Professor X says "Relax"!

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Ghost Messenger

"What was the point?!" is probably what most American viewers thought when the first saw this Korean animated feature. Ghost Messenger was supposed to be a 3-part OVA series with serious homages to existing anime like Evangelion and Fate, but only two episodes were ever completed. The final one has been in production limbo for over a decade with no sight of it finishing up anytime soon. So, streaming companies like RetroCrush decided to make urine out of lemons and just combine the existing episodes into a single feature with no dub and a translated that is critically below professional standards. Most of the dialogue reads like it was an AI script written by another AI program while tripping acid. The timing for the subtitles is atrocious with several words glued together making for incomprehensible compound words. This and the whole thing ends with a hugely unresolved conclusion makes it one of the most meaningless releases on the western market.

Set in Seoul, the spirits of the departed get caught in the world of the living that feed off other spirits. To ferry these spirits along, there is a special network of agents called Ghost Messengers that hunt down rogue ghosts. Kanglim is one of these agents and uses a special cell phone to wrangle the stray ghosts by taking pictures of them. Kanglim goes missing from work and his girlfriend Bari is covering for him while keeping an eye out for him, at least when she isn't going on excessive shopping sprees. A young human psychic boy also called Kanglim finds the GM Kanglim's phone after he got caught in his own phone that the "Little Kanglim" uses for his own selfish needs while keeping the "Big Kanglim" a prisoner that he lets out every so often to help him fight ghosts, as if the Ghost Messenger was his own personal Pokemon. A senior officer among the Ghost Messenger agency named Sara gets called to find out what was really going on, and we learn that Little Kanglim was keeping his grandfather's deceased spirit tied to his family's store since his mother who was also psychic got killed by spirits. Sara also uncovers that regular Kanglim has been missing because he is under a curse that makes him a potential abomination. The dueling Ghost Messengers take their battle to epic heights while Little Kanglim enters the spirit world looking for his grandfather's ghost. The feature ends on a severe cliffhanger of Bari leading the charge of an army of Ghost Messengers riding on chimeras launching an assault on an unseen enemy.

Ghost Messenger is insanely difficult to navigate the plot to and only those who have seen bad fansubs could even have the most remote chance of figuring it out. The animation and fight choreography are somewhat impressive, but considering that the production never reached its ending, you really have to wonder why someone bothered to do an English adaptation of it, and with such inferior subtitles to boot.

MISC. MANGA, *Devilman

Shin Devilman was an early 80s spinoff of the original 70s Devilman manga by Go Nagai and was one of the first pieces of printed material from the franchise that got an English release. Glenn Danzig of The Misfits started his own comic book company specializing in adult titles, one of which was this manga relabeled as just Devilman which confused people when it was released in the mid-90s that confused it with the storyline established in the OVA series from Manga Entertainment. Shin Devilman was a self-contained story that only tangentially connects the with original manga. The plan was to release it as separate comics book issues and then in a collected edition later on, but only three issues actually got released it with Nagai being displeased on how the coloring of it was handled with a shaky translation.

Taking place sometime after Akira had already bonded with the demon Amon to become Devilman, but his friend Ryo secretly being Satan the whole time has yet to be revealed. Akira visits Ryo's mansion when they both conveniently fall into a time warp that the spend the rest of the series in, making Devilman into a remake of Quantum Leap. They're first stop is none other than Adolf Hitler when he was a young artist and the devilish duo cause the future-genocider from making his first being commission and swears vengeance on all Jewish people. Akira and Ryo then travel to a time when Joan of Arc is under trial by the lords of Hell for causing the Hundred's Year War, but Devilman acts as the ultimate defense lawyer and calls the demonic court on their double-standard dung. The last issue has Devilman stopping a demon disguised as an angel who is handing out shotguns to people several centuries before they logically should have existed in the first place. Apparently, Hell can just rev up their own Tardis and use time travel to screw up human history even further than it already was.

Danzig's attempt to bring early mature manga to American readers in the 90s was a noble effort as Danzig himself was a huge fan of Devilman, so much so that he created his own female counterpart in a series titled Satanika that was slated to have its own genuine anime along with a fully produced trailer by a professional Japanese studio. Go Nagai was seriously not impressed with how Verotik handled his work causing the American Devilman comic book series getting cut short. Nagai's artwork is still impactful and highlights the maturity missing from most other manga getting an English release at the time. The idea of taking a horror-based superhero and having them go travel through time and causing the events that they tried to prevent is an original idea, but it just doesn't work well here for someone not familiar with the previous versions of Devilman. It would be like introducing Godzilla for the first time as being a Time Lord instead of a mutated dinosaur. The 3-issue run has been long out of print, even though its is still available directly through the Veroitk website. If you want to see how to do a lousy job of given a coveted manga series an English release than Danzig's Devilman should help your masochistic machinations.

You dense motherbat!

MISC. MANGA, *I Heart Skull-Crusher

Josie Campbell already revolutionized the old He-Man spinoff of She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power for Netflix and then went on to specialize in stories featuring the character's Golden Age counterpart Mary Marvel for DC Comics, she also brought a new anime aspect to the Man Of Steel mythos in My Adventures With Superman. Campbell now has an anime-themed mini-series for Boom! Studios taking a spin on Battle Angel Alita, although minus the man/machine overtones. I Heart Skull-Crusher is a post-apocalyptic lesbian roller derby sports manga not seen in anything since the wild west days of 90s anime.

After your standard cataclysm where water is the most valuable resource, civilization has calmed down a little with most of the survivors becoming huge fans of the new sport called Screaming Pain Ball. The most boisterous of any of these sports fans is the energetic teenager Trini who has spent her whole sad life training to be a player in the game. Her existence is so decrepit that she has no friends and pours out all her dreams to the skulls of her deceased parents. Trini gets wind of a tournament coming up where she can get a spot on the winning team with her longtime idol, the notorious player known as Skull-Crusher. Our plucky wannabe gets help from a washed-up ex-player plus a pair of thieving twins to set out across the desert and earn her place next to her hero who she has a major crush on.

The series is set for only five issues but looks like they might be able to cover quite a lot of territory in their limited run. Alessio Zonno does a great job as the artist in this what appears to be her premiere in professional comics. The first issue establishes the world quite well and gets you in tune to their vibe right away. This anime-styled American comic has some familiar cliches for average otaku, although it appears to have some surprises in store before the conclusion. While being a little campy for a wasteland fantasy, the sci-fi shojo-ai action more than makes up for it.

R.I.P. Akira Toriyama