DVD Classic: Never-ending Adventures in J-pop worlds

"Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi" will astound anime fans with a journey that literally takes two young kids on a never-ending trip through the Japanese pop culture universe.

This series has had an awkward release history in America. Although it first aired in 2003, it took two years until Geneon released this series in the U.S. Even then, I don't think this show received the attention that it truly deserves.

Thankfully, ADV Films re-released this series last year. I had the fortunate thrill of seeing it on The Anime Network's website. To say the least, this is one of the most creative anime shows I've ever seen.

The show begins in the Abenobashi shopping district in Osaka. Two teenagers, Satoshi "Sashi" Imamiya and Arumi Asahina, are spending their last summer playing in the empty streets. Their parents' businesses were forced to close, as part of the redevelopment of the Abenobashi shopping arcade. Unfortunately, Arumi's family is also planning on moving to Hokkaido, as soon as her grandfather closes his shop.

Their summer of fun takes a tragic turn, when Asahina's grandfather almost dies after slipping on his rooftop. Asahina's entire family is planning on moving to Hokkaido as soon as he recovers. This could be the last day that Sashi and Asahina can play together.

On that day, though, the town completely turns upside down. The group of elderly people exercising in the park transforms into mushrooms. The buildings fall apart like cardboard cutouts, revealing a magical role-playing video game world in some European pasture.

Thus, the two children begin their treacherous journey through the magical other-dimensions of Abenobashi.

This series is amazing for its immensely inventive visuals. The show jams in an astonishing load of parodies on video games, robot television shows and martial arts series. Anime fans are bound to laugh at anything and everything.

They'll especially enjoy the insane antics in the third episode, where Asahina loses her panties to a goblin creature. Near the end of the episode, the goblin somehow turns into the mask for some gigantic robot ship with a demon head. And for some reason, that head still has Asahina's panties on it.

"Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi" is literally as unpredictable as episode five in FLCL. It is riotously funny, like a hyper episode of Shin-Chan. Yet, there's also a subversive tone of despair throughout the journey. As much as Sashi enjoys the Abenobashi worlds, the two kids are still trapped inside these wacky J-pop dream worlds with little hope of reaching their home.

I have yet to reach the ending, but this series is truly buried treasure. Unfortunately, I've heard that most of the special DVD features are only in the individual volume boxes from ADV. Regardless of which set you buy, you have to see this series. It's one of the few shows that will make anyone laugh.

Even if the English dubs put in some awkward Western cowboy accent for the main characters, this is series is golden. Check it out at least once, because you won't regret it.

Image courtesy of photobucket.com

Anime Classics: Vision of Escaflowne

Escaflowne is certainly one of the most memorable anime around, for its emotional characters and its epic story with robots and warfare.

While the TV series, "Vision of Escaflowne," can tend to go overboard with emotional angst, there's a pretty good reason for this. The main character, Hitomi, is a girl with a pendant that can change the fate of an entire world, depending on her mood.

Of course, we can't possibly know how this pendant could work from the beginning. After all, in the beginning Hitomi is an ordinary high school girl who runs on the track team, likes to use tarot cards and has a crush on some guy named Amano.

Then some teenage guy appears out of an interdimensional portal, swordfighting a dragon. After a short chase sequence, Hitomi discovers that her pendant allows her to read the future. Hitomi ends up saving the guy, whose name is Van.

They then transport from Earth to Gaea, Van's home planet. He's given a warm greeting, for Van is now the new king of Fanelia, Van's hometown. However, the visit is cut short when the evil Zaibach army of Guymelef robots destroys the city. Van vows for revenge against the Zaibach.

To say the least, Hitomi's powers are the key to the fate of Gaea. Her pendant allows her to read the future, but whenever Hitomi is afraid, something awful is bound to happen. Of course, with powers like that, Hitomi ends up expressing a high range of emotions, resulting for some chaotic changes in the storyline itself.

However, no matter what, I can always sympathize with Hitomi, who has trouble expressing all her emotions in the first place. She would like to figure out the future, but when the future is altered by all the emotions she conceals inside her, she has to confess her feelings. She wants to love someone, but she's so afraid that someone else is going to get hurt in the process.

And while no one can really know what happens in the future, they have to learn to express their feelings honestly and truthfully. Ironically, this makes Escaflowne one of the best romance shonen anime. If anyone thinks that a romance film and an action film cannot possibly mix together, Escaflowne easily proves them wrong.

Image courtesy of http://www.theroseking.net/

DVD Review - Bodyguard superstar

Sometimes I miss out on some of the best anime around, and Anime Insider magazine gave a good recommendation for this sleeper hit.

"Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit" may be set in ancient Japan, but the action and drama make this one of the coolest samurai anime of this decade.

Morobito begins with Balsa, a tough female warrior with a big spear, returning to Yogo to meet one of her friends. Along the way, Prince Chagum travel on a nearby bridge in a norimono (palanquin carried by four men). However, when the palanquin tips over and Chagum falls into the river, Balsa saves him.

As Balsa continues into the city of Yogo, four samurai encounter her. After fighting with them for a while, the samurai ask for her forgiveness. The samurai actually work for Prince Chagum. Chagum's mother wanted to thank Balsa properly.

