ANI-MOVIES, *Puss In Boots: The Last Wish

While most of the last few Shrek movies were met with varying standards of quality, the first spinoff of Puss In Boots from 2011 received a mediocre response. So, it’s weird that 11 years later that DreamWorks would choose to a sequel to it. This time under Universal instead of Paramount, Puss In Boots: The Last Wish, the production got juiced up to Spider-Verse levels of animation with paintbrush aesthetics. Gone are most of the pop culture references, fart jokes, and pointless singalong finales as we got fantastic thrill ride with a familiar character but in a totally different kind of fairy tale parody. For one thing, there was way less Disney-bashing in this as showing disdain for them has practically become a national pastime at this point, and this helped DreamWorks give the Shrek franchise its own pair of legs so they’re not just throwing eggs at their old bosses. The film was in development limbo for a while, and it’s possible that this would have gone straight to streaming and even thought that worked for K-Pop Demon Hunters, it might not have found the audience it wanted if parents didn’t already trust the Shrek brand as something for the children to watch in theaters. This wasn’t just a fantasy adventure either but an ode to Clint Eastwood’s Dollars Trilogy with desperado showdowns mixed in with Puss’ swashbuckling antics.

Taking place after parting ways with the regular Shrek cast, Puss has gone back to being a solo buccaneer and dies after fighting a giant. He awakens to have a doctor tell him that he’s down to the last of his nine lives, which at first Puss brushes off, but gets terminally scared with a huge wolf claiming to be Death himself comes to claim his last life. Puss tries hiding in an old cat lady’s cottage where he meets the overly chipper puppy Perrito. Suddenly, the criminal gang of Goldilocks and her bear family come looking for Puss to help them find the Wishing Star that lies in the middle of the Dark Forest to grant them a single wish. The map to find this is in the clutches of a grown-up Jack Horner who hoards magical items and wants to wish for all the magic in the world. Working against all these grabby hands is the inclusion of Puss’ old girlfriend Kitty Softpaws who also want to make a with, so Puss teams up with Kitty and Perrito after getting the map so he can wish for more lives, with Goldilocks and the bears are on their tail, plus Horner and his enchanted arsenal in a big chase to claim the wish.

Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek’s return as Puss and Kitty is the only big continuation from the former Shrek productions, but they put on a great performance reprising their roles. Producer Joel Crofford helped raise the grade of animation as even though the character designs are roughly the same but with added textures and less motion blur effects which make the movements seem more fluid which helps give the movie a better adaptation of an illustrated fairy tale. There’s great detail given to the background with subtle jokes and callbacks, plus real drama is added to the serious parts as the final duel between Puss and Death, and the body count piles up as people literally die along the way. The Last Wish is amazing as a stand-alone story that doesn’t require you to have seen the original or any other Shrek stuff, so give it a watch and you’ll find out why this sequel to a spinoff was worth all the hype.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Ribbon Hero

Osamu Tezuka was the point of departure when anyone brings up the founding of anime and manga, and one of his lesser-known creations was Ribbon No Kishi, otherwise known in English as Princess Knight. This was a manga Tezuka came up with in the 50s, and had it turned into an anime series in 1967 which had a limited English dub that aired in syndication. Since then, there has been no new animated adaptations, even though this was one of the first anime heroines to lead her own series and began the concept of genderbending in anime which inspired shows like Utena and Rose Of Versailles. The story is about a princess who was born with the heart of a male and female and usually engaged in swashbuckling adventures you’d expect out of your average Musketeer tale. Cue ahead to 2026 where Netflix finally dusted the idea off for a new movie titled The Ribbon Hero and made the point that this is a reboot and not a remake as there are some hints to the original franchise that show up near the end. With all the gender-fluid anime out now, you’d think this movie would embrace the non-binary aspects, but instead the director Yuki Igarashi barely covered it and turned this into a compressed story under two hours long, so it’s almost like you’re watching a TV series compilation instead of a fully fleshed out plot. This is a shame because animation studios Outline and Twin Engine did manage to make it beautifully picturesque, even though there are moments of slapstick that hinder the experience.

Seven years ago, the kingdom of Silverland was decimated by a monstrous Nergal, a stone-skinned kaiju under control of the mysterious King of Ash, and one of the only survivors is the Princess Sapphire who lost an arm during the attack. The other survivor is the royal scientist Zirco who is a short old lady that uses a small hovercraft to get around and makes Sapphire a new mechanical arm. The two make their way to the kingdom of Goldland led by the Mitra forces which have kept the King of Ash at bay by making the occasional sacrifice with innocent young souls. Sapphire makes friends with the local girl Pine and the two of them for a very sapphic bond, but she gets a job working in the mines digging for a special crystal. On her first day, Sapphire uses her magical ribbon to transform into a warrior called the Princess Knight when a Nergal attacks. This attracts the attention of Mitra lord Velvet who gets Sapphire to attack several points on the map that Nergal could return from. Despite these efforts, Nergal slowly begin to invade Goldland, and it’s up to the Princess Knight to save the kingdom as the gigantic King of Ash finally appears to receive its sacrifice. It’s later revealed that Sapphire is the latest incarnation of the Princess Knight and it’s a position given to a champion forged to defeat evil, so Sapphire has inherited the title from her 1960s predecessor.

The Ribbon Hero is a radical departure from the original premise and incorporates elements of the magical girl genre, particularly from Madoka Magica. Lesbian fangirls will revel with the sapphic representation here, plus the addition of the androgynous Velvet helps diversify it. The problem with the film shifts from a serious world-shattering crisis to a Tex Avery cartoon in a heartbeat. The narrative seriously lacks context and has trouble centering on a singular objective as near the end the film switches to live-action shots of the anime studios that helped produce it like the fourth wall breaks in End Of Evangelion. It’s hard to compare this to the original Princess Knight TV series because it’s presented as a stage play divided into acts where each is like a condensed arc. Sapphire’s binary nature also isn’t as prevalent here as in the 60s show, but the story does succeed in delivering the idea that the tale of the Princess Knight can be retold for a new generation and continue as an enduring legend.

ANI-MOVIES, *Isle Of Dogs

Whereas The Fantastic Mr. Fox was based on a Roald Dahl book, Wes Anderson's second stop-motion animated film was an original idea thought up mostly by him in Isle Of Dogs. This is a futuristic future fable set in a fictional Japanese city but told through the perspective of American viewers. Wes Anderson's auteur-driven filmmaking is on full display here with distinctive symmetry, unique color pallettes, quirky writing, and introspective dialogue. The animation is more fluid than Mr. Fox with a better frame rate which takes this up to Laika levels of productions, although there is some 2D animation thrown in whenever they have the occasional shot being shown a video display. Anderson was inspired to do this from the old Rankin-Bass 3D specials, plus borrowed some plot elements from various Disney films shown from the dog's perspective as well as The Plague Dogs. The film was PG-13 and intended for older audiences as there is some animal cruelty and mature themes which wasn't as cohesive as most people with families might have hoped for, but despite its limited theatrical release it gained numerous accolades. There was some controversy as the plot was catered more for Americans which incorporated colonialism as well as ignoring genuine Japanese culture as the film has stereotypical elements like sumo wrestling, kabuki theater, and haiku is apparently the ultimate form of speechmaking, plus the addition of a blonde American transfer student to advance the story who was ultimately pointless.

