Gurren Lagann the Movie: Childhood's End

 So I actually first watched Gurren Lagann: Childhood's End, the first of the two Gurren Lagann remake films, at Anime Expo this year in a room full of major Gurren Lagann fans. My experience at the New People Center's showing was a bit smaller-scale, but otherwise similar: lots of hoots, hollers, jokes, and everyone yells along with the GIGA DRILL BREAK. It's almost like anime's own Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The first movie retells the story up until just before the final battle with Lord Genome, the Spiral King. Most of what happens will be pretty familiar to you, but the ending chunk is almost entirely new footage (while still tying into essentially the same story). Basically, the first Gurren Lagann movie is an excuse to yell at the screen with your friends or random strangers-- with a few surprises to make the already over-the-top show even BIGGER. Buy it and show it at a geek party. I can almost guarantee you'll get laid. (It just might be by your best pal who's a mech freak instead of the hot Kamina fangirl.)

Gurren Lagann the Movie 2: The Lights in the Sky are Stars

The second movie addresses everything that happens post-timeskip. Unlike the first movie, however, movie #2 is much heavier on new content-- almost half of it is, according to reports (and my memory). Where the first movie was a party, there was silence for most of the second, even though the story itself wasn't hugely different. Why the silence? It's all pure awe, my friends. Pure. Awe. Gurren-Lagann the TV series was all about going over the top, and walking into the first movie, you wonder how they can top it-- and they do. Then the second movie starts and you wonder how they can top the first-- and they do. Hands down, 100%, no matter what else you think about the movies.
 
Gainax did a really fantastic job piecing together the story in a much shorter package. In some cases they actually manage to make light of the fact that they can't go into the in-depth explanations or introductions to various aspects of the plot, such as the...unique navigational tool they wind up using to navigate their way to enemy headquarters. It's really good, very enjoyable stuff that adds to but doesn't muck up the whole Gurren Lagann canon, either.

The Sum-Up

If you have already seen and liked Gurren Lagann, you should see these movies. If you have not seen, and do not think you are likely to ever see, the TV series, you may as well go ahead and watch the movies so that you'll get all the jokes and memes that have sprung with this show.

The only people who should NOT see these movies (yet) are those who want to watch the TV show but haven't yet. The movies are so much about taking the TV series and doing it bigger that I think watching them in the reverse order would make the TV series seem less crazy.

The most awe-inspiring thing about Gurren Lagann isn't how creative Gainax is at creating epic battles-- although that is pretty amazing --but how much the series has resonated with people, possibly even as much as Evangelion did 13 years prior to TTGL's release. The contrast between the two couldn't have been more different, though: a major theme of Evangelion is our personal demons and failures preventing us from moving forward with our lives.

By contrast, in a time of such cynicism and pessimism, Gurren Lagann is the ultimate statement that determination and belief in oneself is most, if not all, of what we need to break through the walls we perceive to be in front of us. It's a message I'm thrilled to see connect with so many people.

Gurren Lagann the Movie: Childhood's End

 So I actually first watched Gurren Lagann: Childhood's End, the first of the two Gurren Lagann remake films, at Anime Expo this year in a room full of major Gurren Lagann fans. My experience at the New People Center's showing was a bit smaller-scale, but otherwise similar: lots of hoots, hollers, jokes, and everyone yells along with the GIGA DRILL BREAK. It's almost like anime's own Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The first movie retells the story up until just before the final battle with Lord Genome, the Spiral King. Most of what happens will be pretty familiar to you, but the ending chunk is almost entirely new footage (while still tying into essentially the same story). Basically, the first Gurren Lagann movie is an excuse to yell at the screen with your friends or random strangers-- with a few surprises to make the already over-the-top show even BIGGER. Buy it and show it at a geek party. I can almost guarantee you'll get laid. (It just might be by your best pal who's a mech freak instead of the hot Kamina fangirl.)

Gurren Lagann the Movie 2: The Lights in the Sky are Stars

The second movie addresses everything that happens post-timeskip. Unlike the first movie, however, movie #2 is much heavier on new content-- almost half of it is, according to reports (and my memory). Where the first movie was a party, there was silence for most of the second, even though the story itself wasn't hugely different. Why the silence? It's all pure awe, my friends. Pure. Awe. Gurren-Lagann the TV series was all about going over the top, and walking into the first movie, you wonder how they can top it-- and they do. Then the second movie starts and you wonder how they can top the first-- and they do. Hands down, 100%, no matter what else you think about the movies.
 
Gainax did a really fantastic job piecing together the story in a much shorter package. In some cases they actually manage to make light of the fact that they can't go into the in-depth explanations or introductions to various aspects of the plot, such as the...unique navigational tool they wind up using to navigate their way to enemy headquarters. It's really good, very enjoyable stuff that adds to but doesn't muck up the whole Gurren Lagann canon, either.

