I just have to say it: Baccano! is a flipping great series. I know they're not as popular as the long-running shonen series, but I absolutely love those 12-24 episode anime that show you a one-off perspective of the world. They just tend to be so damn exhilarating, with crazy-ass plot twists at every step in the game.
I definitely have to put Baccano! in that group of bizarre anime. It's a pretty complex show, but at its core it is the story of a group of people who got their hands on an immortality elixir. Of course, all sorts of craziness ensues. A lot of that craziness comes from the time hopping, which might happen 20 times in one episode. There's an episode that flashes back to 1711, one that flashes forward to the 21st century, and all sorts of craziness in-between. Even when it stays at the focal point of the story--from around 1930-1933--it manages to hop backwards and forwards. For instance, in the very first episode, we see the endings to three different stories that we'll only learn more about in later episodes.
And that's another thing that makes the series so crazy-awesome. It's already got that scatter-brained quality with the Kurt Vonnegut level of time hopping, but it also takes a soap operatic number of characters, puts them all into their various personal plot lines, and manages to make it all coalesce into one beautiful whole in the end.
Truth be told, I'm trying not to give too many specifics, because I don't want to ruin the show for anyone who hasn't seen it but wants to. But I think giving this little excerpt from the very beginning of the series shouldn't spoil too much. It features the Vice President of an information brokerage/newspaper publisher and a young girl who has a close, father-daughter relationship with him.
"Carol: Our job is not to think about things, but to report to others the outcome of what has already happened...
Vice President: It's true, our job is to convey the truth to others, but the moment that we obtain any information, be it truth or falsehood, we must not stop thinking. We must not stop at just determining whether the information is true or false. Such is the responsibility of those who deliver information to others.
Carol: But, what is there to think about? Just thinking about something doesn't change whether or not it's true, right?
Vice President: Yes, it does change."
To see an anime get that philosophical in the first episode was a great experience and one which showed me how much I would like this anime. However, it's not just philosophy. There are so many murdering psychopaths on this train that the heap-loads of action were destined to occur.
Of particular note is Ladd Russo, hitman for a Chicago mafia who expresses his passionate love for his fiancée, Lua Klein, by stating that he could only bear to kill her after he'd killed everyone else in the world. Let me point this out. His goal in life: to kill everyone in the world.
I would say the biggest hurdle in watching this series is the first episode: there are so many characters to keep track of and so many divergent plot lines which take a while to get connected. Therefore, the first episode seems like a muddle of confusion. But trust me, by the end all of that confusion is turned into sheer bliss at discovering so much about the myriad characters.
There's something (legally) intoxicating about the way that all these characters are running around so close to each other, bumping into each other's plot lines and causing all sorts of havoc, where only the viewer gets the holistic view of what's happening, so all the characters have to run around, without quite understanding the implications of their actions. This was particularly notable in the introductions between various characters. You might have been following these characters for five or six episodes, absorbing their escapades in bite-sized pieces, and then you get to see two of the characters bump together, and it's interesting to see the way they present themselves to each other. Apathy where there should be loathing, interest where there should be fear, etc. It's just a lot of fun to watch.
To top it all off, there's a good deal of mystery as well. And it's not just mystery in the "How is it all gonna end?" sort of way. But there's also the question of, "What is this massive monster going from car to car literally killing all the passengers?" That's a mildly interesting tertiary question. And there's the question of, "Why is it some people are getting killed, but they're not dying?" That's, y'know, kinda cool.
But yeah. I don't really know what else to say, except to try the first couple of episodes. Remember what I said about the first episode being tough to get through, and don't let that deter you. Because trust me, by the end, Baccano! had some of the best episodes I've ever seen in an anime.
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Monday, July 11, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Godzilla, A Review
As of late, I've found myself getting more and more captivated by two things: Asian culture and B-Horror films. The Asian culture thing isn't really all that surprising. I'm taking a course in Asian Studies, I'm reading Journey to the West (one of the Four Classic Novels of Chinese literature. I think I'll save discussion of that for another post), and in general anime has become quite the subject of discussion among my friend group. I suppose the B-Horror film thing isn't that difficult to figure out, either. Melodramatic cheese has pretty much always been up my alley, and I've always known I liked the genre ever since I saw The Blob in Middle School. Today, I finally watched the movie which manages to combine those two interests. For those among you who felt this post's title was a bit unclear, I watched Godzilla. And you know something, I really enjoyed it.