Happening in the 2030s, the Japanese town of Megasaki is under the corrupt rule of Mayor Kobayashi who has been planning on ridding their streets of dogs as most of the people running the town are huge cat lovers. To accomplish this, they design a flu intended for dogs, have all the dogs banished to the neighboring garbage-ridden Trash Island, and suppress any chances or protests to thwart their plans, including poisoning a professor who had developed a cure for the flu. Kobayashi inherited his position of mayor from his brother who passed away, and he adopted his rebellious nephew Atari who has created his own self-repaired plane to rescue his guard dog Spots. Atari crashes and is found by a pack of five dogs who decide to help him find Spots, even though the one stray of them named Chief isn't totally with the others on their decision. Chief and Atari get separated from the others and finally come across Spots who it turns out to be Chief's long-lost brother and is leader of a tribe of outcasted dogs, so Chief accepts his brother's position of bodyguard. All this is going on when the minority of dog lovers in Megasaki work against Kobayshi's plan, specifically a foreign exchange student who secretly falls for Atari. The showdown comes down to the dog refugees with their advocates breaking into Kobayashi's re-election celebration where it's revealed that everything was engineered by the mayor's Major Domo who planned this whole conspiracy. The dogs are accepted back into the city, the dog flu is cured, and Chief begins a partnership along a nice female dog he briefly met earlier in the movie.

Isle Of Dogs is one a kind in comparison to other stop-motion animated movies, even among the craft of Tim Burton's productions, although it does give into some cartoon cliches like whenever there's a big dog fight the entire scuffle is covered by a cloud of dust. The cast made this an amazing experience with Bryan Cranston as Chief returning to his anime roots back when he dubbed Macross Plus, plus other Wes Anderson regulars like Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, and Bill Murray. The story relies heavily on flashbacks and monologues that is big on backstory, so be ready for a non-linear experience. Anderson's idiosyncratic brand of cinematography shines in his second animated outing, and despite some its cultural flaws this is a film that demands repeat viewings to soak up all the hidden gems.

ANI-MOVIES, *Angel's Egg

For the first original movie by Ghost In The Shell director Mamoru Oshii, Angel's Egg is probably the most surrealistic anime movie ever made. Coming out in 1985, Oshii partnered with Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano to make an enigmatic fantasy that to this day people are still trying to figure out. Studio Deen who first broke out in the Urusei Yatsura TV series was the production company behind this multi-layered film. This was an original story dreamt up by Oshii and Amano to which there has yet to have been anything to compare it to, and it has only recently become available in English thanks to GKids. After 40 years of escaping American localization, Angel's Egg had finally been cracked open for otaku everywhere to discover and dissect for themselves. The animation and design are incomparable to nearly any other anime of the time, and its visually breathtaking imagery could only have come out at the dawn of the OVA market when experimental production was at its peak. Titles such as The Time Stranger and Nausicaa would blend otherworldly elements together, but Angel's Egg was a bold new direction taking place in a completely original world of its own. However, the films esoteric perspective made it a hard sell for Western release despite its hypnotic appeal. The slow-moving animation coupled with the slightly muffled musical score creates its own world for the viewer to get lost in and either brush off as being dull or to be thoroughly analyzed in ways that make Evangelion look like a list of cheat notes.

Set in an undetermined time and place, an unnamed girl dwelling in an abandoned city collects water for herself while taking care of a large egg she found and carries with her. The girl come across a wandering older boy carrying a strange crucifix-shaped weapon, and the two of them watch as numerous fishermen throw spears throughout the city in the chance of spearing schools of non-corporeal giant fish which only cast huge shadows with no physical trace of their existence. The girl tells the boy that she believes the egg is that of an angel which might bring new life to the world, although the boy believes that the egg symbolizes that they are all caught in an endless loop, so he smashes the egg when the girl finally sleeps. The girl awakens to find nothing but a cracked eggshell, so she chases after the boy leading to a very ambiguous ending which depending on your perspective either shows the dystopian landscape either being freed from despair or it's just a moebious strip ensnaring all within it in repeating purgatory.

Prior to GKids, Angel's Egg did get a physical release in America in 1988, but this was a totally different beast. The film was a blending of the anime along with original live-action segments in a forgotten project titled In The Aftermath which diverts the story in an even more incomprehensible way. New Line Cinema premiered this with a VHS found usually only in video rental stores, and Arrow Video gave it a Blu-Ray release in 2019, but a majority of American otaku were blissfully unaware of this Frankenstein creation. Even though anyone who watched this version of the movie was probably confused out of their mind when comparing it to the original anime, hardcore anime fans became familiar with Angel's Egg thanks to good old reliable fansubs. The new GKids release has the entire unedited animation motion picture with its first ever English dub, even though it did take its sweet time getting here considering the caliber of talent behind it. New Line's slapdash rehash of the anime kept the film in licensing limbo for years, but now its overdue homecoming has arrived and available on Blu-Ray and streaming.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Croods: A New Age

Joel Crawford was given the reigns of the Puss In Boots sequel which took everyone by surprise, but before that he directed another DreamWorks sequel, The Croods: A New Age. Released 7 years after the original, this continues the prehistoric sitcom as the titular family finally reach some other humans. This took longer to release because of the pandemic which caused much of the work to be done by creators working in lockdown from home. The Croods was doing good enough as a franchise with an animated TV prequel, and was given a follow-up taking place after The New Age. All the original cast returns with this being Cloris Leachman's voice over swansong, plus the addition of Peter Dinklage and Kelly Marie Tran makes the new talent welcoming.

Still on the look for a perfect settlement in their new country, Guy and Eep get further along in their young romance. Conveniently, Grug discovers a family called the Bettermans made of Phil, Hope, and their daughter Dawn who managed to create their own sealed off paradise all because they cut off the water supply to a valley to their home. The Bettermans were friends of Guy's family and they got separated before his parents died, and now Phil along with Hope plan to get Guy to be Dawn's husband, even though he's already betrothed to Eep. Grug and Ugga pick up that the Bettermans are trying to push them away, so get back at them for eating all the bananas which is the one forbidden fruit the Bettermans have a rule for. Turns out, Phil would give all the bananas to an army of punchy monkeys who in turn offer them to their giant mandrill overlord, and they all kidnap all the mens. So now, it is up to the remaining females to rescue them as they ride in on wolf-spiders to defeat the primates and save their families.