Chagum doesn't just give Balsa a good meal and a place to sleep for the night, though. She asks if she could act as the bodyguard for Prince Chagum. The prince was sick, and nothing could cure him, so his mother called on a stargazer to help him. However, Chagum's mother suspects that the stargazer is also hiring other samurai to assassinate Chagum. Long story short, Balsa agrees to protect him.

However, there is more to this drama than it appears. The stargazer has found a water spirit within Chagum. The stargazer predicts that the water spirit could destroy Chagum's father's kingdom. Ironically, according to the legend, only Chagum's father, Emperor Mikado, can kill him. But is the spirit as dangerous as the legend proclaims?

This samurai drama is one of the coolest anime that I have seen this year. At the same time, too many people may pass this up as just another samurai drama. However, the epic scale of the animation, produced by Gonzo, is filled with easily the fastest and most intense samurai battle I have ever seen. The intensity literally rivals that of another samurai series, "Rurouni Kenshin."

Balsa almost dies after her first encounter with assassins, but she manages to rest up at the house of one of her doctor friends. The doctor also lives with a cool-headed priest, who shows off his own warrior skills in the beginning of episode four. The priest is shocked at finding the prince at his home.

The big question is where the story will go next. With an anime as exciting as this, I'm looking forward to watching how this series unfolds.

Image courtesy of haibra.wordpress.com

DVD - Tweeny Witches teaches true magic

The third volume of "Tweeny Witches" closes the heroic tale with Arusu saving the witch's world from total destruction.

Of course, this isn't news from the start. In the first two volumes, everyone predicted that the end of the magic world was coming. However, I never expected such a remarkable display of apocalyptic imagery. But there are many, many spoilers in this review. You have been warned!

First of all, Arusu discovers who her real mom is. Lennon spills the beans in front of Arusu's witch brigade when he threatens to kill Triela, the sage of the witch town. Triela reveals that she is Arusu and Lennon's mother. So that's why Lennon kept saying that he was Arusu's mirror.

Second, Arusu returns the deadly magic book to Grande, the head of the warlocks. Grande wants nothing but destruction. He has no love for the magic world at all, and based on the flashback where a warlock was swallowed by Grande, he must be a demon too.

Third, one of the witches in Arusu's brigade becomes Grande's lynchpin for using dark magic to destroy the world. Here's a hint: it's not Sheila. I never expected that Eva would get entangled within the demonic monster that Grande transformed into. But Arusu soothed the savage beast with her motherly love. In other words, she feeds Eva her favorite food.

The ferocious monster is very reminiscent of the forest gods in the Hayao Miyazaki film "Princess Mononoke." The ending also involves pleasing a savage beast. However, "Tweeny Witches" somehow manages the daunting task of displaying grotesque monster imagery and keeping the material appropriate for children.

This is also a wonderful series that criticizes the apocalyptic genre of anime for the recent trend of disturbing psychological dramas and extreme violence. For example, the dark wizard in the series is Eva, which is already a reference to another apocalyptic series, "Neon Genesis Evangelion." Eva always had a desire to use magic, even though she couldn't use it for most of her life. That desire manifested in her role in destroying the magic world. And the series turned that destruction into a disastrous form of genocide, rather than a rebirth of mankind.

Lately, anime directors have lightened up on their apocalyptic tendencies with more optimistic anime. And "Tweeny Witches" is of these positive anime series that proves that it's okay to be young and a little uncertain about the future. After all, everyone can use magic. Although magic in the human world is more invisible, it is the magic of love, nonetheless.

Image courtesy of hirvine.com

The witches vs. the warlocks

Although I'd seen hints of the war between the witches and the warlocks in the first DVD of "Tweeny Witches," the second DVD fully explains the conflict. It was almost inconceivable to see hovering robots, television screens, amusement park rides and explosions, but "Tweeny" is more like a collision with the old world and the new modernized world. And it looks so amazingly good.

Be careful--there are some spoilers in the next section.

From the first DVD, we learned of Sigma, the teenage boy warlock who wanted to help the witches destroy the warlocks. Arusu, Eva and Shiela follow Sigma through a desert on broomsticks. After disguising themselves in warlock outfits, he shows them that the warlocks' world is an underground world of science. Metal covers the entire underground world. The residents don't even need to use magic. Arusu and Shiela sense that the warlocks are repressing the magic for some purpose.

After Eva blows their cover, the police capture Eva and Arusu escapes to find an old man who knew her father, or at least a man similar to him. Eva discovers in an underground graveyard that the warlock world is slowly being sucked into a vortex, and Sigma wants her to submit to the warlocks. According to him, if the warlocks can use the dark magic of Arusu's missing magic book, they can stop the vortex. Shiela isn't fooled though--she senses that dark magic would only make things worse, However, Sigma pushes a button on her suit, making her a slave! Thankfully, Arusu saves her friends, but all three of the witches realize that the world of witches and warlocks is deteriorating without witches' magic.

This series is a fantastic mix of fast spell-casting action. It is also a deep analysis of a problematic industrialized society, whose world is deteriorating due to the loss of the old magic arts. The emotional drama still remains high. The three main characters are doing whatever they can to protect each other. Shiela is an especially strong character, who sneaks Arusu onto a ship to the human realm, so that Arusu will not be hurt in the violent war between witches and warlocks.

Arusu also found a pirate man who tried to capture the human realm ship. He says that he is Arusu's mirror. What could this possibly mean? Hopefully all will be explained in the next few DVDs.

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