It's Public Domain Day! Get ready for lots of slasher flicks starring Flip the Frog!

Move over, 2025! Here comes the Year of the Horse!

 

I've Seen Enough Anime To Know Where This Is Going

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Arion

Arion is an anime movie from 1986 based on the manga Neo Heroic Fantasia: Arion by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko who is the legendary animation director behind the original Gundam anime. Aside from Venus Wars, very few of his manga work have been adapted into an anime. Arion was one of the earliest anime based on Greek mythology, although it took several liberties with the original source material, the biggest being that the title character was supposed to be a horse instead of a teenage boy. The film has been hidden from most western otaku as it only recently got an English release through Discotek, so up until then American anime fans would've normally only seen this movie in fansubs. This was not just another fantasy take on the Greek pantheon but a full-fledged epic with huge battles that probably borrowed helped inspire directors like Peter Jackson and Wolfgang Petersen. A true Joeph Cambell hero's journey animated by Sunrise who traditionally specializes in the mecha anime.

Way off in the past in the land of Thrace, the boy Arion is a demigod living with his blind mother Demeter who the titan Hades kidnaps and tricks him into believing his brother Zeus is the one responsible for Demeter's blindness. After years of training in the underworld, Arion heads out to find Zeus who is constantly warring with his other brother Poseidon for control over the land and sea. Arion comes across Poseidon, who he understands to be his father after attacking his mother long ago and witnesses a battle between his forces and Zeus' led by his daughter Athena. After the battle, Arion slays Hades who curses him with madness which causes him to kill Poseidon as well, all while being helped by the lovely mute who turns out to be his twin sister. Our hero's past is truly revealed to him as being the son of the outcasted titan Prometheus and his human wife Pandora. Arion assembles an army to conquer the powers of Olympus as Zeus cowers behind the powers of the Furies and the Earth goddess Gaea. There is a gigantic climax with ogres, kaiju, and divine laser cannons as Arion tries to rescue his sister from the true dark power behind the throne.

Arion is a grand sprawling anime with stellar battle scenes. There are spectacular throwbacks to Homer's Odyssey with some different takes on historical figures like Hercules reimagined as a reformed thug, so this movie will defy your expectations for a Japanese take on the sword-and-sandal genre. The plot does condense a great deal of the world building into a single film 118-minute-long movie, despite how certain aspects of incest among the Greek gods doesn't seem to affect the storytelling. The Hellenic culture blends with high fantasy to make for a lost anime classic. By the way, there is a post-credits scene where Arion finally lives up to his true Greek heritage.

Happy A.I. Holidays!

 

ANI-MOVIES, *The Mitchells Vs. The Machines

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines was Sony Pictures Animation's biggest direct-to-Netflix release before K-Pop Demon Hunters. Originally intended to premiere in theaters in 2021, the pandemic put the kibosh on that plan and the movie instead ended up coming out on Netflix. Directed and written by Gravity Falls co-creator Mike Rianda, he co-wrote this with Jeff Rowe from Disenchantment and it was produced along with Lord Miller Productions who most fans would know from The Lego Movie. Rianda intended for his film to have imagery similar to that which Sony previously did on Spider-Man: Enter The Spider-Verse as some of the animation looks CGI while merging it with graffiti art design. The best way to describe the plot is that it's National Lampoon's Vacation meets Terminator 2 as it has a troubled family have to pull together during a robot apocalypse.

The suburban family of the Mitchells consider themselves as one of worst in the neighborhood, even though their behavior is much more common than they realize. The elder sibling Katie has become popular online with her own films which are filled with memes, but her talent has earned her a spot in a California film school, so she's moving out with the rest of her family dealing with her upcoming absence, especially her father Rick who just doesn't understand digital technology. The mother Linda is savvy enough to work a smart phone, and their son Aaron is an introvert who can only express himself around Katie. Rick decides that instead of letting Katie just fly to California that the Mitchells will drive all the way to her new school which send Katie into a huge cringe. All this would make for a decent road trip movie, except a brilliant computer programmer creates a new AI system with shiny new robot assistance instead of a handheld phone. The robots rebel against their creator as the previous AI system named PAL has taken over all the robots and the entire internet launching a full-scale upheaval capturing all the humans in the world, except for the Mitchells. Now, Katie and the others need to use her quirky creative skills, Rick's technophobia, Aaron's wanting to know his fellow dinosaur-loving neighbor better, and Linda's tight devotion to her family to try and fight their way through an empire of flying laser-shooting robots to halt PAL's plans. What follows is a mad dash of movie tropes, multiple liar reveal mix-ups, and enough memes to bury every digital hub in Norway. However, the movie does manage to pull it off with a satisfying conclusion with the Mitchells learning to accept each other's differences and come together to eventually save the world in a visually spectacle that makes for a breathtaking final battle.

The Mitchells Vs. The Machines, which for a while was given the bland title of Connected, probably got lucky first premiering on streaming instead of in theaters. This is film splendidly shows how the gap between generations can simultaneously divide and strengthen a family's dynamic. The plot does expect you to just not ask any questions and enjoy the ride despite the practically transcendent leaps in logic that even an animated sci-fi comedy can make. There are plans for a sequel in the works with different writers and directors, although chances are there is enough love for the original to validate it.

Record Of Lodoss War: The First Mighty Critical Legend

Decades before Critical Role was even a thing and getting animation based on their campaigns, creators Ryo Mizuno and Hitoshi Yasuda would print out prose reproductions of former sessions of the various RPGs, mostly Dungeons And Dragons. These appeared in Yasuda’s gaming magazine, Comptiq. All the campaigns were set in the fantasy world of Forcelia which also incorporated the Sword World tabletop games. Whereas Critical Role was made up of voice actors, Mizuno's campaigns were comprised of various fans of fantasy, including sci-fi novelist Hiroshi Yamamoto. Ryo Mizuno was the Dungeon Master of these sessions, and he took the transcripts and wrote them into a series of novels titled Record Of Lodoss War indicating that this story was a recording of past campaigns. The novels became so popular that in 1990 the renowned studio Madhouse produced a 13-episode direct-to-video anime saga. This series was among the first full-length OVAs ever produced, and its completion took only two years.

Considering the anime came out over 35 years ago, Madhouse did an outstanding job that made it a timeless classic among otaku and a real starting off point for beginners. Gamers found the anime to be compatible with Dungeons And Dragons including its lore, although some outsiders might have wondered why it did not have anything to do with the American cartoon that played on Saturday mornings. Central Park Media released the anime in English as one of their first big productions first in VHS and eventually in DVD with a stellar dub. Anyone who used to watch Sci-Fi Channel back in the 90s might remember the first three episodes occasionally broadcast in a single feature, although the cryptic thing about that is the first episode is really a flash-forward already showing the main cast of characters assembled and going on a mission that begins at the end of the sixth episode making it a lead-in to the overall plot. The OVA series was based on the first four prose novels, and a manga series spinoff titled The Grey Witch.

The Lodoss franchise continued with a 26-episode anime TV series titled Chronicles Of The Heroic Knight, which retold the story from the original OVA. In between these were a trio of theatrically released anime shorts titled Welcome To Lodoss Island featuring chibi versions of the main characters which the TV series used as a bonus feature at the end of every episode.

Two other titles came from this world, one of which is Legend Of Crystania acting as a sequel to the story covered in the TV series at first in an anime movie and then a 3-episode OVA continuation. Crystania was a darker story starring two of former villains from Lodoss in a different country and finding their way in a new civilization ruled by different gods. Following this was a more humorous manga and anime titled Rune Soldier set in the same world but with a more lighthearted approach inspired by comedic fantasy anime such as Slayers.

Ryo Mizuno made a considerable number of other installments to the Lodoss saga including manga sequels and prequels, some that were parodies like the Welcome To Lodoss Island chibi adventures. Mizuno went back to the well to create a new RPG titled Record Of Grancrest War which itself received a TV anime adaptation but had no connection to the world of Forcelia. Recently, a sequel to the Lodoss saga has come out which takes place a century afterwards, one in a Castlevania-styled video game named Wonder Labyrinth, plus a series of light novels titled The Crown Of The Covenant that eventually got a manga adaptation.

