ANI-MOVIES, *The Wonderful World Of Puss 'N Boots

Charles Perrault had adapted numerous children's stories such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, both of which had a young girl getting help from an outsourced miracle worker, but when it came time for Puss 'N Boots instead of it being a divine fairy it is a clever fast-talking cat with impressive attire who assists a young boy get the girl of his dreams. Toei Animation released their own musical adaptation in 1969 titled The Wonderful World Of Puss 'N Boots that was so successful that they turned the title character into the official company mascot. Directed by Kimio Yabuki who a year before did The World Of Hans Christian Andersen for Toei, the film stays fairly true to the original book up until a point but then the finale has a long chase sequence that went on to inspire numerous animators, including some of the movie's animation crew which was made up of Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. The film spawned a few extra anime features starring the fashionable cat, but this movie was the start of the whole craze, and its cartoonish style became a source of innovation for future Japanese productions including anime and video games.

In this version of beloved fairy tale, the puss in question is named Pero who lives in a kingdom of cats, and he becomes an outlaw after sparing the life of a young mouse which the film never bothers to show. Now on the run from a trio of henchcats, Pero teams up with the young Pierre who is cast out by his two older brothers after they cheat him out his inheritance. Pero hears that the King is looking for a rich man to marry the Princess, so he gets the idea to have Pierre appear as a prince so they can live the high life. Conscripting some help from a family of bandit mice, Pero arranges for Pierre to gain an audience with the Princess Rosa, although she already had another suitor stop by before him named Lucifer who turns out to be an ogre that uses a skull-shaped pendant to do magic and take on any form he wants including a rip-off of King Ghidorah. Unlike his fairy tale counterpart, Pierre decides to tell Rosa the truth that he's not really a rich prince, which works out okay for him as Rosa already had feelings for him. However, Lucifer appears and kidnaps Rosa turning the film into a "save the princess" story that the Mario Bros. made a career out of. The story gets to the point where Pero cons Lucifer into taking on the form of a mouse where in the source material Puss eats the mouse, but instead Lucifer changes back to his tall ogre form and the last 20 minutes are a huge pursuit around Lucifer's castle with all its various traps and revolving towers. Pierre catches up to Rosa and the expose Lucifer's pendant to sunlight which destroys the lusty ogre, and then the couple get married and live happily ever after while Pero is still being chased by the three henchcats sent to kill him.

Unlike the Shreck spinoff movie, Toei's take on Puss 'N Boots is more faithful to the original story with the addition of more swashbuckling and some familiar cat and mouse shenanigans. Either due to the bumbling henchcats or the mouse family, the plot is constantly in motion, and even the English-translated catchy music numbers are competent enough to keep up with Disney's quality. This is a confirmed all-ages feature that's good enough to entertain even the kids of today with dynamic movement and thrilling cartoon action.

Batman Yells At Cloud

ANI-MOVIES, *Mulan

From the 17th Century book of Wu Shuang Pu, the story of Hua Mulan has endured for centuries, so since Disney was looking to making their next features more appealing to Eastern audiences, they thought this story willed fit the bill. Former Hanna-Barbera animator Barry Cook and one-time Ralph Bakshi assistant Tony Bancroft both directed Mulan in 1998. For a saga that spans over a decade, the film tightens it up to an 88-minute-long feature too overloaded with comedy to be considered an epic adventure. Not winning any Oscars, Mulan did become a big hit with Millennials and eventually Gen-Z children. Despite the gender-bending qualities of the story, it didn't exactly become the pinnacle of trans representation you would expect, even though Donny Osmond's contribution to the soundtrack practically became an LGBTQ battle cry. The success of it went on to a made-for-video sequel plus a completely irrelevant live-action remake that nobody asked for. Mulan herself was of course drafted into the unconnected Once Upon A Time series, as well as being added to the Disney Princess line-up even though she's not a princess, this was despite the fact that the title character is rarely the focus of the story, similar to Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. A good portion of the plot is enraptured with the comic relief and side characters, so the comedy distracts from the coming-of-age war story it could have been.

Taking place during the 4th-6th Century in China, the Hun army led by the ruthless Shan Yu invade mostly because he hated the fact that they put of the Great Wall just to keep him out. All the active males are to be enlisted into the Imperial Army, but the head of the Fa family is still suffering from an old wound, so his rebellious daughter Mulan takes his armor and pretends to be his son Ping. This doesn't set well with the Fa family ancestors who plan to send a powerful dragon spirit to help her, but the demoted jive-talking minor dragon Mushu uses this as a chance to earn his spot back among the guardian spirits. Mushu and a lucky cricket eventually catch up to Mulan and help her blend in with the other men, especially with the Captain Li Shang and three of the more stooge-like soldiers. Mulan manages to keep her secret up until an encounter with the Huns on a mountaintop has her burying the entire enemy army under an avalanche, and her wound caused her comrades to discover her feminine side, so she is sent home by Li Shang without being reprimanded. Shan Yu and a few of his stronger men survive the snowslide and plan on sneaking into the imperial palace and kidnap the emperor which Mulan notices. She tries to get her former comrades in arms to believe her about the incoming danger, but they brush her off, so Mulan stops the remaining Huns and blows up Shan Yu in an explosion of fireworks. Mulan is praised by the emperor and has Li Shang follow her home because they never really set up a romance between the two of them.

Mulan seems like it should fit into Disney's blockbuster roster, but even the famed Szechuan Sauce can't erase many of its blatant faults. The soundtrack is limited with only 4 songs for a picture that is billed as a musical, and only one of those is remembered for Disney fans to sing loudly at convention karaoke sessions. The characters are interesting, but the main character is drowned out by the extended cast, so since this is Disney heroine that already had two animal sidekicks, the addition of her knucklehead trio of army buddies and the bickering bureaucrat outweigh any potential that Mulan might have earned on her own, but at least she didn't have magic powers in this version. The cast is decent with regular voice actors such as James Hong, George Takei, and June Foray, plus Ming-Na Wen makes her animated premiere here as Mulan, but the outplaced Eddie Murphy and several other Chinese characters being played by white actors doesn't help. The breakout of the film is the animation which was the first movie to be completed in the Walt Disney World studio as opposed to in Hollywood. Mulan on its own works as a single feature but trying to make a cheap sequel and a flimsy remake stretched its credulity.

Everything's better with Skeletor!

 

Batman-Caped Crusader: Back To The Past

It was well passed the time that we got a new animated series of Batman, especially if it’s being spearheaded by B:TAS forerunner Bruce Timm. For the new show titled Batman: Caped Crusader, it was made to premiere on Amazon Prime instead of a service connected to Warner Bros, plus this was produced by Bad Robot Productions in their first animated TV series. It maintains the dark deco style from the 90s show, but this time it takes place in the 1940s whereas B:TAS had a retro noir motif set in modern day. Instead of focusing on Batman himself, this new show targets the time it’s set in and makes it more mature with a psychological approach and how corruption plays a major part in people’s motivations.

First airing in 2024, the original season went on for a mere 10 episodes like My Adventures With Superman, with plans for the second season to have the same number of episodes. Caped Crusader came out a few months after Disney premiered their X-Men 97 series which also called back to a 90s animated series, but between the two of them X-Men seemed to score more fans partially because there are less people subscribed to Amazon. The saving grace for this was it took place prior to David Zaslav’s striking several Warner productions off for tax purposes, plus Amazon had already signed on for the second season.

Taking place during Batman’s first year, the show is period piece taking place probably prior to America’s entering WWII. This world this takes place in is an alternate reality where there’s less racism and same-sex relationships are more socially accepted. Gotham City here is one of the darkest it’s ever been, particularly with crime and how it depraves the citizens one way or another. The Batman shown here is still a little wet behind his pointy ears and not the seasoned crimefighter most fans are used to, however he still has the same ambition and drive even if some of the technology he used didn’t exist like wireless microphones and personal submarines.

