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.

Kiddy Grade is set in the far space-faring future. Lumiere and Eclair are agents of the ‘Galactic Organization of Trade and Tarriffs’. Their boss tasks them to apprehend people who are disrupting the free flow of commerce throughout the galaxy. Don’t look here for economic lessons. Eclair is a 16-year-old with some super powers and Lumiere is several years younger and she communes with computers. At least those are the ages given in the bio in the Extras section. They certainly don’t act those ages and their boss is heard to make a cryptic remark that she doesn’t want to lose them again, leading one to believe there is a lot more to these young women than meets the eye. There is a subplot going on about an observer who usually accompanies the girls on their missions. He acts in a very shady and suspicious manner at times and we aren’t sure where his loyalties lie or what his agenda is.

I will give this a 6/10 for now. I like the production values and the intrigue going on. The characters are a bit stock but they seem to have some individuality. So, I will be keeping this one near the top of my rental queue for a while.

I have no idea what the title refers to. This looks like it was the failed start of a series. 3 episodes to tell a tale and then it is finished. But I checked at Anime Info and evidently there is a continuation the following year( 1999)

So what is it all about? The Kagura Security Agency takes on difficult cases to delete/kill/erase/eliminate Phantom Cats, often right under the noses of the Welfare Department’s well-armed Anti-Phantom Cat Squad.

What are Phantom Cats? Who knows. They can appear a regular feline domesticus street cats one moment and as teenage kids the next. They can walk through walls and reach into solid objects (like bodies) . Oh, and they can control/influence computers.

How do you get rid of a Phantom Cat? With computer-operated magical talismans, of course. Or special high caliber bullets, whichever fits the plot at the moment.

Oh, yes, Phantom Cats don’t like water, which is why a boatload of them are driting off the Japanese coast trying to smuggle in an atomic bomb. Then something weird happens with another plot going on in the background and the ship blows up.

And Phantom cats lose their clothes when they transform from human to cat so when they go back to human they are naked. But this only works if the cat is transforming into a buxom young woman. Boys and children keep their clothes when they transform, even they don’t appear to be wearing clothing when they are in cat form.

One of the main plot-lines here is that the Kagura Agency’s pet Phantom Cat is catnapped causing the Agency to work without pay and disrupt the atomic bomb plot without finding their own cat.

If this sort of inanity is your idea of good fun, please go ahead and watch. The artwork and coloring seem to be of good quality. The characters are retreads of some very strange series.

I will be magnanimous and give this a 3/10.

Magic User’s Club OVA: this is a silly little series. Standard high school romantic [comedy ?] for the most part. The twist is that an alien artifact has settled in off shore. It is basically benign, leaving everyone alone unless acted upon. And, of course, the Earth’s military forces lost a lot of equipment while not harming the artifact or any of its little droids that seem to be sent out to investigate Earth. Since the inhabitants of the artifact, if any, have made no known attempt to communicate with the Earthlings, everyone assumes that the artifact is a BAD thing.

Our plucky band of high school students have been studying magic, and they have decided to go after the artifact (known as the Bell). Flying their broomsticks out to the Bell, they actually manage to destroy some of the little droids that come out to investigate. They also manage to almost destroy themselves since they haven’t mastered their magic. Once they make it back to school, where the magic club has an ongoing battle with the manga club, the Bell starts sending out more droids, looking for these powerful creatures.

Primary protagonist is Sae, a klutzy twit who has a crush on the Magic Club President. She is probably the most powerful Magic user in the group but she doesn’t know it and she can’t control it.

The only reason to stay with this series is to find out what is in the Bell. The production values are shoddy, the storyline and writing are mediocre and the characters haven’t a clue as to what is going on (which is true of most high school animes). Oh yea, there are only two episodes per disk. I don’t know if this a saving grace or a detriment.

I will give this a 5/10 for now. I expect it will be a while before I see the rest of the series.

