ANI-MOVIES, *Tangled

For their 50th full-length animated theatrical feature, this take on the tale of Rapunzel had Disney going back to the well for a standard "Disney Princess" story, but with taking a hint from Dreamworks by giving it a modern sense of humor to it. Tangled managed to bring about a third renaissance to Disney's non-Pixar animated films, and also helping them bring themselves out of the dust that their Pixar releases had left them in recent years. First time directing for Disney regulars Nathan Greno and Bryon Howard(who also directed Bolt), this was changed from the title character to Tangled to make it seem like less of a "girly" picture that the whole family could enjoy.

In a fairy tale-like world(which is supposed to be in the same universe as Frozen!)an old woman named Gothel finds a magic flower that fell from the sun to continuously rejuvenate herself, but the nearby kingdom's queen was sick while prior to giving birth. The king had his knights find famed magic flower, and its healing power was transferred to the newly born Princess Rapunzel. Gothel then kidnaps Rapunzel and spirited her away in a hidden tower for 18 years where she made the princess think that Gothel was her only family while using Rapunzel's magical flowing blonde hair to keep her youth. One day, a cunning thief named Flynn Rider steals the Princess' tiara that the kingdom kept in case she ever returned, and the dashing egotist is chased into the woods where he seeks cover in the secret tower. Flynn is knocked out by Rapunzel and her pet chameleon Pascal while Gothel is out, and he gets roped into helping Rapunzel to escaping her tower so she can see some lanterns the kingdom set out every year on the birthday of their missing princess. Flynn concedes, and leads Rapunzel to a tavern filled with thugs to try and scare her off. The plucky long-haired blonde instead gets all the ruffians to doing a sensational sing-a-long about following their dreams. All this noise has the royal guard horse Maximus on their trail, so Flynn and Rapunzel go into a daring escape where the healing power of the magic hair is revealed. Maximus eventually tracks them down, but Rapunzel convinces the bloodhound horse into letting them visit the kingdom's lantern celebration. While touring the city, Rapunzel and Flynn start to recognize their romantic feelings for each other, even though Gothel arrives and convinces Rapunzel that he abandoned her for his original prize. Flynn was instead knocked out and captured by the royal guards, while Rapunzel goes back to her tower and ends up figuring out on her own that she's the lost princess. Flynn breaks out thanks to his ruffian bar buddies with Maximus and makes his way to Rapunzel as she confronts Gothel's deception. Gothel stabs Flynn as he arrives, but Rapunzel talks Gothel into letting her heal him with her hair, where Flynn uses a piece of glass to cut off the magic hair, reducing the long blonde hair to brown. With the magic gone, Gothel age catches up with her as she falls to her death, but the last of Rapunzel's magic heals Flynn in the stereotypical "magical death tears" trope. Rapunzel reunites with her real parents, and Flynn cleared of any past crimes.

The movie ends on the note that Rapunzel and Flynn would someday get married, which was followed up in the short Tangled Ever After, but this gave way to an ongoing animated series started by made-for-TV movie done in 2-D format. Tangled itself at this time is the most expensive animated movie ever made, and it proved to be Disney's breakthrough in non-Pixar CGI productions. Alan Menken's music numbers are memorable, and the casting is something too, especially Mandy Moore as Rapunzel(who otaku original spurned for playing Aerith in Kingdom Hearts!). It caters a little less to children than other standard Disney flicks, which helped get more than just families showing up to watch it in theaters. Even if you're a pure cynic of happy-go-lucky fairy tales, there's more than likely something in this for you to get a laugh out of.

MISC. MANGA, *Dirty Pair

Based on the light novel series by Haruko Takachiho, the Dirty Pair has never up until 2010 had its own original Japanese manga, despite an anime TV series, a movie, OVAs, and a 90s remake. Most American otaku are probably familiar with Adam Warren's Dirty Pair various comic book mini-series, but this is the first manga done for Japanese readers, aside from the manga extension of the Dirty Pair Flash OVA. Manga artist Hisao Tamaki has also done the manga adaptaion of Star Wars: Episode IV, plus his own creation Astrider Hugo have both been published in English. This "new" manga took about a decade to finally get released through Seven Seas Entertainment who have a taste for publishing manga heavy with fan service. The series was first printed into two separate volumes, but collected into a single large book for it's English release, which is in itself of the first light novel anthology, The Great Adventures Of The Dirty Pair.