There are a few of Batman’s regular rouges’ gallery here, but with a new twist. Catwoman isn’t the total pro cat burglar we’re used to, Rupert Thorne is the main crime boss, Clayface is Basil Carlo who can only change the shape of his face and not a full shapeshifter, plus a less ambitious Firebug. We’re also graced with the animation premiere of Nocturna and her brother Night-Slayer, although Nocturna is a kind of vampire and much younger than her Dark Knight boyfriend from the 80s. Penguin is the first criminal we meet, except here the character is gender-swapped with two sons. Another change is Harley Quinn who has no connection to the Joker who only shows up at the end of season one, plus here she is Asian American and openly a lesbian. We get a few guest villains who are normally the archenemies of other DC superheroes like Gentlemen’s Ghost and Onomatopia. Harvey Dent eventually becomes Two-Face by the end of the first season, although you can see his ego slowly leading him down the dark path even before his little acid bath. King Tut and Killer Croc make brief appearances, plus detectives Bullock and Flass show that dirty cops are also villains.

Some of the other cast is remade for this Batman incarnation. Alfred is slightly stockier, Jim and Barbara Gordon are both black with Barbara being a public lawyer, and all the potential Robin candidates are younger than they usually are. There are also appearances by other extend DC Universe characters such as Papa Midnite, The Spectre, Plastic Man, The Creeper, and even a Fleischer Studios’ take on Lois Lane who is regularly working out of Gotham instead of Metropolis.

The cast is exemplary with sitcom actor Hamish Linklater taking on the title role, John DiMaggio trading in Joker for Bullock, Tom Kenny as Firebug and as Eel O’Brien (aka: Plastic Man), Krystal Jay Brown as Barbara Gordon: Attorney at Law, Christina Ricci as the rookie Catwoman, Hayley Joel Osment as Night-Slayer, and former-Batman Diedrich Bader now playing Harvey Dent and totally sells it as a more unscrupulous take on the character. Cedric Yarbrough takes on the part of four villains as Rupert Thorne, Killer Croc, Papa Midnite, and Joker.

With animation covered by Studio Grida and Studio IAM, Batman: Caped Crusaders managed to capture the essence of the 90s cartoon series while paying homage to the Golden Age of Hollywood and pulp fiction magazines. Critics appreciated the darker tone that the show took with Batman and his extended cast, plus its open-minded approach to representation. Hopefully the upcoming second season will give the series a significant boost to justify another season, and at least Bruce Timm was able to keep his fanboy impulses down enough so Batgirl did end up sleeping with Batman again.

ANI-MOVIES: *Goat

For Sony Pictures Animation's first theatrical release after the second Spider-Verse installment, Goat had a lot to live up to, especially when they passed on originally putting out K-Pop Demon Hunters before they proceed with this one. It's also a rarity to see an animated feature done as a sports film, so it was a little hard to make skeptical audiences not see this as a ripoff of Animalympics and Zootopia. It takes place in a world of anthropomorphic animals, and like most cartoon worlds similar to this they never address the whole prey/predator dichotomy, somehow all the animals get along with no explanation of why the talking wolves aren't eating the talking chickens. Based on an unpublished book by Chris Tougas, former Venture Bros. artist Tyree Dillihay debuted as a director in this hit that made twice its money back at the box office. The story is a little lacking in plot, but the movie makes up for it in incredible lighting and texture with fine movements making the animation itself the true star of the show.

Set in an animal world, a sport called roarball is their version of basketball, the basic difference is that the court can spontaneously change its landscape. Will is a goat who grew up in the town of Vineland hoping to join the roarball team of the Thorns, and due to a chance match with the out-of-town team captain Mane Attraction, he gets added to the Thorns as their sixth player. The team's star player Jett doesn't like the idea of a smaller animal on the team, but the rest of the players eventually warm up to him after he finally gets a chance to play in the game. Jett also appreciates Will after she sees the impact her career had on her hometown, and the Thorns are on their way to winning the finals. However, the team's greedy owner trades them over to another city before the end of the season, thus deflating the Thorns' chances, but of course they all find their inner-strength and win the championship, plus the team's new owner turns out to be the team's crazy reptile who won it in a game of Uno which deflates the stakes of the whole story.

Since the movie is literally titled after a sports term, Goat doesn't carry much weight as far as even a sports flick is concerned. The characters are very by the numbers, and the film had a total of five producers, but the animation team behind it went all out to make this an astounding visual feast. No idea if this film will be remembered when the next Oscars come around, but Goat's 2D animation rendered in 3D is what made the Spider-Verse movies a hit.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Monkey King

The story of Sun Wukong has been adapted more times than nearly any other character in the world. Journey To The West was turned into dozens of movie and TV shows both live action and animated, plus video games, some of the most popular being Saiyuki, Alakazam The Great, and a little something called Dragonball. The Monkey King is the latest interpretation of the Chinese legend produced by Netflix Animation and Pearl Studio in their follow up to Abominable and Over The Moon. Both studios pushed to make this a mainstream animated family adventure, although it didn't get the kind of reception that Netlix got a year later when they screened Sony's theatrically-rejected K-Pop Demon Hunters. Even though this takes place in ancient China, this was written to be a snappy comedy hoping to appeal to Generation Z which does work against it at times. The film is CGI, although there is an impressive 2D sequence that you wish got its own full movie. The computer animation is pretty fluid with some electrifying fighting scenes and fast-paced magic duels.

A monkey is hatched from a rock and immediately starts ticking off the other monkeys since he doesn't have any parental figure. A tiger demon has been feasting on the younger monkeys, so this unnatural monkey spends the next few years training himself to fight, and then swims to the underwater palace of the Dragon King to take the prized magical staff that our monkey hero can talk to. After using the staff he calls Stick to defeat the demon, he is proclaimed Monkey King by the other monkeys, he however doesn't want to just rule some simians and sets his sights on the heavenly palace and taking his place among the gods. In order to get their attention, Monkey King goes out and kills 99 more demons for an even 100, but his efforts go unnoticed by the gods, so he sets out to become immortal, and takes on a young girl named Lin as his assistant as they go to the underworld to erase his name on Scroll of Life giving himself no expiration date. This only makes him half-immortal, so he and Lin go to the heavens to get a special elixir to make him fully-immortal, but what Monkey King doesn't know is that Lin is secretly working for the Dragon King to get Stick so he can cover the world in water. Once he gets Stick back, Dragon King does a memorable evil villain song and grows to kaiju-size, but he is defeated by Monkey King who feeds of magic lightning and turns into a titan himself. After defeating Dragon King, Monkey King goes a little mad with power, so Buddha shows up and uses Lin as a speaker to get him to calm down and imprisons him inside a mountain for 500 years where he begins his quest to the West.

The Monkey King does grab your attention for most of the run time, although this can get tiresome after a while. After watching this the one time, it takes a sturdy frame to be able keep up with the unrelenting pace. There is too much ego-driven dialogue and situations that instantly escalate into world-shattering threats to keep a bead on any character progression. There is currently a huge amount of movies bearing Monkey King in their total, although this version of Sun Wukong can be slightly intolerable, he's no more narcissistic than any of the other revamp of the hairy hero.

MISC. MANGA, *American Barbarian

Before doing comics of Transformers, Gobots, GI Joe, and Godzilla, comic artist and writer Tom Scioli had his own original series titled American Barbarian which is a collision of Thundarr The Barbarian, Thundercats, and Masters Of The Universe. Indeed, this is a He-Man-themed take on the standard fantasy adventure hugely inspired by the works of Jack Kirby, which most of Scioli's works tend to as he's done the artwork on an entire graphic novel about the life of the King of Comics. Scioli worked on this while he was doing his Godland comic which was also Kirby-esque.

Set in the devastated New Earthea, the barbarian Meric is the last surviving member of a warrior clan who were all wiped out of by the mummy warlord Two-Tank Omen who has a whole working tank for each foot. Meric pretends to join Omen's forces while keeping his family's secret, the mystical Star Sword, hidden from evil. Meric meets up with a tribe of humans and sets them free from the scavengers and then reclaims the sword to have a cataclysmic clash with Two-Tank Omen resulting in the two of them getting sucked up into a black hole. All the remaining humans form the new United States of Barbaria with the hint that Meric will return someday.

