R.I.P.: Pee-Wee Herman

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Justice League: Warworld

The seventh chapter of DC Comic's Tomorrowverse picks up where Legion Of Super Heroes ended with the World's Finest getting beamed up into space. Justice League: Warworld focuses more on DC's Trinity instead of the actual League themselves, so why it wasn't titled The Big 3: Warworld is never given. James Wamestar returns for his third cosmic entry in the Tomorrowverse which appears to be more of a prelude to their upcoming Justice League: Crisis On Infinite Earths then telling its own original story. You don't need to have seen any of the previous DC animated movies to watch this, although you will want to familiarize yourself with their line of Elseworlds comics that takes its characters into new realities.

The movie opens up with a alternate version of Wonder Woman(possibly from the Justice Society movie)as a lone gunslinger in an old west town where regular roughneck Jonah Hex has been rewritten as a bad guy that Diana has to liberate a small town from. The Tomorrowverse version of Batman finds himself in the sword and sorcery world of DC's legendary Warlord reality where the Dark Knight helps the barbarian king slay the evil wizard Deimos who had previously captured the same Wonder Woman as the two heroes escape into yet another world. Clark Kent of the Tomorrowverse is shown to be in a black and white Twilight Zone episode where everyone but the Trinity are really White Martians in disguise. The Big 3 finally get their memories back and wake up finding Martian Manhunter hooked up to a machine. Our favorite Martian is probably the one seen before in Superman: Man Of Tomorrow who was abducted by the powerful Mongul to act as the mental link to all the prisoners inside his planet-sized headquarters of Warworld. Mongul would power the world through the negative emotions of its comatose captives locking them each in different simulated experiences, similar to The Matrix, and the galactic villain had been enslaving White Martians from different universes in an attempt to locate the only known remaining Green Martian in the multiverse. Mongul hired DC's baddest bounty hunter Lobo to keep his prisoners in line, even though the space bastard planned on betraying his client all along so he could take over Warworld. Martian Manhunter frees the Trinity to help liberate Warworld from Mongul's control resulting in the surviving Martian's probable death. Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman are then picked up by cosmic being Harbinger who tells them they are now being drafted into an even bigger conflict.

Justice League: Warworld is an interesting watch at least a first where you get to see DC superheroes in parallel universes honoring their source material, especially with Batman going full Frank Frazetta fantasy. Although it makes it hard for second viewing when you realize all the secondary characters in each reality are inconsequential as they are either clones of captured subjects or White Martians, both being manipulated into being part of what is essentially a dream sequence. This is the first time that DC's Trinity got featured in their own movie together while still maintaining their own story arcs. This is a hard Rated-R movie with serious gore and body horror making it almost a Chronenberg flick. Regular fans of DC Comics will appreciate how adaptive their characters can be reinterpreted into a multitude of genres, but the overall final product exists mainly as the opening chapter of an upcoming saga.

ANI-MOVIES, *They Were Eleven

Whodunits are extremely rare in anime, even in the mystery titles, but the sci-fi genre is even rarer as there are usually alien princesses or giant robots involved. They Were Eleven was originally a one-shot manga from 1975 by Moto Hagio whose influences include Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. The short manga got a sequel, a live-action TV special, several stage adaptations, and then finally in 1986 as a full-length anime movie directed by Mighty Orbots animator Satoshi Dezaki through longtime studio Magic Bus. The original manga was one of the few early titles to be labeled as both shonen and shojo despite the cast, and the anime film takes this in stride by having it be more of an outer space drama.

Set in an idealistic future, humanity is part of a galactic community fortified by a military organization of which several planets strive to be a part of through the Cosmo Academy. After their initial test, the candidates are separated into teams of ten and left on their own in the selected abandoned spaceship Esperanza. The newbies are surprised to find out that there in fact eleven candidates in their assigned group which most of them believe was part of the test. Their task is to survive living together for a few months while keeping their malfunctioning ship active, otherwise they could use a big red button to call for help from the Academy which would instantly disqualify them all. Most of the crew are normal humans, including the telepathic Tadatos, and the hermaphrodite Frol who comes from a race that have their gender chosen later in life, and the two begin a strange romance, making it one of the first near same-sex relationships in an anime. The bulk of the movie shows the diverse crew putting their different backgrounds aside in order to survive the test and uncover their extra number.