The Sum-Up

If you have already seen and liked Gurren Lagann, you should see these movies. If you have not seen, and do not think you are likely to ever see, the TV series, you may as well go ahead and watch the movies so that you'll get all the jokes and memes that have sprung with this show.

The only people who should NOT see these movies (yet) are those who want to watch the TV show but haven't yet. The movies are so much about taking the TV series and doing it bigger that I think watching them in the reverse order would make the TV series seem less crazy.

The most awe-inspiring thing about Gurren Lagann isn't how creative Gainax is at creating epic battles-- although that is pretty amazing --but how much the series has resonated with people, possibly even as much as Evangelion did 13 years prior to TTGL's release. The contrast between the two couldn't have been more different, though: a major theme of Evangelion is our personal demons and failures preventing us from moving forward with our lives.

By contrast, in a time of such cynicism and pessimism, Gurren Lagann is the ultimate statement that determination and belief in oneself is most, if not all, of what we need to break through the walls we perceive to be in front of us. It's a message I'm thrilled to see connect with so many people.

In this episode we get to see the process of summoning and contracting a Celestial Spirit thank to Lucy, who summons a "spirit pet," a Nicolas variety (looks kinda like a cute little snowman) that she names Plue. After that, Natsu and Happy get Lucy to join them as part of their team within the guild, and they take on their first job.
 
The animation has remained consistant from the first episode, which is good-- it'll probably never go super high-caliber, but if it doesn't drop off to QUALITY! over time, that'll be very nice. I wonder how many episodes they're planning to do? The story follows the manga pretty closely so far, and this is our first two-part episode so far.

Vital Stats:

Title: Astro Boy
Studio: Imagi
Based On: Osamu Tezuka's classic manga

The Story

     
 
 

The Review

 Let me say from the get-go: I enjoyed the Astro Boy film. It had its faults, to be sure, but most of them were small or very, very understandable.
 
Now, the question is: will YOU like it? And to answer that, I'd have to ask what kind of Astro Boy fan are you. If you're more familiar with Naoki Urasawa's grown-up take on the concept, Pluto, or interested in Astro Boy from a more historical stance than anything else, then this film is probably going to be way too kiddie-oriented for you. I've seen plenty of critics complain that it's merely fluff, but I wonder if its historical significance, as it were, doesn't raise their expectations slightly.
 
One of the main themes of manga-- the difference between humans and robots, between programming free will and actual free will, and then between programmed emotions and human emotions --are all there, but it's with a light touch. This is at its core aimed at being a kids flick, to get kids into the Astro Boy franchise, not like Urasawa's mature, more in-depth take. Additionally, I think it's a bit unfair to expect the film to cover everything that Tezuka managed to cram into 16 years and 23 volumes of manga (or anything close to it) in a 90-minute pic. All in all, I thought it did a fair job of touching on these concepts for a children's movie.
 
Which is not to say that there aren't some missteps. Side character Cora is okay, but not terribly interesting (in fact, her resolution is downright boring), and the main villain-- a politician whose desperation to get re-elected is more belief-defying than the machine guns in Astro Boy's butt --is less interesting than Nathan Lane's robot deathmatch host. Not to mention the deus-ex-machina decision that takes place at the end of the film to get Astro back in the action-- eesh.
 
Still, even with those factored in, I found myself enjoying the movie. If you're familiar with Tezuka's work, you'll find plenty of things tucked in here and there for you to enjoy-- the obvious choice is the character made to look like Tezuka himself (glasses and a beret-- early in the film), although my personal favorite is the appearance of the weird pig character Tezuka liked to throw in as a random joke-teller breaking the fourth wall. He appears as a logo on a building that gets smashed towards the end, although possibly also a few other places.
 
I've seen some complaints about Nicolas Cage playing Astro's dad, Dr. Tenma, but I didn't have any problems with any of the voice acting. Some of it wasn't particularly outstanding-- Kristen Bell's Cora could be just about anyone as far as I could tell, and as much as I love Samuel L. Jackson, I would have liked his ZOG better if it had been constrained to the one really awesome line, instead of a few more later on. But Freddie Highmore, who I'm fond of for his turns in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Finding Neverland, does great as the title character, and as I mentioned before, Nathan Lane's character is great.
 
Visually the film is quite a treat. The style isn't particularly unique, but it's bright, vivid, and pleasant to look at. The design of Metro City and all of the characters are true to Tezuka's original without particularly trying to mimic the original anime or manga. So I'm definitely in favor of that.
 
...But it's all certainly not on the level of, say, the recent film Up, or the less-recent but really awesome Finding Nemo. So while I think fans of Tezuka's original manga will enjoy it, I wouldn't force yourself through it just for the sake of it being manga related, unless you can enjoy kids' films in general.
 

