JESI THE GENIE, *Part 6: Page 5

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Isabel Marks.

ANI-MOVIES, *Highlander: Search For Vengeance

For at least the third time, the Highlander franchise got picked up again, and unlike its last animated incarnation(that crappy TV series from USA Network), this was a hardcore original adaptation directed by Yoshiaki Kawakiri. Most U.S. otaku would know him as the creator of Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, and he also worked on Neo-Tokyo, Lensman, X, and The Animatrix. Highlander: The Search For Vengeance is an anime remake of the whole storyline, and taking it into the Road Warrior future.

This story deals with Colin MacCleod, a completely unrelated McCleod from either Connor or Duncan. He was an British warrior who was first killed when the Romans took over their country, lead by Marcus Octavius who is really an immortal. Colin rises from the grave a long time later as an immortal himself(which seems to contradict one of the fundamental laws of Highlander)and meets the ghost of an old Druid priest who lets him know all about his new mutant superpowers. Colin then spends the next few thousand years trying to hunt down Marcus and kill him. This path finally leads to the 22nd Century where the world has been decimated by some kind of plague, and New York City is one of the last remaining cities which is ruled by Marcus and his Robo-Nazi forces. Colin teams up with a local resistance movement, mainly because the luscious prostitute Dahlia is really the living reincarnation of his dead wife. Marcus and Colin clash once, and then again for a final fight, but not before Marcus can unleash his own virus to kill off all the humans in the city. Fortunately, when Colin finally beheads Marcus, the resulting Quickening disperses the virus saving everyone.

This movie tacks some familiar action/sci-fi movie tropes, but as an anime film it gets to take them to some serious extremes. From android troopers with spider-legs, to chainsaw-swords, to some of the most killer dueling ever in an anime movie. Kawajiri's direction help make this something that even people who've never seen any of the other Highlander titles would wanna check out. The main animation was marvelously handled by Madhouse, but was distributed in America through Imagi Studios who also did the Astro Boy movie. The movie is on DVD in the States by Manga Entertainment, but so far only in an edited version in English. There's supposed to be a director's cut coming out sometime with an added Japanese track coming out soon, so keep on the lookout for it.

MISC. MANGA, *Exploitation Now

One of the most infamous titles from the early days of webcomics was definately this, and totally not for the kiddies! Created by Michael Poe, who later went on to do the fantasy webcomic Errant Story, this Keenspot title was a stab at alot of anime and manga trends at the time, but also at the rising webcomic genre. It started out as a joke-a-day strip, but eventually went on to form rather lengthy story arcs featuring the secondary characters.

It starts out with the young former porn star Bimbo(that's her real name)and her roommate Ralph(who may or may not be a Moogle from Final Fantasy). Their apartment is destroyed after trying to banish Cthulu from an incident with a stopped up toilet. So they move into a new building run by a teenage girl named Jordan, who just happens to be a criminal mad scientist with a bionic arm and dreams of world conquest. After a few flashback sequences about Bimbo and Ralph's early days, Jordan gets visited by an assassin from the Russians named Jones who is later revealed be one of Bimbo's numerous sisters, although it never comes up in the series. Bimbo later has to take in her younger sister Bush, who soon befriends Jordan, although she seems attracted to Bush in a more than sisterly way. The storyline then takes a different turn when Jordan is wanted by the FBI as she used to be part of some military think tank for junior geniuses, so she and Bush go on the run. This leads them to a brief visit with Bush's mother, a trip to an anime con, a bus hijacking by a tentacle monster, and a daring rescue by a swordwielding Playboy bunny. Bimbo and Ralph eventually get left out of the plot entirely as Jordan and Bush are finally captured by the government, but Jordan manages to escape by having a particle beam satellite blast the sight from orbit. Jordan ends up reuniting with Jones, even though the comic ended promising a sequel.

I'd highly recommend this if you are a fan of webcomics like Megatokyo or Sinfest. It has been printed in its entirety by Keenspot in a single large graphic novel, and then again in two seperate smaller novels. Be sure to give this one a look.

Pony Kombat

ANI-MOVIES, *Alice In Wonderland

While Tim Burton's rather shameless breakdancing ripoff of The Looking Glass Wars and American McGee's Alice shook up the box office, you cannot deny the classic visual ecstacy of the 1951 Disney animated movie. I'm really suprised that Disney didn't bother giving the live-action sequal/reboot a different title, at least to seperate it from the original. Although the more recent film seemed like Disney was just rehashing their Return To Oz premise but with Lewis Carroll's work. But, it is still impossible not to enjoy their classic first shot at it.

