Ninja Scroll (1993)

Writer: Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Studio: Animate Film

First watched: 29/07/2025

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Ninja Scroll

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
5		4	6	7	4

Ninja Scroll. Kinda cool but sadly over-hyped. I wouldn't necessarily say that Ninja scroll is a bad film but it's certainly not deserving of too much high praise. The main thing about it is that it absolutely has so much of that aesthetic, thematic and stylistic character of dope 80s/90s anime and undoubtedly is one of the big contributors to making that whole sub-genre what it was (and still is). However, although it's very visually appealing, the film itself, i.e. its story and characters, lacks substance and any kind of direction. So while it's a pretty cool nostalgic memory, it's not actually a great film.

Frustratingly, I have to kick this off with noting that the role of women in the film is absolutely atrocious. Every single woman character (which is a grand total of 3) had personality traits and story beats that revolved exclusively around sex or sexualisation, usually in a terrible way. They also had barely any impact on the plot for the most part.

First, you have the 2 female members of the '9 monsters': Benisato and Zakuro. Benisato is the first to appear, when she strips naked in the bathouse to show off her tattoos and activiate her snake technique. She then of course has the snakes glide around her breasts before she attacks. She later on appears completely naked again in the temple (meaning the context of being in a bathhouse was irrelevant the last time, apparently), to use the snake attack again; however, this time when she gets cornered, she has a snack pop out of her pussy for a sneak attack (not joking). The only other aspect of her character that we learn about is that Gemma (the main antagonis) regularly "makes love to her". That's it. You then get Zakuro, whose first lines of dialogue are her confessing her love to the leader of the 9 monsters, then trying it on with him. Her character story then concludes with her killing him for rejecting her advances. She has no other elements to her character.

Then we finally get to Kagero, the main female character of the film. She does actively participate in and influence the story, however it's all through insane or pathetic misogynistic means. Firstly, her 'power' is that she is immune to poison but also that any man she sleeps with will then die by poisoning. This is conveniently exploited by Dakuan (a government official), as the poison he uses on Jubei (the main man character) will be neutralised if she shags him. And as the story plays out, since he's the only man who views her as a person and not a tool, she ironically falls in love with him and wants to shag him for both reasons. This is the kind of role for women that you can only come up with when you genuinely do no view them as actual people and instead think they're just sex toys and romantic prizes. But the thing that really solidifies the mistreatment of women characters is for her troubles, we see Kagero get sexually assaulted not once but twice on screen. The first time you could argue is plot related, as she 'allows' this so that she can kill Tessai with her poison. Even then, the concept of her having to get sexually assaulted to win a fight shows an insane level of hatred and disregard towards women. But even if you did give that one a pass, you'd still have the second time, when Shijima, the sneaky shadow ninja of the 9 Monsters, manages to kidnap her to lure Jubei into his trap, he makes sure to take a moment to quickly sexually violate her for good measure. To be honest, I would find it difficult to describe this film as good when the treatment of women in it is blatantly terrible. So I guess that is something that should be kept in mind if anyone else ever reads this.

(Oh, also just remembered there is another woman character who appears - an unnamed woman who is very literally just there getting fucked by the head of Kagero's village when she goes to report back the death of her squadron to him. The guy doesn't even stop to have this conversation with her and just keeps fucking this women, who of course has to scream and moan the entire time. She's presumably a concubine, again showing the type of women the writers wanted to see in their film).

To speak about the other elements of the film then, I'd say that its concept, design and style are genuinely pretty cool. The 9 monsters is a great vehicle/set-up for driving interesting action sequences and overall creating obstacles in the story. Sadly, none of the monsters themselves really get enough screentime to properly create a problem, let alone have the main characters solve it meaningfully. A lot of their powers were really cool and very thematic for sneaky, hidden ninja technique type stuff, but the fights semed to end as soon as they started, pretty much. There was also randomly one of them whose power was just like... bees? That was a bit odd; maybe there's some Japanese mythology I'm not familiar with.

The story is pretty much a nothing story and doesn't really make much sense (to me, at least). All of the aura and mystique of the secret ninja techniques and the Edo period is kinda lost in the main storyline basically revolving around government representatives and a trade deal for blocks of gold(?). Super boring and just means the plot has no real weight to it. We're kinda just told that we should care about this trade deal enough to follow it, rather than it being geuinely interesting. Then right at the end of the story, Gemma, the big bad, decides to change up and want all the power to himself, which is so unbearably boring and predictable. Again, it carries next to no weight, because both he and the people he betrayed only appeared on screen 2 minutes prior. (I will however excuse the plot being boring and predictable, given the fact that this is one of the films that would have laid the foundation for these types of stories on the big screen - it is now 32 years old!). Gemma himself as the main antagonist is also very surface level. Pretty basic design, no interesting powers to speak of, just immorality (which is conceptually huge but narratively pretty pointless).

Even Jubei (the main character)'s journey to halt this evil plan is literally forced, so there's actually no real buy-in to wanting to see how it all gets resolved. Jubei has no specific or even general motivations in the film, which is good for forming his identity as this rogue shinobi but terrible for making the story engaging in any way. Also, the hatred Jubei feels towards Gemma is all based off an implied past that we learn very little about. We see a few flashbacks here and there, then get told that Gemma's an awful person and a demon over and over in the dialogue. It's a little bit patronising.

The animation is good! However, I think I could only give it 'good'; no higher. The fights are animated really well, with lots of environment, clothing and flowy hair also moving pleasantly and believably around it. And generally, whent things move, they move through 3 dimensional space very convincingly. The artwork is also fantastic throughout, especially how they use light and shade to describe forms in quite a lot of visual detail (which really adds to the sense of depth to the characters and movement). There is a fair amount of the animators being 'economical' but that's understandable; it also happens to a point that it breaks your suspense or looks uncanny.

For the storytelling, I think the fights, the tone, the style and concept etc. all come together to create a decent viewing experience. Your eye is directed well and it's clear what's happening, where things are etc. Although there aren't any particularly interesting storytelling devices, like. Plus the explanations around the plot are a little bit clunky. So not great but can't say it's terrible.