Basically, the plot of the film is that atomic testing has removed Godzilla from his underground lair. Therefore, he has begun to attack boats and generally prove to be a nuisance to maritime trade. It's not so bad until a storm comes and Godzilla is pushed out of the water, onto an island. People aren't quite sure, but a couple think they saw a monster of some sort. People are generally confused about what's going on, but the next day this scientist named Dr. Yamane goes to the scene and notices a giant footprint which suggests all the damage "caused by the storm" may in fact have been caused by something more... worrisome. Quickly thereafter, Godzilla appears again and everyone freaks out, understandably.
Though Yamane wants to learn about the creature, most everyone else wants to kill it. Underwater depth charges, electric fences, and the like prove futile and no one can figure out how to kill it. Dr. Yamane mopes around about how important a discovery the monster could be, while his daughter Emiko flirts with Ogata the sailor. Her love for Ogata makes her break it off with her fiance, a scientist named Serizawa.
But in abject truth, nobody is paying attention to any of that: the reason everyone's watching the movie is to see Godzilla break stuff. And break stuff he does. Angry about the underwater charges, he ends up making a wreck of Tokyo. Though the special effects are clearly a bit on the dated side, they're still a lot of fun to watch, if simply because they're a curiosity. Growing up in an animated, CGI sort of world, it's fun to watch Godzilla make an absolute mess of miniature models. Quite frankly, it's nothing you'd see in modern-day film-making.
But all good things must come to an end, so after Godzilla makes a mess of miniature-model Tokyo, people are understandably pissed. Emiko reveals to Ogata the sailor that Serizawa the scientist has created a device which could defeat Godzilla, but she was the only one he showed it to and he swore her to secrecy. The viewer flashes back to Serizawa's demonstration of his device--the Oxygen Destroyer--which essentially sucks all the oxygen out of water and asphyxiates the creature. It's a pretty cool device, though I admittedly have no idea how it works scientifically.
But that's alright, because I'm rather quickly distracted by the tension that ensues between Ogata and Serizawa. It's a battle of the wills as the sailor wants to use the device to destroy Godzilla, while Serizawa wants to keep the device secret, fearful of what people would do if they got their hands on such a cataclysmic device. Ogata wins in the end. However, Serizawa burns his notes and makes it explicitly clear that this is the only Oxygen Destroyer man has. Ogata thinks that's a good idea, so they go to the bottom of the ocean, carrying the only Oxygen Destroyer known to man. They set it off near Godzilla and Ogata leaves, being heralded as a hero. Serizawa, on the other hand, wishing to keep the Oxygen Destroyer as secret as possible, dies with Godzilla, thus assuring that no one has any knowledge of how the Destroyer was created.
Like I said before, it was a pretty good, enjoyable movie. Other than Godzilla smashing things, I think my favorite part might have been all of the mildly blatant symbolism going on in the movie. I walked in knowing that there was going to be some allegory for the way that the atom bomb changed so much about the human experience and the way that the monsters somehow reflected the fears of the people, but the execution of the symbolism actually surprised me.
Misconceptions being one of my favorite things to hold onto, I thought Godzilla was going to represent the nuclear bomb. However, as I watched the movie, it quickly became apparent that it was the Oxygen Destroyer which represented the nuclear bomb, while Godzilla actually represented the traditions of Japan. You see, early on in the movie, they're talking about how Godzilla was a myth among the older tribes of Japan. Therefore, whenever the fishing was bad, the fishermen would sacrifice a few girls and the fishing would get better again. Thus Godzilla, being an ancient creature and all, is a tie to Japan's past. In particular, it represents the ideal of putting the society before the individual.
Even as Godzilla ravages Tokyo, in my mind he is still connected to the ideals of the past: the Japanese ideal of fighting to the death was causing quite a few needless casualties in World War II, just like Godzilla is causing so many casualties in Tokyo. Therefore the question becomes, should a scientific, modern device be used to destroy those ideals? At what cost are those ideals being left behind?
