Legend of Crystania-Motion Picture/The Chaos Ring

Okay, now I don't run into many anime series/movies that leave me with a sense they were left incomplete and disappointment. However, I have found one that fits both categories and it was a sad day in my otakudom. I picked this up from Amazon.com and I thought it was sure to be a great set of films. Oh, how wrong I was.

Legend of Crystania picks up a frew months after Record of Lodoss War and Record of Lodoss War: Tales of the Heroic Knight. Ashram and Pirotess are leading the people of Marmo away from their homeland since Kardis is awake and their land is destroyed. They reach the land of Crystania, by ship convoy, but it is closed off from the rest of the world by a wall constructed formt he skin of an epically mammoth serpent. The whole island is basically made form it. Ashram is desperate to help his people and calls to the gods who rule Crystania to let them pass. The dark godking Barbas answers him, promising that they may enter Crystania, but, Ashram must give up his body to Barbas and his soul will be trapped in the Realm of Chaos. The deal goes through, the people of Marmo construct a castle, a town, and place Ashram's sleeping body on the throne. For 300 years, Pirotess waits for her lord/lover to awaken.

Skip forward 300 years and we meet a band of new adventurers who are descendants of the Marmo refugees. Lord Haven, Prince Redon's father, has declared that he will be neutral in the conflicts between several other factions. However, Obier, a companion with a small girl in tow who knows sprite magic (remember Deedlit?!), is sent by the most powerful of the factions to assassinate Haven. He fails, but is caught up in an attack by that faction and finds out that he was being used and would be blamed soely for Haven's death. He escapes with the other companions. The main part of Crystania is shut off by a huge wall that extends into the clouds called the God Wall. When Redon wishes for power to destroy the faction that killed his father, Barbas answers him in the form of Ashram. The God Wall splits and the companions run through, beginning their adventure in the Lands of Crystania where the beastmen rule.

Now, that is where I got confused. The band of adventurers are directly descended from the Marmese(that's what I call them), but Ashram's castle is in the Beastmen's Territory. So what happend? did they have to escape to the other side of Crystania? I want to know! There are plot holes from the beginning...great.

The first thing any Record of Lodoss War fan will notice is that even though the films are produced by Kodokawa, it's whole new animation and art team. The character detail/appearance is what killed me when I saw them. Their level of detail from the original 1990 release is, quite frankly, horrible. The animation is choppier than I would like, even for anime. However, I did notice that the characters have a higher degree of "natural" movement instead of flying all over the place and striking poses, they move more like you and me.

Character development was non-existant. Redon is this story's Parn, but without Kashue to beat him into shape. He, like most of the cast, is uninteresting and you end up feeling nothing for them. This had to be my second biggest complaint as I was expecting something great (with Kodokawa doing it, what fan wouldn't?), however, they remained as you met them. Lady Aderashia is a perfect example of a character they could have done A LOT with, but cut her out of 90% of the film. WHY?!

Ashram had the baddest mullet in all of anime in this film. But he didn't have it in the original series. He had this gothic, dark knight look that was on par with Darth Vader, though he never wore a helmet. In Legend of Crystania, he has a mullet, can anyone tell me why? I didn't think Ashram was into NASCAR and Smokey and the Bandit films. However, if you take off his now very uncool armor and put him in overalls, you can see it wouldn't take much. His voice is still deep and sounds good. That and he still carries the demon sword.

Pirotess is the main character although the story revolves more around Redon, which I never understood since he's a punk and she's featured on ALL the cover art and the discs in the set. She's fallen a long ways from her badassitude from Record of Lodoss War and is now easily taken down by even minor badguys. WHY?! I ask again. That's one reason I fell in love with the character (not in that way, she's just that good(bad). She's on a quest to reawaken Ashram with the use of an artifact called the Chaos Ring (kind of a Lord of the Rings where you WANT her to get the ring to her lord). She still uses people to her advantage, but isn't as bloodthirsty as she once was, like when she uses Yoof to help her get to the Realm of Chaos, but when Yoof becomes injured and ill, she's angry, but allows Yoof to rest at the behest of a Shrine priest. However, I still wanted to see some of that old Pirotess I met in the first series. Another complaint is that she goes from being her old dark-skinned complexion, to almost Nordic White in the film, some coloring issues they could have addressed before release.