To be honest, I've struggled to find the focus to sit and write about this film and I think that itself explains how I feel about it. It's a film that didn't really strike me in any way for its brilliance and and no point did it make me feel any emotion more than mildly (other than contempt for its creators). So sadly, although this film is maybe a cult classic, I'd say that overall, it isn't actually very good. I would maybe relegate it to being great for having on in the background for visual interest but even that would be suspect, what with all the women getting raped and stuff. So really there's no place for this film. But it is kind of cool in some parts. That's about it.

Rant About Attack on Titan (2013)

After literally years of patiently waiting for the anime to finish, I finally watched Attack on Titan in January 2025. I finished the run in mid-Feb and felt very strongly about it - especially the final series. After letting my initial feelings marinate for a few weeks, I'm ready to commit my thoughts on the series to words. 

Overall assessment: the final series is terrible, in my opinion. Like honestly, really awful.

The 4th season pretty much trashes everything that was good in the previous 3 seasons (which wasn't everything, mind).

From the very start of the series, we basically get completely separated from the main character we've been on this insane journey with so far. First of all, he's practically absent throughout, especially in terms of his inner thoughts and feelings; secondly, he's acting and thinking completely differently to everything we've seen before. In my opinion, you can't do both: if he's going to have such a big personality shift, we should see it happen and understand why; if we're going to be given no insight into his mind, then it should remain somewhat unchanged from what we've learned about it. With what we got, the character journey we'd been on up to that point pretty much got trashed on the spot.

Alongside this, the objective we were chasing (freedom for humankind) got completely warped and lost the 2 things that made it so compelling: 

1. the sense of scale and stakes - it was about humanity braking out of the wallsand achieving freedom; and 

2. the absolutely terrifying and completely mysterious nature of the titans.

In season 4, the titans are a somewhat significant plot device but nowhere near the main objective. It very much becomes more focused on other things, which I personally found boring in entertainment but more importantly, is just such a massive shift from the initial premise of the series. Also, opening up 'the world' to include all of these other peoples and nations just makes the struggles within the walls seem insignificant and inconsequential. This is all typified and exacerbated by the fact that the walls turn into "millions" of Colossal Titans. Like, that thing was an unimaginable horror that seemed completely insurmountable before this - if there are millions of them, the impact of the 1 is completely lost.

Now I completely get a story goal changing (I in fact love a character losing what they *want* in exchange for what they *need*) but this was just so abrupt and honestly felt completely unrelated to the old story. Same thing for it ending up as Attack on Eren. It felt so random and there was no gradual heel turn that led us there.
And ultimately, the story just became generic and corny. Fighting for the freedom of the small cast we'd grown attached to somehow became literally saving the world - the most overused and boring storyline that exists. I couldn't help but wince during all the "let's save the world together" moments of teaming up with the Marleyans and the Warrior Cadets. Even the Nine Titans of old coming back to save them; that was very Naruto and basically made it feel like a kids movie. This again flies in the face of the early episodes, because part of what made the series so so great back then was the fact that these characters you were watching really, truly did get straight bodied. Like absolutely, unquestionably and sometimes unceremoniously killed - permanently. Having them survive as thoughts or spirits definitely undercuts that a little bit. What they did with Erwin and the scouts was fine but the Nine stuff was a bit disappointing.
Similarly, having all the Eldians at the last battle turn into titans, only to then have the transformation reversed again shat on the previous premise. If anyone got turned into a Titan, they were gone forever. Even in series 4, that includes Pixis and Levi's squad. So that just undermined some of that and used one of the previously most heartbreaking things in that universe for a bit of cheap shock impact.

Another thing that was a key feature of the early seasons was the exact level of technology that was available. They could use compressed gas and had figured out cannons. That's exactly where they'd got to. Not only did that establish and characterise the universe of the series but also set the scene and context for the battle against the titans. So every tiny, miniscule victory or step forward vs the titans felt absolutely massive and was so hard fought, because they had to do it with so few tools. Of course, you expect the characters to create and invent new technology but it took way too big a leap forward in season 4. The invention of the lightning spear honestly felt right on pace and it was pretty much their trump card against the armoured titan, which again seemed an impossible task before that. That's as far as it should have gone, in my opinion. Suddenly jumping forward to having trains, airships, way more guns etc. just made it about a completely different type of fight. And swords are cool! Slicing through a titan's neck is infinitely cooler than hitting it with a missile! I think that's a big part of it for me, as well. Slicing with swords is very much fantasy, which is so so cool, whereas shooting with guns is incredibly real-world, which is bland.

On top of the world itself getting bigger, the story just completely changes focus as well. Suddenly it's all about the warrior programme, the euthanisation plan and the Rumbling. These are all ideas that are only introduced in season 4. So again, they just don't really close off the narrative that was built up in the 3 seasons prior. Not to mention, all of this centres around a bunch of characters that are either brand new or uninteresting. Do we really need to spend so much time finding out about Porco and Marcel, Gabi and Falco? As characters, they're fine but introducing and giving so much time to so many new characters out of nowhere is just random and not at all satisfying. Also making it so incredibly explicitly about the ethnic cleansing of Jews during World War 2 was such a bizarre choice. It came out of absolutely nowhere. Also, what started off as an amazing action-fantasy series ended up being a LOT about foreign diplomacy and geopolitics. So so boring.

And all of that is made way worse, for me, by the fact that the story itself is absolutely terrible. Eren's titan powers completely change and he becomes this ethereal, all-knowing sage and can see into the future (I also don't think the importance of Eren kissing Historia's hand is emphasised clearly enough). But then this means that he has seen everything that's to come and it's all predetermined and he has to become a global terrorist. First of all, if everything is predetermined, there is no point in following the story - no one we're watching is influencing it! But secondly, the first 3 seasons are very much about defying what's set out in front of you, so this feels like another betrayal. But okay cool, let's go with it. The ultimate driver of the story is the fact that the founder Ymir remained a subservient slave to a king out of love (abysmal writing btw) but that meant she spent 2,000 years suffering. And because she is all knowing as well, she determines that Mikasa is the only person who can put an end to her suffering by killing her, somehow. No one else. And in order for this to happen, Eren has to allow all of this other stuff to happen (such as murdering kids) to make Mikasa hate him so that she can make peace with killing him. And in the process, he has to kill 80% of the people on the planet, and in spite of this, humans will still all remain at war with each other for all eternity.
That's a fucking awful story. It's so pointless. Oh and it's all only explained literall in the last 5 minutes of the final episode. I'd say in general, I really enjoyed Attack on Titan's non-linear storytelling but this didn't work at all, in my opinion. 
Also it's really unclear how this led to the end of the titan race. Does Armin say it's something to do with the choices Mikasa has made or was that maybe an issues with the subtitles on Crunchyroll? It does make sense that Ymir could and would do that to end the suffering but it just wasn't really well laid out/set up.