With armored swordsmen, robotic dinosaurs, time travel, and sultry slave girls, American Barbarian grew from a webcomic to hit one-shot graphic novel. It contains terrific splash pages and just like Kirby would do when he was creating the New Gods and Thor. It has a real appreciation for the Bronze Age of comics. If you've recently joined the MOTU fandom, then this is a patriotic rainbow of fan nostalgia.

ANI-MOVIE, *Flushed Away

Aside from the fact the film was minus any hamster butlers as shown in certain previews, Aardman's first of only two fully-CGI animated movies wasn't the drowning disappointment most people thought it was. This was the last of three films Aardman did with DreamWorks before joining up with Sony, but instead of the studio's traditional stop motion animation as they did with Wallace And Gromit, Flushed Away was all done digitally which might seem like a stretch for them to take, but then even the Jim Henson Company got roped into doing a few direct-to-video bad 3D releases. It was chosen to go CGI because the majority of the animation takes place around water and would make it difficult to move around clay figures, so Aardman put aside their Gummy standards to give digital animation a shot. Upon first look, some might confuse this for being a Danger Mouse ripoff, but since Flushed Away was directed by animator David Bowers who worked for Cosgrove Hall, you'd be better off thinking of the film as an homage. Along with director Sam Fell, Aardman had a total of five screenwriters to write all of the "witty dialogue". The cast was stacked with Hugh Jackman in the lead role and finally singing, Ian McKellen playing the wannabe Bond villain, Kate Winslet as the inevitable love interest, Jean Reno as the standard French stereotype, plus Andy Serkis and Bill Nighy as a comical pair of henchmen.

Roddy is the pet rat of a rich family in London who leave home for vacation, and he gets literally flushed down the tubes by the intrusive Sid who takes over his pad. Roddy ends up in a rat metropolis within the sewers which is partially run by the criminal boss Toad who captures him and a female ship captain named Rita who he tried to gain passage with back up top. Rita and Roddy escape along with taking Toad's master cable to his apparatus which he planned to wipe out all the rats from the sewer, so Toad sends his cousin Le Frog and his team of French zipper ninjas to get it back. Rita eventually helps Roddy get back to his home, but after realizing that he was miserable being lonely in a such a big palatial estate and figuring out what Toad has planned for the other rats, Roddy gets flushed away again to save everyone.

Flushed Away doesn't have the most spectacular computer graphics in an animated film, however there is some particularly upstanding slapstick and rapid-fire dialogue that make it a comedic watch. It would have been better if Aardman had been able to pull off their usual claymation creations, but the 3D animation is acceptable even if it's not up to Pixar's level. A sample of something that definitely padded out the runtime longer than it needed to be is the singing slugs who show up to do a romantic ditty and demanding to be noticed, as if the slugs were the prototype for the Minions from Despicable Me that Illumination totally stole from. Your kids might just see this film as a fun sit to fill out an afternoon, but Anglophiles and animation fans should get a kick out of it.

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Gameoverse: Don't Call It A Pilot!

Glitch has become more than an independent animation studio from Australia. It has become a full-fledged juggernaut including scores of merch outside of the generic swag you usually see in niche markets and right up on the mainstream toy isles, plus getting a mainstream theatrical release for one of their series finales. Their latest pilot is by Ross O’Donvan titled Gameoverse which has taken the world by storm and was cowritten by Arin Hanson also known as Egoraptor. This all started back in 2009 on the springboard for wide-eyed animators known as Newgrounds as a mini-series and O’Donovan tried pitching it to Glitch although it was put in stasis for years as O’Donovan went to work for Game Grumps. Finally in 2024, it was announced that Glitch would make this a full series. The animation obviously got an upgrade, with real gaming and animation professionals backing the project, plus the shocking part is that even though it’s inspired by retro video games, the animation is done in 2D.

The pilot takes place in a universe where each planet is its own video game world inhabited by a variety of characters, featuring a hero and a villain. If at some point, if the hero defeats the villain, then the entire world is destroyed by an unknown source. This sets up competing factions, one is the Farcade who are essentially the good guys who try to help the villain win, while their counterparts of the Syntax are doing the opposite who gather the destroyed planet’s energy into something called Float which is supposed to be able to restore those who were killed when their planets got the finger. This sets up an original concept with rival organizations battling for simultaneous devastation along with keeping the status quo with no progress being made by the hero in his predestined struggle as the game’s lead character.

This might sound like a remake of the Wreck It Ralph movies with its concept of game hopping, but Gameoverse goes an extra step further outsiders from one reality altering the course of a world caught in its own loop. This can affect how each video game world works on its own physics, making for a diverse selection of game genres to choose from. It also digs into the morality of trying to go along with a program everyone in that world follows while having complete strangers show up and trying to either help or heed their progress.

Gameoverse does have a temple of talent behind the cast with anime actors like Erica (Netflix Ritsuko) Lindbeck and Chris (Not My Vegeta) Sabbot, although Egoraptor playing two of the major characters doesn’t blend well especially his Grunkle Stan voice as the Barney parody dinosaur. The writing also needed some tweaking by waiting to save most of the character motivations until a later episode. Many people don’t like it nowadays when they give too much exposition in the first episode and instead get right to the action, however this door swings both ways and not giving enough can work against it.

One thing that doesn’t most people don’t seem to notice that this is a pilot episode. The story ironically takes place after the original trailer with the Farcade team adding the Learnosaurus to their roster, but there is a big divide between a pilot episode and the first episode. It’s clear from examples like Hazbin Hotel that the pilot and the first episode made for streaming were separate in tone and theme with a totally different cast being added to the series than the plot, an alteration in the animation quality, plus less time spent on people going, “Who is this new character?”. It’s hard to say if Glitch is planning on changing much from the initial Gameoverse episode like giving it a completely redone beginning like what was done with Bee And Puppycat for Netflix. Even though the studio might make huge changes like making it as dark as something like Final Space with concepts like planetary oblivion looming over the characters, or they might make it an absurdist comedy out of a Douglas Adams novel. So, whatever goes on between now with the pilot and when it becomes an ongoing series might be one big chasm to leap.

There’s been some major criticism claiming the pilot relies to much on fan service. Not so much the appeal to old school gamers, but the fact that the two main female characters spend most of the episode in bikinis. This isn’t done in a leering way but in a G-rated cartoon approach. The heroic Kit and the wicked Miss Information aren’t drawn with overtly sexual designs and are instead very generic with a visually retro motif, so it’s nothing on the level of a Dead Or Alive volleyball match.

Gameoverse is still rough around the edges, but there is a ton of potential along the way. It’s not like they’re doing yet another bad video game adaptation such as the old USA Network cartoons based on Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. Instead, it’s an above average homage to gaming culture keeping otaku stimulated with the random comedy and overexaggerated personalities of the colorful cast of characters. It’s not yet at its peak, but the pilot did go out of its way to make a first impression, even if some narrow-minded people see it as a Pibby clone.

ANI-MOVIES, *Deemo: Memorial Keys

With all the movies animated and live action based on video games lately, only one of them is based on a rhythm game, which means we're never getting that official Dance Dance Revolution film. Deemo was a rhythm game with an actual story to it that was released in 2013 that gained a big following, which was adapted into full-length anime movie in 2022 by Production IG and Signal.MD as their last project before Production IG bought them out and just after they completed Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop. The director was Shuhei Matsushita who also directed Doctor Stone, although there seems to be a supreme lack of effort put into this as its all CGI and looks like mid-2000s cel shading. The models from the video game appear better than those in the anime and the character movements are stiff like they're all lifeless puppets, plus the bad story pacing added to film's downfall.

The movie is split into two plots both playing out at the same time. One has an amnesiac young girl named Alice entering a fantasy world, so already they're just ripping off Lewis Carroll. The dream realm is like the inside of a castle with books and talking toys and a tall dark stick figure called Deemos who plays the piano. Whenever Deemos plays some memorable music other parts of the castle open up which eventually lead to the way out, so Alice and her friends are first thwarted by a masked girl who eventually joins in their efforts. After a while, Alice realized that all these characters were aspects of her life before an accident which killed her older brother who she lived with and the masked girl was an incarnation of her dream self, so this whole time Alice has been in a coma. Years later, Alice was adopted by her brother's old music instructor who teaches at an academy that she is a student at, but she had almost no memory of her time in the dream realm until she was given an incomplete song her brother left for her. With the addition of her finally gaining some friends in school, Alice's memories are restored and is able to finish her brother's piece.

