ANI-MOVIES, *Early Man

After digging back into their Wallace And Grommit franchise with the Shaun The Sheep spinoff movie, Aardman Animation created an original idea for a stop-motion picture in Early Man. Unlike some of the previous Aardman movies, Early Man was specifically engineered for a British audience as it focuses on football, or as it is called in the Western Hemisphere, "soccer". The sports movie is mixed in with director Nick Park's brand of shenanigans and cartoon humor.

Set a few millions of years ago, a meteor crashes on a group of prehistoric primates in what would become England who use the burnt space rock to invent the game of soccer. Some ages later, the descendants of that tribe have their land taken over by a greedy empire to mine its precious metals. Hopeful caveman Dug challenges the empire's Lord Nooth to get their home back by winning a soccer game but Dug and his faithful boar don't really know how it is played. Luckily, local bronze dealer Goona is a naturally good player, but the empire turned her down because they only use male players, and she teaches Dug's tribe to work together as a team as they come to realize the talent they inherited from their ancestors.

Despite being as historically accurate as The Flintstones, Early Man is a fresh take on the vintage cartoon caveman concept. It bears a bouquet of cheeky humor but is still a family-friendly feature highlighting the virtues of family and friendship. Aside from its poor box office reception, the film is a gratifying watch with amazing voice acting, especially Tom Hiddleston hamming it up as the loathsome Lord Nooth.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Fragtime

The mangaka known as Sako created a 2-volume yuri series, and Kaze-san And Morning Glory director Takuya Sato applied his similar brand of shoujo-ai creativity into an OVA special based on the manga. Tear Studio hit the ground running with their work on this their first made for video feature, a girl/girl romance with a science-fiction twist.

Misuzu is a shy girl who has the strange ability to stop time for three minutes a day which she uses to get out of akward situations. This works on everyone and everything around her, except for the popular Haruka who learns of it after Misuzu tries to shockingly look at her panties while believed to be frozen. Haruka at first blackmails Misuzu into hanging out with her after breaking the ice, and they both become more than friends as they use the clock stopping to help out their schoolmates in hidden little ways. Misuzu's power begins to fade as she realizes that Haruka keeps up a helpful appearance to cover up her own insecurities. Despite the magic being used up, the two reconcile and come out to each other.

The similarities in the relationship between romantic duo in this and Sato's Kaze-san And Morning Glory which came out a year earlier are apparent, although it maintains the same fuzzy feelings someone experiences in adolescent love. Fragtime is yet another charming yuri anime inviting for curious minds.

ANI-MOVIES, *Big Fish And Begonia

One of the few Chinese animated movies to get a English theatrical release, Big Fish And Begonia was made partially through Studio Mir which most Americans would recognize for animating Voltron: Legendary Defender and Legend Of Korra. Zhang Chun and Liang Xuan directed the full-length movie that started out as a short flash animation which took the part of a decade to finally get its big budget remake. The story takes inspiration from Chinese mythology as its coupled with styles similar to Studio Ghibli's Sprited Away.

A race of elementals known as the Others live in a world below the ocean where they govern the changing of the seasons. One of the Others is Chun as she joins more of her kind in her teenage years as they go to spend a small amount of time in the human world in the form of a red dolphin. Chun's visit causes a human boy to be killed in rescuing her, so once back home she makes a deal with the resident soul collector to give half her life away to return the boy to the living. Troublemaking neighbor Qui helps her take care of the boy's soul that they name Kun, and the two teens grow closer as they keep Kun now occupied in the body of a growing dolphin with a unicorn horn coming out his head. The celestial gods realize that Kun is in their world which is supposed to cause the ocean to crash over them. Chun is able to help Kun be resurrected in the human world, along with being reincarnated herself after Qui sacrifices his life to be the new soul collector.