To be clear: Eren being a raging fuck is fair. It seems like a very natural conclusion for him to go too far for so-called revenge and kill masses of innocent people in a frenzy. But it's the fact he's composed and resigned to it and the fact it's prede-fucking-termined! That's what makes it so weak to me.

Throughout that finale, they just kept on lumping on more and more things to make it worse, as well. Like Eren saying he wanted Mikasa to pine after him for 10 years, Mikasa kissing Eren's severed head on the mouth, Eren saying he had to intentionally divery Dina Fritz's titan to make sure she killed his Mum. Like, all of that legit did not need to happen and just made the finale so much worse.

Although not exclusive to season 4, I also found all the internal "human" conflicts really boring as well. The Jaegerist insurrection honestly bored me to tears. Again, it's all centred around a very new character in Floch, so there's very little buy-in. And although it did result in some cool moments, it ultimately wasn't necessary. I'd say the same thing about overthrowing the government and installing Historia as the Queen, as well as the whole Kenny the Ripper subplot.
For real, the overthrowing the government had zero consequences on the story. Historia was the key person. It could have just been explained that she was sent away as a kid but then the Royal Family accepts her back after she learns the truth or something. All the stuff they did was quite unneccessary - the 'False King' had literally 0 dialogue, I'm quite certain. But all the important and good stuff (Grisha killing the Reiss family) did not need a military coup in order to be told. And the same for Kenny. That legit drives about an hour's worth of PVP fighting (again, kinda shits on the main premise of the series) and does not affect the story in any meaningful way. We could have learned about the Ackermans several other ways.
They also completely wasted all the intrigue they built up with Zeke. He pops up like a whack-a-mole and then gets his head sliced off. And that's just the end of that. He was a very interesting and pivotal character but then just kinda ended up being a pawn to Eren/Ymir. Pretty disappointing.

 
And lastly, I won't hold this against them too much because it seemed like a forced production issue, so not a conscious writing choice, but the animation in season 4 was pretty terrible at some points. Like a lot of the character drawings honestly looked really bad. I noticed it in particular on Armin and Erwin across the two studios. And lots of perfectly side-on headshots, which looked terrible. Looked like a lot more pinning drawings down and rotating or sliding them around in the final season, instead of redrawing. And of course, WAY too much 3D modelling. Certain titans did look good in certain shots (the Armour, for sure) but the way they moved, ultimately just looked uncanny and did not fit in with the rest of what was going on. Then, in that mission in Marley and a couple other places, they even 3D modelled the scouts and that looked fucking terrible. I will say though, in the 2 finale episodes, the animation was noticeably significantly better.

As for the 3 early season, I can't say anything less than I absolutely loved them. I was thrilled, intrigued, hyped, invested, all of it. I loved the horror and intrigue of the titans, the sincere sense of hopelessness you felt for humanity and the scouts, even the brutality of the fights and deaths. I especially loved the strategic manouevering as the scouts learned more about the titans or even just gambled on their hunches.I loved the varied and interesting characters, like Erwin and Annie.

The series also just had some incredible moments. Like Eren and Mikasa having to watch Hannes being eaten alive after having just felt so optimistic about how different things would be with all the progress they'd made. Another amazing moment is the entire sequence after Reiner and Berthold's reveal. The emotional impact there is amazing and I have to say, that's a great example of how the anime actually added an awful lot to what was present in the manga. They elaborated on a lot of the drawings (surely completely redrawing most of it), as well as making some amazing decisions from a directing point of view, like how the ribs of the Colossal formed around the wall or the flashes of the titans' faces as they transformed. And the music! Honestly the music for the series was absolutely incredible, probably some of the best I've heard in any series of movie ever. Just do have to note very quickly though that the decision Isayama took to have the big reveal be abrupt and anticlimactic really didn't work for me. I appreciate that he tried to do something to subvert expectations but that was just too good a plot point to undersell like that.

Oh and the voice acting! Eren's voice actor for sure (Yuki Kaji) but honestly, the whole cast did an incredible job. It's a super intense script with a lot of powerful moments, both subtle and direct and I have to give them full credit for bringing incredible energy and emotion to the whole thing!

I think that's everything I have to say. It's an odd feeling, having enjoyed the series so much and then finishing it feeling so let down. But I've made my peace with it now and do accept that I loved the early seasons and hated the final season. That's TV. That's art. That's life, ain't it? I also think it's worth admitting that I really can't imagine any story that could have perfectly cashed the massive cheque written by the very first season. There's no explanation for the titans that could have matched the intrigue and wonder from that first episode. So although I do think the ultimate explanation could have been significantly better, I don't think it ever had a chance at being perfect.

When I did finish watching the series, I was pleased to stumble upon Attack on Titan: Junior High, which actually helped me to pacify some of the frustration. It's a really fun show that takes all the characters (and VAs!) from the main series and just puts them in a silly comedy spin-off set in a high-school. Honestly, I think every viewer should cool off with it after watching these kids go through so much. And it is funny and very sweet too!