IF, THEN, BUT

If you like these titles, you may like the Astro Boy flick.
-  Wall-E (but, uh, with more anime and manga style)
-  Metropolis (but more kid-focused, though this Tezuka work featured similar themes)

Release Info

US Release Date: in theatres Oct. 23rd

...Visually speaking. There are a few points where if you pause you'll notice some wonkiness in the art. That's not too surprising with a shounen series, which will usually wind up being rather long and threfore having a smaller per-episode budget than a shorter show (or an OVA or movie).
 
But I'm still totally loving this show. I'm especially interested in seeing how Niche turns out-- we're only a couple of episodes away from where I am in the manga. Her voice is interesting; reminds me of Rie Kugimiya a bit, but isn't her.

In the second episode, Lucy meets the Fairy Tail guild and joins with, as far as we can tell, zero research into her qualifications. Then again, she did just witness the guild's food-fight-turned-magic-brawl, so maybe there just wasn't any point in trying to test her. 
 
Natsu runs off to try and find another Fairy Tail member who's disappeared, Macao, and with a bit of help and/or distraction from  Lucy, succeeds. Lucy decides that she's happy to have joined the guild...even though it suffers from a lot of complaints from the Guild Council.
 
All in all another really fun episode, featuring the first appearances of fan-fave characters like Gray and Mirajane, as well as horny monkeys and a couple more of Lucy's summons.

Warning: this review may be slightly skewed by the fact that I have now read the first volume of the manga, so I'm a little bit further story-wise than just this episode.
 
That said, the story continues on strong, and I would be ery surprised if we didn't start seeing people cosplaying Letter Bees-- all they'd need to do, really, is adapt their Fullmetal Alchemist military uniforms, right? --in pretty short order, certainly by next year's convention season. 
 
I don't know why, maybe it was because Lag spent so much of the series either playful or crying that resulted in slightly more over-the-top voice acting, but I reeeeally noticed the similarities this episode between Lag's voice and Yoru's in Shugo Chara! (they're both played by the same actor). I found it very mildly distracting, but hopefully you won't. (And if you're not a Shugo Chara! addict like me, well...you won't!)

Vital Stats:

Title: Oh! My Brother
JP Publisher: Hakusensha
Licensor: CMX
Mangaka: Ken Saito
 

The Story

    

The Review

Ken Saito, author of The Name of the Flower, is a pretty strong shoujo creator...but Oh! My Brother is probably nothing to write home about.
 
Those of you who favor a slightly silly but studiously not over-the-top kind of shoujo series will probably like Oh! My Brother. The romance, such as it is, is kept very light in the first volume, although there are a couple of moments where I wondered if there was some incest to be had here-- but for those of you who aren't a fan of the stuff, never fear. This stays firmly in the realm of PG appropriateness.
 
It's a pretty fun first volume, but I kind of doubt that the series could go on for more than just the one--  although it looks like volume two, which comes out in March 2010, will be the finale, so I may still check it out to see if it holds up or not.  (I've also seen reports online that it was four volumes in Japan, but there just isn't enough material here for me to fathom that, unless additional stuff pops up, of course.)

That said, those less fond of sexual humor will be relieved to know that in spite of a boy living in his sister's body, none of the standard sort of humor-- where she freaks out when he talks to her taking a bath, say, or he criticizes the size of her breasts while making her body fondle them, or anything along those lines --is present here, at least so far.
 
All in all, a good mild read if that's what you're in the mood for, but otherwise, there's probably always something better to be had.
 
 

IF, THEN, BUT

If you like these manga, you might like Oh! My Brother.
- Ginban Kaleidoscope (but less ice-skating)
- The Name of the Flower (but the family death is different...and that whole possession thing)

Release Info:

Released: Oct. 13, 2009
Length: 192 pages
Omake: 
- Bonus (unrelated) story
- Bonus (related) chapter
- Note from the mangaka

Vital Stats:

Title: 11eyes
Studio: Doga Kobo
Licensor: Crunchyroll
Director: Masami Shimoda
Based On: Eroge of the same name
 

The Story

  
 
 

The Review

 First off, let me just say: by the end of the episode, I wanted Yuka-chan to get eaten by one of those blobs. She's one of those characters who is nothing but nice and cute, which might be fun in the real world, but can make for a rather grating character...it was especially all her damn giggling that set me off. I really hope the hot redhead who appears in the episode but doesn't really do anything winds up being the real love interest.
 
Let me also note that I noticed several spots throughout the episode where, with my limited knowledge of Japanese, I could tell that the subtitles were significantly different than the literal translation of what was being said. Mostly these subs were aimed at the true implication rather than the literal meaning, which is fine, but in one case it seemed a bit sloppy, if totally minor (one of the characters says "Otou-san! Okaa-san!" and it gets translated as "Mom! Dad!" when it should be the reverse).
 