Big Fish And Begonia has amazing 2D and 3D animation formatted in both hand drawn and CGI. The style and movement has their own special brand of excellence which shows how far Chinese animation has gotten in the last generation. The dub voice acting is fine, but the original Chinese language is equally good. The only thing that keeps the movie from achieving higher praise is the plot periodically introduces new elements that don't seem to pay off later on like the introduction of a rat witch who uses Kun as her way back to the human world. The overall story is easy enough to follow and it isn't necessary to have a major in Chinese folklore to appreciate this romantic fantasy.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *New Getter Robo

Go Nagai's second big hit in the field of giant robots after Mazinger Z was Getter Robo that introduces two major ingredients into the mecha genre, one was the concept of an entire team of pilots, but also the first combiner unit. Before Voltron or Transformers started stacking metal mashups, Getter Robo was the groundbreaker for it all. A few years after they finished up two separate OVA series concluding the original arc from the 1970s, New Getter Robo was its own 13-episode OVA as a remake. The anime was its own solid series set aside from the prior Getter Robo incarnations which don't require the prior series' history.

Oni are showing up and attacking a special lab housing the space radiation called "Getter Rays" which can do anything from folding space and time, pulling in demons and other monsters from different dimensions, and powers the lab's guardian Getter Robo which is piloted by a trio that can reconverge their vehicles into three battle modes. A disgraced martial artist, a former terrorist, and a reformed monk get pulled into a mad scientist's fanatical mission to halt the repeated monster attacks. Exactly what the Getter Rays are and what they actually do are a serious mystery as it keeps sending people into alternate timelines, gun-toting samurai, and steampunk airships makes for an interesting narrative, but ultimately makes the watcher confused as to what the actual point of it was other than nostalgia for the source material.

New Getter Robo did receive a television release but was first and foremost an OVA as it has large buckets of blood being sprayed all over the battlefield. The anime has the same over the top attitude that would later influence titles like Gurren Lagaan, but when making that frame of mind into the sole focus of an entire series doesn't help much if there is no definitive resolution or even a consistent plot. You can watch this whole series now on DVD or Blu-Ray, as well as streaming, even if you still enjoy the ride if you don't expect it to go anywhere.

ANI-MOVIES, *Batman And Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons

Not set in their current Tomorrowverse, the latest release from the DCU animated line of original titles is an attempt to appeal to newer fans by introducing what originally began as DC's original version of Marvel's What If? with an imaginary timeline where Batman and Superman's sons were Batman Jr. and Superman Jr. The "Super Sons" were reinvented into the New 52 comics as a time-displaced Superman and Lois had their own son from a parallel universe would team up with the current Robin who here is the biological son of Batman. Battle Of The Super Sons is the very first DCU animated feature that was produced totally in CGI, or at least one not based on a Lego toy.

Set in a modern version of current day DC Comics, Superman's kept his identity secret from his Jon, until on his birthday when his half-alien super powers finally kick in. Superman takes Jon to have the Dynamic Duo give him a physical where Jon is introduced to Batman's son Robin, aka: Damian Wayne. Whether there were any other Robins prior to him is never stated, but Damian's spoiled ninja overlord upbringing has alienated him from the younger heroes like the Teen Titans. Meanwhile, a stowaway from Superman's homestead Krypton makes its way to Earth as the alien body-possessing giant starfish calling itself Starro who replicated millions of spores to control the world's heroes. Damien breaks away from an attack of by his brainwashed father to enlist Jon's help, even though his super powers aren't totally up on his father's caliber. The Super Sons have a showdown with the possessed Justice League from their satellite where Starro is waiting for them, and the boys also have to take on their own dads to fry the starfish's plans for universal domination.