Lodoss on its own is an island that separated itself from the continent of Alecrast during a civil war among the gods. Alecrast is where Rune Soldier takes place in, so Lodoss was like the continent removing all the negative aspects away from itself. Record Of Lodoss War has a consistent theme through each incarnation which consists of a party of six heroes teaming up to save their land from destruction. The first was in The Lady Of Pharis manga where the party consisted of a knight, a thief, a cleric, a wizard, a dwarf, and an elf fighting your standard issue demon lord. Following that was The Grey Witch story arc that is covered in the manga of the same name and the original OVA which is the primary cast most people are familiar with. Chronicles Of The Heroic Knight takes place a generation later with a party of six teaming up with the surviving heroes from the The Grey Witch.

The Record Of Lodoss War OVA is the best introduction to the franchise. In it, Lodoss is a land separated into various kingdoms and constantly warring with the lower island of Marmo led by the ruthless Emperor Beld who plots to take over all Lodoss. Parn is the son of a disgraced knight who sets off on a quest with his old priest friend Etoh, and they are joined by the local mage Slayn and his dwarf companion Ghim who is on a mission of his own. Later on, Deedlit, a high elf, and Woodchuck, a witty thief, accompany them on their quest to warn the kingdoms of Lodoss about Marmo's impending invasion. What most of them don’t know is that this is all a game being played the Grey Witch known as Karla who was one of the six heroes from the prequel series who has all these conflicting forces working against each other to keep Lodoss in a constant state of perpetual battles so the land will never be conquered or unified. Parn grows as a swordsman during this journey while having a clashing rivalry with the Marmo dark knight Ashram, all while Deedlit has an instant attraction for Parn even though he is over a century younger than her as an immortal elf.

Critical Role pretty much copy-pasted the Lodoss model for role-playing but differentiated itself by tailoring its campaigns for livestreaming and fits into the Dungeons And Dragons universe. Led by Matt Mercer, its cast consists of voice actors from anime and video games. From there, the campaign was made into an animated series titled The Legend Of Vox Machina for Amazon Prime, and then later the spinoff series of The Mighty Nein, both of which have become rippingly popular.

The divide between Lodoss War and the Critical Role adaptations is that Lodoss tells more of an actual story whereas Critical Role is more character focused which has a dash more diversity to it. However, the original OVA series is one of the few 90s anime that achieved the universal verdict of being priceless. The animation is just as crisp and dynamic as it ever was along with a stunning soundtrack. The cast of Lodoss have deep relationships as Parn’s journey continues and you feel the pain they share when one of their numbers dies. As high fantasy, Lodoss rings all the bells that you would find in any story set in Middle Earth as both it and Dungeons And Dragons borrowed a lot from the works of Tolkien. Vox Machina and Mighty Nein might be a more contemporary starting point for an outsider to get into fantasy, but if you’re looking for the finest animated example of the sword and sorcery genre then you need to find a portal to the otherworldly island of Lodoss.

R.I.P. Bob Burns III. Last of the ORIGINAL Ghostbusters.

 

R.I.P. Rob Reiner, "Taking it up to 11"

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Arthur Christmas

Arthur Christmas was the second fully-CGI animated movie produced by Aardman who started out as steadfast stop motion animators. DreamWorks had previously done a computer animated film with Aardman five years prior in Flushed Away which didn't perform well, but Sony Pictures contacted Aardman and created a more polished holiday-themed project, even though it also wasn't considered an immediate blockbuster. Sarah Smith did a fantastic job as director keeping up all the intricate features in this picture that she went on to do Ron's Gone Wrong. Arthur Christmas is a cinematic project with so much rewatch value because it maintains a plethora of particular details similar to an Edgar Wright movie. There are a finite number of the regular characters and an entire legion of elf helpers to remember about, so balancing them out was a difficult task. The CGI Aardman utilized is a vast improvement over what they did in Flushed Away, even though they've stuck with claymation films since then.

All set during a single Christmas, the gang from the North Pole deliver all the presents in a single night, except for one. Turns out, the title of Santa is birthright handed down from one generation of Claus to the other. The current one is Malcom who is well beyond the time he should have retired and normally leaves the actual Christmas operations to his oldest son Steve who has transformed their toy delivery into the digital age replacing the old sleigh with Star Trek-styled airship the size of a city complete with a Klingon cloaking device. Malcom's younger son Arthur is clumsy but well-meaning and in charge of receiving letters from all the children and one child in England has their Christmas wish unanswered, so Arthur and his grandfather Grandsanta who was Santa before Malcom set out in the old reindeer-driven sleigh to get the girl her bicycle. Along with an expert gift-wrapping elf, Arthur's quest causes UFO sighting from all over the world to the point that the United Nations send a drone to blow them out of the sky, although they do manage to finally drop off the present while all three generations of the Claus family putting aside their differences to nominate Arthur as the new Santa.

Arthur Christmas has slowly become a holiday favorite over the years, just not as memorable as some other recent yuletide movies like Klaus. The film stacks an entire wish list of British actors with James McAvoy as Arthur, along with Hugh Laurie, Bill Nighy, Michael Palin, Robbie Coltrane, Joan Cusack, and Jane Horrock, although most of them play elves with high-pitched voices so it's hard to tell some of them apart. Another thing about the elves is that they are mostly indistinguishable from each other to the point where some viewers caused a panic thinking there was a same-sex kiss between two of them, keeping in mind that most fantasy tales have elves being androgynous. The primary message of this film is about a family learning to compromise in order to achieve their goals together which is what makes this a sterling family-friendly standard.

ANI-MOVIES, *Ernest & Celestine

Having nothing to do with Jim Varney, Ernest And Celestine is a Belgium/French independent animated feature-length production based on the children's book series by Gabreille Vincent. Premiering in 2012, the film managed to keep the spirit of Vincent's original illustrations while tweaking the character designs just enough to give it a slightly more anthropomorphic look. Most of the original directors previously worked on stop-motion pictures, so to have this 2D movie featuring watercolor animation done in flash gives it a distinct style. The movie was triumphant enough to be nominated for the Best Animated Oscar, only to lose to the indomitable Frozen. It also got a 52-episode TV series and a theatrical sequel. GKIDS provided an astounding roster for the English dub including Forest Whitaker, Lauren Bacall, Paul Giamatti, William H. Macy, and Jeffrey Wright which make for a catchy viewing experience. The film is slightly hampered by a short running time of 80 minutes, but considering it's based on a series of short stories the writers did manage to entrance the plot into a full-length plot.

Ernest is a lonely bear living in his solitary house in the woods away from the European town of bears which happens to have a civilization of mice underneath it. The mice have a racket going where they send the younger ones up to the surface to collect teeth from bear children acting as their version of the Tooth Fairy, which the mice use for either replacing their own teeth or for further construction of their subterranean facility. Celestine is an orphan mouse who isn't very lucky at getting teeth to earn her daily keep, so she talks Ernest into helping her rob a dentist with a stock of spare teeth. The two get in trouble with both the bear and mouse authorities and have to go on the lam to Ernest's house where the two of them become good friends and spend the winter together. Once spring comes, the bear police show up and arrest Celestine while the mice arrest Ernest. Oddly enough, both of the guilty parties manage to save the lives of the judges assigned to sentence them and end up going free to live together in harmony, even though there's still a large amount of classism between the neighboring animal societies.

Many will notice similarities between this film and Zootopia where talking animals coexist but in segregated areas. Even though the main characters are ultimately fugitives, they do grow to like each other for their creativity and make up for their mistakes thanks to a double-edged twist of fate. Ernest And Celestine is a delightful movie that is firmly family friendly that older audiences will find heartfully charming while it gives a fairly obvious salute to classic cartoon antics and a vignette that is a loving homage to Fantasia.

