ANI-MOVIES, *Space Warrior Baldios

Movie compilations of an anime series are a seriously hard coin flip. Sometimes they can add to the existing story like Macross Plus: The Movie, while other times it's just one big theatrical clip show like Evangelion: Death. Space Warrior Baldos was a single-season giant robot show from 1980 that was cancelled before the last three episodes aired. In 1981, a movie recounting the series was released with a totally different ending which was picked up by an American distributor who added a dub to it, but with a few minutes cut from the final release, possibly for content. Baldios was one of those gritty anime shows of the 70s-80s where they weren't afraid to show entire masses of people being killed either in a spray of bullets, getting stepped on by a giant, or being absolutely done away with from a natural disaster, whereas in the American dub of it would show the victims escaping due to some convenient parachutes. The English release of the Baldios movie does keep most of this material in, although you can tell that there is some they left out. For a show about a huge space mecha, the titular robot doesn't play a big part in the story and is more focused on the feuding characters. There are even some parts during the few scenes with the robot where the pilots are speaking but there is no dialogue for it, which worked out okay for something like Power Ranger because you can't see their lips flapping, but this was just unprofessional considering most of the rest of the dub in the movie is acceptable for the time.

Starting out on a planet called S-1, the inhabitants are growing restless because the world's resources are running dry. The renegade General Gattler leads a revolt against the government and takes a portion of the population into a giant space ark to find a new planet to colonize. One S-1 citizen that escaped this was Marin, the son of a scientist whose Gattler's forces killed during their coup. Marin enters a space warp and ends up on Earth in the year 2100. The other S-1 remnants set their sights on conquering Earth as their promised land and have launched several attacks on the more heavily populated cities. Marin has been drafted into Earth's special Blue Strike Force that are using a giant robot comprised of fighter ships that merge into the colossal Baldios. For a brief montage, we see the Baldios wrecking the S-1's attempts to take over the world. From this point on, the movie becomes a stretched-out space opera with stereotypical drama cliches like Earth politicians not trusting Marin's loyalty, bickering officers in the S-1 ranks, and romantic subplots that go nowhere. The S-1 forces eventually melt the polar ice caps flooding most of the Earth and killing of billions, and then later use nuclear warheads they stole to cause a radioactive fallout. It is later discovered that the planet S-1 was in fact Earth itself from hundreds of years in the future and that all the S-1's attempts to conquer the Earth of the past lead to the planet's near extinction that they originally came from. Gattler doesn't care about this anyway as he plans to take over his old home world anyway. Marin takes the Baldios in to wreck the S-1 space arc reactor leading to a final conclusion between Marin and Gattler with a confused love interest caught in the middle.

Space Warrior Baldios is a decent enough 80s mecha anime, despite the large lack of actual mechas in it, or at least in the movie compilation version. As the whole feature is going over highlights of the plot, a bunch of the story gets left out with characters showing up for a single scene and then are never seen again. If you want the complete narrative, you are better off watching the TV series and then popping in the movie version during the last act. Discotek Media has both the series and movie available on DVD and Blu-Ray, as well as both being on Crunchyroll. Only the movie is dubbed, but you can watch the uncut Japanese language edition with the full intended runtime.

Weird Fact: Adam West played a mayor on both Family Guy and the 2004 Batman cartoon!

ANI-MOVIES, *Hellboy: Sword Of Storms

Two years after making his cinematic debut, Mike Mignola's big red monster hunter had a short-lived franchise of animated films, the first of which was Hellboy: Sword Of Storms. This was animated mostly by the famous production company Madhouse who have been involved in several anime titles. Milestone writer Matt Wayne handled the adaptation of a Hellboy short story along with Tad Stones. This direct-to-video feature got a little traction from some screenings on Cartoon Network, but the timing of Anchor Bay Entertainment's release was just in the middle of DC and Marvel's opening shots in their war of original animated movies that they were also coming out with at the same time.

After a mission to a Mayan temple filled with mummies and a giant bat, Hellboy along with Abe Sapian and firestarter Liz Sherman head back to BPRD headquarters only for Hellboy to get called into his next investigation. A Japanese professor named Sakai gets possessed by the demon brothers of Thunder and Lightning, which most mythology junkies would know as Raijin and Fujin. Hellboy visits the home of a sword collector that Sakai attacked and is sent to another dimension when he finds the titular Sword of Storms. In this otherworldly realm, our hero is accosted with a never-ending barrage of yokai monsters sent by the possessed Sakai who want to break the sword to free Thunder and Lightning. The sheer number of monsters from Japanese folklore is staggering which Hellboy has to confront, including a kappa, a giant skeleton, an arachne, rubber-neck women, disembodied heads, and an army of zombies. Liz and Abe meanwhile are separated from Hellboy as they confront a kaiju-sized dragon in the Japanese sea who wants to join forces with Thunder and Lightning, all of which is being manipulated by the spirit of an old woman posing as a kitsune fox spirit. It all boils down to a final battle between Hellboy and the demon brothers in Japan.