The Croods: A New Age is a good animated movie sequel with an noticable upgrade in the animation, although the designs on the Bettermans seem like they were copied from a cache of unused DreamWorks background characters. A large number of the jokes fall flat, and the movie is overly reliant on needledrop moments for their soundtrack. It's an amusing feature, although whether or not you'll find much replay value out of this is up to the viewer.

ANI-MOVIES, *Lu Over The Wall

After The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl came out in 2017, Science Saru had their second anime film released in the same year, both put out by Toho. Lu Over The Wall might seem like yet another anime take on The Little Mermaid, although this one is not a romance, however you will notice the film bears a resemblance to Ponyo as the mermaid here is more of a little sister to the male protagonist. Even the creator Masaaki Yuasa began to see how his story reflected Ponyo as he was making it, and he took the same approach a few years later when he directed Ride Your Wave. Science Saru really experimented with different styles of animation with hand-drawn key frames with all the in-betweens done with Flash, and keep in mind this was still the late 2010s, but the film still looks like a traditionally animated production. There are a few songs added to this movie too, but it couldn't count as a musical as its all performed by a band. GKids did gave the dub a good treatment, although for some reason a few of the songs were left in Japanese while some were dubbed in English.

Set in a bayside fishing village, Kai lives in emotional solitude with his father and grandfather while his mother left them to have a singing career in Tokyo. Kai has his parents' love for music and a talent for it which gets the attention of two of his schoolmates, Yuho and Kunio, and they form a band called Seiren. Kai's music attracts a Ningyu which is the Japanese equivalent of a mermaid, but instead of being a nice-looking redhead this mermaid named Lu looks more like baby Muppet, plus she grows human-like legs whenever she hears music she likes, and she takes a real liking to Kai and his music despite the fact that sunlight could kill her. Lu's existence becomes known to the rest of the village, and they want to use her as the mascot for their abandoned amusement park, so Seiren tries to help Lu along with her giant shark father, but the townsfolk prejudice evokes a curse which threatens to drown the village. Lu and Kai eventually lift the curse, then Lu along with the other merfolk creatures must leave the village coast because there's no longer anything blocking out the sun, but Kai resolves to pursue his passion in music until he and Lu can be reunited.

Lu Over The Wall is a fine movie for the whole family with no violence, even though there are some frightening imageries throughout the course of the film. Masaaki Yuasa took this comic fantasy in an unorthodox direction, both visually and tonally, plus the animation style can radically change which make it hard to keep up with figuring out whether the scene you're seeing is a flashback or not. Again, don't expect this to be a tale of star-crossed lovers like The Little Mermaid, although there is a small romantic element to it. If you've already watched Ponyo, then this isn't too unfamiliar, but it does pick up to slapstick levels of Tex Avery antics as it goes along. The plot is diverse as well as divisive among anime fans, but you might find something refreshing here.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Bad Guys 2

Being the franchise factory that they are, DreamWorks figured they'd apply the same arrangement for The Bad Guys. Coming out three years after the original, The Bad Guys 2 not only put the brand name back on tracks but also helped launch a prequel animated TV series on Netflix. The animation here reaches an even higher peak than the original did, and they literally raise the stakes by taking the premise and launches it into space which is usually where you take a franchise after you don't know what to do with it anymore (see Jason X for reference). The story takes a good approach on showing how reformed villains are treated after they renounced their evil ways by how no one wants to give them a chance at fitting into civilian society. The story does advance things a little fast as most characters seem to get more advanced in their personal progress that a single sequel should cover, although at least DreamWorks doesn't look like they'll keep this premise jumping through several hoops like they did with the Shrek movies.

Now being good, the Bad Guys have been trying to get legitimate jobs but keep getting shut down. Meanwhile, a crimewave hits town with a new thief called the Phantom Bandit when it's really a trio of female crooks referred to as the Bad Girls who set up Wolf and the others to join them in their latest caper by having them take the fall for a heist involving a luchador wrestling match. The Bad Girls include their leopard leader Kitty Kat, Pigtail the boar, and Doom the raven who manipulates Snake into falling for her. Kitty Kat's big scheme is to steal a space shuttle and collecting a made-up mineral called MacGuffinite to attract all the gold in the world to the International Space Station which for some reason is totally unmanned, and as leverage Kitty threatens to expose Governor Diane's criminal past. The Bad Guys go along with it, but the Bad Girls get the drop on them and expose Diane's hidden history to the internet. With nothing left to lose, the Bad Guys get a lift on the shuttle, win over Pigtail and Doom to their side, and stop Kitty's ludicrous plan. However, they along with Diane fake their deaths and are asked to become part of a special spy team called ISGLOP, while it turns out the entire caper was a plot by the villain from the first movie to get out of jail and is really an alien.

The Bad Guys 2 isn't a common sequel and leveled up the formula by taking it several steps forward. Normally, the first sequel to an animated film has the characters running through the same routine as in the original, but this film continues the story and levels it up to Super-Saiyan 2. The best aspect here is the animation which takes anthropomorphic characters with standard cartoon designs and blends it together with stunning action sequences. The CGI animation is dynamic and takes quite a few hints from Sony with their Spider-Verse outings. The only downside is that it tried to stuff too much into a single film meaning that the third movie will go ballistic with whatever outrageous plot it has in store.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Place Promised In Our Early Days

Makoto Shinkai's first full-length anime movie came out in 2004 titled The Place Promised In Our Early Days, and similar to his future works such as Your Name and Weathering With You this anime has star-crossed lovers separated by cosmic forces. This was also the first time Shinkai had worked with a full staff as opposed to when he started out doing his animated-short movies and OVAs all on his own, so when he hooked up with Comix Wave Inc. it was a match made in heaven as their combined efforts left its mark for years to come. This movie was able to bridge a great divide that still exists between anime fans and non-fans that anime is a media and not a genre, meaning its appeal isn't limited to simply a certain demographic, and this became much clearer as Shinkai's career went on as his productions went on to enrapture audiences, mostly due to the creator's work becoming more accessible to newcomers and when his films were given longer running tile, not that this hampered 5 Centimeters Per Second which was just under an hour long and got a live-action adaptation. The story itself is an alternate history yarn, and like most tales of that genre it involves WWII, but this is combined with a coming-of-age romance with heavy sci-fi overtones. It's almost like you're watching Evangelion minus the giant robots and monsters. In fact, most of the expository scenes that try to fill in the technobabble your used to hearing from Star Trek looks like all the high-tech facilities look like they take place in Tokyo-3, even the computer displays and control room layouts. Taking this parallel universe premise and fitting in a believable love story wasn't easy, but Shinkai managed to do it.