In the end, I don't really know the answer to that question, but I've got to thank Godzilla for asking it.
Basically, the plot of the film is that atomic testing has removed Godzilla from his underground lair. Therefore, he has begun to attack boats and generally prove to be a nuisance to maritime trade. It's not so bad until a storm comes and Godzilla is pushed out of the water, onto an island. People aren't quite sure, but a couple think they saw a monster of some sort. People are generally confused about what's going on, but the next day this scientist named Dr. Yamane goes to the scene and notices a giant footprint which suggests all the damage "caused by the storm" may in fact have been caused by something more... worrisome. Quickly thereafter, Godzilla appears again and everyone freaks out, understandably.
Though Yamane wants to learn about the creature, most everyone else wants to kill it. Underwater depth charges, electric fences, and the like prove futile and no one can figure out how to kill it. Dr. Yamane mopes around about how important a discovery the monster could be, while his daughter Emiko flirts with Ogata the sailor. Her love for Ogata makes her break it off with her fiance, a scientist named Serizawa.
But in abject truth, nobody is paying attention to any of that: the reason everyone's watching the movie is to see Godzilla break stuff. And break stuff he does. Angry about the underwater charges, he ends up making a wreck of Tokyo. Though the special effects are clearly a bit on the dated side, they're still a lot of fun to watch, if simply because they're a curiosity. Growing up in an animated, CGI sort of world, it's fun to watch Godzilla make an absolute mess of miniature models. Quite frankly, it's nothing you'd see in modern-day film-making.
But all good things must come to an end, so after Godzilla makes a mess of miniature-model Tokyo, people are understandably pissed. Emiko reveals to Ogata the sailor that Serizawa the scientist has created a device which could defeat Godzilla, but she was the only one he showed it to and he swore her to secrecy. The viewer flashes back to Serizawa's demonstration of his device--the Oxygen Destroyer--which essentially sucks all the oxygen out of water and asphyxiates the creature. It's a pretty cool device, though I admittedly have no idea how it works scientifically.
But that's alright, because I'm rather quickly distracted by the tension that ensues between Ogata and Serizawa. It's a battle of the wills as the sailor wants to use the device to destroy Godzilla, while Serizawa wants to keep the device secret, fearful of what people would do if they got their hands on such a cataclysmic device. Ogata wins in the end. However, Serizawa burns his notes and makes it explicitly clear that this is the only Oxygen Destroyer man has. Ogata thinks that's a good idea, so they go to the bottom of the ocean, carrying the only Oxygen Destroyer known to man. They set it off near Godzilla and Ogata leaves, being heralded as a hero. Serizawa, on the other hand, wishing to keep the Oxygen Destroyer as secret as possible, dies with Godzilla, thus assuring that no one has any knowledge of how the Destroyer was created.
Like I said before, it was a pretty good, enjoyable movie. Other than Godzilla smashing things, I think my favorite part might have been all of the mildly blatant symbolism going on in the movie. I walked in knowing that there was going to be some allegory for the way that the atom bomb changed so much about the human experience and the way that the monsters somehow reflected the fears of the people, but the execution of the symbolism actually surprised me.
Misconceptions being one of my favorite things to hold onto, I thought Godzilla was going to represent the nuclear bomb. However, as I watched the movie, it quickly became apparent that it was the Oxygen Destroyer which represented the nuclear bomb, while Godzilla actually represented the traditions of Japan. You see, early on in the movie, they're talking about how Godzilla was a myth among the older tribes of Japan. Therefore, whenever the fishing was bad, the fishermen would sacrifice a few girls and the fishing would get better again. Thus Godzilla, being an ancient creature and all, is a tie to Japan's past. In particular, it represents the ideal of putting the society before the individual.
Even as Godzilla ravages Tokyo, in my mind he is still connected to the ideals of the past: the Japanese ideal of fighting to the death was causing quite a few needless casualties in World War II, just like Godzilla is causing so many casualties in Tokyo. Therefore the question becomes, should a scientific, modern device be used to destroy those ideals? At what cost are those ideals being left behind?
In the end, I don't really know the answer to that question, but I've got to thank Godzilla for asking it.
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