Kodokawa released this film in their "Essential Anime Collection", but is has next to no extras and it just comes off as half-assed. I could have done better, and I'm not kidding. In the original Record of Lodoss War and Tales of the Heroic Knight, you got a bunch of extras if you bought the special edition versions. If this is a special edition, where are all the extras something like this was supposed to have? What's so "Essential?" However, my biggest complaint comes at the very end when Barbas is dead, Ashram freed, and the beast gods are almost all dead. Pirotess has fought so hard for so long, waiting 300 years for her beloved to reawaken and rule his land finally, and she gets absolutely no payoff whatsoever. Watchout, this is a spoiler, so if you want this movie or to at least want to watch it, don't read any further.

Pirotess frees Ashram's soul from the Realm of Chaos with the help of Yoof and the Chaos Ring, and Redon. The God-killing dragon is dead and all is well. Then we see our lovely dark elf standing at the throne of Ashram...he's still asleep. She goes before him, kneels on one knee and puts her head down. At this point, I was waiting for the big surprise where she would get what she so richly wanted for 300 years, for Ashram to wake up and take her in his arms and you get that really good feeling in your being. But NO! He still freakin' asleep! WHY?! Why should she have to fight for so dang long, nearly die on several occasions, and not see her man come back to her? Kodokawa, you really left me feeling like crap after that. GGGRRR!

Battle Angel

Battle Angel Alita. Not many people remember this female-empowering, yet deeply fragile characters from the early 90s. She started her life in the pages of Shueisha's Business Jump Magazine in 1990 from the hands of master manga artist/writer Yukito Kishiro. It chronicle shte life of Alita, a cyborg found in the massive trash heap of a far future earth by Daisuke Ido, a cyber doctor. She has lost her memories and attempts to regain them through combat. Giving her a new body, Ido "raises" Alita in Iron Town, the city beneath the floating city of Tiphaeres (Zalum in the anime). Alita finds out that Ido has a secret double life: that of a bounty hunter who tracks down killer borgs and deals with them with extreme prejudice with the aid of his rockethammer. Throughout the series, which spans 9 volumes and roughly 68 chapters total, Kishiro tells the story of a girl who becomes a woman through very extraordinary and tragic circumstances. She lives in a world where the saying "only the strong survive" takes on it's literal meaning. The writing is top-notch and the character developement solid. It's a violent book with lots of blood, brains, and body parts flying in all directions when our girl goes to work. I blew through the first book and I've got more on order.

Battle Angel Alita: Last Order is Kishiro's retelling of the story if things had happened differently. It goes on for 8-9 volumes and roughly 60 chapters. Our violent, blood-covered Alita takes on new foes and finds new friends in her struggle to restore a friend of hers from a brain-collecting computer.

Battle Angel Alita was also made into a two-part anime in 1993 and is the only adaptation to-date, of the manga with no intention of reviving it. This is sad, I think, sinc ehte movie was pretty good even though it only covered the two first chapters in condensed form with (if you read the manga) quite a few changes.

"Wings of Honneamise" in my top 10

When you go to a convention, looking for this movie, and everyone stares at you with that look of "what's he talking about?", it's quite disappointing since I'd rather give my money to the small guy with the great stuff than a huge website that makes lots of dough on a daily basis. Not only that, I don't have to pay shipping and there's no worry that the mail will lose or damage your purchase.

It's proper title is "Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise" is hte first full-length feature by Gainax (Remember them?) in 1987, two years before the famed Akira. It tells the story of Shirtosugh Lhadatt, a young man whose lack of self-motivation to succeed has placed him in the his nation's lacking space program and it's motley assortment of staff members.

Along his way, Lhadatt encounters and befriends a religious woman, Riquinni Nonderaiko, whose belief in God has seen her through the tough times in her life. No, this is not a religious film, although it does play a large part in the movie.

Riquinni inspires Lhadatt to become the first man into space, believing Lhadatt to ecompass all that humanity is capable of doing. As well as the solid belief that space exploration is a Godley pursuit.

To find out more, you have to see it. Roger Ebert gave it a gleaming review should tell you something about how great it is. The viewer is treated to an animation tour-de-force with animation as good as Akira's or Blood. It's an alternate story of the space race, but only from one country's point-of-view.