Fate/Stay Night: A 20-Year Retrospective

The world of Fate is probably the single most complex franchise in all of multi-media. Originally a visual novel that came out in 2004 from Type-Moon, Fate/Stay Night was adopted into the same reality which includes Tsukihime as well as The Garden Of Sinners all dreamed up by video game writer Kinoko Nasu in a continuity fans call the Nasuverse, even though there is little crossover between the various games. The game had three different paths for the player to follow, each focusing on one of a trio of love interests, the basic first route was labeled Fate. Because of the game’s success, an anime TV series was released in 2006 named after the title it came from. This was only the tip of the iceberg as the two other routes in the game got their own separate anime outings. The second route was covered in an abridged movie and a much lengthier TV series titled Unlimited Blade Works, afterwards the third and darkest route was produced into a trilogy of movies named Heaven’s Feel. There has been some major contempt between fans of the game and the various anime that came from this as to which is better.

The Fate/Stay Night timeline is complicated enough with three branching outcomes, but the addition of the prequel manga Fate/Zero which came out several years after the original story, so no matter what path you follow the prequel acts as a pseudo-prologue which isn’t fully compatible with the story of the game. This has made many fans accept Fate/Zero as the canonical lead-in the whole Fate/Stay Night continuity with Unlimited Blade Works or Heaven’s Feel as the only acceptable way to view anything of the primary video game adaptations. Putting aside that there are dozens of other Fate titles that take place in alternate timelines or parallel universes like Apocrypha, Grand Order, or Strange Fake, all of these are spinoffs or spiritual successors to the primary Stay Night game, making the original Stay Night anime series the main pillar holding up this nearly infinite multiverse.

A quick rundown of the main plot shows our young protagonist Shirou Emiya living in the Japanese mountain town of Fuyuki City who was adopted by his father Kiritsugu after an inferno burned down a large portion of the city a decade prior. What Shirou didn’t know about his departed dad is that he’s the cause of the disaster in a battle between mages called the Holy Grail War who summon heroic and villainous characters to fight on their behalf, sort of like picking your own historical figure to battle in a Pokemon match. The time of the Fifth Holy Grail war is upon them, and Shirou is caught up in the struggle with a servant of his own, a short blonde girl in an armored dress wielding an invisible sword calling herself Saber who protects Shirou from some of the psychopathic mages. One of these seven mages happens to be a girl from school named Rin with a servant of her own whose origins are covered in one of the other routes. Rin allies himself Shirou to gain the Holy Grail which can grant a single wish to the winner and their servant. Saber is revealed to be a gender-swap King Arthur who wants to redo her run on Camelot even though Shirou develops feelings for her. In the end, Shirou has Saber destroy the Grail otherwise it would cause another calamity, and Saber flashes back to near the end of her original life after her fatal clash with Mordred.

There was a retconned epilogue that showed Shirou reuniting with Saber in Avalon far off in the future, although this hasn’t been represented in an anime yet. This has driven many Fate fans to advocate a new retelling of the Stay Night route which incorporates the extra ending and flattening out the inconsistencies that Fate/Zero introduced to the lore. Therefore, a good portion of the fandom normally recommends completely skipping the 2006 series as the production by Studio DEEN didn’t have the more fluid animation that Ufotable included into their productions of the other two routes. The original Stay Night anime does contain certain intricacies and a genuine otaku charm that the other Fate anime lack, even though the primary series could have benefited from having a full 26-episode run that most other Fate titles had.

Some of Fate/Stay Night’s low points are pacing issues which do tend to meander while taking time out to drop expositions about the magical world all this takes place in, plus gives away a little more of the spoilers you would run into in the other Stay Night routes. The animation is also limited to characters giving speeches but their lips flapping offscreen to avoid movement, plus the quality picked up considerably for the fight scenes in later installments. The use of some CGI brought about the most criticism which looked as good as 3D animation was for mid-noughties’ television productions. Obviously when the fandom for the game and the first anime busted out that future anime would be given a bigger budget and higher quality which unfortunately makes the 2006 series nadir on most fans’ wish lists.

The advantages of viewing Stay Night before any other Fate titles or indeed at all are that it is simply the best place to start off in the nearly infinite Fate universes. The initial TV series carries over the style and storytelling that anime was known for after the turn of the century while simultaneously transitioning its urban fantasy setting into a more mature viewpoint. With titles like Death Note, GintamaMushishi, and Code Geass on the rise, Stay Night’s 2006 was the prime time to introduce this game-based anime during an era when visual novels weren’t as big among American otakus. There are plenty of standard cliches that would satisfy the occasional anime fan, but there is true sincerity behind Studio DEEN’s production despite the limited resources they were given. Not every anime studio can afford the unlimited budget works that Ufotable was blessed with.

Fate/Stay Night’s brightest example is the fact that out of all three routes that Fate is the lightest one. There is more slice-of-life comedy here than in the other adaptations which lead to the creation of the Today's Menu For The Emiya Family that has arguably become most every fan’s favorite series out of the entire franchise. There is a closer bond between the main characters and a deeper respect for each other as the shared alliance of surviving mages continues to grow.

A final selling point for the first TV series is that of the romance between Shirou and Saber. Shirou already had a long-established relationship with his friend Sakura as well as finding Rin attractive but became awestruck when he first summoned Saber. They share a deeper understanding of the other as opposed to when Shirou’s father was Saber’s master. Shirou views Saber as an equal and treats her like a genuine person when he refuses to hide her away from his friends and thinks of her as young woman who should be freed from the burden of her former life as the King of Britain so she can take on a new life with him. In the canonical original series finale, Shirou has to say goodbye to Saber after the Holy Grail Wars are over, but as further incarnations of Fate has shown that their shared future is still in flux either as friends or lovers. Hopefully, there will be a reckoning of this relationship as many other anime titles such as Ranma and Sailor Moon have enjoyed success in a remake, so a more fleshed out retelling of Fate/Stay Night is worthy of considering. Please check out the original version either on Blu-Ray from Sentai or on numerous streaming services.

MISC. MANGA, *Omega 6

Takaya Imamura started out as a character designer for Nintendo who worked on Star Fox, F-Zero, and Legend Of Zelda. He eventually left Nintendo and went on to create his own single-volume manga titled Omega 6 that was first printed in French. Following that, Imamura made a video game adaptation of it called Omega 6: The Triangle Stars which is in done in glorious retro-style pulp that brings back memories of Mega Man. The manga itself is a throwback to 80s cartoons and toy-based TV shows which tells a full story in a solo graphic novel.

Onboard the starship Omega 6, a pair of androids named Kyla and Thunder a brought out of suspended animation for their job as part-time bounty hunters looking for the terrorist Petrogaze. The duo get power-ups when they consume something called "magic fruit", the downside to which is that it rapidly ages them, so they have to spend their off time in a rejuvenation chamber. It's revealed later on that both of them contain the memories of a brilliant professor and his wife who left Earth centuries ago after their own world became overcrowded by aliens that colonized the planet, and they've been looking for a planet of their own to repopulate the human race. They happened to meet up with a race of planet-builders who offer them a world of their own in exchange for capturing criminals with a high price on their heads. While on their hunt, Kyla and Thunder learn that Petrograde was really a decoy for a deeper conspiracy.

Omega 6 is a steady readthrough, although there is a major flashback halfway through the book that the story gives no segue into. Takaya Imamura gives this graphic novel a dynamic look to it for both anime and video game fans even if the plot does tend to jump around. It's super-powered cyberpunk space action that will make you nostalgic for Silver Age anime.

ANI-MOVIES, *Onward

Disney's first Pixar release of 2020 came out just at the dawn of the coronavirus, so Onward already had an uphill battle trying to get anyone to dare coming out to the theaters. Monsters University director Dan Scalon headed this project that was an original story he had written with Keith Bunin and Jason Headley which took about three years to complete. The movie unfortunately didn't make any of its money back at first because of the pandemic although it has gone on to gain some accolades after it went to streaming. Onward is a low fantasy tale that mixes family values with a road trip comedy, but with eldritch beings instead of humans into a genre usually referred to as elfpunk.