The first story features our titular duo, Kei and Yuri, who have the codename of "Lovely Angels", although their destructive reputation has them eternally branded as the Dirty Pair, and their assignment is to uncover a conspiracy on the planet Dangool involving a rogue faction of the government setting up its own interstellar battle station. The second chapter is a short one involving the Lovely Angels trying to escape a timeloop where they end up blowing themselves up. The final installment is an extra-length one where Yuri gets some help from childhood friends that grew up to be officers to help her and Kei take down the Lucifer criminal organization, which in the original continuity of the novels was the Dirty Pair equivalent to SPECTRE. This last one is a little more overt than their normal adventures, even though it finally gets around to showcasing Key and Yuri's esper link, where they can share a clairvoyant vision by bonding together on an almost romantic level, which is something that they can't do on their own which is why they were teamed up in the first place.

Hisao Tamaki has a real flair for space opera-themed manga, and hopefully he'll get his own ongoing cosmic odyssey title going. Fans of the 80's version of Dirty Pair should appreciate this, especially with their feline partner Mughi who here is more of a sleek oversized mutant panther. It fits nicely into a cyberpunk frame, but is a great read for old school sci-fi fans.

Zim rips off Akira!

ANI-MOVIES, *Invader Zim: Enter The Florpus

After 13 long years, Netflix managed to conclude two of Nickelodeon's discontinued series, first of which was the Rocko's Modern Life: Static Cling TV special. Enter The Florpus brings back Invader Zim in all its dystopian and disjointed glory. Series creator Jhonen Vasquez(who also made the infamous Johnny The Homicidal Maniac comic)returns with all the whole crew, including all the original vocal cast.

Keeping an eternal vigil on Zim's invading activities, Dib has spent the previous undetermined amount of time watching Zim's house while stuffing himself in his office chair. Zim finally emerges along with Gir stretching as Dib shows up wheeling his pudgy self where Zim explains he spent the past time lurking inside his toilet waiting for Dib to become unfit enough to stop him as he rolls out "Phase 2". However, because Zim was in seclusion for so long, he forgot what Phase 2 was actually supposed to be. Upon realizing this, Zim looks into when his species' Irken fleet is set to arrive on Earth, and it turns out the Tallest don't even have Earth on their singular galactic domination plan. Dib gets himself back in shape, and finds Zim in a manic depression who realizes his whole invasion mission was a set up by the Tallest. Zim surrenders himself to Dib who plans to unveil Zim's alien-self on live TV during the premiere of his father Professor Membrane's latest invention, the Membracelet which is similar to Leela's wrist gadget from Futurama. Zim instead hijacks the event by having Membrane sent off to a space prison, and reworking the Membracelets to transport the Earth in the line of the Irkin fleet. Doing so opens up a "Florpus" hole, where several different realities clash together like an dimensional black hole. Dib and his sister Gaz use the starship Tak left behind from the TV series to rescue their dad, while Gir makes Zim a giant mechanical throne ripped off right from the Akira manga. After an intense space chase, the Membrane family returns to fight off Zim's robot army, even though through the whole thing Dib's dad still thinks the whole thing is a dream, including the pudding-loving goldfish-looking clone Zim made of him. Professor Membrane manages to get a hold of Minimoose, Zim's main control for the teleporter to send Earth back, while the Irking flight arrives in time to get sucked into the Florpus themselves, supposedly ending the alien threat once and for all.

This was a complete return to for the entire crew. The animation is of course given a massive upgrade, with only slight adjustments made to the character designs. The meta-commentary on popular culture, massive consumerism, and blind faith in the media show out in full force here. The only glaring glitch in the movie is it seems to retread considerable territory already done in the TV series final episode where Zim also uses a disguise to convince the Earthlings into teleporting themselves to their doom. The made-for-TV movie does perform as a more than above average extended episode of the original series, while still leaving room for a possible continuation. The major bonus for otaku is the anime-styled opening sequence which looks like its right out of Gurren Lagann!