ANI-MOVIES, *Batman: Knightall: Part 1-Knightfall

In the mid-90s, DC Comics decided to replace their Big 3 with some replacements. Where The Death Of Superman "killed off" the Man of Steel and replaced him with four understudies, Knightfall went a less lethal route by having Batman getting critically injured and replaced by someone who wasn't a Robin. Like Crisis On Infinite Earths, Warner Bros. Animation decided to turn this adaptation into a trilogy, even though there still isn't a collected Blu-Ray of all three movies, so you might not see a box set of the entire Knightfall trilogy for some while. This first part is titled Knightfall which is of course the beginning of the Batman: Knightfall saga, but it looks strange to have the same name twice in a single title, plus this isn't part of the any of the other DC Universe animated project since the Tomorrowverse concluded in 2024. The character designs are straight out of the 90s comics event and captured Norm Breyfogle's vision along with Kelley Jones' gothic cover art, so anyone who grew up on reading this story arc back in the day should be satisfied.

It opens with Batman encountering an armored assassin called Azrael who was brainwashed by the hidden Order of St. Dumas to exterminate the guilty, and Batman takes in the young man named Jean Paul and tries to deprogram him along with Tim Drake who is the latest Robin. Prior to this, an unnamed child survived growing up in a Caribbean prison and becomes the test subject of an experimental steroid called venom which increases his strength and intellect. With these new abilities he takes on the name Bane and escapes to Gotham City with the intent of defeating Batman and taking over all on his own. To do this, he busts all the inmates out of Arkham Asylum, so Batman runs himself ragged trying to catch all the escaped lunatics, even though Joker is suspiciously missing from the mayhem. Robin takes Azrael to find out who caused the outbreak in the first place, but Azrael starts to give into his bad habits and spirals into despair. Robin is caught by Bane who says he already knows his and Batman's secret identity, however Robin gets free and makes it to the Batcave where Batman gets angry and fired him. Bane then breaks into Wayne Manor, knocks out Robin and Alfred, then proceeds to give Batman a stone-cold beatdown and breaks his spine, dropping the Dark Knight onto a city of onlookers.

This first part of Knightfall compresses a lot of the original preliminary build up to the comic book, like greatly shortening the Azrael introductory mini-series, plus Tim Drake's freshmen run as Robin gets thinned out. One major factor that was abandoned for the movie is that building up to before Bane arrives in Gotham, Batman was working his fingers to the bone just keeping Gotham together which went on for weeks, whereas here it's only two days. For Batman, two days isn't even slight overtime as he's gone whole weeks with no sleep in the comics, so it's hard to believe in this abridged version of the story. The animation is up to specs, especially the boss fight between Bane and Batman, despite the fact that the movie's take on Bane has him being twice as big here as he was on the comics. The movie could have been longer by an extra couple of minutes to fill in some of these inconsistencies, although it is a decent intro to the trilogy going forward.

ANI-MOVIES, *I Am Frankelda

For being Mexico's first full-length stop motion animated film, I Am Frankelda was still a little rough around the edges in terms of production quality. The brothers Arturo and Roy Ambriz had worked under Guillermo del Toro and started their own production company called Cinema Fantasma, and put their talents into the original TV series Frankelda's Book Of Spooks which played on HBO Max. The series only lasted 5 episodes and was an anthology of gothic fantasy stories told by the ghostly Frankelda who is trapped inside a castle along with her talking book Herneval, plus each episode was only 15 minutes long, so we didn't get to find out much about our horror hosts that are still imprisoned at the end of the series. The Ambriz brothers planned on doing a half-hour special to act as an origin story for Frankelda, but it was instead decided to turn it into a complete motion picture prequel which was picked up by Netflix. The movie is given an English and Spanish dub, with the talented Mireya Mendoza performing the voice of Frankelda in both languages. The surprise of this film is that it's also a musical with grand sweeping numbers that completely capture the audience's heart, and they are amazing in both English and Spanish. Similar to the works of Henry Selick and Laika Studios, I Am Frankelda was painstakingly done in stop motion which is a long process, and even though not totally up to the high standards of Kubo And The Two Strings or The Nightmare Before Christmas. You can still see the time and heart that were put into it, especially with the detail that was brought to the camera as it captures each frame like a work of art. The film was originally intended be shown in Mexico, but since del Toro had gotten his version of Pinocchio picked up by Netflix, he convinced the streaming service to add this movie on their platform as well, which already had benefited from taking risks with animated films such as Nimona and K-Pop Demon Hunters. I Am Frankelda went on to win several animation awards and became a modest hit on Netflix.

Starting out in Mexico during the mid-19th Century, Francisca Imelda lives with her grandmother after her mother passed away when she was young, and she has plans to be a horror writer. She has her efforts dashed by her overcritical granny and the other kids who don't understand her. What she doesn't know is that what she writes about is actually happening in a parallel dimension called Topus Terrenus ruled by the owl-like king and queen whose son Prince Herneval finds a way to the human realm and overhears Francisca's stories. The world of spooks is slowly disappearing because their singular nightmare maker Procustes doesn't write with the kind of creativity to keep their reality from vanishing. Once Frankelda is slightly older, she lives on her own, but dreams of being a writer are met with opposition, so she nearly gives up. Fortunately, Herneval arrives to invite her to Topus Terrenus to become their new nightmare writer, so Francisca changes her name to Frankelda, although Procustes sees this as a threat to his station, so he leads a revolution against the royals with the heads of other nation backing him up. From here, there is a great deal of treachery, manipulation, and intrigue where nearly nobody trusts anyone, and unfortunately divides Frankelda and Herneval's clearly budding romance. The film ends on a bit of a cliffhanger, although it leads into the TV series where Frankelda's spirit along with Herneval are sealed away in a nightmare while at the same time Frankelda's living soul is free to write stories in the world of the living.

I Am Frankelda is a triumph for the future of stop motion animated projects, both short and feature-length. The full film is 113 minutes long and some of the scenes go on longer than they might have need to be. The Ambriz brother have a promising future ahead of them and hopefully will continue the Frankelda saga since it was unconcluded. This is treated like a genuine musical in both languages, and you will probably pull you in considering how memorable each song is. The stop motion is all that smooth, so it doesn't have the polished look of a Laika production which is relevant for a project of this scale. If you were ensnared into the fantasy vision shown in Pan's Labyrinth, then I Am Frankelda will totally blow you away.

Spider Jerusalem and Isaiah "Krash" have the same optician.

