Continuing straight away from the last entry we cover those we'll miss who passed on from April-June
Kirsten Bishopric 1963-2014
Veteran Canadian Voice Actress whose credits include Zoicite from Sailor Moon among many others.
George H. Heilmeier 1936-2014
Pioneer of LCD which revolutionized television of whom without would not have gotten close to the HD era.
Bob Hoskins 1942-2014
British Actor whose roles included Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit as well as the live action Super Mario among many other roles.
Efrem Zimbalist Jr 1918-2014
Veteran actor & voice actor whose roles included Alfred from a number of DC universe cartoons as well as Dr Octopus in the 90s Spiderman among hundreds of other roles.
Kouji Yada 1933-2014
Veteran voice actor whose credits include Dr Gero from the Dragonball universe among many others including Zeff from One Piece.
Eric Hill 1927-2014
British Children's Author of Spot the Dog.
Francis Matthews 1927-2014
British Actor who provided the voice of Gerry Anderson's Puppet character Captain Scarlet in the series of the same name.
Casey Kasem 1932-2014
Radio Broadcaster and voice of Shaggy from Scooby Doo, a role he played for 40 years among other voice works including Transformers.
Steve Viksten 1960-2014
Writer for Rugrats, Hey Arnold (as well as voice of Oskar Kokoshka), Recess, Duckman and the Simpsons.
Happy New Year everyone, at time of writing I'm in the future that is 2015 as Britain goes into the New Year before America. But there are a number of people we will miss who didn't make it this year but since 2014 was so cruel to celebrities, this has to be split into several parts starting with those we lost from January-March
So lets give these people a last goodbye.
James Avery 1945-2013
Before 2014 even began we lost the voice of Shredder, main villain of the Ninja Turtles as well as performing a memorable role as Philip Banks in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
Hal Sutherland 1929-2014
A prominent animator for Disney throughout the 50s whose credits include Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, Peter Pan and the last theatrical Donald Duck cartoons; he would later provide animation for 70s Filmation super hero works including Flash Gordon, Batman, Aquaman and Superman. His last work was on He-man.
Seizo Katou 1927-2014
Veteran voice actor whose credits include the Japanese voice of Megatron from the Transformers franchise among hundred other roles.
Ichiro Nagai 1931-2014
Veteran voice actor whose credits include Happousai from Ranma 1/2 among hundreds of other roles along with Japanese dub roles as Yoda and Dumbledore.
Masaaki Tsukada 1938-2014
Veteran voice actor whose credits include Yamamoto Genryūsai from Bleach among hundreds of other roles.
Arthur Rankin Jr 1924-2014
One half of Rankin/Bass productions responsible for Thundercats, numerous Christmas Specials and animated versions of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
Gordon Bell 1934-2014
British Cartoonist whose works were featured in pretty much every British comic from Beano to the Dandy. Works include Dennis the Menace (British version) along with numerous others.
Jimmy Murakami 1933-2014
Animator for Christmas short film the Snowman as well as other books by author Raymond Briggs, also provided animation for the cartoon adaption of The Chronicles of Narnia.
Harold Ramis 1944-2014
While not animation related, Harold Ramis was still an important part of geek culture as writer and acting role as Dr Egon Spengler for the Ghostbusters films.
Runa Akiyama 1954-2014
Veteran voice actress whose roles included many characters from the Time Bokan franchise.
Now my final review of this year is a special entry for Christmas, time for the Snowman.
Every year on British TV on Channel 4 specifically, the Snowman has always played, in fact since both this and the Channel were made in 1982 it has never failed to be played in all 32 years.
The story begins with an extract from the book by Raymond Briggs the short film is based on which reads.