Getting past these issues, though, you've got a solid setup for a sort of supernatural fighting/mystery sort of show. The character design on some of these kids is great, and I particularly find myself liking Kakeru's design, although I'm not so sure I like him. In fact, I think the only character I really found myself "liking" was Yuka's female friend, who is paired with a pervy guy and gets to beat him mercilessly. That was fun.
 
There are some very random moments in the show, most notably when all of a sudden Kakeru turns to his life-long best friend and asks her why she's "always" carrying a particular penguin-shaped pouch, which (as far as I could tell) never appeared in a single frame prior to that moment. She shows him the toy, which can be squeezed such that a fish comes out of the penguin's mouth, like he's regurgitating to feed his young, I guess. The scene then moves on elsewhere. I don't know if the penguin purse plays a greater role later or if it was just a blatant attempt to market what will most assuredly become a real product, but it was still a very odd moment.
 
The first episode did a pretty good job of introducing the characters, although if you've ever watched a romantic comedy, moe, and/or harem anime, you're already pretty familiar with who these people are-- it's just a matter of introducing their situations, now. And actually, most of them are still a mystery.  Hopefully the characters will grow out of their simplified-for-pacing's-sake first-episode selves into something with a touch more depth, but we'll see how it goes. 
 
Voice-acting, as always, is solid, except perhaps for Yuka's annoying-ness. They try a couple of funny tricks with the visuals-- in two spots you see the frame(s) go into sort of frozen panels, almost like a comic. I'm not sure yet whether I like it or not, but it was kind of interesting, so we'll see if they keep playing with it. The OP and ED were so-so (the OP for the game is soooo superior), and the animation quality is also very middling.
 
So, to sum up: if moe and drama is your thing, you've got a potential hit here. There's also some potential, I think, for those who want supernatural mystery and/or fighting.
 

Ratings (of 5):

Story: ♥♥♥
Animation: ♥♥½
Characters: ♥♥½
OP/ED Themes: ♥♥½

Overall: ♥♥½ 
 

If, Then, But

If you like these shows, you might like 11eyes.
- Fate/Stay Night (but even moe-er)
- Rental Magica (but slightly darker)
- Night Wizard (but moe-er AND darker!)

Release Info:

Released: October 14th, 2009
Length: Ongoing; unknown
Features:
- English subtitles 
- Simulcast-- watch here (Anime Members-only until one week from release date)

Vital Stats:

Title: Miracle Train ~Ooedosen e Youkoso~
Japanese Title:  ミラクルトレイン～大江戸線へようこそ～
Studio: Yumeta Company
Licensor: Crunchyroll
Director: Kenichi Kasai
Based On: Japan's Ooedo subway line
 

The Story

 
  

The Review

In theory, I like to support anime series aimed at girls. Most anime is aimed at guys with the knowledge that girls will cross over readily enough, but guys are less likely to do so-- as such, those shoujo and josei series that occur, I tend to think favorably on.
 
But Miracle Train is...well, if you get enjoyment out of it, it's probably not because the series is really any good. It's not horrendously bad, mind, but it simply doesn't go far enough in any direction to make an impression, based on the first episode alone. The characters are standard archetypes that show no hint at betraying said types; the set-up is...somehow both weird and completely uninteresting at the same time; and the first episode's story is also pretty meh at best.
 
The boys are pretty enough, I'll give you that-- the character designs are probably the best thing about the show, but it's a shame that the characters themselves wind up flatter than the actually drawings that they consist of. There are a couple of cute moments, but they're decidedly calculated. I think they might get further if they actually go into more on the personifications themselves, but since they're subway stations that exist in real life, I don't know if that's even possible. I suppose if you wanted to you could try to think of the show as simply "understated" next to its over-the-top spiritual siblings, like Ouran High School Host Club and the like, but the problem is that it's not really stating anything to begin with.
 
There are worse things you could watch, though, to be sure. If all you need to make you happy is some pretty boys running around trying to make a young lady's life easier-- and who could blame you? It's not like this stuff actually happens in real life --then you've got a friend in Miracle Train. Could it get better? Absolutely, and some shows do. But so far? It's not worth your time unless you're really hard up for bishies.
 

Ratings (of 5):

Story: ♥♥
Animation: ♥♥½
Characters: ♥♥½
OP/ED Themes: ♥♥

Overall: ♥♥  
 

IF, THEN

If you like these shows, you might like  Miracle Train.
- Ouran High School Host Club (but not as funny)
- Saiunkoku Monogatari (but less soap opera)
- xxxHOLiC (but less dark and less cool)

Release Info:

Released: October 4th, 2009
Length: Ongoing; unknown
Features:
- English subtitles 
- Simulcast-- watch here (first episode available only to subscribers until October 11th; free thereafter)