Other thoughts:
-Who was in the Okapi in the finale? Presumably it was a previous Beast Titan but why were they given so much prominence?
-Season 4 really overdid it with the moments of realisation of "oh these people aren't demons after all". Like they had this happen about 5 times and even 1 would have been a bit too on-the-nose.
-It was a bit unclear what the author's broader message was through the series. Like, yes clearly it's all anti-war but then comes across as "well war is inevitable so what do you expect" (which to me is a very clear and quite right-wing justification for war).
-Also a massive criticism has to go to the poor and very clumsy use of the oppressor vs. oppressed narrative. Because the metaphor and real world applicability completely breaks down when one of the races in question actually *is* different. That's the whole flaw of racism: that so-called 'races' really aren't very different from each other. Yet in this, there is one race - verifiable by blood test no less - that can turn into giant brainless killing machines. It's even more fucked up when that race is the allegory for Jews. Then to top it off, of course someone comes along in their world and makes everyone's racist fears come true, effectively justifying it all. So yeah, that is a massive L all round for the series.
-Mikasa loving Eren romantically is a crazy kind of fucked up emotional incest. They gave themselves plenty of chances to decide to make it a strong sibling love but chose to make it romantic at every turn. It's gross.
-What was the deal with that bug millipede thing? Wasn't necessary at all and again, you could have cut out that transforming gas moment in the finale.
-Also, how did the first King create that many Colossal Titans? Using the founder's power? Does that mean more than the original 9 could have been made? Either multiples or even new types of shifting titans.
-Did they ever explain the titans being able to move at night in season 2?
-Why did Eren attack Mikasa when he first transformed to move that boulder?
-"He suddenly transferred his consciousness into his nervous system" was also one of the dumbest and most unnecessary ass pulls I've ever watched. Why not just NOT have the scouts cut off his head??
-Why did it need to be Mikasa to kill Eren? It literally could have been anyone - Eren's a fucking idiot.
-What was Ymir (the scout) even thinking when she fled with Reiner and Berthold? She knew that Eren had founding powers and that she would definitely get killed if she went back to Marley. Also the story just subtly implies (by Porco having the Jaw) that she was killed and they never even acknowledge it.

-I also think Zeke's Beast Titan would have been significant;y improved with a few very minor tweaks (shorter arms, more normal or possibly even more beastly proportions, getting rid of the massive hips/pelvis). That thing was terrifying but these features just made it really goofy looking. Remove them and it would be such a complete horror.

-I enjoyed lots of the small character stories, like Connie and Sascha being dumbasses, the several implications that Jean is in love with Mikasa and the really great and interesting friendships Hanji, Levi and Erwin. Also loved Ymir and Historia's romantic love, which was very honest and altruistic from both of them.

Thoughts on Sailor Moon (1992)

Not a formal review but I'd just like to record some thoughts after my first ever watch of Season 1 of Sailor Moon.

For some background, last year I realised that despite having watched dozens of Anime series and movies (and animations in general), I'd not watched a lot of shows aimed mainly at women/girls. I grew up on Dragon Ball Z, Naruto and the rest of it, so a lot of my perception of Japanese animation was heavily skewed towards the Shounen genre (and probably still is). The only really girl-focused/shoujo series I'd watched was Madoka, which despite being my #2 all-time, doesn't give a very good representation of the genre, as it's so clearly a deconstruction of it. So long story short, I decided I needed to watch more girls' cartoons and of course, needed to cover the classics. Naturally, this meant I started with Sailor Moon - the iconic Shoujo series! So I watched the first series of the original run of the anime (1992).

What I noticed when I first started watching the series was that the animation wasn't amazing, from where I stood. Obviously this needs to be considered in context, in terms of the industry and also the physical process of cel animation that would have been required at the time. I give the show some leeway for that but there were clearly other series doing much more impressive animation at the same time (e.g. Gunbuster released 4 years before Sailor Moon's anime). However, the character designs, backgrounds and overall art direction are all really strong, distinct and appealing. It had to be said, it was clear that lots of decisions were made to make the TV series cute and 'girly' and I think that worked to give it its own visual identity. Where the manga would have had backgrounds either blank or in greyscale on the page, the anime was really bold in using pink watercolour washes over everything, as well as giving all the character colours a warm pink tint. It absolutely made it cuter and I think it worked really well, both for making the main cast more sympathetic as our main characters and in terms of creating contrast with all of the visually dark and cold scenes with demons and villains.

The other thing I noticed, which I think is definitely the wider learning point, was that there was so very little focus on combat. The fights with all of the demons were won in a single stroke, by using whatever the relevant superpower was for that respective mini arc. There was no actual fighting, especially not physically. There wasn't even a process of figuring out each Youma's weakness or unlocking a new power level or ability for the soldiers. It was literally just a Moon Tiara Action or Tuxedo Mask's Rose and that was it.

Even beyond that, the Sailor Soldiers don't train to become stronger, don't hone their skills or anything. Their "mission" is very much secondary to them just living their lives.

That really surprised me at first and I felt really dissatisfied with the 'victory' in each episode. But as the series went on, I realised that the fights themselves ultimately don't matter. The good guys are going to win either way, aren't they? So instead, the series focuses on the real story: the characters and relationships.

For me, this was best shown about halfway through the series with the Nephrite and Naru storyline. The sailor soldiers' actual "mission" completely gave way to trying to understand and protect the feelings of Usagi's real-world, human friend. And I say protect her feelings, because if they were solely trying to protect Naru herself, they could have defeated Nephrite and solved the problem. But it was so much more important in the story to try to empathise with her and even leave room for her to pursue her feelings. I didn't personally like the fact that Nephrite started to get crossed wires and have feelings for Naru (mainly because he's clearly way older than her and she's like 14) but it made for a really compelling story! *Spoiler* but Nephrite's death scene was probably my favourite moment of the entire series.

And that kinda links to another broad point about Sailor Moon and its icon status: these stories must have been so relatable to young women and girls at the time! Your friend liking an older boy who's no good to her but the feelings being strong is such a classic high school girl experience (stereotypical but broadly true, I think!). So to have that shown on TV through this cast of strong, intelligent girls must have been amazing. Especially at the time, when the majority of the anime was so geared towards boys punching things to save the world every week. I also really admitted how adamantly  Sailor Moon protected the things that are important to girls! Usagi's mission was to defeat the dark kingdom but she was never compelled to fight by the need to save the world; it was to defend young girls' dreams of becoming pop stars, it was to protect the sanctity of love letters or it was to preserve the wonderful feelings of youth! All this stuff sounds like "girly" nonsense but honestly, that's what makes Sailor Moon so cool. She stands for all of this and fights for it and I imagine that's what an entire generation of women anime fans loved about the character and the series.