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Night Of The Zoopocalypse

He who was once claimed as "the future of horror" happened to make a story fit for a nice family film. Hellraiser creator Clive Barker had written a story called Zoombies (no connection to the unfunny franchise from The Asylum) and had planned for it to be a graphic novel, but instead screenwriters Steven Hobab and James Kee revamped it for an animated movie titled Night Of The Zoopocalypse which of course was borrowed from George Romero's groundbreaking undead movie. Rodrigo Perez-Castro and Ricardo Curtis both directed this film intended to act as a gateway horror for kids, and it did in fact pass with flying colors. The plot involves animals in a zoo succumbing to an alien virus which turns them into zombie-like creatures, but instead of rotting flesh and actually eating each other, the animals are more like they were put through a Willy Wonka machine and ended up as mindless mutants made of gummy candy. The film had a total of seven production companies behind it, but it all comes together with cartoonish character designs and the right kind of mood that makes for a great scary movie. There's wonderful homages to horror flicks while incorporating the level of fear that have made hit modern-day creepypastas whereas most movies actually based on creepypastas completely miss the mark, and there is a fantastic musical score that leaves anything Disney has done for the films they intended to be "spooky".

Set in a Canadian zoo, Gracie the timber wolf lives with her pack but doesn't take things too seriously. A small bit of space debris crashes into the zoo's farm and infects a rabbit that starts turning the other animals into mutated freaks who aren't specifically zombies as they can lose their body parts and reattach them, even if it's not their own, so you've got bizarre creatures combined like a giraffe-gorilla beast right out a G-rated Cronenberg concoction. Gracie is one of the few animals to not get infected along the zoo's newest recruit, a mountain lion named Dan, and the two of them work with an odd assortment of survivors. There is a way to cure the zombie critters, although it turns out to be something else other than just washing it out with soap and water, but Gracie and the others stop the plague after dealing with a kaiju-sized gestalt abomination comprised of all the animals that would even irk Lovecraft.

Night Of The Zoopocalypse was largely animated by the French production company Mac Guff who also worked on A Monster In Paris, although this one is an English-language film so there's quite a few American voice actors in it. Gabbi Kosmidis from Unicorn Academy is the voice of Gracie with an odd southern drawl, David Harbor is the strait-laced Dan, and Scott Thompson from Kids In The Hall plays a stuffy ostrich. This is a fine entry-level horror for little hellhounds without being too frightening, and the neon lighting used for it really gives it a creepy vibe. The character designs are also unique appearing like it was a blend of an old Garfield episode and a psychedelic cartoon from the 70s. It might become a regular in your children's rotating movie catalog, although it still holds up for a family feature and a decent pick for a kids Halloween party.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Nightmare Before Christmas

Considering that there hadn't been another feature-length theatrically released American stop-motion animated movie since 1984's The Adventures Of Mark Twain, Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas from 1993 brought the nearly lost art back into the spotlight. Considering that fully CGI-animated films were still on the horizon, there was still time for this underused craft to make a significant comeback. Starting out as a children's book Burton wrote in the 80s, he combined this with his own stop-motion short titled Vincent (narrated by Vincent Prince himself!) which caught Hollywood's attention. Disney produced this under their Touchstone Pictures label and directed by inbetweener animator Henry Selick who went on to help start up Laika Studios by directing Coraline, plus the screenplay was written by Caroline Thompson and adapted by Michael McDowell. The film was first seen as being a long animated short about 40+ minutes and modeled after all those Rankin-Bass holiday TV one-shots combined with their forgotten Halloween hit Mad Monster Party, but it was deemed a little too dark to be another annual cartoon special, so it was instead prolonged into a single feature. It made a big splash upon its premiere and continued to be a larger cult clash. Over the years, it became a gothic masterpiece that made Spencer's Gifts a cool mint, not to mention gaining its own aisle in every department store during both the Halloween and Christmas season. The phenomenon is more owed to its clashing of cheery Noel and scary-but-harmless monsters which made for one of the most unique cinematic experiences of its time, plus making it into a jumpy musical done by Oingo Boing's Danny Elfman which made it a tentpole in marketing and merchandise.

Turns out the major American holidays each have their own little world such as Easter and Thanksgiving, while Halloween Town is run by Jack Skelington, a living skeleton with panache for dropping a musical number for any situation. After another year's successful Halloween by him and the other townsfolk made entirely of monsters, Jack feels unfulfilled with the same routine, and a trip through a special door takes him to Christmas Town. He falls head over heels for this newly discovered holiday and plans on doing his own version of Christmas. He sends three children with the task of capturing Santa Claus which actually takes them several weeks while Jack and the other scary citizens create creepy versions of beloved old-time toys. Helping Jack is the stitchpunk girl Sally who is the Frankenstein's monster of this world, and for some reason has a psychic vision of Jack's plan which is destined to end in flames, but despite her best efforts she fails to stop his resolve to take over Christmas. Santa is taken to the lair of Oogie Boogie, an outcasted boogeyman who is introduced in the third act as the movie's only genuine villain if you leave out Jack's whole "ransacking another guy's holiday" scheme, and Oogie wants to bump off Santa just for kicks. Using flying reindeer skeletons, Jack begins his Christmas Eve caper only to get the military riled up enough to shoot him out of the sky, which finally knocks some sense into him, and he rescues Santa from Oogie. Santa pulls a lightspeed rescue on Christmas while Jack and Sally finally realize their feelings for each other.

Tim Burton didn't direct or produce this but did get his name put above the title so everyone would believe he was the Bob Kane to this Bill Finger production. Danny Elfman's score played a big part in the movie's impact, and Elfman himself also performed the singing voice of Jack, while the speaking voice was done by Chris Saradon after he slayed it in Fright Night. Aside from an all-star ensemble cast, the best is the dearly departed Catherine O'Hara as Sally, plus Shock who was one of Oogie's crew. The movie does suffer from some profoundly weak dialogue, and a concept that was intended to be barely an hour long has plenty of filler material to pad it out to feature-length. For a stop-motion production, there were over a hundred artists working on this on several different sound stages, so you can imagine that this took up a lot of studio space to pull all the different worlds together, plus crafting it to Burton's vision along with a Dr. Seuss style is a miracle onto itself. Aside from the insane amount of merch that this film rakes in every holiday season, there's also several sequels, prequels, spinoffs, and of course the obligatory Kingdom Hearts crossovers. This movie led to other Tim Burton stop-motion movies like Corpse Bride and the Frankenweenie remake, plus the animated scenes in James And The Giant Peach, but to truly get the magic of the original then you owe it to yourself in theatrical screening.

Ghost In The Shell: The Remake God Intended!