The themes of spirituality, internal politics, space exploration, love, and personal drive to succeed are played out by the characters in a convincing way that I even found surprising. In my top ten, this has to hit at least number 3. It's a great film if you find that the newer stuff is dragging, but don't expect giant robots, gatuitous panty shots, or hot anime babes running around in school girl outfits. This one puts the story and it's characters first. I also suggest it to ANYONE since it's not as "out there" as the majority of anime seems to be. My only caution is that there is strong language in the film, so watch the little ones.

Best line (I don't know if they'll shut me down for this, but here goes!): "You know...I was flying rockets before oyu were even an itch in your daddy's crotch!" Head scientist of the Space Program after an engine blows up.

Robotech and it's influence

Robotech was released WAAAY back in 1985 and was sucha different cartoon to see on the regular cartoon line up of Smurfs, GI. Joe, Thundercats, that many don't remember it. Even though it was a mainstream series on regular T.V. for two years. There are many reasons why it wasn't as popular as the other mentioned shows: and one of them wasn't because it was foreign-produced. Transformers was produced in Japan, animated in Korea, and then shipped over here. The first would be the number of episodes. In those days, a show had to have at 65 weekly episodes to be considered for air-time in the U.S. Robotech had just over 80 episodes, total. That includes the First through Third Robotech Wars, MOSPAEDA, and the Invid Invasion, which ended the series. If the Sentinels had been produced past three episodes, that would have significantly increased it's longevity. Second was the idea of an actual WAR in the series. Unlike most of it's competeing shows, the wars in Robotech had a lasting effect on the characters in the show. Many of it's main characters like Roy Fokker and his girlfriend, Claudia, were killed off. This was a completely new thing in cartoons and many parents complained since when you saw Roy fly in just before his death, there was blood in his cockpit. That was left in the American release and considered taboo.

However, before you think I'm dwelling on the bad, let's look at the good. We;ll start off with Roy and his girlfriend, Caludia. First of all, you'll notice that Roy is blonde, blue-eyed, and has a GERMAN last name. Claudia is black. This was a big complaint amongst parents that a cartoon advocated interracial relationships, in the 80s! I didn't think anything of it at 6 years old and I still don't. It was sad to see Roy and later, Caludia get killed because they were important and you liked them. The Japanese producers saw nothing wrong with this. Not to metion, it was one of the first animes to feature a not only international, but a multi-racial cast. It dealt with more adult themes and the affects war has on people and their relationships. WOW! All this in a kid's cartoon. Then there was the marriage of Max Sterling and Miriya. Another thing you NEVER saw in American cartoons was this subject brought up even in joking. Not to mention between two people so obviously different.

Finally, the international effect it had. The Veritech fighters, if you look at them, are modified F-14 Tomcats. The Japanese, to this day, buy that plane from us for their carriers. Then the crew. Admiral Gloval was Russian, that would NEVER have happened in the 80s and he commanded a crew of Americans, Phillipinos, French, German (Roy), etc. It was this air of international cooperation because of the SDF-1's comming, that sparked some outrage since the cold war was still on and everyone was being xenophobic (which, by definition, doesn't mean you hate aliens, you hate anyone not from your country, town, etc.). However, it can be considered one of the ways people opened up to the idea of cooperation between America and it's chief rival, the Soviet Union. That's right, hook'em on the idea when their young;). It was a great idea now that I look back.

All-in-all, Robotech had a farther-reaching effect than most give it credit for. Interractial relationships, the horrid effects of war, personal relationships between adults, the death of major charcters. All this and it was presented in a way that kids could understand for the most part. Which reinforces my belief that kids know more than parents give them credit for.

What do you all think?

A great anime series to be sure

I picked this up several years ago at Fry's in Dallas after having remembered seeing the first episodes on the Scifi Channel's Old Saturday Anime block. It's still one of the best anime series I've seen in a long time. It was made when many of the anime companies were producing these rather expensive series/movies (Akira in '89) and when you watch it, it'll make you want to play Final Fantasy or Phantasy Star. Or if you're an old school D&D player (although I haven't played since '04), you'll probably have good memories. IF you can remember it, have seen it, or at least know of it, feel free to post a comment. That's what this is here for!