MISC. MANGA, *Slayers Special

With the original Slayers manga and light novels being a huge success, creator Hajime Kanzaka decided to go back and cover some of the earlier days of explosive sorceress Lina Inverse before she met up with Gourry, Amelia, and Zelgadis. Prior to that, Lina began on her journeys usually being plagued by the busty bikini-clad loudmouth known as Naga the White Serpent, a skilled-enough sorceress in her own right, but constantly trying to outdo Lina as both a rival and sometimes ally. This portion of the "Young Lina Inverse Chronicles" was first done in a spinoff prequel manga titled Slayers Special. Several of these chapters became the basis for some of the Slayers anime movies and OVA episodes, as well as tie-ins to some of the video games. But this 4-volume manga was the main take on Lina and Naga's whirlwind tour.

Several of the adventures with Lina have Naga tagging along somewhere in each chapter, and sometimes at the beginning of one, but each one is all over the map. From either gratuitous trips to the beach, the search for the perfect cuisine, or being hired to watch over wannabe squires, helping necromancers getting over their fear of zombies, the possibilities seem endless. Some of them later get adapted into OVAs where Lina and Naga are confronted with the true horror of their exact mirror opposites.

There are a few stories that get stretched out for more than one chapter though. Lina and the young soreceress Shia have to protect a dark crystal from a demonic Vegita-looking creep with intentions on taking over the world. Another where our heroines disguise themselves as maids to uncover a plot by some nefarious bandits is a real kneeslapper. Alot of them have Lina being more involved with the Magic Guild and going on various missions for them. Some stories act as callbacks to later chapters, like where Lina has to deal with more than one outlaw using her name which eventually has none other than an early appearance by Ameila searching to being her to justice. There's even an earlier meeting between Lina and Amelia's father, Prince Phil, which is pretty much how it was done in the TV series minus Gourry.

CPM Manga did the adaptation of this, which has some "Americanized" lines thrown in for mostly no reason, and they also sort of broke theire tradition with the first two volumes printed in left-to-right, and then the next two in right-to-left. It's worth getting all four volumes, even though they aren't numbered. Definitely a choice pic for fans of D&D and Asterix.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 7: Page 9

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Aimi Tokutake.

ANI-MOVIES, *The Princess And The Frog

Disney has gone back to its 2-D roots with this fresh take on the story of The Frog Prince. This might be because they wanted to get some additional income from potential younger viewers who just wanna see a good story instead of a whole digital eye-orgy from Pixar.

Set in early 20th Century New Orleans, the hardworking young lady Tiana is planning to one day own her own restaraunt, and it seems like it might finally happen to when her debutante friend Charlotte hires her to help cater her big Mardi Gras reception for a visiting prince. Prince Naveen is from a made-up European country(he's not black, BTW!)who has been cut off from his family, and came to New Orleans to find a wealthy girl to marry. However, a voodoo dude named Dr. Facilier tricks Naveen into accepting a deal with him. He turns Naveen into a frog, and gives his disgruntled valet Lawrence the ability to take on the form of Naveen to try and marry Charlotte. Naveen now as a frog mistakes Tiana for an actual princess in a dress Charlotte gives her, and convinces her to kiss him to break the spell. Instead of him turning back into a human, Tiana is also transformed into a frog, mainly because she's not a "real" princess. The two of them get cast out into the swamp, and befriend an alligator(a not-so-big-lipped one)called Louis who longs to play trumpet in a jazz band, and later on the bayou firefly Ray that believes that a wishing star is his old girlfriend. They take Naveen and Tiana to the good witch doctress, Mama Odie. She tells them that they can reverse the spell if Naveen can kiss Charlotte before the end of Mardi Gras since she's considered a princess during it while her father won the title of King of Mardi Gras. Our heroes make their way back to New Orleans via riverboat, and Naveen and Tiana start to realize their inevitable feelings for each other. While this is going on, Facilier's plan to have Lawrence gain Charlotte's fortune is in trouble because the charm used to disguise his true form has run out of Naveen's blood, so they need find him to complete their scheme. During the chase, Ray gets squashed, and Facilier is dragged to the underworld by his voodoo overlords. Naveen's chance to kiss Charlotte passes, but he and Tiana seem content to remain as frogs. They have a "wedding" in the swamp help by Mama Odie, and then become human again when they kissed since Tiana became a princess when she married Naveen. The two of them manage to open Tiana's dream restaurant with Naveen and Louis playing jazz in it.

This movie was tantalizing in every single way. It's nice to see Disney back in the saddle on that, although I thought from time to time during some of the non-musical scenes was a little lacking in standard Disney-quality. Speaking of the music, Keith David who does the shadowy Dr. Facilier totally kicks singing in his big number. Aside from a few story flaws involving the bylaws of the frog curse, and the tacked on usage of having talking animal sidekicks in a Disney flick, I had a great time watching it. This is probably the best original 2-D animated film to hit theatres in years, and will hopefully push the envelope to do more feature-length like this, despite how "cool" 3-D cartoons are.