This is set in modern day in a world where Japan was split into two sections post-WWII, the north occupied by Russia, and the south occupied by America, also the Cold War is still active in this timeline. Two schoolfriends in the south, Hiroki and Takuya, are rebuilding an old aircraft they found and plan to make it flyable again so they can go to an enormous tower in the north region. Hiroki has a crush on his schoolmate Sayuri and invites her to see their progress. The boys promise to take Sayuri with her on their future endeavor, but then she goes missing and three years pass with Hiroki and Takuya abandoning their planned flight. After a time skip, Takuya is now a physicist working on a method of utilizing energy from parallel realities and finds out that Sayuri has been in a coma during all this time and her dreams are affecting the interaction between their universe and others. Hiroki has been living on his own but gets dreams from Sayuri who finally breaks through and informs him that her subconscious is trapped in a world where she's the only one in it, so Hiroki teams up with Takuya to free Sayuri from her mental exile. The two old schoolfriends meet up again to finish repairs on their plane and fly the comatose Sayuri to the tower which is acting as the nexus for all the multiverse mix-ups run by the northern faction. Since it's only a two-seater, Hiroki pilots the plane with Takuya stays behind all while both halves of Japan on the brink of war. Not to give away the ending, but it has a more satisfying conclusion than Shinkai's Five Centimeters Per Second.

The Place Promised In Our Early Days was first released in America through ADV Films but was later available on certain streaming servers and only subtitled. GKids eventually re-released it on home video format and streaming with the American dub. This was Makoto Shinkai's big theatrical debut, and it won lots of film festival awards, although in comparison to most of his other works this movie is slightly jumbled when Shinkai tried to combine a slice-of-life story with the overlapping interdimensional tropes. Shinkai managed to untangle this knot by the time he started his Disaster Trilogy as most of the otherworldly elementals are explained as simply being magic. Aside from the plot complications, this anime is glittering with Shinkai's particular style with lush horizons and backgrounds that make Ghibli look pale in comparison, plus the character designs are simple and reminiscent of 90s TV anime which at times works against the detailed landscapes. The film altogether is great but compared to Shinkai's future works it is not as memorable.

ANI-MOVIES, *Hercules

Rather than sticking with his original name, Disney decided for its 35th full-length animated movie to go with the more well-known Roman name of the mythical Greek hero, Hercules. Instead of this being an epic saga up there with The Odyssey, Disney decided to turn this into a musical done to gospel for some reason and threw in more pop culture callbacks than any historically inaccurate parody could comfortably contend with. This was directed and written by the combined talents of Ron Clemments and John Musker, and they figured that their modernized approach to the Hercules myth could work exactly like it did with their take on Aladdin. The Disney version attempts to establish how Hercules was the original superhero prototype and how he went through several struggles to reach his fame, although instead of crafting a relatable story that most kids in 1997 could wrap their head around it Disney went with a bit more of a cash grab and have a lifetime cycle of victories and losses into a whirling cavalcade of whatever happened to breeze into their minds at the time. This adaptation of Hercules showboats more than it needed to and could have been just a high production animated adventure which is a genre that most theatrical Disney productions tend to skip on. Obviously in order to make the film more kid friendly they had to edit out most of Hercules' tragic moments like when he turned psycho and killed his whole family, but accomplish that Disney had to pacify the general audiences. To this they added music numbers that had no business being in the film specifically sung by the main characters about what they want out of life. Another unwanted premise was the quirky attention-grabbing secondary character introduced halfway through the movie which worked for Genie in Aladdin but here started Disney's spiral down with the introduction of the annoying Phil and continued onward with other placeholders like Mushu in Mulan and BEN in Treasure Planet which are characters that demand you stop thinking about the ropey narrative and pay attention to their overhyped antics. Hercules isn't based on a fairy tale, so that was already working against the Disney formula, plus anyone who spotted the historical hiccups in the Pocahontas movie most have had a field day pointing the ones in this one. Despite the plot complications and its questionable approach to bringing a world-famous fable to life, Disney did manage to make this one of the most visually arresting animated films of the 90s which is something a great number of people failed to notice upon seeing this for the first time, and its character designs by cartoonist Gerald Scarfe helped establish the film's unique style.

In ye olde Greece, Zeus and Hera have their god newborn son Hercules, but Zeus' charismatic brother Hades sees his nephew as a serious roadblock in his future plan to take over the world. Hades gives baby Hercules a potion which makes him mostly mortal with no memory of his origins and is raised by mortals. Years later, Hercules gets in touch with his real father who relays that Hercules can get his godhood if he becomes a genuine hero. To get this Hercules trains under the hero training satyr Phil, when it should have been Chiron who was Achilles' Jedi Master. A while later, Hercules returns and begins to bash monsters and other menaces with his super-strength which angers Hades whose plans involve releasing the Titans from their prison and conquer Mt. Olympus, so he sends a distressed damsel who owes him a favor to distract him. The non-princess heroine Megara (or Meg) gets in good with Hercules and become the Delilah to his Samson, even though she begins to actually care about him and sees the real goodness in him. The time comes for Hades' scheme to unfold, so he makes a deal with Hercules to become totally mortal while the Titans assault Mt. Olympus so long as Meg isn't hurt. Meg saves Hercules at the cost of her own life which gives him his strength back and defeats the Titans. Herc then travels to Tartarus to free Meg's soul, regains his full godhood, and sends Hades drowning in the river Styx for probably all eternity.

Hercules did very well and made three times its budget back merely from the theatrical release alone. The music by Alan Menkin is good but most of the songs not sung by the gospel-themed muses are flat. The star-studded cast includes James Woods in the performance of his troubled career as Hades, and the former Broadway version of Belle actress Susan Egan as Meg, although Tate Donovan as the title character is lackluster, and Danny DeVito's unriveting riffs as Phil get real tired real fast. The movie managed to spawn a non-canonical midquel animated TV series that lasted only a single season and didn't get much traction, even after a crossover with Aladdin. Disney's Hercules made its mark on cinematic animation, even though after three decades its flaws are still transparently apparent.

ANI-MOVIES, *Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning

Long before K-Pop Demon Hunters, Korea had a totally different collective of demon slayers. Toemarok started out as a book in 1994 by Lee Woo-hyeok which later went on to become a live-action movie titled The Soul Guardians, a hit manhwa (Korean manga), and recently a Webtoon series. In 2024, a full-length animated prequel was made which translated into English as Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning which sounds like it's the opening chapter of a movie franchise although there haven't been any plans for a follow-up sequel as of yet. Locus Animation Studios produced this CGI feature with a style that most American fans will identify as being similar to Arcane, but it's not totally up to the same level as some modern-day anime films. The movie took over six years to complete and was entirely animated in Korea, plus the studio created it without using any AI during its production.