The use of 3D animation does function believable enough throughout the feature, but it does loose some of its quality for some of the scenes, like anything with Superman flying or most of the fight scenes are satisfactory, however footage where the characters are just standing around giving superhero quips tends to drag on. The premiere of this version of "Superboy" is well done, but Robin's arrogance is cranked up to 11 to make him even more unappealing as possible while not even showing up in the movie until nearly halfway through. The voice acting is enjoyable with Shazam's Jack Dylan Grazer as the fresh faced Jon, although Travis Willingham's Superman does it with far more bass than needed. It is a less annoying DC animated outing from titles like Legion Of Super Pets, even if some of the stereotypical teenage angst shows it mark near the beginning.

That moment when you realize the Jem show had one of the only genuine series finale to an 80's cartoon!

Obscure O.V.A., *eX-Driver

Kosuke Fujishima was the creator of the automobile centric manga, You're Under Arrest, which went into the development of this post-cyberpunk 6-episode OVA series. eX-Driver was an original idea Fujishima came up with where cars in the distant mid-21st Century drive themselves similar to in Minority Report, but the concept gets pretty wonky as the anime goes on.

In the future, people no longer know how to drive cars as they are all automated. However, occasional accidents happen where their systems break down leaving the car racing down the street with innocent pedestrians trapped inside. A team of specialists called eX-Drivers have their own cars that they operate manually in order to get on stop each episode's chase scene. The two main drivers are the kindhearted Lorna and the tomboy Lisa that each have their own separate vehicles. The sister act is interrupted by their newest recruit Soichi who is only 12. The conflicting egos play into the ongoing plot which shows how doomed this version of the future is when a former eX-Driver leads a gang of fast and furious wannabes bent only on causing chaos simply for the hell of it.

The problem with creating a science-fiction story set in the future is predicting how technology will develop over time where 90s movies like Johnny Mnemonic had no insight on how computers could change, so making an anime in the early 2000s about how mankind might be naive enough to let surrender all control over to malfunctioning AI. eX-Driver was Fujishima's attempt at trying to follow his own possible phobia ourselves to give in fully to an automated society. The writing is abundant with character jealousies and fan service scattered throughout Fujishima's writing that does play too much into anime stereotypes. The OVA series was 2-episodes longer than the You're Under Arrest OVA, but the difference between the two titles is that one was set in a believable slice-of-life comedy where eX-Driver was expanded with a weak grasp on a more idealistic future.

ANI-MOVIES, *Okko's Inn

Okko's Inn was a kid's novel series by Hiroko Reijō that ran throughout the early 21st Century. It was popular enough to get its own girls manga, and in the summer of 2018 received the rare opportunity to have a simultaneously released anime TV and movie premiere. The TV series adaptation was stretched out into 24 episodes, but the movie got its release halfway during the series run, so it allowed viewers to pick which version they wanted. The movie is not a compilation film using footage from the TV anime, and both were animated by Studio Madhouse, so the main difference in quality is divided between theatrical quality and a weekly anime series. So far, only the anime movie has gotten an English release through GKids, making it the primary source to investigating.

A young girl nicknamed Okko has her parents killed in an auto accident, and now she lives with her surviving grandmother in her hot spring inn. Okko is surprised to find her new home is inhabited by Uribo, a boy ghost that had been watching over Okko's granny since they were both young, but the annoying kid is able to communicate with her since he saved her life in the same accident that took her parents. Okko also gets visited by the dead older sister of a neighboring rival innkeeper, along with a bell demon that was sealed up in a box who ends up nabbing most of her desserts. Throughout the movie run, you can see Okko being introduced to new characters like fortune tellers that leave an impact on her hidden coping with the loss in her life, and how she is gaining a new family with her grandma and new ghost friends. The supernatural angle does take a decided absense from the plot when Okko encounters the family that caused her original accident, so its paranormal elements get used more as a plot motivator instead of being the main drive of the film.

You can tell that Madhouse felt the need to compartmentalize the movie adaptation into a series of various segments where as the TV series was more freedom to stretch the story out over an entire show. On its own, Okko's Inn is a family-friendly feature that introduces children to the concept of letting go of their pasts while making plans for the future of themselves and family.