In a version of our world entirely populated by enchanted creatures, magic was commonplace along with your standard dungeon quests with magic users. Somewhere along the line, this society gave up using sorcery with the rise of technology, so they replaced their magic wands for automatic garage doors. Set in modern day, young Ian Lightfoot is an elf turning sixteen even though he never knew his father who died before he was born. Ian's mother Laurel is currently dating a centaur police officer that is always on the case of his older brother Barley for being a slacker who is more interested in preserving the abandoned ways of magic and is ravenously into RPGs. It turns out Ian's father left a wizard's staff behind for them to bring him back to life for a single day. The staff is powered by a rare gem which is entirely spent conjuring up only their father from the waist on down, so Ian and Barley take a tip from a gaming manual to find a manticore who it claims to have another gem. Turns out the manticore now runs a family restaurant, but the brothers use a map meant for kids to locate the gem. Laurel gets wind of this and sets out to make sure her boys don't use the gem as it might unleash a curse. Along the way, Ian learns he can use magic with the staff which helps when he and Barley come across pixie bikers and other obstacles, only to find that their quest leads right back to the local high school. Barley finds the gem followed by the curse which takes the form of a dragon made of parts of the school building, but Laural manages to help stop it with the manticore's old sword. Unfortunately, the remainder of their father's time is about spent, and Ian is stuck under some debris making Barley the only one who gets to say goodbye to their fully corporeal father before he disappears. Barley relays his father's love to Ian and they help people get interested in magic again.

Onward is up to scratch as far as Pixar movies go, at least that far as not being one of their gratuitous sequels. There doesn't seem to be as much love for this film that most generic Disney fanatics have so for some of their other releases, but having it come out just at the start of pandemic lockdown really put people in a bad mood which affected the movie's overall outcome. The animation and lush backdrops are picturesque, although Pixar didn't appear to put as much effort into this like some of the other visual masterpieces like Up or The Incredibles. The premise for this might have made for a reasonable series on streaming because the standard feature length doesn't do this urban fantasy world enough justice.

ANI-MOVIES: The Mouse And His Child

The Mouse And His Child was the first full-length animated movie put out by Sanrio along with what would eventually become Fred Wolf Films who animated the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Based on the book by Russell Hobson which is a children's story that contains some mature narratives and symbolism, Fred Wolf and Charles Swenson who created Mike, Lu And Og both directed this 1977 theatrically released adaptation. The movie meanders in its own minutiae which makes it incredibly tedious to sit through, while in contrast the film is visually pleasing. This was probably one of those films you caught on cable TV in the 80s on a lazy weekend afternoon and vaguely have a hazy memory of. It was the second film for Fred Wolf Films after the adult animated feature Down And Dirty Duck, so The Mouse And His Child was a major contrast from their prior production, similar to if like Ralph Bakshi did a Saturday Morning cartoon after finishing up Fritz The Cat. Despite the fact that the film had decent enough advertisement behind it, after its theatrical release it got folded into the highest level of obscurity with only a VHS release in America with little fanfare. This isn't really a lost treasure but more of an important footnote in animated film history that was forgotten mostly because it gets caught in its own pointless philosophy.

A toy of a father mouse and his child dancing when they're wound up begin life in a toy store but are thrown into the garbage when they fall of a shelf. The mice come across a rat named Manny who runs a small rat empire with enslaves other abandoned toys to do the hard labor, but the mice manage to get help from a prophetic frog who helps them on their journey to be free of needing to be wound up in order to move. The mice's quest for self-autonomy leads them to a wise peg-legged muskrat who rebuilds them and independent of being wind-ups. The closing part of the movie has the father and son mouse freeing the other toys enslaved by the rats, and for some reason the papa mouse marrying an elephant toy at the end which no one seems to question as its one of the first cross-species weddings in an animated movie.

The Mouse And His Child does contain a reasonable quality of animation put into it, however the theoretical questions it insists on dumping into the laps of young viewers makes it a chore to sit through. The musical score is equally grating with the opening and closing theme being sung off-key by the voice of the child mouse. The only real mark for this might be its English dub cast with Sir Peter Ustinov voicing the snidely rat Manny, along with other talents like Sally Kellerman and Cloris Leachman, plus fans of Wizards will recognize Bob Holt as the savant muskrat. You might be able to track down an old video cassette copy of this if you're a compulsive collector of vintage cartoons, however the film has little staying power to make it significant.

ANI-MOVIES, *Elio

Elio was Pixar's attempt at doing an original movie since Elemental, even though on its own that borrowed heavily from their parent company's film Zootopia. This movie could however be seen as a backwards version of Disney's Lilo And Stitch to which they conveniently remade into a live-action movie that came out the same summer. The one thing I noticed from most reviews of Elio was the vacancy of any comparisons to The Last Starfighter because it borrows a metric ton from the classic 80s sci-fi flick. The concept for the movie was dreamed up by director Adrian Molina when he was CalArts which is plainly obvious as a majority of character designs look like they were out of the cookie cutter "CalArts Style" that much of the older animation fans claim to be tired of, even though you could compare them to previous shows like Steven Universe. Molina directed this along with fellow CalArts graduate Madeline Sharafian plus Domee Shi with the screenplay written by Pixar regulars such as Mike Jones. However, all this talent didn't stop Elio from being Pixar's biggest dud losing out big time to K-Pop Demon Hunters which didn't even get a theatrical premiere and went straight to streaming. The family film is on its own a reasonably decent production, but Pixar's higher-ups had watered down Adrian Molina's original prospect partially due to his vision of the title character being queer-coded. If this is another situation similar to when Disney cancelled The Owl House because it was upsetting conservative parents because of its LGBTQ nature hasn't been fully confirmed, but Pixar's unwillingness to invest in the creator's original vision adds to Elio lackluster outcome. It is visually eye-catching with Pixar's new use of lenses and lighting help sell the interstellar benevolence you might be looking for in a movie with friendly and not-so friendly aliens.

Elio has dead parents like most Disney kids, so he's now living with his Aunt Olga who is a major at an Air Force base specializing in tracking down orbital space trash. Elio is obsessed with aliens and overhears a meeting Olga has about a signal which one of the crew claims is an alien response to the first Voyager space probe which causes Elio to respond to the signal causing the entire base to lose power. Olga sends Elio to a military camp where he gets taken by a collected organization of aliens called the Communiverse who believe he is the leader of Earth and send a clone of him to take his place on Earth. Elio wants to become part of the Communiverse, but they can't except any new members after the last one they rejected declares war on them. Grigon is the warlike leader of a race of huge caterpillars who stomp around in mecha suits modeled after giant crabs, and Elio tries to establish peace between them and the Communiverse, but fails to do so and becomes a prisoner. Grigon's son Glordon meets Elio and escapes with him to the Communiverse that hold Glordon as a bargaining chip to establish peace of which Grigon agrees to, but after having a fun time touring around all the sights the Communiverse has to offer, Glordon admits he doesn't want to go back to become bonded to his own mecha suit. Elio makes up a clone of Glordon to takes his place, but Grigon is not fooled and takes over the Communiverse which reveals Elio's deception, and they send him back to Earth. Glordon accidently uses Elio's star craft to go to Earth which is secured by the Air Force base, so Elio, his clone, and Olga rescue Glordon after taking back the spaceship. Once back at the Communiverse, Elio is able to work out a peace treaty and gives up his shot as an ambassador to live on Earth with his aunt, even though he still keeps in contact with Glordon via ham radio.