The "animated" styled of Hellboy is different from what you see in comics and the live-action movie where Hellboy's legs seem much shorter, and his tail is much more noticeable. Most of the rest of the characters stick to their original models, even though the big draw is the voice cast they had for these productions. Ron Pearlman is back as Hellboy, Selma Blair is Liz, but the live-action actor for Abe, Doug Jones, takes up the speaking role of the gill-man for the first time after being voiced by David Hyde Pierce in the original movie. Peri Gilpin also appears as Kate Corrigan from the Hellboy comics who never showed up in the live-action movies and was more of Hellboy's love interest. The animation is above TV standards, but not so much up to theatrical level. The best bits involve Hellboy's journey through the Japanese spirit world where great detail was given to highlighting mythological creatures from eastern folklore, more than even some supernatural anime had done at the time. Most of the material of the movie involving the other BPRD members is pretty forgettable, even when Liz and Abe are fighting a giant dragon. Sword Of Storms isn't the best made-for-video animated superhero feature of the time, but it is worth checking out if you happen to be getting both Hellboy Animated movies.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico

Astro Boy creator Osamu Tezuka came up with his emblematic manga of Unico in 1976. It has a happy unicorn on a constant quest for peace encountering different fantasy characters in each installment. The one-horned horse seems more like a cross between Astro Boy and Tezuka's other creation Kimba The White Lion than an actual equine. Aside from a pilot film done in 1979, there never was an anime adaptation of the manga until 1981 that was founded by Tezuka Productions and Sanrio with the animation being handled by Madhouse Studios spearheaded by Yoshiaki Kawajiri who later went on to more violent productions like Ninja Scroll and Wicked City. The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico was the first of a duology and adapts two of the manga chapters into a single story. The main difference between the anime and manga is that the original source material had the goddess Venus being the main antagonist.

An unnamed unicorn gives birth to a bunch of babies, one of which conveniently called Unico. This newborn causes so much happiness for mortals that the gods themselves become jealous of him and task the living entity of the West Wind to carry him away to somewhere called The Hill Of Oblivion which the viewer can only guess is the edge of the world. West Wind feels sorry for Unico, so she drops him off the Island of Solitude where the young unicorn befriends the young devil who lives there named Beezle. Their friendship brings the attention of the gods as they realize the island isn't so lonely anymore, and they dispatch the Night Wind to recapture Unico and take him to The Hill Of Oblivion. West Wind shows up and flies off with Unico again to a hidden forest where he befriends a cat named Katy who wants to find a witch and be turned into a human girl. The two of them find an old lady living alone in the woods which Katy believes is a witch and the cat starts warming up to. Unico uses his empathic magic to transform Katy into a girl who decides to move in with the old woman and help her clean up. This all seems fine, but a dark stranger shows up and tempts the now human Katy to his castle where he plans to feed off her. Unico shows up and frees Katy as the demon turns into an eldritch horror straight out of the end of Fantasia. This leads to an epic JRPG fight where Unico digivolves into his final form as a winged adult unicorn and pierces the colossal nightmare right through the heart bringing life back to the forest. West Wind returns to take Unico away to his next adventure in the sequel leaving the friends he made along his journey behind.

The story continues a year later in the concluding film of Unico In The Island Of Magic, the title of which is confusing enough. This first film was a good outing for Tezuka's little bundle of joy with the first half seeming like an amusing family picture, but once the evil demon shows up in the final act it changes into an extravagant battle with amazing visuals and some seriously dark imagery including the bad guy actually getting impaled. The Fantastic Adventures Of Unico is a great feature for kids in its initial portions, but parent might want to supervise the conclusion as it could traumatize them for life.

