Sci-fi and Fantasy Movie and Series Reviews, Part 7

An anime-only special post!

Cowboy Bebop
Leading with the absolute best! There’s a reason this is rated 8.9 on IMDB, 8.9 on TV.com, 100% and 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, 4.9 on Google, etc. A haphazard crew of bounty hunters try to make it in life and space. They’re not terribly great at their job, they don’t get along all the time, and sometimes they accidentally take drugs and pretend to walk on an infinite staircase/drown/laugh at plants. You know it’s good writing when you can take away the sci-fi element and it still would be a good series. The ending episode is probably one of the biggest “did he or didn’t he?” ambiguous resolutions I’ve come across. Netflix is dancing on a minefield by currently producing a live action remake, but it will never compare to the original no matter how good the production is.

Whisper of the Heart
This was…okay. A lot of Studio Ghibli and its contemporaries in the animated-Japanese-movie-only franchise scene tend to really offer the same kind of boy/girl relationships. You think it’s going to get romantic but the dude half of the couple is so scared of being honest with her that it just ends up a really glorified up platonic relationship. Maybe it’s something with modern Japanese teenagers/men at large that these protagonists are often like this?

Neon Genesis Evangelion
I feel like I should like this more than I do, but I don’t. The series did break the type of the overtly-dedicated, enthusiastic mecha pilot, but it went way overboard. You just want to end up punching Shinji to get him to do something, anything. I value this mostly because of the backstory, because taking into the account the three protagonists, there is no character development for any of them. Shinji is a hesitating, whiny dork the entire series except for the last few minutes. Asuka is always huge bitch, though she does get her first period. Rei is a Living Macguffin put there to move the final plot arc along. Two admittedly major supporting characters, Misato and Ritsuko, are really the only ones who show development, tackle their struggles, and act. And wouldn’t you know, they’re the most interesting characters in the show.

End of Evangelion
So the last two notoriously off-putting episodes of the Evangelion series take place inside Shinji’s head. I suppose it’s a different way of resolving the series, but that doesn’t make it good or “intelligent.” End of Evangelion depicts what happens in the real world with the Third Impact, and boy howdy will it mess with your head like it did with Shinji’s.

Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone
The first of four movies from Hideaki Anno that retells the Evangelion series. The visuals are much better and probably closer to Anno’s vision. Some minor plot points are switched up, and the most disappointing one in this one is Misato’s deeper knowledge of what NERV was actually doing. In the series, she is concerned with fighting the Angels and doesn’t have the strategic view into the Human Instrumentality Project. She finds out about that through her reborn relationship with Kaji, and she has major character development through that relationship. I don’t know what will happen with her in the next two movies (the fourth is out later in 2020), but I hope her character still ends up progressing like in the series.

In This Corner of the World
Technically a historical piece, not very sci-fi or fantasy, but it’s borderline. I tapped out about halfway through. It was face-paced, skipping many years and location in the characters’ lives; I wasn’t able to connect with any of them.

Hero Mask
A Netflix CGI anime series. Got to episode two and tapped out. There was a death in episode one that seemed to impact all the other characters, but as I had nothing invested, I was more bored than sad. For some reason all the footsteps were really loud in the audio. Was someone trying to be cute and make the concept of shoes an actual character in the story?

The Flavors of Youth
Not sci-fi or fantasy either, but three beautifully written slice-of-life short films that end up being loosely related. The last film is about a a guy and girl who can’t form a proper relationship, yet do really stupid things regarding it: he decides to apply to the same university she does, even though he doesn’t want to go there, and she deliberately fails the entrance exam for the same university so she can stay. What’s with these people?

Ingress
Based on a popular mobile game I never heard of, but the relationship of the game to the story’s universe is real: they play the game in the narrative, but it has significant story-world impact. It was fine, I guess. It’s CGI anime, and it’s a lot more fluid and human than that kind has been previously. The series’ opening is the definition of “futuristic urban cool,” something different for modern anime.

Ajin: Demi-Human
Gave it a shot, tapped out at the fifth episode. Why do some animes take themselves too seriously? I’m biased because my favorite “serious” series have an element of joy or goofiness about them. Teppen Tongan Gurren Lagann = fun, Cowboy Bebop = fun, Bleach = fun, Trigun = fun. Heck, even Attack on Titan has some fun in it. Ajin = DONE. Heh-heh, got ’em good with that one.