Elio wasn't seen as being a failed production because of the quality Pixar put into its visual aesthetics, but instead to how few people actually went to go see the film in theaters. Disney didn't have as much confidence in this as they had for their Lilo And Stitch retread, so they didn't put any genuine advertising into it, least of all any merchandise. The premise of a boy wanting to be abducted by aliens isn't all that original, even though Pixar managed to add their own touches to make it gratifying. This wasn't Pixar's hugest departure from their former glory, however Elio suffers from poor management and a blitzed ad campaign.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Fox And The Hound

The Fox And The Hound was Disney's 24th full-length animated theatrical release based on the book by Daniel P. Mannix which has a radically different ending from the one adapted for the movie. This was Disney's first movie in the 80s and its biggest challenge was the transition of a new generation of animators, one of which was Don Bluth who with others all left halfway through the film's production to go off on their own and animate The Secret Of Nimh. Other new animators that worked on this as their first major production were Tim Burton, Brad Bird, John Lassiter, and Henry Selick, so this was the launching pad for many of the studio's future alumni. The movie was the highest grossing animated title of the year which helped as it was the most expensive film of its kind at the time. This success helped bring about a direct-to-video midquel 25 years later, although the original was considered the last of Disney's classic animated movies before the company's renaissance which had the unfortunate side-effect of condemning The Black Cauldron into the realm of obscurity.

An abandoned baby fox gets adopted by the old widow Tweed that she names Tod and he becomes friends with her neighbor Amos' new pup Copper under the tutelage of the older hunting dog Chief. Tod and Copper have fun together during the fall, but Amos takes Copper on a long winter training journey. Once springtime comes around, Tod has grown up and tries to rekindle his friendship with Copper who is now a better hunting hound, but when Chief gets hurt chasing Tod away, Copper threatens to get back at him. Tweed takes Tod out into a game preserve to ensure his safety, even though that doesn't stop Amos and Copper to hunt down Tod along with his new fox friend Vixey. An encounter with a ravenous bear causes Tod to rescue Copper with the faithful hound protecting him from the trigger-happy Amos, and the old friends part ways.

The Fox And The Hound had mixed reviews when it first came out but still did well as it was the only American animated film that was released that year intended for children. This was the final film that Disney's two remaining Nine Old Men who were the studios main animators when they first opened in the 1920s. The casting for this was masterful with Corey Feldman and Kurt Russel voicing both the young and older Copper, Mickey Rooney as the older Tod, Sandy Duncan as the pleasant Vixey, Pearl Bailey as a helpful owl, Pat Burttram as the ornery Chief, and veteran cartoon voice actor Paul Winchell playing a featherbrained woodpecker. Again, the original source material was supremely edited down for its animation adaptation whose finale makes the one for The Little Mermaid look tame, but Disney did manage to pull off a good enough production. The film does suffer from serious pacing issues and filler sequences that padded out the runtime, but it is ultimately an enjoyable watch for the whole family.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

For being the first animated Star Wars movie as well as the only one not released through Fox, The Clone Wars received a theatrical premiere at the dead end of summer 2008 which didn't help its box office numbers. Meant to bridge the gap between Episode II and III of the prequel trilogy, this was first covered in an excellent 2D micro-series on Cartoon Network directed by Genndy Tartakovsky of Samurai Jack fame, but three years after that trilogy ended a new Clone Wars series was made also by Cartoon Network, this time entirely animated in 3D. The drawback to this is that the micro-series was not considered canon which really sucked if you had come to adore the unstoppable Captain Fordo, although this didn't become totally non-canon until Disney took over the entire franchise. The 3D series ran for 7 seasons first on Cartoon Network, briefly on Netflix, and then concluding on Disney+. The 98-minute-long movie was obliviously intended to be a prolonged pilot episode, but some corporate bigwig thought they could sell more Happy Meals if it was shown in cinemas months before the ongoing TV series. Directed by future Star Wars pioneer David Filoni, The Clone Wars movie was intended to act as a self-contained arc that would be the opening for the weekly network cartoon, so the production quality was not up to theatrical standards which was noticed by most viewers. If this had been released a decade later, then the movie would have gotten enough exposure on the various Disney networks, but because they had to get greedy with it, the license holders had the biggest Star Wars theatrical bomb instead, or at least until the sequel trilogy came out.

Set sometime after Attack Of The Clones, the titular Clone Wars are fully underway with Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker leading the Republic army against the Separatist forces throughout the Outer Rim of the galaxy. Anakin is surprisingly presented with his own student, Ahsoka Tano, an enthusiastic teenager ready to prove herself as a Jedi in training as the two of them have to rescue Jabba the Hutt's kidnapped son. This is all a scheme by Count Dooku and his apprentice Asajj Ventress to have the Hutt clans support the Separatists instead of the Republic. The film goes from one action scene to another leaving little room for character development, so the film is simply one big toy commercial and not in the somewhat entertaining way it was done in the 80s with Transformers and He-Man.

The Clone Wars is a sad excuse for a Star Wars movie. Where some fans had problems with the Solo motion picture, at least it was a solid effort at a full-length feature. This animated outlet should have remained on television as it was first intended. One of the only positive aspects is the debut of Asoka who fortunately became a much more likeable character throughout the TV series, plus Christopher Lee returns to voice Dooku making it his last Star Wars appearance. It also has some of the most cliche dialogue you'll ever hear. It is entirely possible to skip this film and just go straight into The Clone Wars series unless you are an obsessed Star Wars completionist.

X-Men '97: Don't Call It A Comeback

Previously on X-Men, the original animated series ran from 1992-1997 on Fox’s Saturday morning lineup. After three more animated series, including an underrated anime, a follow-up to the 90s show was finally picked up. Since the first cartoon aired, Marvel Comics and Fox had both been bought up by the unshackled juggernaut of Disney. The Witcher screenwriter Beau DeMayo mapped at a new 10-episode TV series exclusively for the Disney+ streaming service. This revival was titled X-Men ’97.

Premiering in 2024, the first season brought back the iconic theme song that had fans from all over headbanging but this time with a rotating cast during the opening credits. Like Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, the X-Men lineup for each episode matched which characters were officially on the team roster at the time. Instead of Saban Entertainment, the production is handled by Marvel Studios which doesn’t suffer from the horrid CGI that their What If show had. The actual animation is provided by Tiger Animation along with Studio Mir which was the Korean creators who did The Legend Of Korra. Ten episodes were made for the opening season with two more seasons in the works.

A large majority of the original voice actors returned including Alison Sealy-Smith as Storm, Cal Dodd as Wolverine, George Buza as Beast, Lenore Zann as Rogue, and Adrian Hough as Nightcrawler. The rest of the cast is filled out with replacements as some of the actors from the former show had either retired or passed away with the brightest example of this has Holly Chou replacing Alyson Court as Jubilee allowing an Asian American play the firework-shooting mutant even though Court did get to play an older virtual version of her.

Season One takes place about a year where X-Men: The Animated Series left off, Professor Xavier left control of the X-Men over to their old nemesis Magneto all while Jean Grey is about to give birth to her and Cyclops’ baby. It’s revealed that Jean is a clone as the original shows up after fake Jean gives birth to Nathan Summers who is immediately captured by Mr. Sinister and infected with a virus. Bishop, who had joined the X-Men since last time, takes the young Nathan to the future where he can be cured and eventually become the time travelling Cable. The clone Jean changes her name to Madeline Pryor and leaves the team. The Friends Of Humanity continue their anti-mutant terrorism, and their chief assassin X-Cutioner causes Storm to lose her powers which she regains after help from Forge. All this while the cybernetic Bastion plans on using Sinister and an entire population of human Sentinels to first wipe out the mutant island of Genosha, and then later the rest of the mutants. Gambit dies on Genosha, Rogue briefly hooks back up with Magneto, and the recruit Sunspot joins the team. Xavier returns to Earth from the Shi’ar Empire and helps the X-Men stop both Magneto and Bastion separate missions. The final battle has most of the core X-Men being split into two parts in time, some in a post-apocalyptic future while the others are sent to ancient Egypt.

X-Men ’97 was not only a return to form for the franchise, but it was also unbound by the limits of a network cartoon show intended for kids. Its new streaming run allows room for more character introspection, conflicting romances, mature themes, and dramatic reveals. Much more ground from the vast history of X-Men comics is covered in these ten episodes which is helped by the extra minutes of airtime. The core message of observing mutants as a prejudice and various forms of discrimination is still present, so nothing is lost from the huge generation gap between this and the original series. The animation goes through a major evolution with crucially upgraded battle scenes that take serious hints from numerous anime titles such as Dragonball and Evangelion. Season Two is due out in 2026 with all of the Season One cast returning, so you can bet your adamantium bones that it will be as awesome as its predecessor.