"I remember that winter because it had brought the heaviest snows I had ever seen. Snow had fallen steadily all night long and in the morning I woke in a room filled with light and silence, the whole world seemed to be held in a dream-like stillness. It was a magical day... and it was on that day I made the Snowman"
A small note that this is the only dialogue you'll hear in the entire production along with the only scene of live action footage, this short was made using music only and hand drawn animation and although the opening has altered over the years with David Bowie being one of those who has started the story, the actual film has remained unchanged, even it's 30th anniversary sequel the Snowman and the Snowdog keeps most of the traditional techniques.
The story is about a boy named James who one night on Christmas Eve built a Snowman, on the stroke of midnight the Snowman comes to life and proceeds to explore James' house as it tries to understand how everything works including riding a Motorcycle, as the night continues, the Snowman then flies off with James to the North Pole set to the song "Walking in the Air" sung by choir boy Peter Auty and this is the high point of the film, it's a showcase of the most beautiful winter scenery hand drawn to perfection set to some moving yet haunting music, you can't help but get emotional during this scene.
Once the flight to the North Pole is complete, the Snowman along with James and many other Snowman have some fun and meet Santa Claus where James receives a scarf as a gift, upon arriving back home James goes to bed while the Snowman returns to the position he was built in. On Christmas morning, James awakes to find that the Snowman has melted, the film ends on James mourning the loss of the Snowman, if you were already crying at the music then you'll be in floods of tears by the end.
Whether you interpret the ending as a sad one or not is debatable, yes it's sad, but James takes away a magical memory as it's implied that the narrator at the start is the boy grown up and the sequel makes it clear when a new boy moves into the same house and finds an old picture of James and the Snowman.
So this is what the British have to offer in terms of Christmas Animated Specials and whether your favorite is Charlie Brown, The Grinch or one of the hundred others that are played every year, I take pride knowing that every Christmas this film reminds me that the year I went through was all worth it.
Happy Christmas everyone, see ya next year.
Following on from reviewing a juggernaut like Frozen, lets dive into the archive and pick on a lost OVA Anime that was shown during the early days of the Mario Franchise, now this is a mouthful as the title is called Super Mario Bros: Peach-hime Kyushutsu Dai Sakusen!
The short film starts off with Mario playing a video game, yes kind of ironic that Video Game's greatest known character is a gamer himself. Then Princess Peach appears on the game and exits into Mario's world to try and escape Bowser's minions, Bowser follows and quickly dispatches Mario and takes Peach back into the game world with Peach leaving behind an Emerald jewel much like the one attached to her dress. Luigi wakes up thinking Mario just made up the whole confrontation but changes his tune when he realizes the jewel he has is real and tries to encourage Mario to go save Peach but with no way of knowing how.
The next day the brothers are working in their grocery store, yes the so called plumbers were not originally plumbers, but Mario is too bummed out to work but things change for them when a blue dog named Kibidango takes the gem which leads the brothers to the Mushroom Kingdom through a warp pipe disguised among regular pipes.
Upon arrival an old man named Kinoko Sennin explains the situation that Bowser had his proposal of marriage rejected and in return not only kidnapped Peach but turned the Mushroom people into bricks and plants, in order to complete this quest Mario needs to find the three mystical power-ups of a Mushroom, Star & Flower, meanwhile the money grabbing Luigi is just happy that he can keep any coin they collect and Kibidango comes with them.
From there they basically go through a typical Mario game beating all the enemies you see in the game while Bowser attempts to woo Princess Peach. At one point the brothers come across Toad of whom was freed from being turned into a coin looking strangely feminine complete with pink color palette, now since this film was released in 1986, Toad hadn't been made yet or at least not confirmed to exist back then, so this version would be considered Toad 1.0.
From there it continues like a proper Mario game right up until the final confrontation with Bowser which ends much in the same way as Mario 64 with Mario grabbing Bowser's tail and throwing him around. With the Koopa King dispatched, Mario gets rewarded with a kiss but then to his dismay, Kibidango turns into a Prince named Haru and ends up married to Peach as they were pre-engaged to do so. Even in the anime, Mario ends up with no Princess and from there Mario is told he's welcome back anytime if more rescuing is needed while Bowser ends up running the Mario Bros Grocery Store.