Miami Guns, this is a fairly recent anime police story. The background, which didn’t seem to have any influence on the first few shows, is that humanity on earth was wiped out in some sort of catastrophe; some escaped into space and when they returned they found a few survivors on the surface. Humanity then restablished themselves on earth and rebuilt. Miami is the name of the primary city but it doesn’t seem to have any relationship to any Miami you may have heard of. As I said, none of this background seems relevant to the series.

The primary characters are Yao and Lu. Yao is the spoiled rich girl that thinks the world revolves around her and that police work is exciting work because you get to blow up buildings. (There aren’t many complaints about this because Yao has her father buy the building before it gets blown up.) Yao is one wild and crazy girl who never plans ahead. Lu is the calm, level-headed one. She is also the Police Chief’s daughter, which is probably why she naturally went into police work.

As a buddy show, Lu doesn’t react against Yao enough. Lu goes with the flow and in the end, after Yao creates a catastrophe, Lu gets them out safely. The only time this went the other way was when Yao and Lu first met (flashback) and Yao saved the day, and Lu. What makes the “Lethal Weapon” movies work is that Glover’s character has emotional responses to Gibson’s character’s antics. Glover’s character is just restrained by his background from totally clocking Gibson’s character.

The Police force is a private contracting outfit? but everyone seems to treat it as a public service organization. All the male officers seem to be trigger-happy lechers. The only non trigger-happy officer on the whole force seems to be Lu, and maybe her father.

So this show is basicly a shoot’em-up with a jiggle factor. The story lines seems to be old and retreaded. The characters are standard and predictable. The artwork, for the most part, is pretty good. They are using a certain effect where the angry character is drawn in a juvenile style (I’m sure there is a name for it. I have seen it in other shows occasionally) and they use it a lot. I don’t care for that effect.

The one redeeming feature on this disk is that in the extras is an explanation for some of the cultural background of the dialogue and situations. They even try to explain the puns. Each episode seems to be a pastiche of previous anime series, and you might not realize the signficance of a Tofu delivery boy named Takumi in episode 4 unless you are familiar with “Initial D“. Personally, driving animes never really thrilled me.

Recap/Synopsis:

Episode 1: Bank Robber walks into bank with machine gun, all customers draw their own weapons, BR use explosive vest to take baby hostage, and escapes to upper floors of bank. Yao offers hostage swap, BR gets Yao to strip to bikini, keeps both hostages. Yao starts firefight with police below. Lu rescues BR and baby with tank, Yao accidently blows up the building but they all escape safely in tank.

Episode 2: A recap of all the previous episodes (a joke) that shows how Yao and Lu first met and how Yao decided to join the force.

Episode 3: Yao and Lu go under cover in a Girl’s School. Strange things are happpening.

Episode 4: A deranged driver is running street racers off the road and leaving blocks of tofu at the scene. Yao retrofits a car with the latest car gear, then, Yao and Lu go after the culprit.

I give this a 6 out of 10, so far. I think there are 3 more disks in the series but I won’t push them to the top of my queue for a while.

My two favorite Anime series of all time are: Cowboy Bebop and Rurouni Kenshin. Samurai Champloo manages to capture both of them quite nicely.

I’m not sure how to describe this show. It takes place in the mid-1700’s in Japan. The main protagonists are Mugen, Jin, and Foo. Mugen is a rather reckless swordsman who likes to test his skills against anyone with a sword. Jin is a more reserved samurai who doesn’t feel a need to prove himself. Fuu is a girl, looking for a samurai who smells like sunflowers. (I think that is Samurai Champloo).

Mugen and Jin first meet at Fuu’s restaurant. Mugen wants to face the governor’s highly skilled bodyguards, when Jin walks in and says he has already killed them. A fight commences, which ends when the restaurant burns down (caused by some of Mugen’s earlier activities.) Mugen and Jin are scheduled to be executed and Fuu gets their promise to help find her samurai, in exchange for her help to escape. They escape, wiping out the governor and his minions along the way. Fuu makes them delay their own duel until she finds her samurai. And the adventures begin.