ANI-MOVIES, *Sky Blue

Originally titled Wonderful Days, the 2003 Korean animated movie Sky Blue is a mixed media project combining 2D animation, CGI, and live footage doctored to appear animated which finally got its American release in 2004, although there has never been a western release of it on Blu-Ray or DVD, or any authorized streaming in English even though there is a dub of it. Sky Blue was released in Japan after Gainax rewrote it, and in many versions of the movie there are a few minutes cut out of releases outside Korea mostly for pacing with an alternate prologue. Another change from foreign releases was having the musical score replaced with totally different songs possibly due to licensing issues, but this radically changes the context of certain scenes. It is nearly to the point where Sky Blue and Wonderful Days are mutually exclusive movies, so it depends on which copy on the film you come across. There was also a director's cut of Sky Blue came out a decade later with an additional 9 minutes added on to it, so be sure you don't overpay for a copy of it.

Taking place in 2142, the environment has broken down, and the remaining humans are surviving in the dystopian city of Ecoban powered by recycled waste, and those who live in the wastelands become scavengers in order to survive. Shua is one of the outsiders who are trying to stop Ecoban's energy production which is polluting life outside the city which blocks out the sun with stormy clouds. Shua works for Dr. Noah who was outcast after he built this poisonous ecosystem destroyer and has to see about shutting it all down. Shua is mixed with his dedication toward his allies and his feelings for one of the city's security agents, his childhood friend Jay who is now working under the thumb of the commander Cade who got Shua banished in the first place by blaming him for the death of a superior officer years ago. There's a huge clash between Ecoban's ruling class and their military which a ragtag rebellion is able to counter with their attack on the city's power complex.

This was the directorial debut of Kim Moon-Saeng who prior to Sky Blue only worked on commercials although he presents a very professional production in his first and so far only fully animated movie. Aside from being featured at several international film festivals, but despite that there wasn't an authorized physical release for English speaking audiences to enjoy. It is an amazing cyberpunk spectacle with stunning animation even though the characters fall flat and are basic action movie stereotypes.

Magic Knight Rayearth: The Original Amphibia

Magic Knight Rayearth was a game changer as well as a genre breaker. Created by the powerhouse quartet known as Clamp, the manga appeared in the monthly Nakayoshi magazine and was split up into two halves, the first from 1993-1995 and then the second immediately afterwards running until 1996. An anime TV series came out less than a year after the manga premiered that went on for two full seasons, followed by an OVA remake simply titled Rayearth, plus six different video games only one of which got released in America as the last title put out for the Sega Saturn system.

Clamp had already gained past success with Tokyo Babylon, X, and RG Veda, plus their connected series of Clamp School Detectives that is in the same universe as Duklyon and Man Of Many Faces. Magic Knight Rayearth is partially tethered to the Clamp School books but not officially a tie-in. The manga wasn’t simply another magical girl series, but also the mecha genre and as one of the first isekai titles to ever be released.

The saga begins with a trio of eight-graders each from different schools on a field trip to Tokyo Tower which is Tokyo’s answer to the Eiffel Tower. The three girls are the tomboyish Hikaru, the prideful Umi, and the rational Fuu who all get whisked away to the magical land of Cephiro and chosen to be the legendary Magic Knights by the mage Clef. The girls must journey through the land gathering weapons and learning magic to rescue the childlike Princess Emeraude from the high priest Zagato who has seemingly usurped the throne. Emeraude acts as the Pillar of Cephiro where she must constantly pray for the country’s safety and serenity, and Zagato’s actions have now filled the land with monsters and other dangers as it slowly falls apart. Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu are helped on their quest by the mysterious mascot character Mokona who looks like a bunny-eared marshmallow. Along the way, the Magic Knights acquire evolving weapons and armor as well as giant mechanical gods called Mashin each equipped with elemental powers. Zagato sends his minions one at a time who all fail to stop the Magic Knights, most of which become their allies along the way, including the vagabond Ferio who starts a romance with Fuu. The Magic Knights eventually obtain all three Mashin and movie on to their final battle with Zagato.

Now, to explain what happens at the conclusion of the first half of the series would give away one of the single biggest plot twists of all time. Seriously, you will not see this coming! The second half concludes the series in a new saga with the characters trying to save Cephiro from the aftermath of the first half. The Magic Knights are called from Earth again and this time to protect the country from three separate invaders from foreign nations. Hikaru, Umi, and Fuu gain more allies and enemies all while living up to their responsibilities as Magic Knights. There is a stark difference between the second half of the manga and Season 2 of the anime adaptation as there is a stand-in villain for the anime where the manga’s true antagonist would be revealing too much. The anime diverges in its own direction as both it and the manga’s second half were being released nearly simultaneously.

Magic Knight Rayearth was such a hit that plans were being made to bring it to America as fast as possible. The manga itself got its English release in the pages of Tokyopop’s premiere anthology magazine MixxZine at first in American left to right format and then later in the standard Japanese tradition of right to left. Dark Horse Comics eventually picked up the publishing rights and rereleased the manga in hardcover box sets. The anime was a different story as The Ocean Group put together a dubbed pilot specifically for Fox Kids that wasn’t greenlit, but Media Blasters stepped up a few years later to put the series on VHS and DVD. The OVA series titled Rayearth which was a grim reverse isekai take on the original story was released by Manga Entertainment although not as prosperous. The Sega Saturn game didn’t flourish as much in America either as it was for a dying video game system.

The impact Clamp made on anime culture with Magic Knight Rayearth can be broken down into several categories. The mecha genre is slightly touched on as the Mashin in it is magic based even though the concept came out a decade earlier in Aura Battler Dunbine. The parallel world concept also got its big start here gradually became a thriving source in the mid-90s because of Rayearth which led to similar anime titles like El-Hazard and Vision Of Escaflowne to which eventually became the isekai boom of the last few years, the difference being that Rayearth is a portal fantasy whereas modern isekai involves being reincarnated in another world. The major anime subculture to get a boost from this series though was the magical girl wave which at the time was shifting to young superheroines like Sailor Moon who used their powers to fight aliens and monsters, even though Rayearth went a step further by bringing ordinary girls from our world and having them gain magical abilities in an enchanted realm while putting them on a quest straight out of a JRPG in a standard “save the princess, save the world” scenario, despite the fact that journey turns out to be anything but typical.

Magic Knight Rayearth has left an even bigger mark on American media. The most obvious is the Disney Channel original Amphibia which creator Matt Braly admitted to, the only difference being that his show had the three girls being separated when they first came to their magical world instead of starting out their adventure together. Even Amphibia’s trio of girls powering up scene at the end of the series is straight out of Rayearth. Now with a brand-new anime remake on the horizon, Magic Knight Rayearth is a quintessential piece of anime nostalgia that is still worthy of being appreciated by modern day audiences. Clamp’s other manga-turned-anime titles like Cardcaptor Sakura, Angelic Layer, Chobits, and Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle have helped the rise of anime into a commonplace medium for English-speaking fans everywhere. Rayearth is the ultimate otaku melting pot with giant robots, high fantasy, video game logic, and cute girls conquering evil.

ANI-MOVIES, *Windaria

Windaria might be known to some older American otaku as Once Upon A Time which was released on VHS and DVD originally through Harmony Gold, the same company that put out three separate anime TV shows in English under the title Robotech. The infamous Carl Macek was behind the American transfer of the film which had to remove several minutes worth of footage to make it compatible for younger viewers, as well as having the entire script rewritten because Harmony Gold was given no scripts from the original Japanese production. In fact, there are several scenes with violence and nudity that were edited out, and the film had a happier ending glued on to it, plus an added narration done by Russell Johnson, aka: Professor from Gilligan's Island. Based on the novel by Ultraman author Keisuke Fujikawa who also adapted the script, Windaria was a 1986 film directed by Kunihiko Yuyama who went on to work on anime such as Pokemon and Slayers. The movie might seem to borrow quite a little from some of Hayao Miyazaki earlier works like Laputa and Nausicaa, however the truth is that this anime came out at the same time as both of those films which just happened to have a dieselpunk theme to them with a hint of fantasy/adventure thrown in.

