GetBackers is about a retrieval service. Ginji and Ban (GB, GetBack, get it?) have a 100% success rate retrieving lost or stolen objects. The show starts with them retrieving the toy cat of a school girl. The toy cat was taken by a crooked cop who thought she had seen him dealing with the Yakuza, which she hadn’t, but them’s the breaks. So G&B find the toy cat and in the process wipe out the yakuza gang and the bad cop. Turns out that G&B have special powers. Ginji is the human equivalent of an electric eel and Ban can give anyone hallucinations just by making eye contact.

So, the first client we see, Mizuki, goes to work in the Pizza shop where G&B hang out and the ground work is laid. G&B are very good at what they do, but they never seem to end up with any money. They worked for Mizuki for a slice of pizza. Paul, the owner of the Pizza shop has an extensive spy network that gathers information for the boys and Hevn is a negotiator who arranges jobs for G&B.

Ginji is a the soft-hearted, trusting type, while Ban is more the cynical, suspicious type. The back stories for these guys seem to add complications to their current lives. Production values are a bit lame. They are using a cartoonish animation technique that I find distracting. It is usually used when expressing disbelief or puzzlement. While the individual stories are pretty hackneyed, I am interested in what the overall story arc is covering.

I will give GetBackers a 6 out of ten.

Shingu is weird. The year is 2070. The story opens with an alien artifact hovering over a city. Nobody is panicking; an old man and a young man sit on top of a nearby building and make droll comments about whatever the alien is up to. Apparently information gathering. Then a giant robot appears from a hole in the sky. The robot is decorated with those diamond paper streamers that the Japanese use for magic. The robot sucks the life force out of the alien and disappears.

We then cut to a middle school where the young man from before is a new transfer student wearing a school uniform that no one has worn since the 20th century. He is Muryou. The Narrator is the class rep, Hajime. He sees Muryou and a Student Council VP having a telekinetic fight of the school roof . After this, it seems to get into a school rivalry show, only the entire school council has these strange powers. As Hajime discovers, one of the School Council members turns into the robot we saw at the beginning of the show (I think either the robot or the powers are Shingu). And Muryou is there to protect the council members, because of a promise his grandfather made long ago.

Several of the council members want to kill Hajime or erase his memory since he has discovered the secrets they so openly flaunted. Evidently the original citizens of the city know all about these secret powers but Hajime, who only moved here four years ago, is an outsider. But the elders decide to indoctrinate Hajime into the big secret and show him the universe and explain the Galactic Federation that is monitoring the Earth. I think that this city is like the primary meeting point for Earth and the Federation (which is why the citizens weren’t panicking to see an Alien Artifact hovering around. Or, they are just too jaded about life , the universe and everything to even bother with alien spaceships.) The Federation is still trying to determine if the Earth is mature enough to join the Federation. Meanwhile, a race that isn’t really a part of the Federation is trying to find out what secret weapon Earth has that is causing the Federation to restrict access to Earth.

Hajime accepts this indoctrination without any problems, other than feeling slightly tired for a while. This raises eyebrows since everyone else that is so indoctrinated is usually knocked out for weeks and maybe they die. Could Hajime be the next step of Human Evolution? I don’t know and I’m not in a big hurry to find out. The stories are basically school rivalry retreads and I don’t want to sit through them waiting to find out what is going on with the Federation.

I’ll give Shingu a 5 out of ten.

Daphne in the Brilliant Blue is set on a water world, where the leading government authority is the Ocean Authority and the government seems to own all the land. The story opens with a young lady taking the entrance exams to join the OA. She excels at all the tests and gives encouragement to other disheartened contenders. She even does a good luck chant for them. And they get accepted to the OA and she doesn’t. There is a mysterious lurker in the shadows.

Mizuki is also evicted from her house, since the house was really registered to her grandfather who recently passed away leaving her an orphan. So, Mizuki wanders the streets looking for a workplace that provides accommodations. She gets caught in the middle of a firefight between some criminals and some near-naked women. (I have noticed that in Japanese shows, the fewer clothes the woman wears the better the crime fighter she is. I’m not really sure how the clothes were attached to the bodies or how they stayed on, but that is beside the point. Sometimes the laws of physics don’t need to apply.)

Turns out that the crime fighters need a helper and they have accommodations so they hire Mizuki on and have many adventures. Of course she must pay for the accommodations with deductions from her meager salary, but it is a place to rest her head. Mizuki’s work costume is a bit more extensive than what the others are wearing.