After several prior takes on the manga, someone finally made a story-accurate anime of Masamune Shirow’s Ghost In The Shell. Originally printed in 1989, it took a few years for the first anime which was Mamoru Oshii’s which helped keep the whole cyberpunk trend running into the 90s, and there are at least three different editions of the film. This went on to a sequel, video games, OVAS, TV shows, and a forgettable American live-action movie. Out of all of them, this new 2026 TV anime is the only one that follows the plot and the style of the original one-volume manga which was more colorful, funnier, and finally some gratuitous 90s fan service. Oshii’s adaptation took the original manga and removed anything lively and presented it with a dark dystopian future like all post-Blade Runner cyberpunk films. Writer Toh EnJoe who might’ve played fast and loose with the original lore shown in Godzilla: Singular Point, but here he knew the source material and applied it to the script while still telling this from the point of view of futurists in the 90s. Ride Your Wave director Mokochan managed to put together an anime that captures the bright imagery of the initial manga and presents it as something that was just recently conceived. The TV series doesn’t take much any cues from the prior GITS anime productions and sticks to Shirow’s original vision, and Science Saru was the incredible studio behind it.

The one thing that this series borrows from another GITS title is that the story takes place in 2029 like the original motion picture. In this fictional future, the world is populated with regular humans, cyborgs, plus AI units in prosthetic bodies called shells, and the term used for a person’s mind/soul is a ghost. The line between the genuinely born humans and completely artificial lifeforms has gotten seriously blurred, and this has opened a new type of cybercrime where people with a ghost can be hacked and forced into acts of terrorism.

In Tokyo, female security agent Motoko Kusinagi helps start up a new task force called Section 9 to handle this new advanced brand of security. Along with her partner Batou and the rookie Togusa, Motoko is promoted to Major under the leadership of the elder Chief Aramaki who plans to use Section 9 to weed out traitors and insurrections within their own government. All this is going on while a rogue AI called the Puppet Master is pitting forces against each other to preserve its programming and achieve its own autonomy.

The new GITS anime series encompasses the entire original manga story whereas the first movie was the only other production to adapt the manga and not create its own interpretation such as in Stand-Alone Complex. There’s a similar opening narration crawl about what the world of 2029 is like and goes all the way to the final line about how the net is vast. The character designs look like they’re ripped right from manga page with everyone’s profile looking as cartoonish as the original did and not as aesthetically particular as what Ooshi had in mind for the ‘95 movie which is due to Science Saru’s incredible production.

Comparing this GITS anime with the others isn’t too difficult. Ooshi’s movie was deeply philosophical with expressionless characters and not a lot of distinction between the characters which can work if you’re trying to get all cerebral that the Wachowskis vacuumed all that when they were first churning out The Matrix. Stand-Alone Complex had an episodic approach to its storytelling and took itself too seriously. GITS: Arise was a pseudo-prequel OVA that had Motoko being a brash young officer who still had ownership over her prosthetic body, so it wasn’t owned by the government, and it gets lost in its own story resolving a criminal conspiracy.

The new anime painstakingly takes every frame and little nugget of dialogue from the manga and animates it with quick moving action. It doesn’t get bogged down in technobabble and political intrigue such as both of Ooshi’s GITS movies and doesn’t stray away from the main cast with one-shot characters having an entire episode dedicated to them and being non-sequential to the overall plot. The main take of the Puppet Master doesn’t really affect anything until the last two episodes, and then there’s a lengthy epilogue to the event that none of the other adaptions. We get to learn more about the reborn Motoko and why all these extra factions were out to get the Puppet Master in the first place.

This series has gained acceptance from new fans and die-hard old school anime purists. Some of the dialogue does go by at lightning speed making it a little hard to keep up with some of the context getting lost upon first watch. Fortunately, the story is all on point with little pointless filler material. If you still have a battered paperback of the original manga, you can put it back in the vault because this anime is the fresh standard that hopefully future cyberpunk anime will be measured by.

Blood Of Zeus: A New Epic

Originally titled Gods and Heroes, Blood Of Zeus was conceived by the brothers Charley and Vlas Parlapanides who had previously written the screenplay for Immortals and the Americanized Death Note movie, neither of which were successful. Since the Immortals film bombed and was about Greek mythology, you’d think they wouldn’t try it again, but somehow they managed to talk Netflix into doing an original animated series inspired by it. This was produced by Powerhouse Animation Studios who had already did the excellent Castlevania adaptation, and it was animated by two South Korean studios, Hanho Heung-Up and Mua Film. It was originally pitched as being a 5-season long project, but because of a low performance only 3 seasons were ultimately created. Season 1 premiered in 2020, with a long break in between until Season 2 came out in 2024, followed by the slightly rushed last season in 2025.

Blood Of Zeus is set during an unknown piece of Greek history taking place during the reign of the Olympian gods after they won their war with the Titans, and then a race of giants that rose from the remains of their carcasses. The gods convinced two of the giants to switch sides, and the Olympians became victorious from it under the rule of Zeus. Zeus spent a lot of his time philandering with human women and spawning several demigods. One of these is Heron, the son of the outcasted Queen Electra who takes refuge in a small town to keep Heron away from the gaze of Zeus’ jealous wife Hera. A race of people referred have eaten the flesh of the fallen giants transforming them into demons lead by Seraphim who it turns out is Heron’s mortal twin brother who was nearly killed as an infant by his greedy uncle. Hera finds out about Heron’s existence and wages a civil war between the gods along with rising the bodies of the fallen giants to back her. Heron has gathered a band of heroes to help him stop the war, even though Seraphim ultimately kills their mother and joins Hera’s side. Zeus sacrifices himself to save Hera during the final battle after the giants turn on her, Heron slays Seraphim and is left to inherit the lightning powers of Zeus.

The second season came out four years later which is something Netflix has a habit of doing when it comes to picking up the next season of some of their series, especially animated ones. This season went more into creation stories than the prior, and explores the wider world that this new mythology is supposed to take place in. Seraphim is given a second life by Hades, lord of the Underworld, who wants to defeat the ruling gods so he can be with his wife Persephone during the whole year and not half of it as she must return to her mother Demeter. Hades sends Seraphim to bring him the Eleusinian Stone which Seraphim can access since it lies in the realm of Gaea, and since he has giant blood in him, he can enter there. It’s also where all the other gods head to claim the Stone and rule Olympus. This is all part of Gaea’s plan to teach the gods forgiveness and has Heron acting as her player in her game. Zeus is locked away in the Underworld during all this, as well as Gorgo, a lost love of Seraphim that Hades promised to free if he obtains the Stone. All the forces clash on Gaea’s island which angers the Earth goddess and declares that none of them are worthy and frees the gigantic Typhon entity who is pretty much the Greek version of Godzilla.

Season 3 came out a year later with Typhon ripping through the Underworld to free Kronos, the father of the Olympians that Zeus had banished centuries ago. Kronos takes over the Underworld and awakens the fallen Titans to help him revert the world back to primordial order. Seraphim forms a truce with Heron if he helps him send Gorgo to the Elysian Fields, but Kronos gets her beforehand and uses her as a bargaining chip against the two brothers. Gaes who set all this up just ditches the scene altogether leaving everyone to fend for themselves and leaving them to their fates. Heron is told by the Fates that his web of destiny has been cut, so this war will be his final act.