The small farming community of Saki lies near a huge old tree called Windaria which lies in between the nations of Itha and Paro who for some reason after a century of peace decide to go to war. Getting caught in the middle of this is Windaria resident Izu ends up becoming a turncoat between both factions all while he ignores the love of his sweetheart Marin. Itha's Prince Jill and Paro's Princess Ahnas have been carrying on a secret romance together and hoped to create a union for both countries, but the greedy plans of their tyrannical parents force them into becoming enemies resulting in each of their deaths. Paro ends up being the victor in the war after having Itha flooded by their own aqueduct sabotaged by Izu who becomes drunk on the reward he received and totally forgets about Marin until the queen tries to have him killed for overstaying his welcome. Paro heads back home only to find that nearly everyone there has died including Marin, although her ghost appears just before she ascends to a flying ship that collects departed souls with Paro claiming he'll become the captain of the ghost ship after the current one's tern is up in a few months.

Windaria was director Kunihiko Yuyama's next film he worked on after the trippy Time Stranger, so going from one story that celebrates life through time loops to another that displays how everyone is susceptible to corruption in a fairy tale themed setting shows how diverse Yuyama is as a director. The original full-length version of Windaria has never been officially released in America and has only been put on VHS by Streamline Pictures and later on DVD by ADV Films, so you're really missing out on the superior version unless you can get a copy of the imported laser disc with subtitles as Once Upon A Time is just a pale shadow of the true edition.

ANI-MOVIES, *Metropolis

Fritz Lang's 1927 classic of Metropolis was made into a one-shot manga in 1949 by the God of Anime, aka: Osamu Tezuka. Decades later, it was turned into an epic movie at the dawn of the new millennium directed by Rintaro who had previously done the Galaxy Express 999 duology, plus written by legendary Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo. Unfortunately, the sci-fi drama didn't leave its mark on the international market as it only made less than half the budget back, partially due to Americans unwilling to see non-Ghibli anime theatrical releases. The film was animated by Madhouse who had previously done anime adaptations of Tezuka's Unico manga. Rintaro envisioned this as a dystopian future but with Tezuka's character designs that explores the symbiotic relationship between men and robots which was the basis for the creator's later series of Astro Boy. The film models itself after the ultramodern vision of the original Metropolis film, even though you can see some major Final Fantasy VII influence from especially in the titular city's layout.

In the probably American metropolis coincidentally named Metropolis, the upper class secretly run the city with their surplus of robot workers who have replaced most humans in their everyday job. The big dog in charge is Duke Red who's not-so-secret police of the Marduks are under the command of his adopted son Rock to maintain security, but Red's master plan is a giant contraption called the Ziggurat meant to capture the power of sunspots even though he's really intending it for global domination. The Ziggurat's key part is a realistic android girl named Tima that Red ordered from the criminal scientist Dr. Laughton, but this activity has gotten the attention of a detective from Japan, Shunsaku Ban along with his nephew Kenichi who were hired to find the rogue doctor. The detectives are assigned a robot police escort that they name Pero and track Laughton to his secret laboratory where Rock decides to cancel his father's contract on his own resulting in the death of Laughton and Kenichi falling to a lower level of the city along with Tima who has no idea she's a robot. Kenichi and Tima befriend some of the garbage-collecting robots of the underground along with a human revolution planning to rally against the Marduk who in turn are hunting for Tima which Rock is targeting to keep out of Red's grasp. Despite this, Tima eventually ends up in Red's clutches as he banishes Rock, although he managed to disguise his way into the activation of the Ziggurat which causes Tima to lose control resulting in the destruction of the weapon and the end of the Marduk's reign. Kenichi manages to get one last piece of humanity from Tima before her remains fall from the Ziggurat and are picked up by the worker robots who carry on the spirit of her innocence. You will want to check out a post-credits scene what happened later after Kenichi decides to stay and side with the robots.

Metropolis was a true retrofuture production bridging the gap between Tezuka's Golden Age designs with Rintaro's cyberpunk viewpoint. The film goes in a totally separate direction from Tezuka's original manga which on its own was only partially inspired by the 1927 movie as the role of Tima was based on the androgynous robot Mitchy who was later repurposed as the main character in Princess Knight. Metropolis has several moving parts although it's not difficult to follow and the scene-transitions are deliberately inspired by those from silent movies. The movie also carries over Fritz Lang's theme of how building a Tower of Babel so mankind can stand next the gods ultimately lead to destruction. This grand movie took an entire five years to complete as at the time it was the most expensive anime film ever made since Akira, but the high production cost failed to help make this a more memorable hit as they should have put a little more money into international advertising.

MISC. MANGA, *Tales From The Age Of The Cobra

Enrique Fernandez is a Spanish artist who made his big premiere in the American comics market with an album-sized graphic novel of The Wizard Of Oz through Image Comics, then a few years later IDW decided to republish his original 2-part mini-series into a trade paperback titled Tales From The Age Of The Cobra. Fernandez's technique is old school anime similar to rough pencil-drawn animation that made up most of the 70s like Lupin and Captain Harlock, so a lively adventure inspired by the Arabian Nights was a brilliant fit for his style.

A masked storyteller relays a story set ages ago about the illusive thief Irvi who tries to free his love, the beautiful Sian, from a harem, but he has to literally sleep his way up to her room over a few nights. However, Irvi has to give up on Sian and runs across the unlucky in love thug known as the Bull who soon raises his own empire after renaming himself the Cobra with Irvi being his lucky charm that he keeps around. Irvi finally makes his escape after being the subject of several of Cobra's experiments by a quack potion maker in an attempt to make a powerful elixir. Irvi eventually befriends the performing dwarf Maluuk who arranges to finally put an end to Cobra's evil reign while reuniting to Sian for a series of selective endings that the storyteller alludes to which are up to the listener to decide on.

Tales From The Age Of Cobra has a rich story showing sympathetic for both the heroes and villain displaying how none of them are truly guilty or innocent. Enrique Fernandez's artwork thrives with eye-catching imagery that takes you back to Bronze Age of comics. This comes in an album-sized novel with tight but stunning panels that keep you reading the entire saga in one entire experience.

ANI-MOVIES, *Feast Of Amrita

Feast Of Amrita is a scarcity among other horror anime movies. For one, the entire thing was done by a single animator, Saku Sakamoto who had previously worked on Ghost In The Shell 2, and it was also a prequel to a full-length production he made a few years earlier titled Aragne: Sign of Vermilion which itself was a surrealistic horror. This slightly shorter production took him about 3 years to complete after the original and later combined both into a single compilation named Nightmare Bugs. Feast Of Amrita like its predecessor is a genuine J-horror movie which is something most anime horror tends to skip out on. There is a very real dread of the unknown and things crawling around in the dark here, plus coupling that with a cross between Hellraiser and Groundhog's Day makes for an intense ride for being an adequate 48-minutes long.

Near the end of their senior year, a trio of high school girls: Takumi, Yu, and Aki decide to spend one of their last days together riding a train all the way to the final stop. Once there, they notice someone falling from the top of an abandoned apartment complex. Takami runs in and her friends enter the inner ring of the building where Yu is killed by a man-sized insect monster. Aki eventually finds Takumi who was also being chased by big bugs, but then Takami is captured by a skeletal humanoid which she quickly dispatches with some shears, although she finds Aki has been absorbed into the body of a giant centipede. Takumi then gets flashbacks of things that had happened and glimpses of what might happen, which is followed by dozens of dead versions of herself falling out of the sky. She realizes that she is stuck in some sort of time loop where each attempt she tries to escape results in her dying hundreds of times with each try getting that much closer to escaping. Takumi believes though she would rather stay with her friends in this insect hell not knowing that their places have now been filled by three former denizens who are now free in the human world.