Father Wood is a Christian priest in Korea that was excommunicated for performing exorcisms, and he is asked by an old friend-turned-monk to help protect the young Jun-hoo who is a young prodigy that has been trained in all the magics of Esoteric Buddhism. The head of the Buddhist order is planning on sacrificing Jun-hoo to claim his powers and become a god by making a pact with demonic forces. While this is going on, teenager Hyun-am is on a journey to increase his spiritual powers and get revenge on a monster that killed his sister, and his path has crossed with the battle against the possessed Buddhist leader. In the end, all three heroes are the only survivors of the encounter with a post-credit scene revealing a fourth member to their team who is an exorcist in her own right.

Exorcism Chronicles: The Beginning does take a while assembling the main characters that the original book and comics are based on, so a good portion of other characters get brutally murdered. The film is an ambitious blend of action and horror with visceral sequences and truly eerie shocks. This was animated by some the same team behind Red Shoe And The Seven Dwarfs, so it's good to see they can go from making a Shreck-influenced fairy tale parody to a dark supernatural fantasy that would make even hardcore horror hounds flinch.

ANI-MOVIES, *New Gods: Nezha Reborn

The Taost deity Nezha has a hit cinematic universe based on his legend from Bejing Enlight Entertainment, but another take on the chaotic fireball was turned into part of the New Gods (no relation to Jack Kirby) franchise and its first installment, Nezha Reborn. Release in 2021, just two years after the blockbuster adaptation, this is a completely separate entity, although it's easy to figure out that it was mainly done as a cash grab on the Investiture Of The Gods novel from the Ming Dynasty, but this was produced by Light Chaser Animation Studios and sets it sets apart by taking place in a dystopian future. Light Chaser had already made an impact on international animation with their White Snake trilogy, and their New Gods movie series continued in a spinoff of Yang Jian. Many people consider Nezha Reborn to be steampunk, but given that it's in a post-disaster world, that would place it more under cyberpunk, especially with all the updated technology and mecha suits.

Donghai is an oceanside city which is controlled by the De Clan syndicate who maintains authority by subverting the city's water which is in short supply, although this fact doesn't seem to come up much in the movie. The film actually starts with Yunxiang literally speaking to the viewer and introducing himself as if he knew he was a character in a fictional story, but for some reason he also doesn't do this again during the course of the story because from that point on he relies on inner monologue to act as the narrator. After a tussle with Bing, son of De Clan's leader Guang, Yunxiang suddenly gains pyrokinetic spiritual powers, and a strange hairy man wearing a huge mask tells him that he's the latest reincarnation of Nezha. The masked man is later revealed to be none other than Sun Wukong, the genuine Monkey King who has been kicking around for centuries waiting for Nezha so they could defeat the evil Dragon King that surprisingly is Guang. Wukong trains Yunxiang on how to use his powers, even though he never seems to get any help from the actual spirit of Nezha during most of the major fights. It isn't until near the end when Yunxiang practically dies trying to stop Guang, but only when the entire city is going to be totally flooded that Nezha finally decides to lend one of his six hands to save everyone. Yunxiang now has one of Nezha's old treasures and sets out to find the remaining divine arsenal.

Being a 3D animated film, New Gods: Nezha Reborn features an eye-catching production and you will see hints of other cyberpunk titles like Afro Samurai, Akira or Final Fantasy VII. The character development is acceptable, although most of Yunxiang's friends and family seem to suffer more than he does during his progress as a hero. You can currently catch Nezha Reborn streaming on Netflix, but the spinoff movie of Jian Xing was licensed by GKids so you might not be able to find both films on the same service.

ANI-MOVIES: *Ninokuni

Ninokuni started out as a JRPG with character designs and some original animated segments done by none other than Studio Ghibli, so in 2019 when Warner Bros. Japan released a full-length anime movie acting as a modern-day sequel to the games, you'd think that Ghibli would be the ones behind its production. It was in fact handled by OLM and produced by Ghibli animator Yoshiyuki Momose who provided the animation for the first two video games, and he produced Studio Ponoc's The Imaginary, so the characters in both of these productions a heavily inspired by Ghibli's work. The movie was a separate entity from what the video games established, so it isn't necessary to have played the games to get the plot. One thing the games and the movie have in common is they are both isekai, but the games had a foot up upon most of the isekai-based anime that cropped up during the late 2010s.

In modern day Japan, Haru is an athletic boy who is best friends with Yu, a paraplegic he's known since he was little. Haru is dating Kotona who gets attacked by a hooded stranger that stabs her, but she's saved by Yu, but the two have an argument and are suddenly spirited away to a fantasy world of Evermore where they're dressed in medieval garb and anthropomorphic animals are normal there. Yu can also walk in this reality, and he along with Haru find out that the Princess Astrid is a dead ringer for Kotona and is suffering from a cursed wound. Yu manages to heal her as he can see the dagger which is the same as the one used on Kotona. After returning to the real world, Yu and Haru learn that Kotona has a tumor. Yu figures that she and Astrid are each other's counterpart in different worlds. This makes Haru furious and he plans to kill Astrid to save Kotona, so he and Yu go back to Evermore and Haru signs up with the enemy army of the Black Banner. This is where the story becomes convoluted and suddenly an entire extra subplot is brought up by the reveal of the mastermind behind all these crossed swords was Evermore's main mage Gnauss who has been planning this scheme for decades and is really the king's older brother who came back from the dead, but the important part is that he has to kill Astrid in order to gain even greater magic as she inherited it, although he can't kill her directly because she's protected by a spell. Despite this plot twist, Gnauss tries to slay Astrid, but Yu and Haru reunite to stop him. Haru goes back to Japan, while Yu stays in Evermore, plus there's another curveball the film throws in at the last minute is that Yu was Haru's counterpart from Evermore who somehow made it to our world and now Haru is the only one who remembers him. Yu however turns out fine as he marries Astrid and becomes a king.

Ninokuni is not bogged down with world building, at least in the beginning, so its first half allows viewers to get settled into a magical realm. What doesn't work for this movie is the second half becomes a condensed narrative where you're suddenly confronted with a nearly completely detached story that barely ties to the established scenario. Ninokuni didn't make gangbusters money when it was theatrically released in Japan, but it being acquired by Netflix for Western audiences helped, even though you can still tell it suffers from a rushed ending. Fans of the JRPG will probably find something to like here, but if you're looking for a decent iseaki you might want one where the hero has to score with a bunch of horny elves.

