ANI-MOVIES, *Fuse: Memoirs Of The Hunter Girl

One of the most adapted Japanese stories to inspire anime is Hakkenden, whether its hit titles like Dragonball and Inu-Yasha, or direct adaptations like The Legend Of The Dog Warriors OVA, the supernatural saga of Takizawa Bakin's novel. Fuse: Memoirs Of The Hunter Girl was a full-length feature by TMS Entertainment which most American animation fans night know better for working on Batman: The Animated Series and Cybersix, which despite premiering in Japan in 2012 only recently getting an English-subtitled release.

Set in mid-19th Century, Hamaji is a girl growing up in the Japanese mountains whose makes a living as a hunter. Growing up with her grandfather, her paternal elder recently departed, leaving her alone, but she gets a letter from her estranged brother Dousetsu, a samurai-wannabe in Edo who asks her to come live with her. The capitol city has been infiltrated by creatures called fuse, which are the descendants of a princess that "mated" with her pet dog, and all have the power to appear as humans while turning into canine-hybrids that eat people's souls. Dousetsu and Hamaji set out to find one of the last fuses in town, which is revealed to be the local head courtesan. Hamaji learns that the kabuki actor Shino is the last of the remaining fuse who is on a vendetta against the current shogun, who sets out to eradicate all the fuse as they might have claims to the throne. The tomboyish hunter girl ends up falling for Shino, so Hamaji has to try and stop his rampage of revenge before their destructive feud causes her new friends in Edo to perish.

TMS Entertainment gave this production a real seasoned effort, with unusual character designs, but breathtaking landscapes and background. The story moves along fine, while being chronicled by the grandaughter of the original Hakkenden's author as a friend of Hajami witnessing her whole romantic adventure. It's an enjoyable watch where you enjoy the struggle the characters go through, while the visionary animation will sink you into an alternate history fantasy.

Fire Dick Lasers!

 

Kneesa is officially a Disney Princess!

 

ANI-MOVIES, *One Miliion Year Trip-Bander Book

Being the first ever made-for-television anime movie, Osamu Tezuka's Bander Book is a sprawling space saga spanning eons done in the spirit of Warlords Of Mars and other sci-fi pulp stories. This was released over the Japanese airways in the late 1970s during a telethon and was one of the most popular anime movies of its time. It was Tezuka's open ticket for taking his panache of transforming humans into animals all the way up to 11.

Sometime in an alternate future, Earthling Bander is sent off by his parents after their interstellar flight is targeted by assassins. Bander is received by an alien race of humanoids who all have the ability to turn into animals, but can only maintain their human form thanks to a special control ring. Their peace is disrupted by invading space gangsters arriving in a ship modeled after the Nautilus from 20,000 League Under The Sea and run by none other than Black Jack. This is not however the Black Jack from his own manga series where he is a superhuman doctor, but a different version of the character as numerous other Tezuka characters appears as well, including Don Dracula and Astro Boy, and Tezuka himself can be briefly seen in the background of one shot. Black Jack is secretly Bander's brother whose parents were assassinated by a corrupted Earth government, which was the result of them accidentally releasing a huge dose of fear gas into the planet's atmosphere through a time warp going back millions of years. On his quest, Bander tries to save his family, and an alien plant princess, all while realizes that his time/space trek can't change mankind's destiny as the future is already in set, despite the fact that all the humans were turned violent due to their own time travel dealings.

This was only recently made available for North America through various streaming services, so it might turn off some non-old school otaku being in Japanese only with subtitles. It was also one of Tezuka's more experimental anime mixing in psychedelic imagery with quick animated sight gags. It can be difficult keeping up with the ever-shifting pace of the plot but pans out to be a bizarre and still stunning spectacle of an anime viewing.

MISC. MANGA, *Silbuster

During the mid-90s, the manga market was making its mark in the American geek world, and alot of these weren't done directly through the general Japanese publishers. Several titles were obtained from the underground doujinshi market, which even though a large portion of it is made up of "fan comics", a good portion of it is original material. One of these was a mature but silly sci-fi superhero sentai sage titled Silbuster, done by Ikkou Sahara. Combining elements of Iczer-One, Ultraman, and various Super Robots anime, this was an ongoing spoof saga of supergirls vs. giant monsters.