Deemo: Memorial Keys is a below average production that stretches out a meager video game plot with the meandering antics of Alice's toy friends, and the narrative has an uneven flow to it as it switches between the modern-day events and those during Alice's extended dream sequence. The entire film is jumbled in its presentation and is difficult to keep cohesive with the only plus sign being the piano soundtrack which does help keep the movie's head above water. You can watch this on several free streaming services, but you'll probably instantly forget it after a single watch.

The Gameoverse Guide To The Galaxy

 

Terminator Zero: An Unfinished Future

Since it looks like Disney will never release that Aliens Vs. Predator anime series (Yes, it’s real! Look it up!) it’s up to the Terminator franchise to break in the nostalgia vault of 80s sci-fi movies and have it redone as an anime titled Terminator Zero. Mattson Tomlin who did uncredited writing on The Batman movie and worked on Netflix Animation’s The Sea Beast developed the series also for Netflix, and it was directed by Masashi Kudo who was an animation director on Bleach. This was animated by Studio IG that most Americans would be familiar with from its various incarnations of Ghost In The Shell, which is convenient as similar to the original movie version of that cyberpunk classic took the premise of a high-tech action tale and turned it into a cerebral exploration of humanity’s relationship with machines, the same is done here where normally huge cyborgs mowing people down with machine guns is replaced with slow-paced tone that brings a deeper philosophical approach to it. A total of 8 episodes were released in late 2024 completing the intended first season, however a year later Netflix announced it was cancelling the series leaving any fans of it hanging waiting for a resolution.

The story for this is completely free from the original Terminators movies showing how other parts of the world dealt with the rise of Skynet after it ends up nuking most of the world, so for once we’re not roaming around California. Starting out in Tokyo just before the prophesized Judgement Day in 1997, the brilliant Malcom Lee has spent the last few years developing a revolutionary AI named Kokoro with the hidden intent of competing with Skynet. Malcom is really from one of the numerous post-apocalyptic futures that travelled back in time to 1983 with his cybernetic partner Misaki, although his plan for creating a rival for Skynet instead of just plain trying to destroy it altogether is a little more convoluted. During his stay, Malcom fell in love and had three children, the eldest one Kenta is a prodigy sharing his father’s genius, and Misaki has been reprogrammed into being the children’s nanny. A Terminator from the future has been sent back to prevent Malcom’s efforts, but a female member of the remaining human resistance named Eiko is also sent to stop the Terminator plus her own mission involving Malcom. Kokoro stops Skynet from bombing Tokyo, even though the rest of the planet is decimated, plus she uses an army of early robots to take control of the panicked population while deciding to help the remaining humans with revelations of the Terminator and Eiko’s pasts from the future coming into focus. The series ends with Malcom getting killed from the Terminator with Eiko and Misaki along with all three kids exiting what’s left of Tokyo. How the story was to continue from here is up in the air, although the idea is that Kenta has a large part yet to played in a possible future.

Time travel takes a hard turn in this from most of the other Terminator outlets when here it gives its own explanation as to how the concept works, which ironically helps tie all the other movies together into a single universe, although broken off into multiple realities. There’s a scene where a prophet who leads the future human resistance explains to Eiko just before she goes back in time that whenever a Terminator or someone is sent into the past that they’re going into a completely different timeline, meaning for every time trip results in the birth of a whole different history being established, so the future the traveler originally came from is now inaccessible since their now in a totally separate history. This gives a lot of leeway to free itself from the Terminator movies to become its own story, plus it means that each of the sequel movies takes place in their own timeline like it’s a parallel universe, so you don’t have to worry about any continuity inconsistencies.

Terminator Zero borrows more from the first two Terminator flicks more than the other sequels or the cancelled Sarah Conner Chronicles. The anime doesn’t give into repeating the same lines that most Terminator tales have like “I’ll be back,” although there is the standard high-speed chase, slaughtering of a police station, and creepy moments where the victim is hiding from the mechanical murder machine. There’s also a decent amount of time spent in the dystopian future, especially in the very beginning when Eiko single handedly takes down a Terminator to get its CPU chip for her time trip. Unlike other Terminator sequels, this one does contain some serious plot twists involving time travel which haven’t really been used since the first movie. Its main advantage is having no strings attached to anything involving John Conner and the average American characters.

There is enough action in this, although there is a lot more philosophy added to the fire. A good portion of the 8-episodes has Malcom stuck in a Terminator-proof room conversing with his AI Kokoro who is split into three different goddess forms and spends most of the series listening to her creator monologuing about why Kokoro should help protect humanity and help them defeat Skynet. For all the good this is supposed to do, it doesn’t stop Skynet from bombing all but Tokyo around the globe, so the protagonist’s efforts don’t amount too much to protect the rest of the world as he was more concerned with the safety of his family.

Anime has adapted numerous other American properties like The Matrix, Highlander, Batman, Witchblade, Halo, and various Marvel Comics. Terminator Zero bucks the trend by setting its own course not tying itself too much to the original source material. Production IG did a fantastic job providing top notch animation and not resorting to having their secondary department handling the quality 2D production, even though there is impressive CGI incorporated into it. Viewing the entire series is like watching an entire 4-hour long movie as each episode leads right into the other and the main course of it takes place over the course of a few days just before and after the upcoming Judgement Day.

There is a lack of cohesion in the narrative, specifically during the first half of the series, like whenever they go to Malcom’s children walking around the mostly abandoned Tokyo trying to avoid killer robots. It’s possible that the first season of Terminator Zero was intended to be only 6-7 episodes, but having it stretched out to 8 meant a great deal of filler material had to be thrown in. This might have added to the show’s premiere not receiving the sort of ratings that would have prompted Netflix to do a second series. Even though the single season does reach an ending point, there was clearly room for more stories to tell and tighten up the uneven pace of the original.

ANI-MOVIES, *Swapped

From Nathan Greno, the director of Tangled, is this new feature Swapped, which despite what a ton of critics thought isn't trying to hitch a ride on to the same bandwagon as Disney with their recent release of Hoppers. Not to belittle the title, but this movie isn't about body-swapping, as it is more about getting changed into a totally different animal. This is the third full-length movie by Skydance Animation, and the second one to premiere directly on Netflix, plus written by John Whittington from some of the Lego and Sonic movies. This is an original story taking place in a fantasy world with imaginative creatures that look like they're out of Pokemon with some of them being part plant or mineral. There is some seriously decent world building in this and character growth which help separate it from the usual Pixar wannabe movies.

Set in a lush valley, a small island in a river is inhabited by small furry mammals called Pookoo, and the story starts off with the young Ollie starts with a tale about how the current predicament of having their harvest raided by birds called Javan is all his fault as he introduced their food to a Javan when he was younger. Once they finish up the flashback, Ollie falls down a hole and finds a magic pod left behind by a herd of colossal mammoth-like plant-hybrids known as Dzo who would use their magic to maintain harmony in the valley, although the Dzo were casted out when a deadly predator called a Firewolf set the whole place ablaze. Ollie touches the pod and is transformed into Javan, so he runs off and is found by a trio of Javan sisters one named Ivy who helped saved him from drowning. After losing the other Javans, Ollie gets some information from a large fish called Boogle that there are other body-changing pods throughout the valley. Ollie finds one but Ivy gets to it first and is accidently turned into a Pookoo, so now both of them are stuck in the form of the other with the cure being more pods which Boogle happens to know about. The nearest pods are miles away, so Ivy has to teach Olllie how to fly to get there, and this begins an amazing aerial scene. Along the way, Ollie discovers that Ivy was the Javan he met as a child which caused the birds to take over the Pookoo's rations, however they put aside their differences to avoid some hungry Treewolves which are not on fire like the Firewolf. The two of them finally find the magic pods and change back to their original forms, but its at the beginning of the third act where a twist villain shows up like Hans from Frozen which causes all the animals of the valley to come together in order to survive and defeat this new menace. It might seem a cliche, but this does actually add a daring climax to the movie.