ANI-MOVIES, *Miraculous: Ladybug And Cat Noir-The Movie

The French series that was first conceived in 2015 as a 2D anime series, Miraculous: Ladybug And Cat Noir instead went on to be 3D CGI TV show done with several production companies including Toei Animation. The animated series is a superhero and sometimes magical girl story about a teenage superhero named Ladybug who partners with her love interest Cat Noir to protect the world from chaos, most of which is caused by the well-meaning villain Hawk Moth. The plot is usually stuck in rotation with the "monster of the week" routine where some innocent person gets corrupted by evil and the masked heroes show up to purify them, some of these victims go on to become anime-themed superheroes on their own. This idea was used as constant filler material for several episodes of anime like Sailor Moon, so it can become infuriatingly repetitive. In 2023, it was decided to create a stand-alone remake taking place in its own continuity, but this time as a movie, plus the added bonus of being a musical. The project was directed and written by the series developer Jeremy Zag and animated by The Awakening Production. The movie gets the chance to focus more on the main characters, their relationships, and is given a certain finality to it instead stretching the recycled premise of fighting a new villain every episode. This brings up the difference between a TV series and a movie where there's a "will they, won't they" premise can go on indefinitely for a series, but in a movie the shortened runtime speeds a romance along to where the main characters eventually become a couple by the end, even if there was a post-credit stinger setting up a possible sequel.

Taking place in Paris, a girl named Marinette is starting her first day at a new school, but despite most anime cliches the girl with blue hair isn't fawned over as you'd expect and has trouble fitting in. She encounters fellow student Adrien at the library, and both slowly become attracted to each other. This budding romance is of course interrupted when Adrien's father Gabriel uses an enchanted piece of jewelry called a Miraculous to become the villain Hawk Moth who can possess other people to go on a rampage with their own distinct superpowers. To counter this, an old man named Master Fu releases two other Miraculous to find a duo worthy of possessing their powers of creation and destruction. Marinette becomes the spotted Ladybug with a magical yoyo and Adrien transforms into the sleek Cat Noir which is a little strange seeing a young man wearing the Julie Newmar costume cat ears. The two teenage heroes team up and Marinette falls for Adrien, but Adrien falls for Ladybug, and the two of them don't reveal their secret identities to each other for reasons the plot doesn't get into. Hawk Moth finally unleashes a swarm of destructive butterflies upon Paris which completely wreck the town but stops his campaign when he discovers Cat Noir is really his son and surrenders to the police. Marinette and Adrien eventually come together at the end when they reveal their alter egos to each other which is something they didn't officially do in the series until the end of its fifth season.

The movie's animation is far above that from the TV series and are nearly at Disney levels of quality. Turning the film into a musical was an evolution from the series and most of the songs work in the characters' favor while still making for a memorable soundtrack. The film actually shows some redemption for the villain too whereas as in the series he's just constantly plotting and scheming, and the viewer becomes sympathetic in his attempts to bring his deceased wife back to life. The film didn't perform too well in theaters, however it did gain a larger crowd when it came to streaming. The most positive aspect of this movie is that you don't need to have seen the cartoon series in order to enjoy it since it's a fine retelling.

ANI-MOVIES, *Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie

Being the fourth animated TV series based on the 80s underground comic that was turned into blockbuster franchise, Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Turtles was Nickelodeon's turn at bat with the half-shell heroes. This time, the animation went back to 2D but cranked up the fighting spirit to Gurren Lagann levels. The Turtles are now all different types of turtles, and they all have mystical superpowers in this for some reason. The TV series went on for two seasons, but Season 2 was cut short by half because of low ratings, even though plans for the direct-to-streaming movie was already in the works. Netflix aired it in 2022, two years after the series ended to act as the big finale. The ROTTMNT show had the Turtles fighting and eventually defeating Shredder, who this time was a haunted suit of armor, plus a few other mutant animal bad guys, although the Foot Clan still remained active. The animation was largely done by Flying Bark Studios, but production of the movie was shared between them and Top Draw Animation, and the joint development worked in Nickelodeon's favor as the quality was vastly improved from what was done for the TV series.

Starting out two decades in the future, the Earth has been taken over by the alien brain menaces called the Krang, so Michaelangelo is a sorcerer supreme in this timeline and opens up a door to send teenage wasteland survivor Casey Jones to the past and stop the Foot Clan from unleashing the Krang from their dimension sealed off from the rest of the universe. Because of Leo's bragging, the Turtles failed to stop the Foot from obtaining the key to free the Krang who in this ain't your daddy's Krang. These Krang turn people into grody zombies, spawning their icky biopunk gunk all over everything taking control of machines, and xenoforming everywhere around them, so these aliens aren't just whiny brain monsters but full-tilt Lovecraftian nightmares. Casey along with April, Splinter, and the Turtles manage to get their fighting spirit back after many losses, including temporarily losing their powers, and stop the Krangs invasion by locking them away in another dimension.

Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie raised the stakes and set the tone for a much more serious tone than how the TV series operated. It isn't totally necessary for you to have watched the show in order to enjoy this, although you will need to have seen some bit of TMNT lore to get the whole idea of mutated reptile ninjas as masked superheroes in New York City. Casey Jones is a good addition, but he's not the hotheaded vigilante you might be familiar with, plus the Krang are for once a genuine threat. They upped the ante for the animation, and the fight scenes look like they're out of Bleach or Jujutsu Kaisen, so anime fans will see this as the shonen epic that you've always wished you could get from TMNT.

ANI-MOVIES, *Megamind

Must have been a big trend for this in 2010 as just a few months after Illumination released Despicable Me, an animated movie about a reformed supervillain, DreamWorks did their own movie, Megamind which was another animated movie about a reformed supervillain. Conceived by Madagascar co-creator Tom McGrath, Paramount seemed to plan this at the exact same time that Universal was starting their Despicable Me franchise, but unlike the overwhelming longevity of that and the Minions spinoffs, Megamind took 14 years to finally do a sequel to it, and only for directly on streaming to act as pilot for a TV series spinoff which most fans seemed to despise. There was already enough working against this when the movie premiered with it seeming like a cash grab of another studio's concept, plus it was at the height of the 2010's 3D craze so it was done in CGI with only a subtle understanding how the theatrical experience worked for someone not used to the format (Thanks again, James Cameron!). Megamind also had much backlash on the character designs as if they were ripped off from Pixar's The Incredibles but with even bigger eyeballs, plus the movie recycled a lot of plots and ideas from other sources like all the needledrop moments and cartoon gags that had already been run into the ground by this point.

Two alien babies from separate worlds that were both on the brink of destruction are sent to Earth, one a handsome human-looking boy with superpowers, and the other with blue skin and a large head. The two begin a lifelong rivalry with the good-looking one becoming the hero Metro Man and the blue one calling himself Megamind for his superior intellect. Megamind thinks he finally killed Metro Man in his latest scheme, so the villain now takes over Metro City, although he soon regrets not having a hero to duel with. After taking on the appearance of Bernard, curator of the Metro Man museum, he comes across Roxanne, a TV reporter that was always acting as the damsel-in-distress who gives the disguised Megamind the idea of creating a new superhero. Along with his partner Minion (yes, there was actually another film where the supervillain's assistant was called that!) they plan to give Metro Man's powers to someone who turns out to be Hal, a loser cameraman whose had a thing for Roxanne for a while now. Megamind convinces Hal to use his powers and become the hero Tighten, while at the same time moonlighting as Bernard who is Roxanne's new love interest, even though she eventually finds him out. Tighten knocks Megamind out in their first bout which causes the would-be hero want to become a villain and takes over the town, so Megamind and Roxanne try to find a weakness to Tighten by looking in Metro Man's lair only to discover that the dead hero isn't actually dead and just faked his death just so he could retire. Tighten kidnaps Roxanne and calls out Megamind who gets his stuff together and depowers his mistake, so Megamind becomes the hero of the city while all the citizens are a little too quick to forget all his previous criminal actions.