The other crime fighters that have shown up so far are: pragmatic, steely Honjou (what’s wrong with shooting through the hostage?), not-so-sharp-shooting Hayama, and money-loving Gloria. Together, they are a branch of “Nereisu Kamchatka”, an all-purpose service company.

I have no idea who Daphne is.

Basically, the group inflicts carnage and mayhem upon the bad guys and other denizens in the area, recovers stolen treasures or looks for missing people. The stories are of some interest, the production values are good, and I am interested in seeing what happens to poor little Mizuki (will she ever get into OA, who is lurking behind her and will she ever be as buxom as the others?).

So I will give Daphne a 7 out of ten.

As I have mentioned before, The Rurouni Kenshin Series is one of my favorites of all time. The TV Series follows the adventures of Kenshin after the Meiji Revolution. What makes it a bit difficult to follow is that there is an OVA series, called Samurai X, in English, that follows Kenshin during the Meiji Revolution, back when he was known as the ‘Manslayer’. After the Meiji Incident, Kenshin foreswore killing and wandered Japan fighting injustice. And though the TV series and the OVA are about the same character they aren’t drawn the same way. The OVA has a more vivid, movie quality to it. And ‘Reflections’ is done by another studio entirely.

Reflections is a retrospective of Kenshin’s life recollecting bits from the TV series and the OVA. Most of the retrospective scenes were redrawn for this OVA since they are from a different studio.

Kenshin didn’t have an easy life and those that loved him didn’t have it easy either. He wasn’t ever able to make peace with his past and always mistrusted what ever opportunities for happiness he found.

I see from AnimeNfo that the OVA is ranked #1 and the series is only #22. ‘Reflections’ is ranked #67. And I can understand that. The production values are a bit weak. There are scenes where they went with a drawing and just zoomed in on it rather than putting in an animated sequence that was called for. I suspect there were a variety of shortcuts taken that more trained eyes would recognize as well. But, I think that as a disk, ‘Reflections’ works very well at encapsulating Kenshin’s life and Karou’s torment. (Karou is Kenshin’s wife, and a major figure in the TV series. They tied the knot after the TV series ended) So, on sentimental purposes alone, I am giving this a 9 out of 10. I don’t recommend that it be viewed without seeing the OVA and the TV series first. And the Director’s Cut version is the preferred version to watch.

Red Beard is a Kurasawa film. It is the tale of a new, young doctor who is relegated to a back country clinic. Since he thought he would be the Shogun’s doctor, he is a bit miffed. Toshiro Mifune plays the head doctor at the clinic and, by example, shows the young whippersnapper what it means to be a doctor. (In 18th Century Japan, it isn’t very nice.)

The young doctor learns many lessons and takes them to heart. When it comes time for him to move on to the Shogun, he decides that he will stay at the clinc and continue to learn from Red Beard.

Kurasawa makes several political statements in this movie. I think his strongest one was to have Red Beard comment that half the patients wouldn’t be sick if they weren’t so poor. The overwhelming poverty of the clinic’s patients is one of the main themes of the movie, and another reason the young doctor doesn’t care to be there.

This was Mifune’s last movie with Kurasawa, and he gives his usual strong performance as a (what’s the word for someone who doesn’t conform to the conventional social mores but, rather, does as he believes is right, even if society will look down upon him) doctor. Even though the story is of the young doctor’s growth and blooming awareness, Mifune’s presence is always there.

Overall, this is a very well-made film. I like Kurasawa’s style and the way he handles the camera, frames the actors, transitions between scenes, etc. I thought the story line was a bit predictable and some of the individual vignettes were also straight from central casting. And the commentary on the DVD was very good as well, giving some background on Kurasawa what made him tick.

So, I am quibbling over whether this is an 8 out of 10 or a 7 out of 10 movie. Will I demand to see it again? No. So it is a 7/10 rating.

This is what a classic masterpiece should be. In Wild Strawberries a doctor/professor emeritus takes a road trip to receive an award. The trip takes him, and his daughter-in-law, along a route that lets him review his past. Through dreams, Ingmar Bergman lets us view the events that made this man what he is today. Along the way he meets people that spark more introspective wanderings. Why is he such a cold-hearted man who keeps his distance from everyone, and yet some regard him as a life-saving saint?

Bergman tells an interesting tale, and tells it well. Events from one part of the movie reflect and reinforce events elswhere. Even mirroring a young lady from his youth with a young woman on the road helps make this a powerful story.

I’ll give this one a 10 out of 10.