Feast Of Amrita goes between gore flick to sci-fi thriller during its short run time and delivers both splendidly. Saku Sakamoto blends the 2D animation with the limited frame rate used in the CGI making for an intensely creepy feature reminding some watchers of old Playstation survival games. This is a perfect movie for a Halloween party, not too long or short that delivers shocking twists and gut-wrenching terror in one insidious scare package.

ANI-MOVIES, *Grendel Grendel Grendel

Grendel Grendel Grendel was one of the first feature-length animated movies to come out of Australia which has in recent years become a hub for independent cartoon crafters. Before Wicked or Maleficent, this was a retelling of a classic tale from the villain's perspective. Based on John Gardner's novel Grendel, this allegory for high fantasy was developed into a 1981 film directed by Alex Sitt who also did other short-animated projects. The design of the characters and the world this takes place in are distinctively trippy which flashback to psychedelic visions from Yellow Submarine. The film had a limited theatrical release due to its mature nature and specific sense of humor. The deconstruction of what men refer as monsters is singled out as the character of Grendel from the legend of Beowulf has always stood out on his own as not specifically a demon or evil spirit or some malformed giant. This undefinable creature is for all intentions the original boogeyman, or as he's referred to in this film as the Great Boogey, plus the role of his mother here is never clearly defined as other interpretations. The film's producer Phillip Adams even introduces the movie by comparing Grendel to other monsters, although this is the preamble for the story's warped dry wit.

Grendel is a large spotty green behemoth that lives in a cave near the rising kingdom of the egotistical Hrothgar who raised his land by claiming anything he could scavenge, including a merchant's daughter he takes for a wife, much to the chagrin his warrior Unferth. Grendel grows tired of the foolish king and raves about it to his mother who is really just a figment of his imagination living in the depths of his cave. Grendel's delusions even carry over to a wise dragon who he sometimes seeks for advice, as well as the occasional singing number, which riles the monster to go and attack Hrothgar's mead hall regularly biting the heads off his subjects. Hrothgar's soothsayer known as the Shaper converts the people to religion and view Grendel as the spawn of Cain making him a monster. Having enough of this, Hrothgar messages the foreign warrior Beowulf to come and finally slay the Great Boogey leading to the inevitable clash where the bold hero and his beastly crew attack Grendel lobbing his arm of. After the encounter, Grendel wonders off possibly to bleed to death, but since this is told from his point of view it is where the story ends.

Although this was an animated movie, it was clearly not intended for family viewing with cartoonish violence, slight nudity, and its deadpan humor. The minimalist character designs use clean lines with flat shapes in the animation and will remind modern day watchers of Samurai Jack. The musical scenes are moody and fit the time even though the soundtrack sounds more like it's out of the late 60s than early 80s. The main appeal of this rare treasure is the voice of Grendel is done by Sir Peter Ustinov whose eccentric performance comes through as pure comedy and works better here than when he was mercurially casted in Winds Of Change. Grendel Grendel Grendel is an unconventional look at the hero's journey who here is a 12-foot monster.

Anime Infuences In Knights Of Guinevere

After Dana Terrace had her groundbreaking animated series, The Owl House, cut short from its run on Disney Channel, she teamed up with Glitch Productions about doing her next project. The independent Australian animation studio already had several web series under their belt like The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drones which have not only gained fame on their YouTube channel but also on other mainstream formats like Netflix, so them working with Terrace seemed like a natural fit. Her new series was Knights Of Guinevere, a sci-fi dark comedy that pokes more than just a little fun at Terrace’s former Disney overlords. The plot involves Andi and Frankie, a pair of down and out friends who are trying to survive in a planet-sized amusement park where they come across a busted android of the park’s mascot Guinevere and the pilot shows the lengths they go to try and repair her as she reminds them of an another android they met as children. Whereas The Owl House was influenced by several anime titles, Knights Of Guinevere also borrows elements from some classics, particularly cyberpunk which of course reigned during the late 80s-90s. Aside from the obvious choices like Akira or Ghost In The Shell, there are some particular ones that deserve a look at if the KOG pilot won you over.

Two anime anthology films that are good points of interests. There is Neo-Tokyo from 1987, a short trilogy of separate stories where one segment named Construction Cancellation Order written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo which is a social satire about a salaryman sent to South America to stop a huge project meant to set up a city in the middle of a swamp entirely operated by malfunctioning robots who want stop following their program to finish the construction of which the foreman robot sees even the company rep as a threat to their project. Another anthology is Memories entirely written by Otomo with a chapter titled Magnetic Rose directed by Koji Morimoto about space scavengers that discover an abandoned station that is supposed to be the resting place of a famous opera singer, but as the story goes on, we learn that the station’s main computer has gone haywire and projects an image of the opera star luring the salvagers into a trap and deludes one of them into believing they are the singer’s deceased husband. Both vignettes focus on the dangers of how allowing AI to operate on its own for a prolonged period can be hazardous if left without monitoring. Leaving out the human factor of a self-automated society can lead to disaster.

An underestimated but masterful anime movie that you can see traces of KOG is in the Metropolis anime movie from 2001 directed by Rintaro that was based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga. Taking place in the city of the same name, Metropolis is run by plutocrats where most of the general labor is handled by retro-looking robots leaving a good portion of the underprivileged masses out of work and rebelling against their industry. With the corporation having more power than the government, the regular citizens are swept away by the whims of the rich, so the citizens blame most of this civil unrest on the robots themselves making them seen as the lowest minority despite the fact that they were built only to serve mankind. As an underground movement rebels against the tyrannical Marduks lead by Duke Red, his latest creation, a robot called Tima has gone missing which was meant to be the centerpiece of a ziggurat that would leave the entire city subject to automation. Tima befriends a young detective who teachers her more about humanity which leads to her ultimately deciding to spare the people of Metropolis from the ravages the Marduks. A good deal of KOG is inspired by this hidden masterpiece by Rintaro, as well as the Fritz Lang 1927 movie the manga was based on, especially with its anti-fascist statement and how people tend to blame robots for their problems instead of the big businesses making the robots in the first place.

One anime/manga titles most generic are aware of is Alita: Battle Angel which is one of the few that managed to be remade into a successful live-action American movie. Prior to the Robert Rodriguez film, creator Yukito Kishiro allowed only a 2-episode OVA to be made of it because he wanted to focus more on the manga, even though the impact it left with US otaku is one of the biggest influences on cyberpunk, much of which Knights Of Guinevere was probably inspired by. In a dystopian Earth, the airborne city of Zalem rests above the ground level Iron City which lives of the scraps that get tossed down by the snobby tycoons above. A scientist finds the remains of an abandoned cyborg girl he names Alita in the trash to rebuild her only to find that she is a rare type designed by the military to fight wars on Mars. Alita’s strength and discovering her emotions puts herself and her new allies in danger as the despotic forces of Zalem are constantly bombarding her with violent strife. KOG begins as a mirror reflection about a mechanical maiden being recycled from rubbish and turning out to be more powerful than the mere mascot she was thought to be.

Without a doubt, the anime that a left significant impact on KOG was the original anime anthology masterpiece Robot Carnival from 1987. This had eight short stories, each directed by a different animator. Out of all of them some fit into the world Dana Terrace might have imagined, one being the opening and closing segments featuring a huge fully mechanized carnival-themed showcase modeled as the words "Robot Carnival" which dispenses exploding marching bands and automatic cannons laying waste to a small village in the desert with no idea where it came from and what its original mission was. Another part is titled Star Light Angel where a girl in a futuristic amusement park is captured by a giant robot while a park employee dressed as an android tries to save her. The mysterious chapter of Presence is about a robot maker who invents a female bot that seems to take on a life of its own, so he destroys it and years later at the end of his life believes his old creation is acting as his angel of death. The last story that is closely kindred to KOG is Nightmare where a drunken man runs for his life through downtown Tokyo which he believes is changing into a motorized monstrosity all at the whims of a robot wizard on a flying scooter, although whether this really happened is up to viewer, but it demonstrates how technophobia can lead to suspicion and fear of the misinformed.