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 7: Page 8

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Aimi Tokutake.

ANI-MOVIES, *Sky Crawlers

One of the best non-Miyazaki anime movies I've seen in a while. Sky Crawlers is based on a popular series of Japanese sci-fi novels(not manga!). They were so big, they spawned off a video game, and a manga based on the game titled Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces. It won the Future Film Festival Digital Award at the 65th Venice International Film Festival, and several awards at the Catalonian International Film Festival. It's credit was due to the fact that the film had acclaimed director Mamoru Oshii(Patlabor, Ghost In The Shell, Jin-Roh).

Set in an alternate timeline, a type of human beings exist called Kildren who stop aging once they reach their teenages. These Kildren are employed by a nation's government to be pilots who engage in arial battles with the rival country. Yuichi Kannami is the newest ace pilot at a military base, of which several Kildren pilots are stationed, along with the Suito Kusannagi who is the pretty but stern base commander. Yuichi learns later on that he is the replacement for a deceased pilot that Suito allegedly had killed, although whether he died in battle or not isn't revealed. Yuichi carries on a relationship with Suito, despite her apathetic nature toward everything, even her own daughter(yep, she's the only Kildren to have a child!). Yuichi also sets his sites on the illusive enemy pilot known as "The Teacher", who may or may not be his father. As the movie progresses, the truth about the Kildren is revealed, that they are artificially-created beings bred to act as sacrificial fighters.

Sky Crawlers is an absolute triumph in animation. The dogfight sequences are spectacularly rendered, and the arial visuals are like nothing seen in any other anime(even Macross Plus). Mamoru Oshii does a masterful job with developing the characters, and is brilliant with establishing the storyline. This movie was a breath of fresh air after alot of the somewhat stagnent non-Miyazaki feature-length anime films as of late. You simply must own this one. I don't care if you like animation or not! You must own it! Go out and buy it now!

JESI THE GENIE, *Part 7: Page 7

Story by Jer Alford. Art by Aimi Tokutake.

ANI-MOVIES, Dirty Pair: Project Eden

Time to take a galactic cruise with the original anime version of "bikini girls in space", the Dirty Pair! Originally done as series of Japanese sci-fi novels, they made their first anime appearance in a cameo in the Crusher Joe movie(which happens further in the future). After that, there was a Dirty Pair TV series, two OVA one-shot specials, and an OVA series. But Project Eden was their only theatrical movie

In case you didn't know, the anime is about a team of trouble consultants for an interstellar welfare originization called the WWWA. The fiesty Kei and the vein Yuri often try to emphasize that their codename is the "Lovely Angels", but their habit of causing unwarrented destruction throughout the galaxy has them referred to as the Dirty Pair. So anyway, Kei and Yuri are assigned to look into the attack of two different nations on the planet Argena that contains one of the galaxy's richest deposits of a mineral called Vizorium which is used to power spacedrives. Their investigation leads to a thief named Carson who they find in the ruins of one of attacked mineral refineries. Then, they're all attacked by bizarre creatures which look like a cross between leeches and the aliens from the Alien movies. Kei and Yuri team up with Carson to find where the creatures originate, a strange fortress belonging to the eccentric scientist, Prof. Watsman. He has been creating a new race genetically evolved from the Vizorium, but they keep meeting in failure. Carson is after him for a special bottle of wine made a few centuries ago that was stolen from him after he stole it(for himself!). After getting a spare arsenal from their loyal cat/grizzly bear Mughi, they fight past the horde of alien creatures and Watsman's butler who apparently was a former Jedi. They capture Watsman, and supposedly take Carson into custody too, but alot of the film was built around Kei and him developing somekind of romance. Before they leave though, they accidently set off a device in Watsman's lab that evolves all the Vizorium, and leaves the entire planet overrun with brutal creatures popping out of the ground.

This was a good outlet for the Lovely Angels, but took them a little more of their normal element. Usually, there's alot more action involved. The first 10 minutes and the last 15 or so minutes are pure great sci-fi action, while the rest of it involves Kei exploring her fascination with Carson, while Yuri is just sort of there. Like most movies that are based on an anime franchise(Sailor Moon, Naruto, Pokémon)the majority of the story revolves around the characters original to the movie, and not so much the ones the series was based on. However, it does work fairly well here. This is still a well animated movie for the mid-80s, and very visually appealing. It was first released on VHS in the 90s through Streamline Pictures, and then picked up by ADV Films a few years ago with a totally different dub. You can find it seperately on DVD, or as part of the Original Dirty Pair: Movie Collection, even though the other two movies in it are actually OVAs. BTW, the Original Dirty Pair is the series from the 80s, while Dirty Pair Flash was the remake video series done in the 90s.