I was just going to review the film but I may as well cover everything, this is Clamp's X.
The world is coming to an end and Kamui arrives into Tokyo as the one prophecy that will decide the fate of humanity and to which side he favours, the Dragons of Heaven or the Dragons of Earth, but he sides with the Dragons of Heaven as their outcome sides with Humanity and he likes his friends alive; not happy that Kamui has chosen their enemy, the Dragons of Earth create their own Kamui in Kamui's best friend Fuuma by baiting him with his sister Kotori. Fuuma's personality change sets the scene for the final battle as both factions go all out to decide how Armageddon plays out and all the angsty melodrama that goes with it.
I admit the animation is something to behold especially in the movie where the visuals are right up there with Akira but the story and characters are crap, made worst by the movie because no one is on screen long enough to make an impact because they die as quickly as Yamcha against a Saibaman.
The endings are pretty pointless as the story has been on hiatus for 16 years as of today with no plans to continue.
Then we come to Kamui, the best way to describe him is an early 2000s pretty boy with problems protagonist created by a yaoi fangirl who learned all her angsty writing from Twilight, he does nothing but burst into tears instead of I don't know actually using his powers to actually save someone and is only really there to be thrown into homo-erotic fanficton of himself being a play thing to every other male character from the series, now this is not me having a problem with Yaoi, in fact I criticised Fake for not having enough but if I had to watch the whole series with Kamui as a lead I'd lose my mind. I think Kira Yamato put it best in Gundam Seed, "what can you protect if feelings are the only weapons you have?" Clamp built a scenario with grand set pieces and enough creative freedom to go crazy and it completely wastes it on the wrong protagonist, this is why you are artists, not writers Clamp, you can make grand worlds with your beautiful art but all your stories are total and utter trash.
Dubs aren't really any better, the movie especially lacks decent acting as many under sell their performance.
I need pain killers after that.
Final Verdict: Setup like a grand master piece, performed by someone who thinks Twilight is literature.
We return to the 80s with this next review.
Kawa Yui has just started a new school but she doesn't show any interest in anything normal, luckily her new friend Uru Chie tells her about one of the many male gangs in the school the Kimengumi which translates to Funny Face Gang, led by the child like Ichido Rei. Throughout the series other male gangs such as the pretty boys, the sportsman, the delinquents (both genders) and the study freaks are introduced as a typical episode involves the Kimengumi interacting with everyday school situations.
This series is heavily reliant on pun style humour along with over the top reactions as the basis for it's comedy, anyone with a basic grasp of Japanese words could probably work out the puns, the easiest being Kawa Yui just being another way of saying Kawaii, however I mentioned in my HaruChika review that having to translate something that makes more sense in Japanese isn't going to work well with western audiences and this is especially important with comedy, so when you take the Kimengumi on face value (pun intended) you are left with two ways of viewing them, you either play along with their antics or they are just a bunch of retards, a term I don't use lightly.
I'm still on the fence with how to really view this, I get Rei's philosophy on how he portrays himself and it gives a good message of personality shining through despite what others think helped by some good voice acting but I doubt I could stand anymore episodes especially if they followed the same pattern each time offering no character development, so my conclusion is simply can you handle watching five ADHD kids for 86 episodes?
No dub, it's too old but I wouldn't ask for one.
Final Verdict: This is a challenge to watch, it's like being around an ADHD kid who's just snorted Red Bull. Good Voice acting does help make it more tolerable.
So next we look at a very well forgotten anime.
Dr Haruka Nishikikoji is the eccentric over weight Doctor of a major school whose clinic resides in a Medieval Castle built ontop of the School. While doing his best to help students, he has a mad crush on his childhood friend and nurse Miyuki, in which Haruka tries to impress with a number of crazy gadgets to make up for his insecurities, however these gadgets always go horribly wrong either affecting the students or faculty in hilarious ways and it's usually Miyuki who solves the problem usually after beating Haruka senseless first, rinse and repeat as most episodes will follow the same premise, it's almost a bingo game, so play along.
The situation is started by Miyuki being oblivious to what Haruka is planning, Yukihiro one of the students getting caught up in the situation or the Vice Principal's lackey hoping to get Haruka fired but ends up dragged into the situation.
The two kindergarteners playing along innocently.
The vice principal gushing over an antique and then getting it destroyed.
The muscular teacher getting every moment to pose his muscles.
The female teacher who pretty much faints every episode due to the craziness.
The principal herself not doing anything and just plays along.
Miyuki beating Haruka senseless.
Haruka's actual scheme being 90% of the time for perverted reasons.
Miyuki's sister teasing Yukihiro.
That's pretty much the entire anime, you can watch one episode and be done with the show because guarantee it doesn't improve from there, it's not bad but it's a one joke show that gets old quick and you can't help but wonder that Haruka should stop trying so hard and just do his job, he clearly has a degree and Miyuki would be more impressed by how he performs as a proper Doctor.
Any plans for a dub were rejected shortly after release as it didn't perform that well but it is Animax that had it and their dubs have a poor reputation.
Final Verdict: There's an endearing charm to the show but it's still a one joke show that rarely shows depth beyond it's need for pervy jokes and shenanigans.
Now for a fairy tale adaptation.
Maya is a problem child who misbehaves all the time to the point that her mother can't handle her no more, so her mother asks a witch to help her out, this witch gives her the book Thumbelina which after reading, Maya gets transported to the dream world as if she were Thumbelina herself. With a fairy made of sugar and some magic items, Maya sets off on her way to the Land of South to find her mother, along the way numerous creatures want to either kill Maya, force her into marriage or throw her into nightmares, so yeah that's pretty much how Thumbelina goes anyway.
The version I watched was the dubbed American version which attempted to re-tell the story as an 80 minute feature from a 26 episode series, while the series probably makes very little difference to the story it would've at least given us a cleaner narrative especially in regards to her so called behaviour which the dub doesn't portray well making Maya very tame for a so called troublemaker. The editing isn't any better as it makes it all too obvious there were cuts.
Dubbing was actually pretty good even if it did remind me of Digimon.
Final Verdict: Passable movie but it isn't the best in terms of editing or narrative which would've helped the story alot, if you can find it, try and watch the original tv series.
Now for a lesson in what to do with a dull story.
The story revolves around Satsuki who moves to a town haunted by a multitude of ghosts from an abandoned school, together with other local kids and a demonic cat, Satsuki sets about exorcising the ghosts.
On it's own merits, it's really tedious to watch, you'll feel like you're wasting away into nothingness, thankfully ADVfilms agreed and decided to turn it into a deliberate gag dub, not the first to do so as Samurai Pizza Cats were the first to do this but while that dub was a result of poor preservation on the part of the Japanese this one was more along the lines of: "What do we do with this anime? We got it as a freebie when we got the Saiyuki license but it's really dull. I know, the voice actors need to let off some steam lets just take the piss out of it"
And what you got was comedy genius, one of the few times you would completely ignore the subtitled version.
Final Verdict: Without the comedic dub this wouldn't even be worth the effort to watch, it's proof that you can sometimes get something from a freebie anime license.