The series is very humorous. Fuu keeps getting into awkward situations. Mugen and Jin keep rescuing her, unintentionally, since their personal problems always seem to involve the cause of Fuu’s problems.

The writers keep throwing current lingo and music into the show rather than trying to keep it all historical. It gives everything a slight edginess. The Rapping Samurai, with his home-boy back-up group, is going a bit over the top. In the opening they flashback 24 hours and you are looking at a modern-day-minus-one Tokyo street scene. Oops, jump back to feudal Japan.

There are 26 episodes in the series. I am on the second disk, up through Episode 8. I am enjoying the writing, the storyline, the production values, and the characters. I hope they can hold up throughout the series. And maybe, we’ll find out what the sunflowers are all about.

Maybe I should give some brief episode summaries to provide a flavor of the series.

First two episodes involve meeting, escaping execution and its aftermath.

Next two episodes: Mugen and Jin join opposite sides of a gang war, Fuu has to work off a debt (incurred by cheating) in a brothel.

Fifth episode – to get travelling money, Fuu works as a model only to be captured and delivered to the Western sailing ships in the harbor, Jin plays chess and Mugen mugs muggers (who are also the ones that captured Fuu). I almost forgot, the ukiyo-e artist Fuu models for is credited with inspiring Van Gogh to paint sunflowers.

Sixth Episode. – The group guides a gay Dutchman around Edo. He is so glad to find a place that doesn’t condemn his lifestyle. Unfortunately, Japanese don’t like foreigners.

Seventh Episode- Fuu’s wallet, with everyone’s money in it, gets picked. She finds the pickpocket’s mother and takes pity on him while the cops and yakusa are after him for another pickpocket job. He dies. Fuu’s sad.

Eighth Episode – A rapping Samurai, trying to make his reputation by killing the samurai with glasses (Jin), hits on Fuu. Jin has pawned his glasses for the the money and so isn’t easily picked out as a target (glasses are rare in 1700’s Japan). Samurai’s wife comes back to claim him after rolling Mugen and Jin following a night of drinking and empty promises.

8/10 for now.

I am up to Season 4 in Red Dwarf. RD was a BBC SF show that started in the late 80’s and it is hilarious.

The basic premise is that Lister, a complete slacker, is the last surviving human in the Universe. He was put in statis by the ship’s (Red Dwarf’s) captain for bringing a cat on board. He stayed in stasis for 3 million years after a radiation leak killed the ship’s crew and the ship’s AI didn’t let him out until the the radiation levels were back to normal. The cat was saved from the radiation by virtue of being in the protected ship’s hold at the time of the leak. The cat was pregnant. And three million years later, Lister’s only living companion is an evolved descendant of the Cat.

Lister’s other companions are: a hologram of his old roommate, Rimmer, a total git that Lister can’t abide; Kryten, an Android that the ship rescues along the way; and Holly, the Ship’s AI. (Holly thought that having Rimmer as a companion would help Lister keep his sanity by allowing Lister to plan all sorts of torments to inflict upon him. He/She might have been right.) Oh yes, all the other cats left the ship in a religious schism over what color hat they should wear at the sacred curry stand; and Lister is their God. The Cat left on board is apparently areligious and believes that if anyone is God, it is he.

Rimmer is one of those characters that believes he is intelligent and competent despite all evidence to the contrary. Rimmer is also the one who caused the radiation leak that killed the crew.

So far the Red Dwarf has visited parallel dimensions, been visited by evil aliens, stumbled across garbage pods and criminal transport vessels, found GELFs and left GELFS, and have found a number of ways to cross time. Holly, with an IQ of 6000, has tried to invent the Holly Hop Drive. He actually did invent something but there was a question as to whether it was a hop or a skip. Lister is the proud mother of twins and he witnessed Winnie the Pooh executed by a Fascist Firing Squad.

Not only are the weekly situations more than a little twisted, but the ongoing relationships between the characters makes the show so enjoyable. (The actor who plays Cat has captured the essence of cats.)