Swapped does deliver in the way a number of other talking animal cartoon films failed to do. It isn't just a Freaky Friday clone starring some of Disney's Wuzzles, but an original concept set in a fascinating backdrop. The casting is somewhat odd with Michael B. Jordan and Juno Temple as the two main characters having to walk a mile in the other's shoes, even though it does ultimately work out in the end. It is a shame that this went straight to Netflix instead of getting a theatrical release, despite the fact that this did help K-Pop Demon Hunters into becoming a blockbuster, however Skydance Animation created a truly cinematic experience with an engaging all-ages fantasy.

MISC. MANGA, *A Centaur's Life

Kei Murayama's first big break as a manga creator was A Centaur's Life which is a slice-of-life that just happens to take place in a world of half-human creatures. Murayama's other works include a yuri sci-fi one-shot, but an entire society of demihumans in a modern day humanless Japan is also a fresh idea. If you've read Beastars or were marveled by the mixed species concept of Zootopia, then this should be of great interest.

Himeno is a shy centaur going to high school along with other fantasy beings. Her two best friends are the draconid Nozomi, plus Kyoko of the goatfolk who are in fact not satyrs. She has to deal with the advances of some of her hornier schoolmates who find her attractive because of her being slightly top heavy, although she's fairly modest compared to most fan service norms. There is no major direction for the characters to pursue as their stories are aimed at how a society of different breeds get along. The opening Chapter 0 is somewhat off kilter as it has Himeno asking Kyoko and Nozomi to check a certain part of her body which is normally impossible for a centaur to see, but she is relieved when she appears to be normal, at least compared to other centaurs. There is a strong hint of shojo-ai in this, as well as some definitive sapphic representation in further chapters, but will probably be a big draw for any lesbian fangirls. The commonplace setting of an early 21st Century metropolis is a keen idea for a manga where the entire cast is made of people you would see in an RPG monster manual.

A Centaur's Life is not for younger readers as it does involve some mature situations, although this is not an adult title either. The manga is still running in Japan and Seven Seas Entertainment is doing a fine job releasing it into English in their larger-sized graphic novels. Imagine a toned-down version of Lucky Star inhabited by Dungeons And Dragons characters, and you're set for a fun read.

ANI-MOVIES, *Brother Bear

As the 44th theatrically released Disney animated movie, Brother Bear was one of the last non-CGI films the Mouse Mansion put out in cinemas. Being an original screenplay not based on any existing material like most Disney flicks, this was inspired by Inuit folklore. The story starts out fairly strong, but it really seems to go downhill once it becomes a talking animal movie. It did pull in several times its production cost back at the box office, but the film never seemed to gain any sort of lasting love even if it did get a direct-to-video sequel three years later. Phil Collins returned from Tarzan to do most of the soundtrack much the disdain of the haters, although Tina Turner adds a smashing song to it. For a 2D animated film, this was one of Disney's best since their renaissance with amazing backgrounds and underrated character movements that can flawlessly go from realistic to cartoonish at the drop of a hat.

Set sometime after the Ice Age in what would be called Alaska, a native tribe believes that divine spirits maintain order and live in the aurora borealis. Kenai is the youngest of three brothers who is finally receiving his totem which is like a rite of passage into manhood, but he is given the totem of love which his older brother Denahai gives him a hard time over it. The eldest sibling Sitka tried to maintain peace in his family, but Kenai's negligence leads to a bear stealing their food causing it to get into a fight with him which results in Sitka sacrificing himself becoming one with the spirits. Kenai goes after the bear and during the fight the bear falls on his spear, which technically means that the bear's death was theriocide and not Kenai's fault, although the great spirits have a crooked legislative system and put all the blame on Kenai by turning him into a bear. Denahai thinks that the transformed bear has killed Kenai and sets out to avenge his younger brother's demise, so Kenai now in the body of a bear runs into his tribe's shaman woman who tells him he has to go the top of a mountain miles away that reaches up to the aurora. On his way to the mountain, Kenai comes across a lone talkative bear cub named Koda who has been separated from his mother on their way to the same location, so Kenai teams up with Koda since he knows how to get to his destination. Along the way, they run into a pair of hoser moose based on SCTV's old McKenzie Bros. sketches who tag along their journey and manage to hitch a ride on some migrating woolly mammoths. Kenai and Koda run across some other bears who also travelled to see the aurora which Kenai begins to bond with the other bears and considers Koda as a little brother. Koda tells why he was on his own and Kenai realizes that the mother bear was the one he accidentally killed, so he confesses the entire truth to Kona in a scene that was entirely drowned out by Phil Collins' insistent lyrics, and Koda runs away just as Denahai finally catches up with them. The concludion has Sitka's spirit finally showing up as an eagle who transforms Kenai back into a human letting him know his bear curse has passed, but Kenai takes back his old bear totem so he can remain as an older brother for Koda. Whether or not Kenai can decide to change back into a man at will is up in the air, even though it's implied all he needs to do is take off his totem necklace.

Brother Bear was the first to start Disney's strange habit of making films where people get magically changed into animals and quite of few have noted that Pixar took this idea for their movie Brave. For a story that is supposed to take place after the Ice Age, the Inuit seem to have very up to date clothing and equipment, plus the animals use modern day concepts like pinkie swears and playing I Spy. Most of the casting is decent, although being a sucker for Strange Brew I actually appreciated Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas reprising their roles as Bob and Doug McKenzie but with antlers. One thing that is lacking in this movie is the actual "brotherhood" aspect which the film is titled after as we don't see any real bonding between Kenai and Koda until near the final act. It does dwell on some standard cartoon tomfoolery a bit too much, but it doesn't descend into immature fart jokes that most early 2000's animation seemed to be obsessed with. You will probably have an enjoyable time watching this, although whether it validates repeat viewings is up to the audience.

MISC. MANGA, *I'm In Love With The Villainess

Isekai has become the new standard for otaku, but regularly the protagonist ends up going to a world of high fantasy. I'm In Love With The Villainess does take place in a fantasy world but is slightly more up to date instead of taking place during the Middle Ages. Starting out as a light novel written by Inori and drawn by Hanagata, it was later developed into a manga in the pages of Comic Yuri Hime, a shojo-ai themed anthology mainly targeting older female readers, a market usually referred to as josei. There isn't a lot of isekai focused on sapphic relationships, so this was a refreshing change of pace, so much so that it even got an anime TV series that lasted for a single season.

Rei is an office drone whose only salvation from her dreary life is playing a dating video game for girls known as an otome game titled Revolution. After working to the point of lethal physical exhaustion, Rei is reborn in the magical world of Revolution as the 15-year-old main character, but instead of setting her sights on one of the male leads she targets the token villainess Claire, a stuck-up royal who constantly berates her for being a commoner. Despite the social abuse she receives, Rei continues to publicly make it clear that she flat out loves Claire much the hair drill schoolgirl's chagrin. The academy they both attend is a training ground for citizens to learn elemental magic in defense of their country, and Rei has proved that her MP is so immeasurable that she excels over the all the other students as far a potential is concerned, most of this was thanks to Rei playing the game this world takes place in countless times. Rei even gets a job working as Claire's maid just to be close to her which she managed by knowing her rich father's true backstory. From here Rei eventually begins to break down Claire's spoiled nature and even ends up marrying her and the two of them adopt two daughters which is pretty much the perfect outcome for a sapphic romance.

I'm In Love With The Villainess is a lesbian fangirl's dream come true, and writer Inori intended for this to represent the older shojo-ai audience, although this is still a teen-rated manga that doesn't give into fan service. The manga is very sweet and sincere in its commentary on societal issues not only for LGTBQ readers but also classism with how the elite treat the ordinary working population. The light novel story has concluded including a spinoff set in the same world, plus the anime seems to have wrapped up for now, but the manga is still ongoing, so seeing how a lesbian couple will thrive in a game-based fantasy world after they've already tied the knot should be incentive enough for any yuri fans.