Much of the mythology that Blood Of Zeus derives its story elements from is not directly lifted from Greek lore but some secret societies and esoteric institutions. Freemasonry plays a large foundation in the show’s personal world-building, especially with its ties to Egyptian myths. The focus is largely on destiny, and how everyone’s death is inevitable, even though some of the gods manage to come back to life on a regular basis in this take on the pantheon. There is takes on Christian dogma as well with all the resurrection of various divine characters. Nearly every civilized culture had their own theogony, to which Greek myth is essential to as the Greeks would incorporate different cultures and religion into their own world history. Heron is in fact the true hero here, which is where the term hero is supposed to come from as he was willing to give up his own life to help others.

Gaea is the key player in this series, even though she doesn’t become relevant to the story until Season 2. She has Zeus raised in secret to ultimately defeat Kronos as he kept eating all their children because of a prophecy that said his offspring would one day replace him as ruler over the world. This plays into the creation myths of certain histories when obtaining ultimate power, which the Eleusinian Stone is the ultimate prize to get. Most of the mystery schools that Blood Of Zeus borrowed this idea from someone being initiated into each group’s particular beliefs such as the Masons. Gaea ultimately set everything in place hoping the Olympians would learn forgiveness or just letting the world be destroyed to restart everything, even if that meant going back to people dabbling in living sacrifices. This shows that anyone trying to work against a prophecy is usually doomed to succumb to it.

The animation in Blood Of Zeus is not genuinely anime, although its production was inspired by Japanese animation like how both Castlevania TV series were labeled as being under the Netflix Anime brand. The production is gorgeous with literally electrifying effects and each of the characters having their own distinct ability or superpower. There isn’t any major anime that this is derived from, although you will see sparks of Dragonball Z and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, although titles like One Piece and My Hero Academia would appear to be the better sources of influence, but since they’re both more comedic adventures instead of hardcore supernatural battles.

Despite each season getting 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, Blood Of Zeus was cut two seasons short. This comes up a lot during Season 3 with the rushed plot, specifically how early Heron and Seraphim seemed to forgive each other. It does all come together in the end with a climatic duel between the brothers and Krono with the giant Typhon. The series on its own is worth checking out all 24 episodes for, but you can be satisfied with just watching Season 1 which concludes on a good enough note to not require watching the other two seasons.

MISC. MANGA, *The Long-Lived King

After being given a forced early retirement by Disney+, Dana Terrace's The Owl House went on for two full seasons and an abbreviated final season. Over three years after the finale, the fans are given this one-shot manga-styled graphic novel to fill in a gap taking place before the show's epilogue. Terrace wrote this along with Mikki Crisostomo who also wrote for The Owl House and is writing for Josie Campbell's upcoming Starfire animated series, and it was drawn by Daun Han who also worked on the original show and is part of Terrace's production team on Knights Of Guinevere. The story doesn't fill in a lot of the missing lore from the show as it's more of the characters self-reflecting on what lies ahead in their future, specifically King and him realizing how long his life span is. The manga design works for it making the world seem darker than it is even after defeating the final boss. In fact, the main message the story gives is relating how death is a natural part of life and not to be feared. This is why Terrace emphasized that this was a graphic novel intended for mature readers.

Taking place two years after Emporer Bellos was vanquished, the Boiling Isles has slowly been rebuilding their new tyrant-free civilization and turning the Collector's old crown-shaped playhouse into a museum as the locals start to relearn the ways of their forgotten past that Bellos phased out when he established the Covens. Luz now has a new haircut with odango buns and is helping to set up the museum when one of the Collector's toys goes on a rampage. A runaway giant jack-in-the-box causes Eda to get hurt which results in her learning that her curse is preventing her from being healed by magic, so the Owl Lady spends the rest of this story with a broken leg. This event makes King worry more about how he'll outlive all his friends as a titan, so he's been using a memory-erasing device modeled after an old Etch-A-Sketch to remove bad memories. Luz accidently comes into contact with this device making her forget a good portion of her life, so Eda and King take her to the Collector's home where he helps them go through Luz's mind to reclaim her memories. The book concludes with King and Collector discussing how scared they are of what the future might bring but a willing to tough it out all the way.

The Long-Lived King on the surface looks like it's just a missing chapter from The Owl House odyssey, but it's more of a look back on what one would do with their life after the main adventure has ended. We get some more world-building with the Boiled Isles citizens discovering more about their hidden history. There isn't much from the secondary characters, so anyone hoping to see more of Luz and Amity's relationship will be slightly disappointed. The black and white manga really adds a new layer to the usually colorful backdrop of The Owl House, even in some of its murkier scenes which helps direct the reader's attention more on to the main characters as the camera is focused on them instead of the enchanted realm they all live in. This is a profoundly somber note to finish The Owl House on, but it acts as a perfect interlude leading into the epilogue of the series finale and shows how the characters are still recovering from a major ordeal with what doors to the future were opened because of it.

Batman-Caped Crusader: Back To The Past, Season 2 Edition

For its second and final season, Batman: Caped Crusader didn’t hold back on the mature material. This time, the production was moved from DC Entertainment to DC Studios, but with Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Animation still handling the moody production. The show still has a stonking ten executive producers including Bruce Timm, JJ Abrams, Matt Reeves, and Ed Brubaker, each big-time creators in their own rights even if it might seem to muddy the waters a little. Season Two is more serialized than Season One with nearly all the episodes leading to the two-part conclusion, plus it dips its toes into some of the more fantastical elements of Batman’s comic book world.

The release of Season 2 was broadcast on Amazon Prime with all 10 episodes premiering on a single day in the summer of 2026, so fans were treated to a good mini marathon. This came out during the same summer as the final season of My Adventures With Superman and the second season of X-Men 97, so it was a great time for fans of superhero animation. It was fortunate that Warner had signed on to complete another season for Amazon Prime prior to all their animated projects either being cancelled or completely abandoned like The Day The Earth Blew Up.

This is still a period piece set in an alternate 1940s where there is more diversity than was in the real world. Changes to the cast this season has a gender-flipped Mad Hatter, plus race swapped versions of Roxy Rocket and Mr. Freeze. In this version of Gotham, Mad Hatter is a late-night talk show hostess, Mr. Freeze uses his original name of Mr. Zero who is a fixer for the mob, Riddler is a front man for mafia head Rupert Thorne who “riddles” his victims with bullets, Calander Man is a criminal accountant, Hugo Strange is pretty much the same mad scientist with Blockbuster being one of his test subjects, Scarecrow is a spooky college student, the Mad Monk leads a fake cult of the bat god Barbatos, the Terrible Trio are corporate criminals, Roxy Rocket is a vigilante rocketeer, and the Joker is more inspired by his archetype from The Man Who Laughs and is a dark reflection of silent movie villains. Plus, the obscure femme fatale Rose and Thorne appears with her own vendetta against Riddler.