One last observation that I think is worth noting is around the way the series re-used several animation cuts. There is an element, especially early on, of the episodes being incredibly repetitive, with a literal monster-of-the-week formula. Because of this, they use a lot of the same cuts for Queen Beryl and Jadeite consulting their Crystal Balls (or Nephrite consulting the stars in the later episodes). I think that the recycling of these cuts was purely for cost-saving purposes, since they were unimportant shots for extremely similar story beats. Plus, in Queen Beryl's shots, I'm pretty sure the crystal ball covers her mouth, which seems intentional to allow them to slap any dialogue audio on top of. Which is fair enough, TV is always made on tight budgets and animation is very time-consuming. However, there is another type of re-used shots, which I think has a lot more artistic intent behind it and that's all of the Sailor transformations and finishing moves (fire soul, bubble spray etc.). For these sequences, it feels much more like an eagerly anticipated flourish for viewers to look forward to every week. So in a sense, it's not repetitive; it's familiar.

I think this makes sense, given them time period it came out in, as well as its target audience. It reminds me of a lot of weekly kids programming from the 90s or even older, like Popeye or Transformers or something. You'd specifically tune in to see those same sequences week after week. Plus kids (and adults) had a very different relationship to the screen back then to the one we have now, so things like this were a lot more common. It probably seems odd to me now that I'm used to streaming on demand and stories that are quite a bit more linear. But watching Sailor Moon, I got really into it, especially since the transformation animations are so good.

All that said, I was pleasantly surprised with how the story developed towards the end of the series. The reveal about everyone's lunar origins, Endymion's sick battle armour and the brutal showdown at the north pole were a lot more of what I would look for as a viewer. It did then very disappointingly kinda dash that all away to soft reboot for season 2 (Sailor Moon R?). It was at that point that I decided I'd seen enough of the series to understand its core elements the way I wanted to (i.e. sufficiently to understand deconstructions, parodies and stage shows much better!).  So I dropped it there, ultimately feeling very satisfied.

Overall, I'm so glad I took the time to watch the series, as like I said, I learned an awful lot about media aimed at women, as well as a tiny tiny little bit about the experience of growing up as a girl anime fan. Tbh I'd now describe myself as a Sailor Moon fan!

Maybe I'll watch the remaining series one day, maybe I'll watch the movies, maybe Crystal. But at least I have the option now. 

Other random thoughts:

-I really loved the dynamics between the group. Especially how Rei and Usagi didn't get along. Really made the viewing experience much more enjoyable 

-There were quite a few episodes where they went away on a trip or to an even or something and all of those episodes had the girls in seriously cool outfits. Not even in terms of 'character design', just really cool fits. Cool clothes.

-I enjoyed learning little bits about the Sailor Moon production/distribution history and fandom. Has to be said, it is an absolute disgrace that the English Dub changed Zoisite to be a girl to make his relationship with Kunzite "straight".

-Despite all the tacit acceptance of school girls dating university boys, there were some very cute romances: Ami and the other boffin kid, Rei and the very earnest Temple hand!

-I really loved the episode about the animators! I bet the production team loved making it.

-None of the skirts need to be that short. These are all kids in school. Similarly, the transformation sequences didn't need to focus so much on their bare bodies.

-I loved Sailor Jupiter. So incredibly sincere and maybe a slight dumbass but she was legit ride or die for her friends.

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Writers: Satoshi Kon and Keiko Nabumoto

Director: Satoshi Kon

Studio: Madhouse

First watched: 07/12/2024

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Tokyo Godfathers

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
6		6	7	7	6

This film is so so lovely and despite the bleak and depressing subject matter of the story, leaves you feeling warm, comforted and hopeful. It was also a nice surprise that it's a Christmas film and it can definitely be strong shout for an unconventional festive favourite. Strangely, however, I would say that despite how much I loved the film, I didn't actually like it. Although it really does fill you up with all these warm fuzzy feelings, it doesn't actually have the hard story substance to support it. It kinda gives you these emotional climaxes with a bit of back-filled story context and real-world relatability but all of these moments are practically completely divorced from the main story. Even the main story itself is relatively shallow, with opportunities to reflect and ponder profound questions but it's not all that well constructed. So ultimately, it's all icing no cake but I won't pretend I've never eaten spoonfulls of icing by itself.

The characters are probably the best example of this all-fluff-no-fibre phenomenon. The 3 main characters of the story are all so incredibly interesting and joyfully unpredictable. This creates a really great dynamic that drives a lot of the film and the enigma surrounding each character's history and circumstances gets you really invested as a viewer. However all of this complexity and backstory is never adequately explained nor resolved. We get a glimpse of each of their past lives either through flashbacks or interactions with someone from their past but ultimately it's a passing conversation that gives a bit of context to where they are but very little else. None of the characters have a desire nor motivation and from what I can tell, their lives don't seem to have any kind of new direction following the events of the story. Also none of them face any repercussions for their past actions. Gin abandoned his daughter entirely and after (in)conveniently bumping into her, gets invited to her wedding. Miyuki also stabbed her father, who again she coincidentally bumps into but then we get no resolution nor reconciliation for their falling out. Everything is vague and quite pointless. The final member of the trio is Hana, who is also very interesting, however has the least story significance. She seems to act as both the comic relief for the film as well as the organiser and moral compass. Again, we get some really interesting back story for her but its fleeting and inconsequential.

Now of course, the point of the movie didn't go completely over my head. These characters each highlighted a host important issues in modern societies, like homelessness, poverty, alcoholism, gambling addiction, depression, the experiences of transgender women (both the fetishisation and the transphobic mistreatment), bereavement, family and all sorts of other things. And especially on the inclusion of a transgender woman as a main character, with a rich and meaningful backstory, the film was really pioneering and important for the people whose story it told, especially back in 2003!. So of course, I appreciate that greatly about the film and give it its props. But as I seem to say in every review, I think that truly good films highlight issues and convey themes or messages as part of an overall strong plot.

So moving onto the plot then. It's definitely fun. It's an out and out mystery story from the very start, with the gang trying to find out who this abandoned baby's parents are and why they would abandon the poor thing. The insane and hilarious jumps from place to place as we go on the journey to answer these questions is really entertaining and always holds your attention. Each different scene is completely different from the last, which makes for visual interest just as much as story intrigue. Now I won't say that it's completely disjointed, because the main thread of the story holds up quite well. However there are just too many other elements that are so coincidental they just become silly; like bumping into mobsters that Gin's had run-ins with before, the gang being stood right outside a store that an ambulance crashes straight into or Hana and Miyuki literally walking past Sachiko as she's about to jump off a bridge. It all makes for a very unsatisfying story, especially since it sets up a mystery and clue hunt, so for everything to be so serendipitous feels very unfulfilling.