MISC. MANGA, *Kaiju Kamui

Shintaro Arima created this new ongoing manga inspired by Toho monster movies and various mecha shows like Evangelion. Kaiju Kamui is almost like Kaiju No. 8 except with less humor and its more about someone actually piloting a giant monster instead of turning into one. You can see the look of recent kaiju designs in this from sources like Pacific Rim, Godzilla Minus One, and the Monsterverse franchise.

Large creatures labeled Mega-Organisms are ravaging Japan and the only main defense against them are special pilots called Link Operators who have a neural connection to their fighter jets. This new tech is called the Neural Connection Operating System and allows the user full mental control of their aircraft. After an attack by a Mega-Organism, all of the Link Operators are wiped out except for their leader, Yamato Shidou, and he is chosen by a kaiju countermeasures team to pilot their new weapon branded Kamui. The Kamui is the offspring of a former defeated kaiju that scientists had altered to be controlled by an operator placed inside a special cockpit from within the titanic body. It's now up to Yamato to use this prototype to prevent any upcoming monster attacks, even though he is still feeling the emotional loss of his squadron.

Kaiju Kamui is a refreshing idea in the kaiju genre where someone is given total control of a living monster instead of a giant mecha to fight other giants. Amira does a fine job with the mostly original creature designs so they don't just look like your average monster-of-the-week, although the author does need to work on the pacing of his story because a lot of first few chapters has an ace pilot living through one huge loss to becoming the chosen one destined to protect mankind withing in the first volume. If this ever gets adapted, it will hopefully be done in live action since tokusatsu has made some serious progress in the last few Godzilla productions.

ANI-MOVIES, *Meet The Robinsons

Unless your movie has Feebles in it, any film titled Meet The...." should be avoided at all costs, and yes that includes any Robert De Niro outing. Meet The Robinsons was Disney's 47th full-length animated theatrical release, as well as only the third one to be fully CGI that wasn't done by Pixar, and even though their previous 3D animated movie Chicken Little made twice of its budget back, this film only broke two million making it a serious dud by Disney standards. Based on William Joyce's children's book, A Day With Wilbur Robinson, this is almost a spiritual spinoff to Joyce's previous work on Fox's Robots movie as it involves atompunk elements which you might find in titles like Astro Boy or The Jetsons. For a mid-2000s all CGI production, Meet The Robinsons suffers from seriously dated graphics which Pixar had on its own perfected with their first release of Toy Story. Even Mainframe's work on Reboot and Beast Wars had better animation than this movie, and they came out over a decade before this. Another thing is that the story is stupefyingly sporadic going from one cliched cartoon gag after another following a paper-thin plot, so it's more like a tilt-a-whirl of cartoon gags sewed together in a time travel tale. The best way to describe this is that it is like watching Back To The Future: Part II without ever seeing the original chapter, but even lovers of non-linear narration won't appreciate it.

An orphaned boy named Lewis has been living in the orphanage for 12 years and still never got an adopted family, mostly because he's obsessed with learning who his real mother was and why she abandoned him. This fixation has Lewis diving into science and cobbling together whatever kind of contraption he can get from everyday objects, all of which seriously ticks off his roommate Goob who he keeps up every night with his constant tinkering. Lewis makes a memory scanner to see what his mother originally looked like from within his own memories as a baby and decides to premiere this at a school science fair, although a strange man with a bowler hat sabotages his efforts. A boy Lewis' age named Wilbur claims he's from the future and they journey several years to meet Wilbur's extensively bizarre family of the Robinsons most of which were also orphans and profoundly eccentric. Without getting into spoilers, it becomes obvious how each of these characters are relative to another across the past and the future, even though you don't have to be a Time Lord to realize that time travel doesn't work that way.

Meet The Robinsons is a mismanaged mess of a film that strings together a succession of unfunny non-sequitur cliches. The animation is rank and it's like the Mouse Mansion really didn't give a darn about making anything of genuine quality which is why Disney bought up Pixar just so they could have some type of decent 3D production. Aside from the extensive star-studded cast who make up the whole of the Robinson family which includes everyone from Tom Selleck to Adam West, there isn't any major pull for this as a large portion of the cast is made of different Disney animators and staff. Even with a time travel plot, this disorganized feature isn't worth of being a major Disney cinematic release, so don't even bother.

Rest In Power: Roger Sweet, Co-Creator of He-Man

ANI-MOVIES, *The Croods

The only way they could get Nicholas "effing" Cage to be even more Nicholas "effing" Cage was if they had him play a cartoon caveman version of himself! Directors and screenwriters Kirk DeMicco and Chris Sanders came up with this update on The Flinstones, but this modern stone age family don't live in a stonepunk civilization and are in constant danger of going extinct. The Croods from Dreamworks went on to make theatrical sequel, plus two separate animated TV series, one a prequel to the first and the other a continuation of the sequel movie. The 2013 film released with a booming success making more than three times its budget back from box office sales. The plan at first was to make The Croods a stop motion production with Aardman Animations at the helm and even featuring John Cleese and based it on a Roald Dahl book titled The Twits, although this wouldn't get its own animated movie until 2025 when it premiered on Netflix. Aardman instead went on to make Early Man about cavemen meeting civilized humans and starting the game of soccer, all this while Dreamworks rewrote the original pitch into their own distinct movie. Instead of ex-Monty Pythoners, the cast features Nicholas Cage as the caveman dad, Emma Stone as the rebellious older daughter, Ryan Reynolds as a lone teenager who has been surviving on his own, plus Cloris Leachman voicing yet again another grandma character which she practically made a career out of.

A prehistoric family living in the time that the continents were drifting apart, the Croods are the only remaining humans in their neighborhood as the rest of the humans were either killed by the local wildlife or died of infection. The ever-shifting landscape causes the Crood's cave collapsing, so they head out into the open world to find a new cave. The elder daughter Eep comes across the slightly more informed boy called Guy who told her about upcoming natural disasters, and gains the rest of the Crood's trust when he shows them he can make fire as well as crafting shoes out of dead animals so they can walk on bumpy terrain. The father Grug realizes he has been holding back his family by having them constantly hiding in caves instead of actually living and eventually comes around to Guy's way of thinking. The whole crew of Croods find a safe sanctuary near a tall mountain and end up adopted several different animals as pets.

The Croods is both an entertaining animated film while also being an enchanting visual experience. The character designs are standard cartoon types you would expect from a Dreamworks production from the 2010s, but the landscape, backgrounds, and bizarre Seuss-like creatures seem like they come from a holistically different movie. The film won several animation awards, but 20th Century Fox failed to bother genuine merchandising to draw any real attention to its initial release which has made the movie a hidden gem despite all of its animated spinoffs. On its own, the original movie is an uncanny family adventure that is rewatchable.

ANI-MOVIES, *How To Train Your Dragon 2

Taking place after the first theatrical movie, a few shorts, and a series on Cartoon Network, How To Train Your Dragon 2 got released four years after the original and seriously veering off the source material. Based on the book series of the same name, the sequel goes its own route once again written and directed by Dean DeBlois who made it with the intention of turning the franchise into a trilogy. It was so popular that Dreamworks is of course doing a live-action remake similar to the original. The fact there's an entire section of it in Epic Universe proves that the sequel helped add to the brand's stalwart position in family entertainment.

Set five years after the first movie, Hiccup and Toothless uncover new lands and entire islands covered in green ice. These uncovered territories are inhabited by dragon trappers who are collecting for their warlord, Drago Bludvist. Hiccup is certain he can talk Drago into giving up his tyrannical ways despite everything his father Stoick's advises him about. Along the way, Hiccup finds his mother Valka who has been hiding away in a sealed off sanctuary of dragons watched over by an alpha dragon. Valka has spent the last two decades keeping the dragons safe from Drago who wants to add them to his dragon army. After a brief reunion with Hiccup and Stoick, Drago's army attacks and takes control of the refugee dragons via his own alpha. The alpha has the ability to control other dragons and temporarily causes Toothless to kill Stoick. Hiccup and the rest of his crew make it back to Berk to stop Drago and defeating his alpha, although Drago's fate is never revealed, even in any of the expanded media.