MISC. MANGA, *Record Of Lodoss War: The Crown Of The Covenant

After making her return in the Castlevania-esque video game Wonder Labyrinth, everyone favorite anime elf Deedlit comes back in the latest in the Lodoss series, Record Of Lodoss War: The Crown Of The Covenant. Ryo Mizuno wrote a new light novel in 2019 taking place in the Lodoss universe over a century after the previous installment, making it the first one actually set in the genuine Lodoss timeline in a few decades, even though Mizuno has only written a single volume so far of this sequel. The manga adaptation is 3-volumes long written and drawn by Atsushi Suzumi which covers the entire light novel, meaning we won't get further chapters of the manga until Mizuno finally gets around to doing it despite the fact he had been plotting this for a whole decade. Lodoss fans are probably now feeling what Game Of Thrones fans having to frustrate with. Udon Entertainment has released the entire manga so far but beware that their lettering can get condensed in many of the narration boxes making it difficult to read in print.

A hundred years of prosperity have come to the cursed island of Lodoss with all six of its kingdoms conceding to a pact called the Covenant thought up by the wizard Slayn binding the six kings to peace treaty which was supposed to last a millennium. The once monster-infested smaller island of Marmo was settled by the previous heroes Spark and Neese as they became that nation's king and queen. Marmo currently has a royal family made of four brothers, the oldest of which left to become a priest. Word gets out that Diaz, the new king of the desert land of Flaim, has taken up his family's old crown and plans on separating Flaim from the Covenant. The three remaining princes of Marmo decide to take the initiative and secure their kingdom's future by planning a conspiracy where the second in line Alucia assumes the throne while the younger brother Zayd takes their brave sister Bino pretend to be outcasts and ally themselves with Diaz. The fourth prince Lyle embarks on his own quest with his thief friend Nola and former wetnurse-turned sorceress Helide go to search for the missing high elf Deedlit. Lyle gets some help from former Lodoss hero Leaf who is still alive because she's a half-elf and gives them griffins to speed them on their way. Lyle spends a few weeks in the Forest Of No Return where time moves differently than on the outside because its where Deedlit is supposed to be, and he eventually finds her after passing her personal test. Deedlit refuses to help as she doesn't want to tarnish the legend of the Knight of Lodoss that her mortal lover Parn left behind. Lyle then resolves to become the new Knight of Lodoss if Deedlit agrees to back him up. After returning to Marmo with his new title, Lyle plans to lead his new party to rescue the king of Kanon whose nobles have overthrown and taken prisoner while allying with Flaim. The saga continues from here with the Marmo princes' plot growing to fruition, even though Lyle is the main focus of the story.

The Crown Of The Covenant does suffer from what The Phantom Menace did as it focuses more on politics than being a genuine epic quest, like if the scene from Lord Of The Rings where the Fellowship was formed took up half of the first movie. Since Lodoss is largely based on Ryo Mizuno's old Dungeons And Dragons gaming campaigns, you would expect there to be a greater emphasis on high fantasy instead of royal protocol. Atushi Suzumi does a great job with his adaptation, meaning that the flaws are mainly Mizuno's fault. As there is currently no continuation until the next light novel comes out, Lodoss fans will be hungering for more.

ANI-MOVIES, *Locke The Superman

Yuki Hijiri started out as a manga artist with an interstellar epic titled Locke The Superman way back in 1967. This was one of the first manga to focus on psychic powers or "espers" as its users are normally referred to possessing Extrasensory perception, making them the anime equivalent of the X-Men. The manga is about a never aging esper named Locke normally referred to as a superman who has helped the collected Galactic Federation on anti-terrorist cases for centuries. Locke has an insane assortment of powers including telepathy, telekenisis, teleportation, and the ability to turn himself into a woman who at one point. The animated movie acts as a follow-up to a briefly mentioned encounter between Locke and a former opponent that returns like a tacky movie monster. Locke The Superman's first anime outlet was released in 1984 by Studio Nippon in their theatrical debut which was directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi who also directed the Lensman anime. The movie highlighted amazing battle scenes that became the inspiration for numerous anime and manga of people with superpowers like Dragonball and Psychic Force.

The motion picture opens up with the psychic super-agent in retirement as a farmer on a distant planet. A Federation soldier named Yamaki is sent to recruit Locke in an investigation of his old nemesis Lady Khan who has resurfaced from a previous case and is assembling an army of espers to act as assassins to overthrow Federation control. Khan has set up a school for up-and-coming esper baddies that she's brainwashed into believing will be part of a utopian society branded as Millenium, thus taking a big page out of Hitler's stragety book. Locke goes on his own investigation while a large portion of the movie deals with Yamaki falling in love with Khan's sleeper agent Jessica who has been hypnotized into having amnesia that will awaken once she encounters Locke. This does inevitably happen, but only after Locke has run into Millenium's equivalent of the Ginyu Force. Locke defeats all these assassins and discovers that Lady Khan is in her own personal artificial planetoid where she plans on conquering the galaxy. Khan is revealed to be a living corpse in a fish tank hooked up to a supercomputer that controls all her espers through telepathy who gets taken down quickly by Locke. The last 20 minutes of the film has Locke trying to rally the remaining psychics to stop the space base from burning up in a gas giant.