The storytelling is pretty strong. The film does a really great job of setting a tone and creating lots of different feelings. As you'd expect from Satoshi Kon, it also makes great use of the animation medium to exaggerate the expressions and actions on screen, as well as creating beautiful and imaginative imagery. I wouldn't say that the film does anything revolutionary with its framing or staging but overall it was definitely a positive.

Lastly then, the animation. As mentioned, there's a lot of great expression work throughout the film, however I did think it fell flat in some areas. First and foremost was the inconsistency of a lot of the drawings. Sometimes the facial features or even body propoprtions of the characters would just look completely different from shot to shot, to the extent that it did actually detract from the viewing experience a few times. For some reason it was really noticeable on Miyuki's face, which occasionally just seemed to be wrong, anatomically. Similarly, I don't think the animators or animation supervisor got the right balance of when to have fewer, simpler lines for long-distance shots and when to have detail for close-ups. Another area I found lacking but obviously undertand is just an industry standard was of course, the mouth-only speech animation. Won't hold that against them too much, though. Bigger picture, however, the animation is really good, really fluid interesting, underpinned by brilliant character and background art. So still a really well animated movie despite some flaws.

It sounds like I haven't got too much praise for Tokyo Godfathers but I do really think it's such a sweet and wonderful film. I can definitely see a lot of people watching this film today and absolutely loving it too! I just sadly can't give it an substantive score much higher than 'above average'.

Castlevania (2017)

Creator & Writer: Warren Ellis

Directors: Sam Deats, Spencer Wan, Adam Deats, Amanda Sitareh Bautista

Studio: Mua Film, Tiger Animation

Finished first watch: 14/11/2024

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Castlevania

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
4		3	4	5	3

Easily one of the weakest series I have ever watched. I hate to say that about something so many artists worked on over several years but it's honestly inescapable how poor this series is in almost every department. I'm genuinely confused how it got 4 seasons, especially considering how boring that 3rd season was.

I'll start with the one shining positive from the series, which is its artwork. Every drawing, painting, background and setting in this series is really beautiful. It has a clearly anime-influenced style that looks great and they use it to great effect. I'd say it has a strong visual identity. It even has a clear direction in terms of colour, with everything obviously being shifted towards dark and broody. The designs are also brilliant. Trevor, Alucard, Dracula, the forgemasters, the vampire sisters, all legitly fantastic and appealing designs. Big big shout out to Striga's day armour as well, fucking sick design. Someone clearly loved Berserk on that team. And of course, the castles, laboratories and libraries all felt very grand and wondrous. They did a good job of creating an aesthetic and a feeling of the series's world and it all fit together with the overall dark and sinister subject matter.

That leads onto the most disappointing aspect of the series, which is its animation. It's so upsetting to see such beautiful drawings move so lifelessly, if they move at all. The vast majority of screentime is taken up by super limited animation; maybe just a chin moving up and down as a character speaks, or drawings literally just being slid across the screen. I get that studios and producers want to save costs as much as they can but it made the show feel completely lifeless most of the time. And how much they did it was absolutley eggregious. There was an episode where Isaac talked to a night creature for about 10 minutes straight, with almost no animation to it. And the conversation they had was not relevant in any way to the story (which I'll come back to). So it didn't come across as being savvy and saving costs for the bigger moments; it honestly felt like they were trying to pull whole episodes out of their arses with as little substance as they could get away with. Another thing that I personally dislike and that makes the character acting/posing feel super uncanny is characters' heads being completely side on. Just makes for really flat animation and breaks any sense of immersion.

    There were, of course, scenes with significantly better animation quality. But they didn't do anywhere near enough - in my opinion - to make up for the low effort marathons across the rest of the show. That's partly because they were really few and far between but also because they weren't actually that good in themselves. All of the fights generally have lots of quick cuts, rarely show multiple characters on screen at the same time and never show complete, fluid action - it's always the wind up from one angle, then a flip to show the outcome from another. So so so much implied action as well. They had lots of detailed guts and gore (again, great drawings) but it would always be shown after something had already dropped dead. You'd never see the actual slashing and the gore as a clear single shot - and any slashing you did get was very Fist of the North Star. It's really disappointing to watch, because the fights were actually really well choreographed. The characters had cool and unique fighting styles and would usually pull off impressive and unorthodox manoeuvres; it was just a shame that we only got to see it in bits and pieces. Also in the later seasons, you could sadly see the quality of the drawings drop off noticeably in quite a few of these action sequences, which honestly felt like an insult being added to an already pretty bad injury. The later seasons are in fact a consistent disappointment across the board too.

Just watch this clip and look at how stiff and robotic all the animation is. If it's animated at all. This is very standard for the show and what the vast majority of screentime looks like. Watching it without sound really helps illustrate how lifeless it is. Listening with sound on highlights how mismatched the voice acting and character acting are.

Although you can still see how nice the character designs and drawings are - look at Saint Germain's jewellery, for example!

This clip, I think, gives a very fair representation of what the approach to fight scenes is like throughout. It's very cool, dnyamic, stylised and well choreographed. It might be entertaining to a lot of people. But there are so few drawings over such a long clip. And the two characters never really interact. Everything is implicit, which is made to look good but to me, just glosses over a lack of substance. Draw the fight!

Moving onto the plot: there basically isn't one. The first two seasons at least have an overarching story of Dracula wanting to kill all the humans and Trevor, Sypha and Alucard (TSA?) trying to stop him. That was incredibly loose, because there was a whole heap of inconsequential nothing that happened in between this. Dracula's war council being summoned and then having in-fighting all had close to no impact on the story at all. Even Carmilla's successful betrayal is kinda just... nothing. Like okay, she becomes the queen or whatever and usurps Dracula but that all just has so little significance. We don't care about Dracula very much (as we've had very little insight into who he is outside of the backstory given in episode 1) and Carmilla is a genuine side character, even after this whole thing. Then you have whatever TSA was up to; finding the library, getting into random night creature fights etc. All very cool and flashy but did very little for the plot. You could remove most of it and still have the same storyline play out unimpeded. Then the last two seasons were just totally unnecesary. The main reason for these characters to exist (in fact literally the only reason Alucard exists) was gone. They then set up these random, regional conflicts that meant absolutely nothing to anyone. Definitely dragged the show out for 2 Seasons 2 Long and in my opinion, ruined any chance Castlevania had at being remembered as decent.