Having Hiccup go from being the shame of his village to following in his father's footsteps as the new chief is a good direction to take the main character as he and the others have grown up. The supporting teenage characters are mostly just sort of there hanging around and not adding much to the plot, although you can see how Astrid and Hiccup's relationship has strengthened over the years. Dreamworks really upped the ante with their production which is a serious evolution from not only the original film but the animated TV series as well which was lacking int the usual Dreamworks quality. The stakes a higher here and there is a darker presence for the heroes to struggle and suffer through. The only downside is that just like the first one is that they never actually explain "how to train your dragon".

MISC. MANGA, *D'orc

With Dungeons And Dragons churning out more animated content, and the rise of isekai being a driving force in anime and manga, then D'orc might be right up your alley. Creator Brett Bean who had previously worked on I Hate Fairyland plus Rocket And Groot came up with this parody of fantasy tropes. Fans of The Dragon Prince will recognize quite a few familiar plot points and story similarities.

In the mystical realm of the Sunderaine, there lies an extended border separating the good side from the bad side of the lands. This area is known as The Scar where there is no good or evil, just ongoing fighting between various factions. However, among the rabble of different races that exist within The Scar is a half-dwarf, half-orc referred to as D'orc. This half-breed wanders the desolate landscape who is constantly trying to avoid either good warriors or bad who want him to join their side. D'orc has a living shield with a large durable eye in the center who keep trying to have him get into fights. This isn't helpful as there's a prophecy which states that the half-and-half is said to bring about the end of the world. Word of D'orc's existence come to light as the kingdoms of light and dark each send their own personal assassin to nip the prophecy in the bud.

D'orc has a modern animation design to it with the numerous other races like humans, goblins, giants, and golems dreamt up by Brett Bean's imagination. The comic has become such an underground hit that some issues are going for hundreds on Ebay and it's already up to its third printing in just a little over a month, plus it had a crossover with I Hate Fairyland. If you ever wondered what a formidable version of Gollum might be up to in Middle Earth, then you should give this romp a read.

Mecha Anime Before The 80s

When most people think of mecha anime, they usually picture hot-blooded teenagers in colorful spandex piloting large robots comprised of rocket-powered vehicles. The sub-genre of mecha was the first anime to gain international appeal, but it all began in 1963 thanks to Osamu Tezuka, otherwise known as The God Of Manga. Tezuka created a manga that ran for 16 years titled Mighty Atom, or Astro Boy as it was called in English about an android modeled after a young lad that would fly around and do normal Silver Age hero stuff, including tangling with robots and monster bigger than him. Mighty Atom was adapted into one of the first serialized anime TV series featuring some amazing character designs for the time.

The first confirmed giant robot anime series came out at the same time called Tetsujin-28 Go that was rebranded as Gigantor in America. The robot in question was originally designed by the Japanese for WWII, but the English version rewrote as taking place at the turn of the century. Tetsujin-28 was controlled by a boy with his radio watch that would battle equally big bots. The creator, Mitsuteru Yokoyama, wrote a similar manga titled Giant Robo that was turned into one of the first live action mecha shows, but out west was called Johnny Sokko And His Giant Robot.

One of the first definitive mecha superheroes was 8 Man by Kazumasa Hirai about the original cyborg crimefighter. An investigator is murdered by gangsters, so a scientist places his mind inside the body of an elite android with super-speed, plus the power to take on the forms of other people including his old human self. The kicker for this was 8 Man powered himself by smoking cigarettes which replenished his energy. Only in the 60s could they make a superhero with the hook of getting children to smoke.

A step up from this was Cyborg 009 where nine people were turned into cyborgs, each with their own unique ability intended to help the criminal organization Black Ghost. 009 and the other cyborgs rebel against their benefactors and become one of the first superhero teams in anime who would regularly tussle with super-powered agents and other technological villains.

A final mecha anime from the 60s was Flying Phantom Ship which was a full-length movie directed by future Nintendo founder Hiroshi Ikeda. This was the first anime film to be dubbed into Russian and had none other than Hayao Miyazaki working on the mecha designs. This short film had a humongous robot named Golem attacking a city as a weapon of mass destruction.

Once the 70s started, Tatsunoko Productions premiered one of the longest running anime franchises, Gatchaman, which was picked up in America by the notorious Sandy Frank who labeled it Battle Of The Planets, and was rebranded twice onwards as G-Force and then Eagle Riders. The series had a team of five teenagers with attitudes (sound familiar?) that wore bird-themed superhero outfits and used their high-tech vehicles to fight colossal mechs dispatched by the evil organization Galactor determined to rule the world. This was one the first anime to feature gritty character designs and genuine character depth, as well as young heroes putting their lives on the line for the sake of peace and willing to kill to achieve it.

Following this was the dawn of what became called the era of Super Robots. These were big bots piloted by a single daredevil sporting a silly helmet who were the only ones capable of operating the battle machine. This eventually gave way to having a team of multiple young fighters piloting a giant robot, some of which were comprised of several smaller vehicles. One of the first anime of which was Astroganger about a towering robot built to protect Earth from aliens. The downside to Astroganger was that it was an incredibly dumb robot, so a ten-year old is given the great responsibility to make sure that it didn’t trip over its own giant feet.

The show that really put Super Robots on the map was Mazinger Z created by gag manga writer Go Nagai. Here, a giant robot made of a special alloy by an eccentric scientist who died leaving control over it to his reckless biker grandson Koji to counter the devious Dr. Hell who had an entire army of mechanical monsters. Mazinger Z had some of the first toy merchandise featuring the heroic robot along with its adversaries. Following this was a sequel series titled Great Mazinger with an even more powerful mecha that would clash with monsters called the Battle Beasts. There was also a spinoff called Grendizer about a robot using a huge flying saucer to travel around in.

Another mecha show by Go Nagai was Getter Robo which is known as one of the first combined robots where a giant robot was really a trio of aircraft. Depending on which configuration was used to assemble the robot, it could take on three separate forms, each with their own particular abilities. The three pilots were all spirited young men who weekly took on the sinister forces of the Dinosaur Empire. Getter Robo would even crossover with both Mazingers in a special theatrical release, plus there was a sequel titled Getter Robo G.

Brave Raideen pioneered the transforming robot craze which marketed it as one of the biggest gimmicks in anime. In it, the Demon Empire awakens after centuries of slumber to conquer the world, and the only one who can stop them is Akira, the last surviving member of an ancient race who takes control of a robot that was built millennia ago. Raideen could change into a godlike bird, making it a first long before Transformers.

Robotic superheroes weren’t absent from the 70s as the character of Tekkaman was a space knight who surfed on top of his own transforming robot Pegas which would create an extra set of armor around his own existing suit. Tekkaman saw success later in the 90s in the Tekkaman Blade remake anime.

Dino Mech Gaiking followed this with another tale of aliens invading Earth, and a psychic baseball player is given control of the robot Gaiking which could take on a humanoid form, a dragon, a jet, and two different tanks.

Casshan is another dip in the cyborg superhero waters. This time it’s a human brain put into an android body called Casshern who now sets out to free the world from evil superpowered robots that have dominated mankind. Casshern and his faithful transforming robot dog Friender along with a hot survivor named Luna set out to take down all the enemy androids and free everyone from their maniacal rule.

Captain Harlock creator Leiji Matsumoto got in on the Super Robot craze too with his own series of Dangaurd Ace. Earthlings are looking for a new planet to colonize, and the mysterious tenth planet Promete, but the warlord Doppler has put together his own armada. It’s up to the brave Captain Dan and young Takuma to utilize Earth’s only remaining giant robot to stop Doppler’s forces. This anime also gained a large international fan base thanks to multiple foreign dubs.

Combattler V is one of the most recognized gestalt robots from this era. This was the first of a series dubbed the Robot Romance Trilogy made by Toei Animation which all had giant robots with their own colorful pilots. In Combattler V, a group called the Battle Team unite their vehicles to form a giant weapon used to protect Earth from the alien Campbell Empire and their devastating robot beasts.