A few of the stories from Season One are continued this season. One is Carrie Kelley after surviving her encounter with Nocturna gets adopted and adopts the secret identity of Crime Smasher, inspired by Batman’s fictional hero, the Gray Ghost, and there is a great Dynamic Duo moment with her and Batman double kicking Mr. Zero. Harley Quinn’s fate is also revealed as she’s been living in secret with Detective Montaya but takes on her clown persona to catch the Scarecrow who has been spreading his fear toxin. Jim Corrigan returns after volunteering for a medical experiment which causes his death and becoming the Spectre who goes on to punish the guilty. Rupert Thorne is quickly killed off secretly by Joker in the first episode, leaving Riddler to run amuck until getting killed by Rose and Thorn. Barbara Gordon becomes friendlier with Montoya, hinting that there might be a romance between them which would be the first time that Barbara wouldn’t be chasing after one of the Bat-Family guys.

The new additions to the cast fit their parts well. Ronan Raferty is great as the bloodthirsty gangster take on the Riddler. Matthew Needham takes over the reigns as Joker with a gothic edge which is miles away from his regular cackling maniac. James Urbaniak reprises his role as an eccentric scientist from Venture Bros. as Hugo Strange. Kevin Michael Richardson does his take on Peter Lorre as the stoic Mr. Zero. Fryda Wolff who is normally cast in video games is a great choice for performing both split personalities of the vigilante Rose and Thorn.

Anyone who was a fan of Batman: The Animated Series is in for a feast with this conclusion. This season rewards you for sticking with the ongoing storyline while still carrying on the narrative from the previous season. Each episode is like a miniature noir movie with its own stylish title card and fitting music composed by Frederik Wiedmann who also provided the soundtrack for several other DC animated shows and movies as well as The Dragon Prince. The animation is just as good this season, although there is a little more theatrical motif making you want to watch it on the big screen. The Dark Knight’s legacy is still solid with this adaptation, even if there aren’t any current plans to continue the series.

Project A-Ko: The First Anime Parody

For over 40 years, the first recognized anime parody has been Project A-ko from 1986. Prior to this, there were fan creations like fandubbed episodes of Yamato and of course the infamous original animated Daicon openings. Chances are, most American otaku are familiar with the title, especially since it became the name for one of the country’s longest running fan conventions. The initial theatrical release led to a trio of OVA sequels, plus a spinoff OVA titled Project A-Ko Vs. Battle which is the first anime to tread into “parallel universe” territory when it came to doing a remake. For many, Project A-Ko was one of the first anime titles that they were introduced to outside of TV titles like Speed Racer or Voltron as it was frequently shown at sci-fi cons and displayed on Blockbuster Video, despite the fact that the movie was labeled as an adult title without being a porno.

Speaking of which, Project A-Ko first began as the concept for the hentai anthology Cream Lemon. The film was directed by Katsuhiko Nishijima who went on to do lots of other ecchi titles like Agent Aika. Nishijima also wrote the screenplay with Tomoko Kawasaki who wrote for Southern Cross, along with Yuji Moriyama who eventually directed the equally crazy Nuku Nuku. They all managed to work in enough fan service in a production intended to be a satire of anime during a time when there weren’t many comedy anime films in the mid-80s, although the rapid-fire humor is similar to Urusei Yatsura which most of the production crew had worked on.

The title was borrowed from one of Jackie Chan’s earlier hits, Project A, and this translated well as there is a ton of action shoved in with all the pop culture references. Among some of the anime titles being parodied were from the late 70s on up like Lupin III, Space Battleship Yamato, and Macross, along with a bizarre replacement of the android from Harmagedon with Colonel Sanders. There’s also some poking fun at American comic books, but we’ll get into that later. Even the names of the main characters are joke nicknames the studios used before deciding on their actual names. The animation was meticulously crafted on the same level as a space opera and treated fairly seriously, so if you were just watching this for the first time you might not recognize Project A-Ko as being a comedy.

The story is a love triangle between the super-strong teenage redhead A-Ko, her very annoying childhood friend C-Ko, and the spoiled rich girl B-Ko who is the queen bee at the new school they just transferred to. The relationship between A-Ko and C-Ko seems like they are just good friends, but B-Ko wants to take it a step further and make C-Ko her lover, although there isn’t much yuri baiting throughout the story. Lesbian fangirls had best not get their hopes up too much expecting this to be a romantic drama. B-Ko uses her scientific genius to create various mechas to put A-Ko out of the way, but A-Ko’s strength always triumphs, so B-Ko uses her secret weapon, a power armor bikini capable of mass destruction which begins the second half of the film as being one giant showdown between the enraged schoolgirls.

The schoolyard brawl is not the only focus of the plot as it takes place in the futuristic Graviton City which was built on the remains of a crashed spaceship from 16 years prior that left a huge crater behind. A stranger in sunglasses named D is an agent for an alien empire who is looking for their lost princess who happens to be C-Ko, even though the movie starts out making you believe that their original target was A-Ko which would explain her superhuman abilities. D reports to the alien space captain who is a joke version of Captain Harlock and Char from Gundam constantly thirsty for alcohol. The huge alien battleship makes it way to Graviton City to reclaim their princess while plowing through all of Earth’s defenses, and the strange part is that it’s all done largely straight like another sci-fi invasion epic. This was due to Japan having not the stranglehold they had on copyrights that they have now, like how Who Framed Roger Rabbit could only have come out in the 80s when all the characters were available to shuffle between different license holders.

The two plots finally converge with D abducting C-Ko, forcing A-Ko and B-Ko to put their duel to the death on hold and make their way up through the spaceship where it’s revealed that all the aliens who look like men are really women. This idea alone is what separates Project A-Ko from your average parody by revealing that an entire invading force were all really warrior women with a huge laundry cargo hold filled with smelly undies. The ship crashes on top of Graviton City where its left dangling precariously on top of the highest building in town. The next day, most of all the damage to the city has been repaired overnight just like at the end of any Power Rangers episode, and we finally discover where A-Ko gets her fantastic strength from. It’s briefly revealed that A-Ko’s parents are none other than Superman and Wonder Woman who got married and moved to Japan, although they’re both apparently permanently retired since they didn’t do zilch during the alien attack from the day before.

Aside from poking fun at DC superheroes, Project A-Ko was a smorgasbord of pop culture references. There are spaceships that are just the Valkyries from Macross, although with no cool robot mode. Transformers gets tagged too when B-Ko builds a convertible robot to stop A-Ko which is completely incapable of piloting once its robot form. The most estranged bit in this comes from Fist Of The North Star where one of B-Ko’s flunkies is a huge muscular schoolgirl version of Kenshiro who has a masculine voice when she’s flexing up but a normal girl’s voice when she’s talking.