They Were Eleven was an experimental entry among 80's space anime despite its strong pedigree. It might seem like an extended episode of Star Trek with its infamous Kobayashi Maru test, but as more of a team-building exercise that runs for several weeks. The story is mostly character driven about how they come together to confront each life-threatening plot complication including falling onto a planet and an epidemic slowly spreading throughout the crew. There is an amusing food fight which brings some needed levity to the serious situation the cast is in. The anime was made available in America through Central Park Media on VHS and DVD featuring a dub outside their normal roster with voice actors like Stever Blum and Wendee Lee. It is not a space opera on the level of titles like Macross or Yamato even though it maintains a fantastic grasp of speculative fiction set across several character archetypes.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Battle Royal High School

Having nothing to do with the book and movie franchise that inspired The Hunger Games, Battle Royal High School was a manga that ran in the late 80's that got its own OVA one-shot which was directed by Ichiro Itano who also acted as director on Gantz. The anime came out about halfway through the series run covering most of the first half of the story, so it has an abrupt ending to it which doesn't work against it because the plot is a margarita mix of shonen anime cliches. There are sentai heroes, demon slayers, super karate fighters, and an entire mountain range of fan service. It's the equivalent of someone pitching you their idea for a dream script and they keep upping the ante with more outrageous additions of mismatched character types. Since OVAs at the time were making animated adaptations of whatever they think might stick to the wall, the anime industry wasn't all that scrutinizing when it came to figuring out their target demographic, and this particular OVA is a shining example of that.

Riki is an egotistical young martial artist with plans to become a famous fighter by taking on all challengers while wearing a leopard mask. Simultaneously, Riki's opposite in a parallel universe Byoudo is a warrior that conquered the magical Dark Realm who realizes that part of his power is flowing into his doppelganger as part of a prophecy. Byoudo enters our world and inhabits his counterpart's body leaving Riki mostly in charge when conscious, even though the whole propecy was a scheme planned by his subordinate Kain, the mistress of a race of parasitic fairies that inhabit people's bodies similar to John Carpenter's The Thing. All this attracts the attention of a third party which monitors for any dimensional anomalies, so they send literally beam down from their orbiting satellite their "Space-Time Continuum Inspector" named Zankan who can morph into a Power Ranger with armor similar to Iron Man. Another addition is yet another outside character, a wandering monster buster named Yuuki who has spiritual powers and a wooden sword that doubles as a lightsaber. Yuuki gets possessed by Kain, and then gets into a fight with Zankan while one of Riki's love interests becomes infected by dark fairies leaving her as a pile of parts that Riki has to use his new supernatural powers to bring back to life piece by piece. Byoudo still in Riki's body then faces Kain in Yuuki's body as the two have a climactic battle that ends up destroying their entire high school. Byoudo then returns to his world and turning back time so that no one remembering anything that happened, even though its left ambiguous as to whether or not Yuuki survived since it his body was destroyed in the final fight.

Battle Royal High School is a product of the age it was made in with gratuitous amounts of blood, boobs, and violence. There is some decent fight choreography at the beginning, and the monstrous human mutations are something right out of a Lovecraftian nightmare, even though the constantly changing plot is seriously disorienting making it difficult to keep up with all the conflicting characters and their motivations crammed into an hour-long anime feature. Animeigo released this in America on VHS and DVD with a dodgy dub that are now out of print.

ANI-MOVIES, *Nimona

A film that had been in limbo for several years, Nimona was originally in production by Blue Sky Studios, but as they were owned by 20th Century Fox which was totally bought out by Disney, the project got put on ice in the Mouse House warehouse next to the Lost Ark. At first, the story was a webcomic by She-Ra remake producer ND Stevenson that later had a novelization by Harper Collins which Blue Sky slated for their next adaptation. After they were sold wholesale to the Rodent Factory, the Disney overlords didn't want to complete it, possibly due to the dodgy subject(at least at the time of the late 2010s)of LGBT-themed material. However, a sliver of hope came from Stevenson's old friends at Netflix who ran the She-Ra remake which got the rights to the incomplete production and released it on to their streaming service. The fully-CGI movie is visually different from the comic, taking it from appearing like Adventure Time into something more like RWBY. Former Blue Sky animators Nick Bruno and Troy Quane took over direction on the movie which is set in what could be called a "Camelotpunk" theme mixing in high fantasy with high technology.