Locke The Superman is an animated adaptation of an arc from a sci-fi shojo manga, so you can see how this film could have been carried out as a TV series. It has some outstanding fighting scenes and sweeping camera sequences that make for a stellar visual experience. There have been numerous English releases of this movie, one with a British dub that had a bunch of mature content edited out, so you're better off getting the more recent release by Sentai Filmworks which is in Japanese with English subtitles. If you wanted to find out what made Super-Saiyans so "super", then you need to give this space opera a spin.

ANI-MOVIES, *Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs

While we've seen dozens of retakes of various fairy tales mashed together from properties like Hoodwinked, Once Upon A Time, and Kingdom Hearts, but this mixed drink of kiddy stories is much better than the last few Shrek sequels. It's an American production fully animated by South Korean studio Locus Corporation titled Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs which is a crossover of storybook fantasy and pop culture. It was distributed by Next World Entertainment which mainly dealt in releasing movies directly from Korea, so when it came to having it come out in America there was no theatrical release and a limited DVD/Blu-Ray campaign. Even though the majority of the movie was done by Locus, there are some former Disney workers behind its production. The film came out in 2019, but didn't see an American release until sometime later even though it was initially made for an English-language audience. This isn't a release like A Wizard's Tale that got a totally different script for the English version since this film was produced specifically for American viewers. Red Shoes features an all-star cast like Chloe Grace Moretz, Patrick Warburton, and Gina Gershon, but what kept it from getting a wider release was the mistake of the original marketing suffering major backlash that made it appear as if the movie was fat shaming. This set back production about an extra year or so to clean up the movie's reputation. It is now available on several streaming services, some of which are free so you can make your mind up.

The movie takes place in a land which is a patchwork world of different story characters living in several different kingdoms. There was a group of heroes called the Fearless Seven who were the Justice League of this world made up of young versions of King Arthur, Merlin, Hans(Gretel's brother), Jack(don't know which "Jack"), plus a set of triplets named Pino, Noki and Kio who are specialists at making steampunk tech usually comprised of trees. After rescuing a fairy princess from a dragon, they reject her because of her green skin mistaking her for a witch, so the princess curses them by turning them all into small green dwarfs which can only be lifted if they get kissed by the most beautiful woman in the world. Sometime later, Snow White is a strong but chunky princess whose father got remarried to a woman named Regina who in reality is a witch who turns people into wooden creatures and gets help from her living magic mirror. After the king goes missing, Snow investigates her stepmother's chamber where she keeps a magic tree that sprouts red shoes that makes the wearer appear beautiful. Snow takes the shoes and now looks much thinner but weaker. She comes across the dwarfs and they plan to defend her in the hopes she'll kiss them all and break their curse. Regina cons the unpopular Prince Average to using his goons to fetch Snow White now going by the name of Red Shoes. The dwarfs appear to everyone else as short green men, but if there's no one else around they shift back to their human form, and Merlin is the most voracious to get his old body back because his magic is more potent when he's not a dwarf. After sweeping Average and his men under the rug thanks to the triplet's construction of a giant wooden robot, the dwarfs concentrate their efforts on getting Miss Red Shoes to kissing them. Snow White is haunted with keeping up the appearance of her new slimmer body as Red Shoes which she believes is the only reason she believes the dwarfs are helping her as she tries to find her missing father. Merlin has his own paradox of trying to return to his handsome self again while trying to woo Red Shoes into kissing him, but totally missing the fact that Snow genuinely loves him as a dwarf. This all culminates in Disney-esque ending somewhat mocking Beauty And The Beast, even though they end up the going over the fates of the remaining dwarfs in a quick montage during the closing credits.

Red Shoes And The Seven Dwarfs(and they do make a point about whether the term is "dwarves")does maintain some dazzling animation and great voice acting. Some of the pop songs that were incorporated into the soundtrack don't fit well in certain scenes. The film has engaging CGI making the characters more lifelike while keeping their cartoonish designs. As far as the past fat shaming controversy, you'll discover upon watching this that it was just bad advertisement as the film handles body positivity with considerable care. It's a fine feature for the whole family despite the fact that it goes over some overly familiar source material.