Project A-Ko was given a wide release in the 80s through Central Park Media which used the original Manga Entertainment dub from England. After the first movie, CPM dubbed all the other OVAs through Ocean Group in Canada, so if you were a regular watcher of Ranma and Dragonball during the 90s then you’ll recognize a lot of voice actors in it. The film was reaching for an international audience through Shochiko in Japan as the soundtrack had songs done entirely in English composed by American musicians Joey Carbone and Richie Zito, one of these was actually sung by Samantha Newark who was also doing the speaking voice of Jem around the same time. The movie would regularly be featured on the old Sci-Fi channel during their anime showcase marathons. You might have seen this film labeled Supernova in various other regions where it’s rewritten that A-Ko is really bionic instead of a superhuman. Most of these editions were censored leaving out some of the blatant nudity that was rampant in the 80s, although the film doesn’t have an obligatory shower scene.

This film is one of the first anime that highlights women as the main characters. For one thing, the main romance plot is between three females with no central Archie archetype for any of them to fawn over, although most of the feelings between the leads are platonic, however B-Ko seriously has some less than innocent plans involving C-Ko. Project A-Ko helped established females as assertive strong figures which that eventually go onto influence other anime like Alita, even though A-Ko and B-Ko’s focus is about bickering teenagers instead of standing up to some opposing evil force.

Project A-Ko has been released several times over the last few decades into English and has been picked up by numerous US distributors. It was first released by Central Park Media throughout the 90s and most of the early 2000s. Afterwards, the rights went to Eastern Star which is an imprint of Discotek Media, and has subsequently become available on different streaming formats, most of which are for free. Perspectives on the movie differ over time with some of the older otaku loving it when it first came out mostly for the cheesy humor but then looking back on it later as just being a big piece of schlock. Modern day anime fans have come to appreciate the high-grade animation, even though a good portion of the film’s fan service might turn off possible viewers and seen as being degrading to women even though the entire story is about strong women fighting each other and not for the love of some dull guy. There is gratuitous nudity in most uncensored editions of the film.

The current Perfect Edition of the film has a horde of features including clips from the unreleased Project A-Ko CD-ROM game and numerous commentaries. Project A-Ko made a big enough impact among American fandom to not only get its own English tabletop game, plus a comic book adaptation drawn by Ben Dunn from Ninja High School which is another title worth looking up if you liked this. Depending on how much you appreciate the animators’ attention to detail, you’ll probably have fun with this over multiple viewings, but it’s not unreasonable to see today's youth finding it dated and just loaded with panty shots.

ANI-MOVIES, *Ghost Cat Anzu

What if My Neighbor Totoro was changed to have the father be a deadbeat and the mother was already dead? That's what you get when you watch Ghost Cat Anzu. Based on a one-shot manga by Takashi Imashiro, this was directed by Yoko Kuno with Nobuhiro Yamashita who has already adapted other manga into live-action films such as Confession and Let's Go Kareoke. The majority of animation done for it was provided by Shin-Ei Animation which had already done similar productions in Doraemon, and they went back to the well of early animators by first shooting the movie in live-action and rotoscoped it. Similar to several anime films of the Reiwa era in Japan, this borrows quite a few elements from Studio Ghibli where modern day spirits are seen an ordinary part of life, and going to the Land of the Dead is like to something out of Beetlejuice, so the movie starts out like Totoro and then eventually makes a sharp turn into Spirited Away for the final act. This is a self-contained story that has a lot of world-building and is a deep dive into Japanese folklore.

Young Karin is taken to a country temple by her father Tetsuya who leaves her there with his father who runs the temple while he goes to pay off a huge debt to the yakuza. Karin is stunned to find there is a giant talking anthropomorphic cat named Anzu who is a ghost cat that's been helping her grandfather at the temple for decades. Anzu tries to make Karin feel welcome, but she blows him off wanting to make it back Tokyo to visit her mother's grave. Anzu eventually takes her to Tokyo, but they can't enter because Tetsuya didn't keep up his payments, so Anzu gets help from the God of Poverty who takes them to the afterlife to see Karin's mother who is stuck working in maintenance for the oni running the place. Karin makes a break with her mother and Anzu back to the world of the living where none other than Enma himself who runs the underworld on a merry chase on scooters, limos, and sports cars. Karin's mother decides to go back the afterlife and leaves her under Anzu's protection. Tetsuya shows up at the end having paid off his debt but agrees to let Karin stay at the temple with Anzu and her grandfather while he goes on to be insolvent.

Ghost Cat Anzu might on the surface seem like an all-ages film, although it delves into murkier territory. Karin is a fleshed-out character for being the young protagonist, while Anzu is more like someone's happy-go-lucky uncle that usually helps them out. The behind the scenes of this movie are fascinating as its one of the most polished rotoscope anime films ever made. This style can be rough at times with strange looking humans who are sometimes hard to differentiate from the other yokai shown in the movie, but Anzu himself blends in well to the picture with all the regular and supernatural characters believably blend together. It's a charming family comedy that isn't afraid to get a little dark.

Cheers to our friend, C. Martin Croker, 10 years later.

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Lonely Castle In The Mirror

Lonely Castle In The Mirror started out as a novel by Mizuki Tsujimura which was later adapted into a manga, and then into an anime movie in 2022 from A-1 Pictures directed by Keiichi Hara who also did Miss Hokusai and The Wonderland. Even at 116 minutes, the movie cuts a few things from the original source material, so a decent deal of pacing, sub-plots, world-building, and character conflicts are trimmed to fit the run time. The book is a modern-day fantasy set in Japan and centers around the victims of bullying and how their lives are shaken up from the experience. This isn't a fairy tale as it does bring up some mature situations involving sexual assault and home invasion, so don't think of the title of the film trying to be another Ghibli-wannabe.

A group of seven middle schoolers each appear in a magic castle on top of a mountain in the middle of a sea set in an otherworldly realm. Four boys and three girls are introduced to the master of the castle, a small girl called the Wolf Queen who wears a wolf mask who tells them they have nearly a year to come to the castle from 9-5 PM any day through their own mirrors where they live, but if they don't leave the castle before 5 they will each be eaten by a giant wolf. Every one of them don't regularly go to school as they are all traumatized by bullies, so they spend their time hanging out getting to know each other and what they have in common. The Wolf Queen informs the kids that there is a key hidden in the castle which opens a secret door and whoever gets it first will be granted a single wish. The main character is Kokoro who has been mistreated by girls at her school who even tried to break into her house to terrorize her, but she is the one who comes closest to figuring out the secret of the castle and what ties them all together.