About a millenia ago, a monster was rumored to have attacked a city which was defeated by a mighty female warrior called Gloreth. Skip ahead to modern day and the city is walled off from the rest of the world and imbracing mideval traditions with futuristic gadgets like flying cars. The realm is similar to that in Strange World where as they are an isolated society that still manages to keep harmonious diversity with interracial and same-sex relationships being totally accepted. The only drawback to this is the system which only allows certain upper class citizens to become knights, or at least until the current queen allows a lowly commoner named Ballister into their ranks who has a bond with the hunky Ambrosius, a direct descendant of Gloreth. During Ballister's initiation, his sword suddenly transforms into a laser gun killing the queen and making everyone think that it was his fault with Ambrosius cutting his arm off during the scuffle. Ballister is now wanted for regicide and fitting himself with a robot arm. This gets the attention of a rebellious teenage girl going by Nimona who wants to be his sidekick believing him to be a serious villain. She finds the outlaw at his hideout and reveals that she is a shapeshifter that hates being referred to as a monster. Nimona pledges to help clear Ballister's name which leads them to discover The Director of knights was the one behind the assassination after switching Ballister's sword because she believed that allowing lower class citizens would eventually weaken the city's defenses. Even though they exposed The Director's conspiracy online, the corrupt official manages to brush it off claiming it to be fake news concocted by Nimona's powers and that the troublemaking teen is really the same monster that Gloreth reportedly defeated. This leads to a divide between the outlaw and his would be sidekick where she takes off remembering her past where Gloreth was actually Nimona's first human friend that was shunned by the locals which accidently causes a fire burning down the early village. Nimona has an emotional breakdown causing her to lose control transforming into a shadowy kaiju like a giant Venom symbiote and goes Godzilla on the city. The Director tries to stop Nimona with a huge laser meant for defending the wall by aiming it into the middle of downtown after Ballister manages to calm her down back to her human form, but she morphs into a tremendous phoenix in order to contain the blast leaving all the survivors to believe that Nimona sacrificed herself. As anyone could guess, Nimona survived being able to take a laser to the face as her shapeshifting allows her to regenerate after she appears to Ballister right before the closing credits.

Nimona is a sci-fi fairy tale which mostly succeeds at delivering its message of not letting your fears get the better of you when confronted with the unknown. The LGBT representation is spotlighted but doesn't become the selling point of the story as its more of an accepted part of life in an otherwise superstitious metropolis. Its character designs appear to reflect the current look of titles similar to Tales Of Arcadia. The movie departs from the plot of the original comic as it deals more in biological mad science instead of traditional old world monsters. Nimona is a refreshing change of pace for an animated movie that manages to avoid most of the cliched tropes that been plaguing modern Disney releases.

OBSCURE O.V.A.S, *Grappler Baki: The Ultimate Fighter

The Baki saga has had numerous incarnations since its original manga debuted in early 90s by Keisuke Itagaki, who coincidentally is the father of Paru Itagaki creator of Beastars. The character's first anime outlet was a 45-minute one-shot by Knack Productions in 1994 based on the original manga series which was American's first real introduction to the character until the manga itself was released by Gutsoon Entertainment nearly a decade later. The initial watching of the OVA might make 90s otaku believe the anime was just trying to appeal ultravoilence and unrealistic fighting tournament arcs in shonen manga, however it does contain a certain appeal despite its lack of character development which was ejected to make time for a single anime chapter.

Baki Hanma is a champion in the world of underground fighting who specializes in karate. After winning a match at the beginning of the feature, the majority of the story is located in an hidden section underneath a stadium in downtown Tokyo which has apparently been around for over centuries as a place for grievances to be settled in mortal combat instead of on the battlefield. Baki's solo match is against a mighty fighter known as the Cord Cutter who can dig into his opponent's flesh and sever their nerves with his bare fingers causing the poor dope to either lose all motion in a limb or go completely blind in one eye. No matter the outcome, the corrupt upper class who run this fight club can fix nearly any injury with their state of the art health program which is almost on the level of mutant superpowers, leaving us to believe that Baki will still continue to face even tougher fighters while trying to live up to his father's impossible legacy which in itself is an overused trope in shonen anime.

The OVA has some impressive fight choreography which borders on something a little more grounded like Street Fighter or as bombastic as Dragonball, but too much time is given to explaining the bizarre world that permits this kind of competition in it. When the Baki franchise was allowed to expand into its various TV and ONA series, this singular OVA doesn't give much chance for a deep plot. Upon first watch, you might not feel as motivated into exploring the Baki iceberg as it more talks about the supporting characters and not the titular fighter. For a one-shot to dwell more on world building instead of giving life to the cast is its biggest setback.