ANI-MOVIES, *End Of Evangelion

A number of anime TV shows get a second wind with a theatrical continuation, but the hurricane of controversy known as Evangelion wasn’t satisfied with its overtly cryptic series finale. They basically set up the last two episodes of their show to act as little more than a lead on to what would eventually be the “real ending” to their epic saga. End Of Evangelion was shown as the fully-intended release, although this was after the complete waste of time, titled Evangelion: Death And Rebirth. Eva: D&R was intended to be the original release, but because of budget cutbacks and time restraints, the entire production was cut back to only showing the first half-hour of End Of Eva in Eva: Rebirth, while Eva: Death was just a glorified clip show with some new footage made specifically for the film(including the chilling “elevator scene”!). Despite its completion, End Of Eva was still done as a seperate release in both theatres and on home video, plus the film is split into two episodes, each complete with its own closing credits. Why they didn’t just have both of them in a single feature is unknown, but then again this is from the same crew that included the intermission from Eva: D&R on the actual DVD!

The movie takes place after episode #24 of the TV series where Kowaru was revealed to be the last Angel, and regretablly killed by Shinji in Unit-01, although he was still able to get over his depression by “shooting one out” over a comatose Asuka. SEELE decides its time for them to take control of things by implenting 3rd Impact on their own, and to do that they need Unit-01. They send in special forces to NERV headquarters and start killing everyone. Misato rescues Shinji, and gets him to Unit-01, only to end up getting shot to death. Asuka lies at the bottom of the lake near NERV in Unit-02, and finally gets over her mom not being alive. She goes all Chuck Norris on the army attacking her, although they reveal the rest of the series of Evas which are all automatic. Asuka manages to stop all nine of them before her energy runs out, but the Evas have the ability to heal themselves, and pick apart Unit-02. Shinji grieves over Misato, but finally even Unit-01 has had enough of him acting like a complete pussy, and activates on its own. Shinji arrives to see Unit-02 completely destroyed, and totally freaks out. Meanwhile, Ritsuko has tried to stop Gendo from merging Rei with the giant form of the angel Lillith. Gendo kills her for her trouble, and then uses the Adam embryo inside him to begin 3rd Impact. Rei however betrays him, and chooses Shinji’s wishes over his by merging with Lillith, which mutates her into a colossal giant. Rei grows to unbelievable heights and starts absorbing all the souls on Earth, everyone else has melted into goo(or LCL). Shinji is then absorbed into the giant Rei where she turns over the fate of the mankind to him. After alot of scanning over his own psyche and some pointless live-action footage, Shinji decides that he’d rather live with humanity and all its flaws. The ginormous Rei collapses, and the souls are sent back to be reincarnated, while Shinji and a resuscitated Asuka are possibly the last two people left alive on the planet.

Okay, so on its own, the movie provides a much more satisfying conclusion than the actual TV ending. The animation is a serious step-up from the series, which shows in the gory action scenes, specifically Asuka’s Eva fight and the entire 3rd Impact sequence. All the characters are given decent airtime, and each one gets a good exploration into their psyches, which are even more screwed up than the series ever let on. It’s still very ambigious though, and really hard to piece together unless you’ve bothered watching it in unison with the series at least three times prior. The English dub by Manga Entertainment is pretty good and features most of the actors from the TV series, although for some stupid reason there were some unnecessary sound effects added to it like “splats” when someone’s head would get shot off by Misato. Where the movie doesn’t deliver is in the “making plain sense” department. The narrative is positively baffling, the use of live-action in the middle is totally out of place, and we didn’t need to actually see Shinji polishing his nob to know he’s f**ked up! Plus, the whole deal with who had what agenda was a huge headscratcher, as to whether SEELE is using Gendo or the other way around just gets tiring after the initial assault on NERV. The main draw of the film is to see the saga coming to a close, at least the original version. If the first one was more coherent though then they probably wouldn’t have needed to do the new Evangelion film series.

MISC. MANGA, *Victory

Back in the late 90s-early 2000s, there was a nearly unlimited supply of anime/manga-styled American comics, even though most otaky preferred the "real manga" from Japan. One series however was a little more eyecatching then some of the others, and the fact that their covers usually had a bikini-clad redheaded elf babe(of which there were always variant covers to)helped out alot in the sales. This was originally an Brazillian-based comic that was brought over to America and printed through Image Comics, and managed to last about two 4-issue mini-series.

A group of teen RPGers after getting kicked out the mall and go their friend "The Druid's" house to play in peace. The team gamemaster Flavius happens upon an ancient book in the Druid's library which accidently summons up some demons that slay the Druid, and threaten to off the kids. Fortunately, the buxom half-goddess/half-elf Victoria also gets released from the magical world of the book and vanquishes the monsters. She proclaims Flavius to be her new "master", and that she will stay with him forever. But a giant Cthulu monster is also summoned from underneath the ocean, and is going to do some serious Unicron-levels of devastasion to the Earth unless Victoria can stop him. Victoria sets out in an epic battle with this moon-sized menace, and it looks like she sacrifices herself to save the world, but she turns up alive at the end, and since Flavius is her master, she becomes his new roommate(even though they never say how his parent feel about it!).