The Earth is being invaded by mysterious aliens constantly sending spies in human disguise to infiltrate military secrets, along with them occasionally mutating into city destroying kaiju. Doctor Kizuki is helping to prep mankind's best chance, a spaceship named Starlight, along with his middle daughter Mitsuha being genetically altered into a superhuman. After her father is killed by the aliens, Mistuha takes on the codename of Silbuster to battle the space invaders, with her powers of super-strength, finger beams, and the abilty to transform into a giant with an expanding costume, even though her first time going big resulted in her fighting a monster totally naked. Silbuster works with her techinal expert older sister Mitsuho, along with her part time Playboy bunny younger sister Mitsuka to prevent the aliens from advancing their plans. Silbuster also learns kickboxing from the enigmatic Masked Boxer to gain a fighting advantage over kaiju stomping rampages.

The manga went on to be released as 19 seperate issues in English through Antarctic Press, which got two collected edition making for only less than half of its run being covered in graphic novels. Like numerous doujinshi titles translated into English, Silbuster never actually reached its conclusion, possibly due to several of the original fan comics not achieving an ending because of the mangaka being hired into the official manga market. Ikkou Sahara's work has a unique style similar to Artmic and AIC anime from the late 80s, with a love of tokusatsu TV shows that later on went to influence Super Sentai and Power Rangers. There's some cheeky humor and gratuitous fan service throughout the manga, making it not meant for younger readers, but old school otaku will likely favor it as just reading it takes them back to the Golden Age of "Japanimation".

Justice For Ben Tramer

 

ANI-MOVIES, *Injustice

Based on both the first video game and the Year One comic book prequel series, Injustice show what would happen if Superman lost all inhibitions and tried to bring his own brand of "truth and justice" to the entire world. Originally starting out as a spinoff of Mortal Kombat Vs. DC Universe, the Injustice video games took characters from the DC Universe(s) and had them each on the same power level thanks to a special super-pill which would allow characters like Black Canary be able to survie an actual fist fight with General Zod. None of that level of combat translate in the movie adaptation as its later on in the story, but is more of how the world would react to a serious paradigm shift with its super heroes.

Set in another version of the standard DC Universe, the Joker with Harley Quinn kidnaps Lois Lane, and exposes Superman to a Kryptonite-laced faceful of fear gas, forcing him to see Lois as the monster Doomsday. The resulting fight kills Lois and her unborn child, sending Superman into a vengeful frenzy, and impales the Joker. Under Batman's orders, Green Arrow secretly takes Harley into custody to save her from Superman's wrath, while the Man of Steel slowly divides the Justice League and the rest of Earth's heroes as he along with Wonder Woman establish a new world order. Batman heads up an underground network of vigilantes to maintain peace on a street level, while Superman's influence spreads stopping all wars, and using hi-tech monitoring systems that he forced Mr. Terrific to acquire. Superman tries to send the inmates at Arkham Asylum to a secret prison, but Batman gets in the way, resulting in Robin accidently killing Nightwing who later becomes this universe's version of Deadman as "Deadwing". Robin convinces Superman to ally with his grandfather, Ra's al Ghul, and creates a superpowered android named Amazo to be the first of an army of mechanical monitors. Amazo blows a major fuse while patrolling Smallville, and Superman is shocked to find out that Ra's gave it similar powers, causing the deaths of Hawkman and Cyborg. Batman's remaining heroes arrive to help take down Amazo, while Mr. Terrific uses a dimensional gateway to bring in a Superman from another universe to battle his corrupt counterpart. A Lois Lane from a totally different reality still pregnant with her Superman's child to convince this tainted Superman to surrender, leaving Batman and the remaining heroes to salvage the rest of their Earth.

The task of folding an entire comic book maxi-series along with portions of the first video game into a single feature-length production doesn't play out as tight as a longer movie or mini-series might have had a better chance at. Key characters like Lex Luthor are completely absent, while others like Flash get either killed or taken down off-screen, and numerous plotpoints are other rushed or rewritten in an attempt to streamline the narrative of this massive saga, which means leaving out the other 4 volumes of the Injustice prequel comic, and pretty much all of the first video game. The singular story on its own is decent, but works more like an alternate universe 2-parter from the Justice League animated series. The Injustice movie makes for a good enough watch for fans of DC superheroes, although hardcore admirers of the original source material might be turned off by the abridged plot.