Lonely Castle In The Mirror is full of surprise plot twists and revelations, so to keep the mystery of the story, it's best to say that that is a faithful adaptation to the book and has a satisfying conclusion. There's a divide between the movie's initial reviews and how others looked at it when it was put on streaming and Blu-Ray, so it's best to ignore the Rotten Tomatoes score. The film does get dark but not to the point of being morbid, although it's got a fair enough rating at PG-13, although it does show how anxiety from bullying can plague a young person's life and how it affects them in the future. The story is a slow boil, but the animation is in a league of its own with great blending of 2D production with CGI. This is a noteworthy anime movie with a dub that outsells the original Japanese language edition.

ANI-MOVIES, *Mind Game

If your movie was so creative that it went on to influence the spastic Everything Everywhere All At Once, then you know it's about as spastic as it gets. Mind Game was a 2004 anime film based on a manga by Robin Nishi that was the directing debut by Masaaki Yuasa who started out as an animator on Crayon Shin-chan before going on to direct other hits such as Devilman Crybaby and Riding Your Wave. This film is an experimental production that switches from multiple forms of animation including some live-action and the best possible outside source to compare it to is Run Lola Run, even though there's only a single shown case of a change in the timeline. Many confuse Mind Game for being an anthology film like Robot Carnival, but instead it shows a singular story told from multiple perspectives similar to the classic Rashomon samurai flick. Yauasa used his eclectic approach to create an anime that was specifically unpolished which worked in his favor as the movie blends genres in a spectacular melting pot.

Nishi is a clueless college student who wants to be a manga creator who runs into his old girlfriend Myon and follows her back to her father's restaurant which her younger sister Yan works at the grill. A pair of yakuza come looking for Myon's father who cheated on the younger one's girlfriend causing him to eventually shoot Nishi right up his shaft and he dies. Nishi ends up in an afterlife of sorts and challenges the ever-changing god there to let him go back, so he gets sent back just before he was shot and turns the tables and plugs his original shooter. Nishi then runs off into the night with Myon and Yan who steal the yakuza's car, so now there's an entire fleet of gangsters chasing after them. Once they go off a bridge, the three escapees are immediately swallowed by a gigantic whale where they spend the remainder of the film along with an old castaway who has been trapped in the whale for decades. After a great deal of trippy dream sequences and self-reflecting, Nishi and the others manage to eventually get out of the whale. The story then goes back in time to where Nishi first runs into Myon and we see different flash forwards of what the characters' lives might be like in this new timeline.

Mind Game is a particular pastiche of an anime movie which you need to put your expectation on hold to watch because its unconventional storytelling will completely baffle most non-otaku or fans of auteur cinema. Its offbeat plot is one of most intriguing of all time for an animated film, especially since its title is so pretentious. It is a schizophrenic experience that bombed on its original release but has gone to get 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, but Masaaki Yuasa managed craft a nonsensical story that makes crazy anime like Dead Leaves seem tame by comparison.

ANI-MOVIES, *Children Who Chase Lost Voices

For Makoto Shinkai's third full-length anime movie, the future director of Your Name wrote an original story for it, although you will notice a great deal is borrowed from the works of Studio Ghibli. Children Who Chase Lost Voices is technically Shinkai's only isekai motion picture, and a large portion of it reflects Ghibli movies like Castle In The Sky, Princess Mononoke, and particularly Goro Miyazaki's Tales From Earthsea which is strange as most hardcore otaku were turned off by it. This was Shinkai's first fantasy movie as most of the prior ones had sci-fi elements, and his production company of Comix Wave Films brought its A-game with the jaw-dropping landscapes and striking sky backdrops. Unlike most of Shinkai's other movies, there is superb detail given to some of the film's action sequences which makes you with the director would eventually head up a shonen project. The major theme of the story is learning to let go of those who have passed on and how this compulsive need can drive people to cross entire worlds to make the pain stop.

Asuna is a responsible girl who learned to take care of herself since her father died and her mother is a full-time nurse. Whenever she's not at school, Asuna has her own little sanctuary in the mountains, but one day she encounters a mysterious beast on a bridge, although she is saved by a young boy named Shun who claims to be from the country of Agartha. Asuna later learns Shun's corpse was found in the woods, while at the same time a substitute teacher Morisaki takes over her class and starts mentions the fictional land of Agartha which is supposed to by underneath the surface that is connected to the Hollow Earth belief. Asuna then runs into a lad named Shin who is Shun's younger brother who came to collect a crystal Shun left behind. The two of them are attacked by a military organization labeled Arch Angel which Morisaki is an agent of and is bent on finding Agartha. Shun and Asuna make it to the hidden door to Agartha where Morisaki follows them leaving the other Arch Angel soldiers behind as he came to this magical realm to find a way to resurrect his deceased wife. Shun parts ways from them as he returns the crystal, but it turns out Aauna had a similar crystal of her own left behind by her father, so know he has to track them down while avoiding other hunters sent to capture the topsiders. Asuna and Morisaki now journey to a place called the Gate of Life and Death where wishes can be granted, and Asuna wants to find a way to be reunited with Shin, despite the endless army of shadow monsters that pursue them.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices shows why Makoto Shinkai has often been called the "next Miyazaki", even though for this film its more Goro Miyazaki than his father Hayao. The film lacks slightly from pacing issues and not having a definitive direction as you don't always know where the plot is going with a new story element is added every few minutes. The inner world of Agartha is something out of an RPG daydream which could have used a few more random encounters or the occasional boss battle to liven things up a little. Asuna is an interesting protagonist who in the end isn't as determined as she thinks she is in her quest, although her mentor figure of Morisaki is seriously in this for himself but with some moments of care for Asuna. This was the longest of Shinkai's films to date when it's clear it could have been trimmed by at least ten minutes. If you've seen any fantasy anime, then you'll find something familiar here, but its major draw is Shinkai's unparalleled cinematic perspective.

ANI-MOVIES, *Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko

Based on Kanako Nishi's novel, Fortune Favors Lady Nikuko was directed by Witch Hat Atelier's Ayumu Watanabe with animation crafted by Studio 4C whose resume goes all the way back to Katsuhiro Otomo's classic Memories. This was a comedic slice-of-life story between a girl and her mostly clueless mother and how her bad life decisions led to the dire straits they're currently in. It's not so much of a full-length story but comedic segments strung out with a several flashbacks to fit a singular plot, similar to like that in My Neighbors The Yamadas.

Kikuko lives in a houseboat in a harbor town with her overweight mother Nikuko who has a long history of continuously getting hornswoggled out of her money by bloodsucking bachelors. Nikuko now works as a waitress at a bar and grill, but Kikuko is more the more responsible one even though she's still in elementary school. She makes friends with a boy student who makes funny faces when he thinks nobody is looking, who is one of the few sensible people she knows with her classmates arguing about who plays on whose team in basketball. Nikuko has recently been gaining more weight, and her carefree behavior causes Kikuko to feel embarrassed even though most of the locals find her eccentricities charming. We learn that Nikuko is not Kikuko biological mother but her former best friend's who couldn't accept the responsibility of being a parent, even though she later marries a rich man and has two children with him. Despite hearing this painful truth, Kikuko still considers Nikuko her real mother and lovers her with all her faults.