    Supposedly significant scenes having very little impact was basically the theme for entire 4-season run, to be honest. For example:

•The final fight vs. Dracula at the end of season 2. Firstly, it comes after basically a full season of people just talking and posturing for a war that might happen; there's no real fuel given to the fight. Add to that the fact that we also never ever saw Dracula engage in combat (other than a flashback in which he kills a bunch of villagers), so we had no sense of how powerful he actually was or what sort of abilities he had. Defeating him didn't feel significant in any way or like any kind of challenge.

•You can add to that the fact that Alucard has zero on-screen interactions with Dracula - not even in flashbacks. So the first interaction you see them have is when Alucard arrives to kill him. That makes Alucard's crying scene another one with absolutely no emotional weight.

•Why was Death the final enemy? Of course we all understand the concept of death as an entity but he has no establishment whatsoever in the story. Literally appears and disappears in the penultimate episode. We have no attachment to him whatsoever and again, no idea how to kill him nor whether it's a big achievement to do so. Trevor says some shit about some ancient weapon but these things are really not plot relevant and spoken about completely off-hand.

It's extra disappointing because the idea of Death being a vampire with an insatiable thirst for human life is a great concept. Even Death's plan to play Saint Germain and bring back Dracula to feed his hunger is great. Was just executed in a really underwhelming way. Plus I honestly don't think I could have been any less invested in Death's analogue, Varney, as a character. Also why bother making it seem like Trevor died for like... 19 minutes? It's a cheap tactic and it achieved very little.

•Isaac literally spends about a season doing fuck all in the middle of nowere - twice. Why does he have such a massive fight with a random unnamed necromancer and why does this need a full season of prep?? And coming back to the earlier point of Isaac's conversation with his night creature: the writers raised some interesting and potentially significant questions in that episode. They suggested that the night creatures aren't just mindless killing machines and that they can experience things beyond their forgemaster's orders. They might even have memories of the lives they lived before being resurrected. Then after that episode, the writers just completely ignored that fact for the rest of the show and the night creatures went back to being silent, brainless pawns. That, to me, is the hallmark of a terribly written and generally directionless show. They would have improved the quality of the end product by not raising these profound questions, yet did it and then ignored them. Whatever their reasoning was, it made for an inredibly disengaging viewing experience.

•Both Carmilla and Dracula are considered villains because of completely hypothetical tyranny. Dracula does hit Targoviste hard once but that doesn't really give sufficient gravity of his scorched earth campaign, for me. And Carmilla's plan to turn humans into cattle is actually never actioned nor even depicted on screen. So again, we don't feel any real opposition or hatred towards her.

•Isaac suddenly deciding to kill Carmilla comes out of nowhere. Yes, she killed Dracula but he spends 2 seasons seemingly pretty unbothered about that, then suddenly switches. Decides he wasnts to kill Hector but then equally abruptly decides he doesn't.

•Similarly, Striga and Morana just decide they don't like Carmilla's plan, even though they were very enthusiastically planning it the season before. There was no turning point, no moment of crossing the line. They just decided to switch up. Then didn't even go to the caslte to see what happened after watching it blow up. Insanely bad writing.

There are probably more examples but I think the point has been made. In general, the show did a bad job of actually having a coherent story that made the events on screen have real significance. They basically relied on the viewers' own sense of morality. In fact the entire show hinges on (what I consider) the most boring and counterintuitively low stakes motivation in fictional stories: the fate of all the people in the world (with whom we have no relationship through the events on screen - if anything we'd be justified in thinking what they did to Dracula's wife was worthy of punishment). To finish it all off, there was of course the cowardly meta self-admission in the final scene, when Lisa turned to Dracula and said "none of this makes any sense". That was a big slap in the face. It doesn't make the show any more enjoyable and just confirms that you knew your story was some bullshit but you put it out anyway. CC: Tenet and Evangelion.

Moving on: storytelling. I've said this about so many shows now but Castlevania had very little storytelling to do, because there was so little story. You can't use any clever plot devices if there isn't anything clever in the plot. You can't use a visual metaphor to represent fuck all happening. Equally bad was the pacing of the show. There so many long stretches of nothing happening, then big ticket events would happen upon you so abruptly. All that talking didn't even build any tension nor expectation. Again, this was made even worse with later seasons. You're just spending ages watching characters have boring conversations about absolutely nothing, then suddenly all killing each other. You could maybe consider this standard, does-a-job kinda storytelling but the show then draggs down its own score with its constant need to tell rather than show. It made the the viewing experience mind-numbing for me. Two quick examples off the dome are the realisation that Zamfir had gone crazy and Greta saying that she was starting to like Alucard. Like please trust that your viewers can connect dots in a straight line based on what you have shown them on screen. In fact, rely on that to build up to your big flourishes significantly better!

    I also have to mention one of the sequences in season 4, when Alucard and the villagers are fighting off night creatures in a forest. That was genuinely terrible TV. It kept cutting back and forth between the fights and dialogue and it was so unclear whether the journey was progressing or not. I felt like I was having an aneurism watching it. I honestly expect the explanation for it to be that someone put the shots together in the wrong order in the final edit.

    Also not sure if this is the proper place to mention this but the script for the show is seriously bad. Like really, truly terrible. None of the lines come across as clever nor even thematic. They also just throw in random swear words; I'm guessing that's to make it clear it's aimed at adults but it's so forced and awkward. It honestly sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old who's just been told they're allowed to swear but only during drama lessons. Not natural whatsoever and just adds to the overall very stiff and honestly quite cringey dialogue. I can't think of anything that could have undermined Saint Germain's character story any more than "I get to have sex again". Without a doubt one of the worst lines I have ever watched.

    Visual directing might just get a pass as okay. Some cool poses, cool shots, as I said good choreography of the fights at least. Consistent visual style and good, clear framing. I just have to call it visual directing, because there wasn't any real storytelling to mention.