Megamind is guilty of retreading comic book cliches that have been parodied several times before, so upon first watch you can see quite a few of the punchlines coming. There is some snappy dialogue that is a little above the average cringy MCU quips, plus the comedic cast of Will Farrell, David Cross, and Tina Fey might hold your interest until the end of the movie which of course caps off with a dance number. However, this is another jukebox movie with replayed pop songs and very little originality. The biggest distraction is the soulless look in all the character's eyes and their misshaped facial proportions.

ANI-MOVIES, *Transformers: The Movie (40th Anniversary Celebration)

"Beyond your wildest imagination," was what this bad boy boasted in 1986, and it didn't disappoint. Coming out two months after Hasbro's first franchise theatrical release for My Little Pony, they went even bigger with Transformers: The Movie, however this was an extension of an animation show whereas MLP only had a pair of TV specials prior to its motion picture, so Transformers had a big leg up continuing an existing series. The film came out after Season 2 of the original Transformers series but shot the story two decades into the future skipping over a whole bunch of history which have never been covered in the Transformers lore, plus quite a few of the characters that were introduced during the latter part of Season 2 were completely left out of the movie since the movie started production sometime at the beginning of that season. The film was written by Ron Friedman who also created the GI Joe series, and it had a gaggle of diverse celebrities voicing the new characters including Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Idle, Robert Stack, and Orson Welles in his last movie roll appearance, plus the first theatrical appearance of John Moschitta who up until then was the fast-talking guy from Fed-Ex commercials and later became the Micro Machine Man. The other huge selling point was the rocking soundtrack by Vince DiCola featuring songs by Weird Al Yankovic and King Kobra. Since Transformers was a melting pot of different Japanese toy lines put together in a single narrative, the idea for the movie was to introduce an entirely new roster of characters to the same lineup that G1 fans had already become familiar with, so this caused most of the characters to either get brutally murdered or reformed as a totally new one. The effect of this apparently traumatized many younger viewers seeing their favorite Autobot leader die which was retconned in Season 3 taking place after the movie. The movie had a huge effect on the toy industry when the film just swept away the first line of products to show bright shiny new ones, a strategy that caused many toy franchises to eventually collapse such as He-Man and TMNT. However, the film had such lush animation by Toei and Sunbow along with brilliant performances by celebrity and veteran voice actors that the movie became a sleeper hit.

Shooting from 1986 to the year 2005, we find that the Decepticons eventually regained control of Cybertron leaving the Autobots with the task of defeating them with their limited sources, one of which is a full Autobot city on Earth. Megatron leads an assault on Autobot City with fresh-faced soldiers like Hot Rod, Kupp, Arcee, and Blurr to defend it until Optimus Prime arrives with the calvary. Prime and Megatron have an epic duel to the death resulting in Optimus' demise, while Megatron is cast out by the retreating Decpticons along with other damaged warriors. They all just happen to come across the gigantic planet-eating monster known as Unicron reformatting Megatron into his herald Galvatron, plus remodeling the other survivors. Starscream is finally killed by the newly born Megatron, who has to take the Autobot Matrix away from its new owner, Ultra Magnus which is the only thing that could destroy Unicron. The new Autobots along with most of the Dinobots leave Earth to keep the Matrix out of Galvatron's grasp, but are all separated, some of which crash on a huge junkyard planet inhabited by the TV-obsessed Junkions. They all reconvene and head out to kick Unicron's colossal butt from destroying Cybertron, and Hot Rod uses the Matrix to destroy him and become the new Autobot leader, Rodimus Prime.

Transformers: The Movie completely changed the game as far as animated entertainment intended to promote a franchise as after this other toy line-based films like GI Joe: The Movie had to contend with not having any of their characters meet a violent ending. Toei Animation along with Sunbow Productions and Marvel crafter together an eye-popping theatrical experience that was way better than it ever intended to be. Even people who hadn't watched the Transformers G1 series up until then still got a kick out of it, especially since it had one of the greatest soundtrack albums of the entire decade. If your local theater is having a special screening of this, then get your tickets and ride the nostalgia Astrotrain!

MISC. MANGA, *Grendizer U: The Inception

Acting as the third stage of Go Nagai's Mazinger franchise, Grendizer (also known as Grandizer) took the giant robot epic to the stars and became a space opera up there with Captain Harlock and was so popular that it ended up in the Shogun Warriors toy line, plus the anime was part of Force Five. There is a Grendizer anime and manga that ran in the 70s, and then it was given a reboot in 2024 with a simultaneous anime and manga called Grendizer U, and the manga is titled Grendizer U: The Inception which takes place before the TV series. It's hard to say that it's a "prequel" per say as it was released at the same time as the anime. Go Nagai wrote this new interpretation and it was illustrated by 8 Key, although it's American release was by Titan Manga who instead of releasing a full-sized novel came out with a light thin book for the same price as a standard published manga.

The corrupt Vega Alliance has conquered a good portion of the galaxy along with the planet Fleed. Duke is a prince of the empire, and he is coming of age to take charge of the powerful robot defender Grendizer, but his right of succession is being blocked by his best friend/rival Gau Su, so the two of them have a duel to inherit the tile of official mecha meister. Gau Su wins the match by cheating and leaves Duke for dead as he takes Grendizer, but Duke survived and learns that his father the king caused the death of Gau Su's father. Duke reunites with Gau Su and vows to help him fight against the king, but an accident causes Gau Su to perish and Duke winds up on Earth with no memory of his past. Duke was conveniently found by Koji Kabuto, the pilot for Mazinger Z, along with fellow mecha driver Sayaka. They ask Duke to be part of their team even though he doesn't currently have robot of his own, but anyone reading this will figure out that he'll eventually get Grendizer back and help out in defending Earth.

The manga has a decent start, but the opening chapters take place on an alien world, and then the plot is dropped into the storyline of an adjacent mecha series, so there's a massive tone shift. 8 Key's artwork isn't as hard edged as Go Nagai's original art from the 70s, but it is effective for the first few chapters. Titan Manga's translation seriously lacks any emotion to it and needed some spicing up. Once more volumes of this comes out it will hopefully bear better fruit.

