EARTHIAN.
(From a manga by Yun KOUGA). EARTHIAN #1 opens with an attractive credit sequence involving the Earth, red roses and angels' wings, and then moves to aerial views of what is evidently modern Tokyo, a pigeon flying among skyscrapers, and the apartment where two young men live, seemingly in some sort of gay relationship. This is an altogether superior-looking opening for an anime. The younger man helps a violet-haired girl who is chased by three thugs. She stays at their apartment, provoking a certain jealous tension. She has bad dreams, and beyond this point the anime becomes odder and odder, till one wonders if there are any characters who don't have supernatural powers, aren't part of a secret organisation or aren't androids!
The two young men are 'angels' who have a watching brief over humanity, to see if the Earthians (us) are a race worth saving or not. Chihaya is a 'plus checker' and Kagetsuya is a 'minus checker'. Judgement day is close.
EARTHIAN #2 has a different credit sequence with feathers falling on various ancient monuments ie the Pyramids, Stonehenge, etc and then opens in modern Paris with two main characters, Chihaya and Kagetsuya from episode #1. The action moves to London, and involves a sick musician (actually another dark Angel) who composes a magical song for a girl. However a corrupt music producer who forces them to hand over the material for the song and, since the demo disc is accidentally destroyed, forces the musician to re- record it in a studio which seems to be at the Marquee in Wardour St. The animators get most of the London details right, except for apartments with outwards opening doors, but somebody ought to tell them that Western music producers use pens, not guns, to rip off musicians!
I thought episode #2 was inferior to #1.
OZ.
OZ #1 opens with a military helicopter flying over a desert landscape, while a complicated explanatory text scrolls up the screen. World War III has been followed by incessant local warfare. A young woman, Dr Felicia Epstein, is a passenger. The helicopter lands, somewhere in the former USA. In the next scene Felicia is in a city street, being bothered by louts, but she is rescued by a handsome young soldier, "Sergeant", who single-handed makes a mess of the thugs.
Apparently Felicia is going to a lab. where her father has been developing androids. She seeks news of her brother, Leon, who has disappeared. Unfortunately as she gets near the whole area is trashed in a series of explosions. In the ruins of the lab, the local forces with Felicia and the Sergeant uncover a refrigerated capsule containing an android of handsome and androgynous appearance. The androids revives and escapes while they talk. It makes a mess of some tanks with a laser weapon, and is about to throttle Sergeant Muto when Felicia emotionally intervenes. The android recognises her as "Master" and, speaking in a low-pitched but feminine voice it introduces itself as "Epstein 1019".
In the remainder of the episode, it is revealed that the android is under orders to escort Felicia to an utopian high-tech enclave known as 'OZ', in Central America, where her brother is working. Just to complicate matters, if Sgt Muto is to accompany Felicia he has to desert from his unit, and he runs into some old comrades. There are three series of androids, all from Oz, but of different development levels, diferent programming and different personal agendas. Leon has ordered that the 1019 series be scrapped but 1019 resists this order. In short, there is a lot more action and complicated goings-on including a plane crash, and a skirmish with mercenaries. There is also some romantic interest between certain characters and the very humanoid androids.
In OZ#2, the OZ operation has been perceived as dangerous, and Sgt. Muto, back in the US, has been given orders to infiltrate it. Most of the action in OZ #2 takes place in OZ, in Central America. There is a scene between 1024 and Muto's friend which really works as an emotional interchange, rising above the animation medium and the incomprehensibility of the dialogue.
This series has interesting ideas, with attractive designs in places, but it's quite 'talky' so unless you are fluent in Japanse you really need to watch the fansub. The story skips about rapidly, and it seems that more length and a bigger budget would have improved the videos but (in fansub form) it's well worth seeing.
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Koji 40k
BRONZE CATHEXIS (30 mins)
This is the follow-up video to ZETSU AI 1989. At first glance it might seem to be just a music video, as there's no obvious story. However, the sequences are scenes from the BAD BLOOD and BRONZE manga.
In the manga, Koji crashes his motorbike and is badly injured. He loses his voice. Meanwhile Koji's family exert various pressures on Takuto and his guardian, Hirauchi, to get Koji out of hiding and back to his 'duties' in the family business. The video has some wonderful art sequences in it and the music is pleasant.
Izumi 40k
YOMA (40 min ea.)
This is a horror story set in the warring samurai period of Japanese history and is the story of two young men who were childhood friends. Now Maro has become infected with demonic powers by the blood-soaked earth, and the Hikage is looking for him with orders to kill him. However, rival warlords Oda Nobunaga and Uesugi Kenshin would love to be privy to Maro's secrets of the Takeda clan, and despatch assassins to intercept and kill Hikage.
Hikage defeats his attackers, but then a strange priest appears and tells him "The person you seek is not here. Only those who have lost the will to live come here. He follows a beautiful girl, Aya, to a village where he is hospitably received. Only gradually does he realise that something is horribly wrong. Maro appears, but does not recognise his childhood friend.
In the second episode, Hikage meets a second incarnation of Aya, meets a talking horse-demon, and battles with Maro.
MARMALADE BOY
This is a TV series made for an audience of teenage Japanese girls, and as such is likely to be of interest to those of specialist tastes or those severely bitten by the anime bug. That said, there's a lot in it that makes it worth a look. The first four episodes have a cracking good script, and the first episode has not a dull or duff line in it. In this first episode, schoolgirl Miki discovers to her dismay that her parents intend to divorce, and swap partners with another couple, and that both couples plan to live scandalously together in one household, and that the other couple have a boy the same age as Miki. The animation is fairly rudimentary made-for-TV animation but the range of cartoon expressions on Miki's face is quite wonderful.
On a sociological level, this is several degrees racier in prospect than any British equivalent would be, and rather more innocent in other ways; there's a lot of emoting about Miki's first kiss, for instance. The Japanese schoolgirls' preoccuptation with romance shows through, complete with adolescent dreams about handsome young teachers, a practice of swapping intimate diaries, and the general ineptness of Japanese boys when dealing with girls. There are details about what modern Japanese eat for breakfast. Miki has a robot-shaped voice recorder that figures in the plot (and if you can't buy them from Bandai I'll be very surprised.)
Miki
Arimi
KARULA MAU (fan subtitled).I hope you find this tour round some shoujo anime interesting and that, if you have not seen them, you are encouraged to track down these titles. Some, like KARULA MAU, in their way are as good as almost anything that has appeared in the UK. There are many riches to be sought out by fans who have become dissatisfied with more accessible offerings. It sometimes seems that the more juvenile, superficial, violent and brainless an anime is, the greater its popularity in the UK. It need not be so.