So ends Mario's only attempt at an Anime and to be honest, this is the closest thing you'll get to a proper retelling of the Mario games on tv screens and it predates those that followed it. Is it any good? It's okay considering the time period and how young the franchise was at the time, like I said, Toad had not been invented as a speaking character nor was there any sign of Yoshi and typically being Japanese only, Bowser was of course referred to as King Koopa, mind you some elements never came back like the so called Prince and Kinoko Sennin are never spoken of again in the franchise and pretty much all the designs kept evolving over the years until present day. The availability of this anime is scarce, even a fansub you'll struggle to find as the movie had a very limited VHS release and most fans know how increasingly difficult it is to find those; your only option is Youtube where one uploader has got the movie up as a raw but I'll leave the viewers to find it, there may be a couple of fan dubs and fan remasters but that's it.
Final Verdict: Even without subtitles it's very easy to follow but considering it's rarity, seeking it out is a task in vain, I still say watch it if only to look into Mario's past at it's earliest stages in establishing it's mythos.
It's Christmas time so it's time for some special reviews, I'll be doing three this year along with a special Walk of Fame entry and a Christmas themed UAFC battle over on Fantasy Zone.
You're in for a treat as I start with Disney's latest juggernaut, Frozen.
Frozen begins with two princesses, who during a routine playtime using the elder sister Elsa's winter powers goes horribly wrong when younger sister Anna gets struck by Elsa's powers; she doesn't die but some nice enchanted trolls were kind enough to wipe the incident from her mind but it serves as a catalyst that separates the sisters from each other for many years until a storm kills the King & Queen. Through virtue of being the eldest child, Elsa is crowned Queen, but is still nervous about her powers which seem to not only be getting stronger but getting harder to control. During the coronation, Elsa's first confrontation with her sister for many years goes horribly wrong when Anna's attempt at a fairy tale romance with Prince Hans not only gets refused but a trigger phrase from Anna causes Elsa to snap and nearly kill half the people in the ballroom with an ice attack, this actually gets much worst as her over blown emotions freezes all of Arendelle as she runs away to the mountains which she seems to get to rather quick; after the show stopping song from the "Wicked" Snow Queen, (Cookie for guessing the reference) Anna gives chase to her sister along with an Iceman named Kristoff, his reindeer Sven and a live wise cracking snowman named Olaf; but as soon as she confronts her sister in her makeshift ice castle, Anna is struck again but this time more serious as the effects begin to freeze her permanently so it's a race against time to save Anna's life while Elsa avoids being killed by the bad guys.
From there it's spoiler territory and believe it or not there are some people who haven't seen the film.
So the big question is, does the movie deserve it's hype?
No. It doesn't. It's over hyped majorly and here's why.
Don't get me wrong it's a decent film but there are many points where the film loses itself and it's mostly around the fact that there are too many songs and not enough story, not made any easier when you consider that this wasn't billed as a musical, it is a strange criticism but most Disney films knew when to draw the line; in Frozen there is clearly a time limit before Anna freezes to death yet some of this time is wasted when the trolls try to pair her up with Kristoff, it comes out of nowhere and is not needed.
So why is Frozen so popular that it easily outsells most other franchises in the Disney universe?
Well it's because the lead characters Anna & Elsa are so well made that they made this average looking movie look like an Oscar winner; it also helps that "Let it Go" is one of the best and catchiest songs Disney has ever made, not to mention that Disney successfully made a winter film that can hold it's own on Christmas and as some song writers know, a good Christmas product is enough to retire on and the stars of Frozen will never need to work again and Disney would of made more than double it's losses from the Lone Ranger flop.
So it's less the actual film but more everything else around it that make it so popular with pretty much anyone, even it's harshest critics cannot help but utter "Let it Go" whenever it's on, it serves a purpose over the Christmas period and like it or not, it's here to stay.