The film spends an inordinate amount of time focusing on Nikuko's weird perspective, like constantly making bad puns from Japanese kanji, which is one of the reasons that this movie wasn't given an English dub. This lackadaisy storytelling also makes it difficult to keep up with the wobbly narrative. Studio 4C on the other hand does pump the film with gorgeous visuals to keep the viewer's mind engaged for a brief 97-minute anime production.

ANI-MOVIES: *The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The first unofficial movie released by Studio Chizu was 2006's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Based on the 1967 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui who also wrote the book Paprika that Satoshi Kon turned into his own anime film, this story has been adapted multiple times in different formats including live-action motion pictures and a TV series. The anime movie was produced by Belle writer Mamoru Hosoda with a screenplay by Satoko Okudera who also wrote the script for Summer Wars. The film is a stand-alone story which acts as a pseudo-sequel to the original 1967 book with the niece of the book's main character. In the book, a girl named Kazuko discovers she can leap back in time to a few days thanks to coming into contact with a man from the future, although in the book she ends up having her memory erased of the whole event, but in the anime movie Kazuko seems to somehow maintain her memories. The dubbing was provided by the Viz Entertainment regulars from Ocean Studios and was first released in English by Bandai, and later on by Funimation. Even though this was eventually redistributed under Studio Chizu, it was initially produced by the geniuses at Madhouse to many accolades.

Makoto is a typical Japanese high school student, not excelling with high grades and somewhat klutzy, but she has two platonic boy schoolmates, Chiaki and Kosuke. Her aunt Kazuko usually referred to as a witch works at restoring paintings at a museum, and Makoto comes to her when she has a strange encounter where she literally leaps through time after nearly hitting a train with her malfunctioning bike. Turns out Kazuko had a similar experience when she was younger which only briefly gets referenced to in the movie, but this makes her think that time leaping is a common thing for some people in her family. Makoto uses her newfound ability to go back to the past reliving similar experiences but exiting whenever she wants, plus she doesn't seem to have to deal with any pesky paradoxes like running into an alternate version of herself as each leap sets up a totally separate timeline for her just slip into. This has a serious caveat to it as it effects the lives of the people around her, this bringing the strange message she first saw when she gained her power which states the "time waits for no one". Makoto learns that a girl has deep feelings for Kosuke, so she tries to set the two of them up, while at the same time Chiaki tries to ask Makoto out. There is a major twist that lays out the entirety of the final act which plays outside of Makoto's control as her supply of time leaps begins to run out, and the giveaway is very convoluted with lots of dangling plot threads and unanswered questions. Ultimately though, the focus of the story is more character-based and how people's relationships can be shaken by even the most minimal changes.

The finale does spread a large emotional doubt on how to interpret the original intentions of this adaptation of a 40-year-old book which just resolved everything by giving all the characters involved with amnesia. However, this remake doesn't make people forget and instead Makoto has to deal with the consequences of her actions in both the present and altered present, even as she comes to terms about how she feels about her friends and what kind of future she wants to walk into. Mamoru Hosadu made this a visually stunning film with many scenes just taking in the beauty of the mundane world in the background which is something he'd utilize in future productions like Wolf Children and Mirai, although Mirai seemed to have a better grasp on the concept of time travel than this film did. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is more of a character study than a fully realized story and borderlines being episodic as it's broken down into to the 3-act structure, especially at its conclusion. The anime movie is at best a loose adaptation of the source material, and the film is charming most of the time, while simultaneously leaving a hard impact with some of the revelations we learn about upon the way. This delivers as a solid quality animated production, but the time tripping can leave the viewer wanting to know more about the true history of some of these characters which this film doesn't deliver on.

R.I.P. Peter Cullen

 

R.I.P. Tim Curry

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Grave Of The Fireflies

The horrors of World War II have been the focus of several anime films including Barefoot Gen and Rail Of The Star, but Grave Of The Fireflies is considered the definitive movie, especially since it was the second outing for Studio Ghibli. Oddly enough, since this came out the same year as Ghibli's My Neighbor Totoro, it was sold as a double feature with the film in various international releases at the time which makes for a severe contrast in tone going from war atrocities to a cheerful modern day fairy tale. Isao Takahata directed this and went on to direct an even more opposite anime movie in Kiki's Delivery Service which was also an uplifting family picture but didn't hold back on the inhumanity that war takes on both sides of the story, which is striking considering this was the first film Takahata directed for Ghibli. Most have seen this film as being Takahata's magnum opus, even though it's one of the most somber movies ever made and it drains enough from just one viewing that you never feel the need to watching a second time. It's visually revered and thought of as being one of Ghibli's most detailed movies of the 80s, but the sobering effect that the story has on you will quickly take you out of being mesmerized by anything you see. This was based on a short story by Akiyuki Nosaka who wrote it in 1967 to make amends for losing his adopted younger sister as Japan was recovering from the fall of war which he basically saw himself as a coward but still lived to tell his story. This is the only other Ghibli movie that neither Disney nor GKids owned the rights to outside of The Red Turtle.

Starting in late 1945, we see a homeless boy named Seita die of starvation in a train station with his spirit joining that of his departed sister Setsuko in a field full of fireflies. The story then skips back a few months later where their home is bombed by Americans during the Pacific War. Seita and his sister move in with their aunt as their father is still in the navy, but it's later on told that he was probably killed after Japan surrendered. Seita doesn't have a school or place to work at as they were all destroyed during the air raids, so his aunt gets cross with them complaining that she tires of having to take care of anyone outside her immediate family. Seita and Setsuka move out on their own and live in a nearby air shelter, although Seita resorts to stealing from other people in order to keep the two of them alive. Setsuka eventually dies of malnutrition, with Seita burning her body to ashes and keeping them inside a tin can that he used to keep candy in for her.

The message of Grave Of The Fireflies wasn't intended to be an anti-war movie, but more how the lives of those who survive a war are inevitably destroyed by it. There is no real authority working against the pair of siblings, although their bipolar aunt pulls a major switch at some point when she gets fed up with being responsible for estranged family, which in fact shows how the war turned people inwards and only caring for themselves and their loved ones leaving all the other victims out in the cold. Ghibli's craftmanship shines brightly in this despite the haunting musical score and the heart wrenching plight of these orphans who have been abandoned by a self-gratifying society. This film is a must-see for any aficionado of animation as the emotional hand-drawn style is something that is lost on movies of today, however the weight of guilt that the story tries to burden you with makes it difficult to watch more than once in a lifetime.