Taking place in England(probably in the late-19th Century), young Alice is bored out her mind listening to her sister trying to teach her history. She then follows a slightly anthropomorphic White Rabbit down a hole, but instead of ending up in Bugs Bunny's place, she enters a "dimension of sight and sound". After having emotional problems with a chatty doorknob, she washes up on the shores of Wonderland. She's then thrust into a caucas race, forced into a dream sequence by pushy twins, wrecks the Rabbit's house, and gets pestered by pushy flowers, all while having some serious height issues. Fortunately, a poetic caterpillar gives her some good mushrooms(?), and Alice manages to stabilize her size. The enigmatic Cheshire Cat then leads her to the highlight of the movie, the Mad Tea Party(you can't not love the Doormouse freaking out!). After a little more wandering around amongst the bizarre forest animals, Alice does something that most Disney heroines do, and realizes that her own world was better after all, and decides to try and get home. The Cheshire Cat shows up again and leads her to the loudmouthed Queen of Hearts who has a serious decaptiation fetish. Instead of getting her head chopped off, Alice is given the weirdest trial outside of Judge Judy. She then proceeds into the craziest Benny Hill-styled chase in animated film history, and wakes up because the whole thing was just a dream(or was it?).

For the lucky 13th of Disney's full-length cartoon movies, this broke alot of molds for them. First off, it was actually a meltdown of more than one book, while being mostly from the Alice In Wonderland book, there are segments from Through The Looking Glass too, but they manage to bring it together in a coherent way, which is suprising considering the source material. The other great aspect of it was their use of allowing the visual elements and music tell most of the story. It was to date their most colorful and lively animated movie to be released, only succeeded by Sleeping Beauty. While it isn't out to ram some overly-Christian morals down your children's throats like most Disney films, it remains as fun family feature, and one of the best cartoons to get totally stoned to!

ANI-MOVIES, *Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Long before James Cameron started pimping his Avatar epic, Square Pictures pioneered the world's first full-length photorealistic CGI animated movie. This was based on the hit video game franchise of the same name, although the movie took a more sci-fi approach as apposed to the more high fantasy that most of the earlier games.

Taking place on a post-apocalyptic Earth(that's right, not Ivalice!)in the mid-21st Century, Aki Ross is a scientist who is trying to collect eight seperate spirits, which when combined will create an energy field that will rid the planet of an alien force. The invaders are creatures referred to as Phantoms, which are ghostlike monsters that literally suck the souls out of people. This happened after a meteor crashed on Earth decades earlier, and the Phantoms spread throughout the world and killed off most of the humans. The survivors live in specially shielded cities, who have built a giant oribiting cannon to blast the alien meteorite and save the planet. But Sid, the scientist who created the special Phantom-proof shields, realizes that this might cause the aliens' spirit to take over the Earth's spirit known as Gaia, which would destroy all life. Sid along with Aki are enlisted the help of the special military squad of Deep Eyes, the commander of which is Aki's old boyfriend, Gray. They try to find the remaining spirits, however the vengeful General Hein is plotting to destroy the Phantoms at any cost.

The Spirits Within was the precursor to several other computer animated films that attempted to have the characters(human or otherwise)appear as real as possible, such as Beowulf, Kaena: The Prophecy, Resident Evil: Degeneration, and Negadon. The animation was virtually years ahead of its time, which might have worked towards its disadvantage as some people were possibly just not ready for that kind of advancement in cinema. Granted, it might seem pretty common by today's standards, but when this came out in 2001 it was groundbreaking, and even busts the chops of some of the more recent digital animation.

Of course the biggest gripe most people had was that it had very little to do with any of the actual Final Fantasy games. Most fans of the series expected guys with gravity-defying hair riding on Chocobos and swinging colossally huge swords around. However, the movie offered a compelling sci-fi/action/drama which managed to incorporate most of the better attributes that the games had, mainly brilliant character development and a compelling plot. It truly is an exceptionally great film, and worth a second look for those who are willing to see past the fanboy hatred.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 6: Page 4

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Isabel Marks.