The second series begins with two friends of Flavius coming upon Victoria's book where she came from, and are lured into it by the last living god from that realm, Elrophen, the god of vanity. He tricks them into joining him in an attempt to get revenge on Victoria and Flavius head into the world of the book to stop Elrophen and free his friends. But instead of fully defeating Elrophen, they unknowingly open the door for him to enter our world.

This series was actually a spinoff of another comic from Brazil called Dungeon Crawlers, which was on its own tied to an earlier series titled Holy Avenger. Only the two Victory series are available in English though. Creator, Marcelo Cassaro, might be familiar to some as the writer from the Street Fighter II comic book that was released in the U.S. through Malibu Comics, but he's improved alot since then as his stories are more fantasy-focused. Also, artist Eduardo Francisco has some impressive style here, and you should check out his other works in some of the Fathom and Executive Assistant comics. Victory is only available out here in seperate issues, and has so far never been released in trade paperback form, but you should totally check out this comic where you can!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 3

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.

MISC. MANGA, *Dominion

From Masumune Shirow(creator of Appleseed)comes this special “filler” story to the original Dominion: Tank Police OVA series. This manga happens inbetween the two parts of the anime, namely Episodes 2 & 3.

Here, it is the not too far off future where Earth is covered by a bacteria cloud that forces everyone to wear gas masks while outdoors. In this hostile enviroment, crimes are commonplace, and to fight this is the Tank Police. They’re your average special forces task squad that patrol the streets in large tanks. Except one tank in particular is custom-made and compact, Bonaparte. This is piloted by the tomboy Leona and her would be boyfriend Al. They usually have their hands full with the criminal/activist cyborg Buaka and his catgirl playmates: Annapuma and Unapuma. Their capturing of the synthetic lifeform, Greenpeace, may be the only hope humanity has of lifting the bacteria cloud. But Buaka plans on heading for outer space to live life on a new colony.

Can Leona and her squad stop them? Will the chief ever stop yelling “Brenten!”? Check out Shirow’s masterful work in action to find out. P.S. This little baby is actually a prelude into the Ghost In The Shell manga. No kidding!

MISC. MANGA, *Seraphic Feather

Former artist for for the manga Countdown tones down his ecchi for a whole lot of cheesecake in this smooth sci-fi manga.

In a slight mixing between Totall Recall and the anime Bounty Dog, this story takes place in the future where humanity has colonized the moon. There, they have discovered the remains of an ancient living alien starship that has some connection to three mysterious stones recently found on Earth named Emblem Seeds. The young Sunao goes to the moon to visit the grave of his deceased childhood friend, but ends up being stuck there after running out of money. So now he does odd jobs to try to earn enough to get home. While at the same time Sunao realizes he has gained what is called “meta-talents” which give him slightly psychic abilities. This ties into the group who has found the alien craft, and their leader Apep has harnessed its powers and wishes to use them to gain ultimate knowledge. He has requested that the Emblem Seeds from Earth be brought to the moon for study. The Seeds are being delivered by a girl who bares a strong resemblence to Sunao’s departed friend who also has psychic powers.

Seraphic Feather has alot going for it with a compelling plot and fine character development. Not to mention some SERIOUS fan service! Read it!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 4: Page 2

Story by Jer Alford, art by E. Aedo.

MISC. MANGA, *Ghost In The Shell

This is without a doubt Masumune Shirow’s greatest manga work. By now, most you all should have seen the anime movie or TV series, but the manga is even better. (Note to all fanboy wannabes: the comic is always better than the movie it’s based on!)

Set in Tokyo during the mid-21st Century, a special branch of government security codenamed Section 9 helps protect against outside terrorists and foreign crimimals. Their special cybernetic agent, Major Matoko Kusinagi, and her crew patrol around in their special spider-like Fujikoma robot-mechs. Each has the ability to shield them selves in thermoptics that are transparent coverings that make them look invisible. Matoko takes on various cases dealing with “ghost-hacking” which is where people have their cyborg brains violated and reprogrammed to do crimes. One of the most ellusive of these ghost-hackers is the mysterious Puppeteer. Finally, the Puppeteer is caught, but he turns out to be a lifeform that emerged into existence inside the internet itself. After downloading himself into a cyborg body, he is captured by the government. However, it looks like he has been deleted once in for all in an attempt to escape. Matolo then gets charged with manslaughter after botching an assignment. She’s to be sent to prision, but fakes her own death in a kidnapping ruse. Her partner tries to fix her up with a new body, whilst the Puppeteer show up not dead but just sunk back into the net. He convinces Matoko to merge her cybernetic mind with his to form one combined persona. Matoko agrees, and the result is someone with all of Matoko’s memories and the Puppeteer’s abilities.

This is a lead-in to the Ghost In The Shell 2 manga, also available in English by Dark Horse Comics. Truly, this futuristic sci-fi is the pinnacle of cyberpunk comics and intense action. You must own this!