ANI-MOVIES, *Madagascar

After Schrek became a mainstay for DreamWorks, they were looking for their next cinematic franchise. In 2005, the first Madagascar film was put in theaters to a rising victory. Even though it's an original story, the concept borrowed quite a bit from various classic cartoons, specifically Tennessee Tuxedo and Hair Bair Bunch, plus plenty of callbacks to Looney Tunes. The conceprt was about zoo animals ending up in the wild, which turned out to be such an original idea that a year later Disney came out with their own hideously animated movie titled The Wild. The characters have a specific angular design to them which is a fresh take instead of trying to make them match an established motif. One thing that the film keeps dragging its feet over is the constant barrage of pop culture references, and the soundtrack is littered with incidental jukebox music. However, as an animated family film, it does reach what it's going for.

A quartet of animals at the Central Park Zoo in New York City are all buddies who despite whatever natural tendencies they have are all friends. The lion Alex is the zoo's star attraction, and his neighbors Gloria the hippo, Melman the giraffe, along with zebra Marty whose 10th birthday makes him wish to see what life is like outside the zoo. After four penguins plan to bust out of their captive habitat, Marty gets the idea to also go see the great wild world, so he takes a stroll out on the town, with his friends chasing after him which gets them all deported. The penguins take control of the freighter which lands the main characters on the coast of Madagascar, thus finally living up to the movie's title. After being greeted by a tribe of lemurs lead by the charismatic King Julien, the zoo castaways decide to stay, although this new change of scenery doesn't help Alex's carnivore cravings. The penguins eventually turn the freighter around to Madagascar and help introduce Alex to seafood which cures his want to eat his friends and seeing everyone as talking steaks. They all plan to head back to New York, although the film ends with no functioning ship to make the journey home, so that's where the sequels come in.

Madagascar lives up to its name for the second half of the movie, although it could've been titled something a little closer to the story like Zoo Break. The casting is on point, even if most of the actors were high profile stars at the time this came out instead of standard voice over veterans. The film contains vibrant animation, although the human designs look like rejected background characters from the first Incredibles movie. The entire film is an homage to spastic golden age cartoons in the spirit of Tex Avery and Chuck Jones, so old school toon fans should appreciate it, and it's a great film for kids.

ANI-MOVIES, *Appleseed Ex Machina

Appleseed was the second of Masamune Shirow's manga that got anime adaptation back in 1988. Shoot ahead to 2004 and Genesis Survivor Gaiarth director Shinji Aramaki took the reins of an all-CGI animated movie remake. Despite the dated cel shading, this Appleseed was successful enough to get a sequel in 2007 by the same studio Digital Frontier. Appleseed Ex Machina had the additional bonus as being the only animated production by action film guru John Woo, and they let you know that at the beginning of the film with a flock of doves. The animation got an upgrade, even though it still maintains that mid-00s 3D which crosses the border between great looking action but uncanny valley.

Taking place two years after the original film, mankind survived a global war by creating huge metropolises made up of not only humans, but cyborgs, and bioroids that are artificially created humanoids with enhanced abilities. One of these cities is Olympus which is threatened by terrorists, so to combat this is the special E-SWAT force, two of its officers are from the last movie, the nimble lady Deunan and her giant cyborg partner Briareos who fought by her side during the war before he lost most of his body. Briareos is taken out of action after a hostage situation, so Deunan is temporarily teamed up with Tereus, a bioroid made from Briareos' natural DNA. So, now there's a slight love triangle going on with Deunan's devotion to her true partner who happens to be a big hunk of metal, and the new guy with the same looks and behavior of the man she knew before his accident. An underground organization called Halcon threatens to destroy Olympus as they planted nanites in the latest mobile devices that mind control its victims. Halcon plans on taking control of the world's satellites to subjugate the planet, so Deunan along with her old and new partner have to launch a Matrix-styled assault on the Halcon headquarters filled with flying robot drones.

Appleseed Ex Machina is a step up for a cyberpunk feature finally bringing some high-octane action to the mix and abandoning the heavy exposition that weighed down the 2004 movie. It's clear that Shinji Aramaki borrowed a little from the Wachowskis when he turned up the volume on the fight scenes, however you still get a gratifying feeling after watching it. The best thing about this movie is that you can see it on its own without seeing the original, in fact it's probably better if you don't. Aramaki followed this up a few years later with a pseudo-prequel titled Appleseed Alpha which was more of a post-apocalyptic flick instead of a cyberpunk thriller, but you could also skip that and just enjoy this one.

ANI-MOVIES, *Taro The Dragon Boy

In 1960, Miyoko Matsutani created a popular children's book titled Taro The Dragon Boy that went on to have its own anime series in the mid-70s. Cutting ahead to 1979, Toei Animation did an animated movie based on the book which was directed by the studio founder Toei Daga. Columbia Home Pictures picked up the movie for an American release, and it recently got distributed by Discotek Media. The English dub does have some voice over royalty with Taro being portrayed by Billie Lou Watt who originally did the voices of both Astro Boy and Kimba, but another actor that most people weren't aware of was none other than Earl Hammond as the Red Demon who any fan of Rankin/Bass will know as the voice of Mumm-Ra and Mon-Star. This is a simple tale not bogged down with any recurring villain and is more about a young boy's redemption with expressive scenery and kooky characters.

Centuries ago in Japan, a young boy named Taro lies around all day while his grandmother works in the dried up fields in their village. Tora's mother was turned into a dragon because she violated the law of the mountains and ate all the fish she caught and didn't share them with anyone even though she was pregnant at the time and working on her own as a widow. After giving birth to Taro, the mama dragon became blind and is spirited away to another lake leaving her son behind. Taro is out one day and meets a Tengu that gives him some of his private hooch which gives Taro superhuman strength but only when he uses it to help others. Taro befriends Aya, a girl from a neighboring village who gets taken away by the well-meaning Red Demon, but Aya is kidnapped by the larger Black Demon. The Red Demon helps Taro defeat Black Demon after he falls to his death, even though that never stopped a certain coyote, then Taro throws Red Demon up to the clouds where he can play his drums and basically is this movie's version of Raijin. Taro then goes on a crusade to find his dragon mother and along the way helps depose a wicked rice farmer who doesn't share any of her loot with any of her workers. Taro gets frozen by some snow women, but Aya shows up on a flying pony they freed from Black Demon. They find the lake where Taro's mother dwells, and they free her from the curse.

Taro The Dragon Boy is a slight deconstruction of various Japanese myths and legends, particularly with yokai playing a notable role in this story. The film is not exactly high fantasy, but clearly not set in the ordinary world as it has talking animals and magical beings. Even though it's based on a children's story, it's not completely for kids as there is some blatant nudity showing up here and there. If tales of the Monkey King stir your pot, you'll discover a likable hero in Taro.