There are 8 seasons to the show, so far. Each season is 6 half- hour episodes. So far, only the first 6 seasons are on disk. The cast has added commentary to each disk. I guess that they hadn’t seen some of these episodes since they were broadcast the first time. The commentaries are quite interesting as well, especially choice comments about some fans who really need to get a life.

I understand a movie is on its way and if the movie is a success, the series may continue.

8/10 with touches of 9.

R.O.D The TV . Excellent Anime Series. I have been giving this one 8/10 for most of the disks. I have just finished disk 6, through episode 23. One more disk to go; it will be released next month. There is a problem with starting a series before all the disks are released. Good production values, great storyline, great characters, interesting situations and relationships, and books are the stars. One question about the title, does it stand for Read or Dream? or Read or Die?

R.O.D. the TV actually ties back into the original Read or Die OVA, where Agent Paper, a Paper Master, faces four cloned scientist/villians and works to save the world as an agent of the British National Library. In the TV series, three sisters become bodyguards for an child prodigy author (Nenene) who has had writer’s block since Yomiko Readman (Agent Paper), her mentor, disappeared five years earlier. Strange things start to happen around Nenene and the three sisters (who also happen to be Paper Masters; Nenene doesn’t seem to have any special powers other than a short temper.) Many thrilling adventures show the strong bonds between the sisters and Nenene becomes a part of their family as well (she might even be getting over her writer’s block).

The three sisters: Anita, Maggie, and Michelle, are from Hong Kong. The “Heroic Trio” is a classic Hong Kong film starring Anita Mui, Maggie Cheung, and Michelle Yeoh. Coincidence? I think not.

Possible Spoilers:
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As the series continues, we find Yomiko and the young lady she is protecting; we find that Nenene is an important component of the British National Library’s plan to take over the world; and we find that the three sisters have a secret past. But the exciting conclusion is in the next disk and I am eagerly awaiting its release.

Watched an interesting anime last night. GANTZ. The premise would appear to be that dead people are brought to an apartment with a great big black sphere in it. The sphere dispenses instructions and weapons and the dead people are given a chance to improve their karma by ridding the Earth of Aliens. Presumably, if they work out, they will go to a good place when the death process is completed; failure means the death process continues right then and there? Hard to extrapolate where they are going with this, since there are only two 30-minute episodes on the disk and they all just finished dying and are in the process of facing their first alien. Maybe Yu Yu Hakusho with better production values? and more of an SF than magic motif?

The main problem with it (other than only 2 episodes per disk) is that the main protagonist is a whiny teenager who doesn’t understand why the world is always against him, and, he has learned you can’t trust anyone. The POV listens in on the thoughts of most of the characters, so that whining really drags on. But, they don’t listen in on the thoughts of the two secondary protagonists (Thank God) so you get a rather lobsided POV of what is happening.

It is a bit gory. The main and secondary protagonists died after the secondary P went down on the subway tracks to get a drunk who fell onto the tracks back to safety. The Primary P felt shamed by his former friend and went down to help. They got the drunk to safety but an express train came through before they could get out of the track well, so, they were smashed and their heads went flying, torn from their bodies, and then they were suddenly in the apartment. A flashback to the station indicates that their bodies disappeared. (And, of course, the primary is mentally whining that it all the secondary’s fault that this happened. He could have just left the drunk lying on the tracks and everyone would be happy; really wearing after a while.)

The third protagonist shows up naked shortly afterward. Evidently, she had just committed suicide in the tub. The nakedness causes some problems with the others in the apartment. Basically, most of the deaders are not nice people. I think there are about nine deaders in the apartment before the orb starts issuing incoherent instructions.

I will start this one off with a 7/10 rating for interesting storyline ( I am interested to see what happens next) and good production values. The artwork is crisp and edgy. But it is borderline on 6 because of the whining. I don’t know that I will care for these characters. I know some people might think it is a little too gory, with exploding bodies and the like, but it isn’t t over the top.