Anime is released on Tuesday.
20 things to be found on the R1 dvd for the new anime OVA, Kite Liberator:
1. Bullshit.
2. Nonsense.
3. The concept of the original Kite revised into a superhero piece, its heroine armed with a cape, a grapnel line and a bespectacled clumsiness act (or is the SUPERHERO the ACT and the HUMAN the... never mind).
4. Multiple scenes set in the world's scummiest maid café, where the heroine works. Er, that actually means she's not so much disguised as Clark Kent than costuming herself in moé. Which is kind of funny.
5. A scene in a classroom where all the students have to empty their bags, revealing booze, porn, model pistols, a knife, a Mezzo Forte model figure, etc. That was also kind of funny.
6. Quasi-comedy relief rapists, which kinda squashes the funny.
7. No actual porno content, though! This is a classy production (and not the original Kite)!
8. Secret assassination orders given in the middle of a park by a guy in a fursuit who manfully continues his briefing after a child wanders up and socks him in the stomach.
9. Many panties. Many several.
10. Also: it's a-ok for men in their late 20s to ask high school girls out on dates. Keep that in mind, viewers at home!
11. Okay space station CGI.
12. Not-very-okay ethereal angel feathers CGI.
13. Globs of sticky sentimentality, on top of the ethereal angel feathers. Is that a tar-and-feathering?
14. Animation for scenes of teenage girls sitting around and talking that's honestly way more interesting than the restrained, apparently hampered-by-budget-or-time action bits. This won't do much to redeem creator/director/writer/character designer/storyboardist/co-animation director & contributing key animator Yasuomi Umetsu's reputation after the aesthetic disaster of the Mezzo DSA television series, although this project is a little smoother.
15. Lots and lots of too-slick digital panning, though. Enough so that it all seems like an attempt to do Tekkonkinkreet's 'handheld' animation style with a fraction of the means.
16. One of the odder dvd extras I've seen: an incomplete cut of the project put together for a film festival. It's the same show, only missing stuff. Like whole action scenes. Or any resolution to the romantic subplot, or any purpose to several minor characters... wait, none of that's in the full show either. The main plot still wiggles through, though.
17. Oh, the plot. It ***SPOILAZZ*** concerns a sinister men-in-black retaining foodstuffs corporation that launches a nerd into space whose special cosmic curry mixes with solar radiation to transform astronauts into bulletproof gargoyles... I'll stop.
18. That guilty pleasure hum, mixed with regret that it all couldn't have rubbed against its own limitations a little less; it's kind of like something that Streamline Pictures would have called a Video Comic in 1991, and it might resound with anime viewers of a certain generation.
19. An ending so abrupt you'll swear you got switched over to the film festival version. Although I kinda liked it.
20. The dawning realization that you've just watched an obvious pilot for a possible television or video series. Your $15 donation (unless you somehow paid full retail) was greatly appreciated!
1. Bullshit.
2. Nonsense.
3. The concept of the original Kite revised into a superhero piece, its heroine armed with a cape, a grapnel line and a bespectacled clumsiness act (or is the SUPERHERO the ACT and the HUMAN the... never mind).
4. Multiple scenes set in the world's scummiest maid café, where the heroine works. Er, that actually means she's not so much disguised as Clark Kent than costuming herself in moé. Which is kind of funny.
5. A scene in a classroom where all the students have to empty their bags, revealing booze, porn, model pistols, a knife, a Mezzo Forte model figure, etc. That was also kind of funny.
6. Quasi-comedy relief rapists, which kinda squashes the funny.
7. No actual porno content, though! This is a classy production (and not the original Kite)!
8. Secret assassination orders given in the middle of a park by a guy in a fursuit who manfully continues his briefing after a child wanders up and socks him in the stomach.
9. Many panties. Many several.
10. Also: it's a-ok for men in their late 20s to ask high school girls out on dates. Keep that in mind, viewers at home!
11. Okay space station CGI.
12. Not-very-okay ethereal angel feathers CGI.
13. Globs of sticky sentimentality, on top of the ethereal angel feathers. Is that a tar-and-feathering?
14. Animation for scenes of teenage girls sitting around and talking that's honestly way more interesting than the restrained, apparently hampered-by-budget-or-time action bits. This won't do much to redeem creator/director/writer/character designer/storyboardist/co-animation director & contributing key animator Yasuomi Umetsu's reputation after the aesthetic disaster of the Mezzo DSA television series, although this project is a little smoother.
15. Lots and lots of too-slick digital panning, though. Enough so that it all seems like an attempt to do Tekkonkinkreet's 'handheld' animation style with a fraction of the means.
16. One of the odder dvd extras I've seen: an incomplete cut of the project put together for a film festival. It's the same show, only missing stuff. Like whole action scenes. Or any resolution to the romantic subplot, or any purpose to several minor characters... wait, none of that's in the full show either. The main plot still wiggles through, though.
17. Oh, the plot. It ***SPOILAZZ*** concerns a sinister men-in-black retaining foodstuffs corporation that launches a nerd into space whose special cosmic curry mixes with solar radiation to transform astronauts into bulletproof gargoyles... I'll stop.
18. That guilty pleasure hum, mixed with regret that it all couldn't have rubbed against its own limitations a little less; it's kind of like something that Streamline Pictures would have called a Video Comic in 1991, and it might resound with anime viewers of a certain generation.
19. An ending so abrupt you'll swear you got switched over to the film festival version. Although I kinda liked it.
20. The dawning realization that you've just watched an obvious pilot for a possible television or video series. Your $15 donation (unless you somehow paid full retail) was greatly appreciated!
posted by Jog at 11:35 PM
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