The next chapter in the Robot Romance Trilogy was Voltes V, a super electromagnetic robot whose anime gained major international popularity. The evil aliens from the planet Boazan send their Beasts Knights to of course conquer the world. A scientist assembles the Voltes Team to man their big mecha and defends not only our world but liberate the aliens’ planet as well. The Boazanian Prince Heinel was given significantly more character development as a protagonist that female fans of the show demanded he get a more poetic ending instead of just dying like all other lead anime villains.

Tosho Daimos is the last part of the trilogy by Toei. This has a nobler race of aliens coming to Earth in peace seeking a new place to live, but an assassination caused both sides to declare war. A transforming robot called Daimos which can do karate is driven by Kazuya who pilots it only to try to get a date with a lovely space princess who gets amnesia and is unaware of the war between her people and Earth. There is no specific enemy in this mecha show, but there are parties working on both sides sabotaging any chance of peace.

Rounding out the 70s was the groundbreaking Mobile Suit Gundam from Sunrise which launched the entire Gundam saga. Instead of fighting supervillains or evil aliens, robots were used from two opposing forces in the solar system both stemming from Earth with both sides treating their robots as advanced military hardware to be used in war. The rebellious Zeon was trying to establish their own space empire while the unified Federation tried to maintain peace in this period of war. Most of the main characters are young people who must grow up fast defending their territory as well as their lives while trying to master piloting the tremendous Mobile Suits which is one of the first mechas to come with lightsabers. Zeon is corrupt with the vengeful Char working from within to bring them down, however his efforts form a legendary rivalry with the Gundam pilot Amuro, plus they both form one of the first anime love triangles along with Char’s love Lalah. This also leads into a new evolution in humanity called Newtypes who have the psychic ability to fully coordinate with their space-bound robots in combat.

Most of the mecha anime from the 70s might not have made anyone in America notice if it weren’t for the advent of Shogun Warriors. Mattel teamed up with Japanese toy company Popy to create some of the first diecast metal toys to be released in the US. These included robots and super vehicles from various shows like Getter Robo, Combattler V, and Great Mazinger. Aside from the diecast construction, what really grabbed the attention of toy collectors everywhere was varying sizes from 3.5 inches to a staggering 2 feet tall, making them some of the biggest action figures ever made, even though some of them had loose parts that would’ve been a choking hazard. Mattel even managed to rope Toho into letting them add giant figures of Godzilla and Rodan to their roster, so this one of the few times tokusatsu kaiju were on the same line as anime robots. There was even a Marvel Comics series set in the Marvel Comics universe where three of the mechas could share panels with the Fantastic Four. The Shogun Warriors brand has endured for decades, but with less lethal rocket launching weapons.

Many of these anime titles have eventually been brought over to the States. Some of them were given a new name and broadcast in America like Tranzor Z or the cornucopia that was Force Five. We can thank companies like Discotek Media for finding some of these long-hidden gems and releasing a great number of titles on Blu-Ray and various streaming services, including a few available legitimately on YouTube. If it weren’t for hard boiled mecha such as Getter Robo, we wouldn’t have timeless classics like Transformers or Gurren Lagaan.

Twilight Of The Gods: The Unfulfilled Ragnarok

Aside from Tales Of The Black Freighter and Legend Of The Guardians, Zack Snyder has only dabbled in animation. Since he directed the Dawn Of The Dead remake, Snyder created a long line of live-action films mostly based on comic books. His studio of Stone Quarry Inc. produced their first TV series title, Twilight Of The Gods, inspired by Norse folklore which would be entirely animated, and largely in 2D. Hand-drawn animation is rare nowadays such as Genndy Tartakovsky’s Primal, so to have a streaming title using this same approach is almost like finding a real-life unicorn. This series is co-produced with the French animation studio, Xilam Animation SAS, which was previously behind Kaena: The Prophecy and I Lost My Body. Zack Snyder conceived the series when showrunner Jay Olivia was writing another animated show for Netflix titled Teres, and they worked on this together for a Netflix premiere while Snyder was making his Rebel Moon duology. After a single season of 8 episodes in 2024, it wasn’t until a year later that Netflix decided to cancel the series, partially due to their own original animated productions not paying off as well as some of their direct-to-streaming offerings like K-Pop Demon Hunters.

This is not a kids’ animation. There is a ton of violence, sex, and hardcore violence with no hiding behind cliches or euphemisms. The fact that this is a Viking tale is also an excuse for presenting life as brutal as possible in a world with monsters and mad gods. The animators seriously focused on detail when it came to the epic fighting scenes utilizing magic and superhuman efforts. Twilight Of The Gods goes for the gusto in the action sequences, and the score by Hans Zimmer adds even more light to the fire. Some of the sex scenes are more overt that normal, but it doesn’t shame the relationships between those of the same sex, bisexual, or any transgender characters.

The story has the female warrior Sigrid who is a half-giant princess that left her homeland to explore her human mother’s country which is under sieged by a warlord. Another clan led by King Leif also attacked the warlord at the same time and he falls in love with Sigrid, although they spend some time together before getting married because Leif’s father won’t sanction it since she can’t conceive an heir. Sigrid takes Leif to her village of giants where they are to be married, but none other than the gods Thor and Baldr crash the party looking for Loki who is disguised there as a small lizard. The giants battle Thor for his rowdy attitude, and the thunder god completely decimates all of them aside from Sigrid and Leif who Baldr allows to go uncounted for some reason. Loki brings Sigrid down to Hel where he and his daughter Hel of the same name offer Sigrid a chance for revenge against Thor, although Loki’s deal is ambiguous as he has his own plans which are to alter the destiny of Ragnarok where his children are killed off.

This set up has Sigrid assembling a band of warriors to help her slay Thor including Sigrid’s fellow shieldmaiden Hervor, the rune-crafting poet Egill in Leif’s debt, the witch Aile with her wolf-man partner Ulfr, and later the dwarf Andvari who provides them with god-killing weapons and joins them as he has a secret grudge against Loki for causing the death of his brother. The band of six go to Vanaheim to get passage into Asgard when bargaining with the Vanir who are the gods that lost in the first war against Odin, Thor, and the rest of what’s called the Aesir. After a misunderstanding, Sigrid’s forces team up with the Vanir, other giants, and a pack of wolves unite to launch a frontal assault against Asgard.

The finale has Sigrid’s army attacking Asgard over several days. Meanwhile, Aile is meeting with Odin who wants to know the future, and she shows him the Norse gods being replaced by Christianity. Afterwards, Aile is reborn as a new god while Baldr is killed trying to save Thor from Sigrid which is the prophesized beginning of Ragnarok. Thor’s mother Freya takes him to Valhalla as Loki kills Sigrid so she can follow him. Sigrid awakens in a huge hall with several fallen warriors having a good time, and Thor casually tells her that this is just the beginning, even though this is where the season abruptly ends.

Despite the high praise and good ratings, Netflix waited for over a year to announce they weren’t going to renew Twilight Of The Gods for a second season leaving many people hanging as to what was next to come for the characters and the series. Netflix is notorious for doing this with many of their original shows, but most of them get at least a second season before getting a definitive cancellation. Considering all the high-ranking talent behind it, Netflix wasn’t confident enough to allow a continuation. This might have been because there was a minimum of advertising put behind this since Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon series didn’t perform as well as what was projected, so Netflix was hesitant to give it a full promotional campaign. Also, Netflix already had a similar animated series that vividly told the story of another pantheon, Blood Of Zeus, which might have deterred any prospective viewers from giving it a chance.

Twilight Of The Gods had very much going for it. There were the original character designs, the classic fantasy plot of a handful of misfit heroes on a quest against overwhelming odds, the lightning-fast action, and it broke all the barriers when it came to over the top carnage as it has battles that make The Boys and Invincible seem like a thumb war. To me, this was the best adaptation of Norse mythology which is true to the gods’ vanity and how their petty feuds would cause nothing but turmoil for any mortals caught in the crossfire. Marvel Comics never even came close to representing the divide between the divine and mankind. Hopefully, Zack Snyder will find a way to continue this saga at through a different avenue as the creators of The Dragon Prince managed to. It at least deserves a full-length movie that acts as a grand finale.