I think I've said enough in the above to cover my thoughts on Castlevania's characters. Mostly very bland, especially Trevor and Sypha. Nothing remotely interesting about either of them. Trevor is the irresponsible, rash boy and Sypha is the organised, brilliant girl. We've seen it 100 times. Not to mention their romance has no substance to it whatsoever. They just suddenly become in love. Alucard probably has the most significant journey, as he goes through loneliness and lack of purpose once Dracula dies and the TSA team splits up. But that didn't really do anything. The rest of the cast is woefully dull. Honestly, there isn't a single good, well-written and interesting character in the entire thing. Maybe Lenore but that would be me being incredibly generous.

I'll admit, I came into watching Castlevania with some high expectations, given how liked it is and how many clips seem to pop up across the internet. I won't hold the resulting disappointment against the show but even then, it's undeniable how bad the series is, at least in my opinion. I also note that it seems to have opened the doorway for a bunch of similar animated Netflix series (e.g. Blood of Zeus, Tomb Raider). I'm glad to see more animated series and movies, of course, but I honestly hate that this incredibly stiff style of limited animation is becoming so common. Again, won't hold that against Castlevania - I'm already scoring it low enough - but just worth mentioning as not my favourite trend across the industry.

I'm sincerely sorry to have written this review and can only hope that if any Castlevania artists ever read it, they undersand that it's written honestly and with respect for the ways they have to work on animation these days with tighter and tighter budgets and deadlines. But I'll say it outright, I did not enjoy the series and I blame the executives responsible for it.

Some more random thoughts:

-The Isaac vs. Carmilla fight did feel really cool. Even though Hector's secret passageway was some bs (and not even necessary), the staging and overall execution made it feel pretty epic.

-I laughed my ass off when Alucard got his dick sucked so good he started crying. Felt that shit, especially since he was living every bisexual weeb's dream of getting with two kinky japanese siblings at the same time. I know the animators put their heart into that scene.

-Bloody Tears during the Dracula fight was really cool. Wish they'd built up to it more by maybe having motifs throughout the music across the rest of the series.

-Broader point, I'm sure there were lots of little easter eggs in the series for fans of the game and maybe even the Metroidvania genre. That probably contributed to its success and I'll admit I'm an ignorant neutral in that regard.

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

Direcor: Shinchirō Watanabe

Writer: Keiko Nobumoto

Studios: Bones, Bandai Visual, Sunrise (Bandai)
Watched on: 01/09/2024

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (aka Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door)

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
8		7	8	9	6

 

This film isn't just a classic because it's iconic or significant - it's an an absolute scorcher of a film. I finally got round to watching it and can't describe it as anything less than fantastic. Of course, the film (and Cowboy Bebop overall) does not need mine or anyone else's seal of approval but I'm at least glad to part of the club.

Obviously, we have to start with animation, and it is incredible. It's got all the brilliant quality and style of the main series, with maybe about 10% extra added on top*. Everything that moves does so convincingly as a solid object with believable volume and mass; that includes the characters, the big and small spacecraft, the guns, the props, even quite a few elements of the backgrounds. As the main series did, the film really shines during the fight scenes. They're so much fun and both well choreographed and well directed - we always get a perfect shot to emphasise the dynamicism or the impact of every blow. Practically flawless other than having limited animation for practically all of its speech. I can't knock it for that, really, it's sticking to its roots. I'd give it a 9 for animation, noting that the only film I know that has better animation is Akira (which I also rated as a 9 but could easily change to a 10 tbh).

The plot was actually very good, in my opinion. Far better than the overarching storyline of the series, or any of the individual episode stories. The main aim of the villain isn't quite clear but he's clearly mad enough to want to infect a bunch of people for no reason. Everything else is great, from how the conspiracy is uncovered, how we get to piece it together bit-by-bit and even the mechanics of the story are pretty much airtight. It also did a great job of leading us into each fight or interesting sequence. So no complaints (and I'd also add that the plot for James Bond 'No Time to Die' is incredibly similar).

Touched on it a bit in the animation section but the storytelling is great too. All the shots are framed really well for interesting and clear scenes. This is especially true for scenes where there isn't a lot happening - we'd often have a bird's eye view of the characters, then a shot of the background, then a focus in on a small detail etc. Always kept it visually interesting and showed off the great work of the artists and animators (drawing large crowds of people moving across the horizon line in dramatic perspectives really is not easy!). Also, in true Cowboy Bebop style, the uptempo jazzy soundtracks not only help to distinguishing Cowboy Bebop's quite unique identity and style but also just add so much appeal to it. You can't help but get excited in those big moments.

Not sure if this is a storytelling point but will just add it - the 'fan service' is way too much. As always, I can appreciate this is what they had to do to increase its mass appeal and of course, Faye is pretty much designed to be eye candy for people who want to ogle cartoons but 2 things: 1. it was far too gratuitous in my opinion and was compounded by the fact that Faye had shit all to do as a character except fail and get assaulted for the sake of the plot. 2. The scene where Vincent has her tied up/semi-conscious is far too forceful to be considered sexual. My problem with it, is that the directors present it as fan service when really it should be treated as terrifying and violent. When this guy's threatening to rape her, we don't need to see her boobs flopping out of her shirt. To me, that's a clear decision that you want it to be sexy, rather than horrifying, which is a shitty decision.

Lastly, characters. Possibly the only element of this film that isn't super strong. There's nothing wrong with the characters. They're all very appealing, interesting, well designed and play their parts very well throughout. However there isn't much of a journey for any of the characters, especially not the main cast. I guess this is because the movie has to fit in somewhere within the series, so it's understandable. At the very least, if they didn't develop, they did learn throughout the film, which is what you need for the narrative to continue, so it definitely didn't detract from the enjoyment of the film.

I don't think I've stressed enough just how good the animation in this film is, as is very well known, over 20 years after its initial release. But I'd just like to re-iterate one last time that the animation in this fim is absolutely stunning and it's worth watching just for that. Even if you only watch the shootouts and fight scenes.

Also, a quick shoutout to Ghibliotheque who put on the screening of the film in IMAX, which was incredible. Hopefully lots of similar events from them in the future.

Overall conclusion: this film is fantastic and lots of fun and I'd say it warrants the undivided attention of animation nerds, however is also just so cool and visually appealing that anyone would enjoy it.

*Just went back and watched a few scenes from the series and think I was giving it a bit too much credit it my memory. The movie has SIGNIFICANTLY better animation. The series animation is maybe a 7 at best.