it's like a "thorn in the lion's paw" thing, and maybe the guy was a tree spirit or something? I dunno. Art was nice, and honestly, the best part may have been the music, but I don't know if it was written for this specifically. Rating: decent, relevant genres: fantasy, adventure.
Seen any of these? Did I convince you to try any of them? I'd like to hear about it in the comments.
Last 10:
vol. 55 here
vol. 56 here
vol. 57 here
vol. 58 here
vol. 59 here
vol. 60 here
vol. 61 here
vol. 62 here
vol. 63 here
vol. 64 here
I'd head good things about Robot Dreams and I'd love to hear about the thing you watched where they actually made the villains sympathetic like you mentioned in the Shiki review.
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Huh, I hadn't heard of that movie. Looks interesting.
The one time something made me feel sympathetic toward truly terrible characters was actually a short novel, We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. I discussed it some in this blog post.
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Yeah, it kinda slipped under the radar for a lot of folks and then suddenly started winning awards left and right. It apparently has no dialogue and is very sad and sweet by turns.
Nimona was great, though yeah there were a few fridge moments.
I've been meaning to finally watch Penguin Highway.
I think I saw an episode or two of Arpeggio of Blue Steel. Of the ships-are-girls media, it's not my favorite.