Name: The Place Promised in Our Early Days; Beyond the Clouds, The Promised Place; Kumo no Mukou, Yakusoku no Basho
Genre: Drama, Fantasy, Romance
Episodes: N/A
Released: November 20, 2004
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Produced By: CoMix Wave
US Distribution By: ADV Films

Cast

Review

The Place Promised in Our Early Days is a movie by aspiring director Makoto Shinkai, and is about a trio of friends in northern Japan in an alternate 1990s where Hokkaido has been controlled by “The Union” since 1974 and the United States and the rest of Japan share a very strong military alliance.

On the island of Hokkaido, which has been renamed to Ezo, The Union has built an extremely tall, yet narrow white tower that can be seen all the way from Tokyo on a clear day. Two of the friends – Hiroki and Takuya – are building an airplane called the Bella Ciela to fly across the Tsugaru Strait to the tower. Later they invite their friend Sayuri to fly with them.

However, suddenly one day Sayuri disappears. Her disappearance so shocks Hiroki and Takuya that they suspended the construction of their plane, and eventually go their separate ways.  Hiroki goes to high school, but lives largely as a loner while Takuyaids the Japanese-US alliance in their research into parallel universes, which they believe is related to the tower.  The two friends soon discover the truth about the tower and the sudden vanishing of Sayuri.

Many themes are strongly portrayed in this movie. Separation primary among them. A group of terrorists that attacks The Union hope to reunite Japan and thus, for many of them, their families. Also, all the major characters, at one level or another, feel some sense of separation.

Perhaps the main problem with this movie is that you’re thrown immediately thrown into an alternate semi-present Japan, and then they don’t give you many chances to learn what’s really going on, often giving the viewer one chance at hearing the facts, and then assuming everyone heard and understood it the one time a certain fact was presented.  As a result, it may take two or three viewings to catch everything and, I guess not surprisingly, one has a better grip of the entire story when you’ve noticed all the major points.

Nevertheless, The Place Promised is a moving movie experience which mixes love and separation with sci-fi and alternate universes.

The animation is sharp for the most part, though in some scenes I don’t think the characters blend in well with their background. The music is done very well, with a soundtrack mostly based on violin music. The English dubs are also pretty good.

If you’re not afraid to venture into a movie where you may need to be on your toes and paying attention to everything to figure out what’s going on, but ultimately be rewarded by a pretty good story and experience, then you might want to give this movie a try.

Scores

Animation: 5/5
Story: 4/5
Music: 5/5
English Dubs: 4/5

Overall: 4/5

First Watched: April, 2006
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend: Yes

Name: Chobits
Genre:: Comedy, Romance, Science Fiction
Episodes: 28 (24 regular tv episodes, 3 recap episodes, 1 special)
Released: TV: April 2, 2002 – September 24, 2002
Based On: Chobits manga by CLAMP
Director: Morio Asaka
Produced By: TBS, Pioneer
US Distribution By: Pioneer/Geneon

Cast

Review

Chobits is a story about Hideki Motosuwa – a guy who failed his first attempt at getting into college and has thus moved to Tokyo to enter prep school. Once he moves there, he is introduced the persocoms – computers which look like humans. Hideki wants one (despite his lack of computer knowledge) but is depressed over their high costs. However, one day he finds a cute female Persocom in the trash and salvages it. This persocom, which Hideki names Chi, doesn’t seem to have memories of anything, however, and so Hideki must teach Chi just about everything, even the most basic of things.

This is one of those stories, other than being entertaining otherwise, is also a make-you-think story. Over the course of the story, some questions are posed, either directly or indirectly, such as What exactly are emotions?, What are memories?, and What makes a person a person?

As Chi grows and learns more things, the more complex her and Hideki’s relationship becomes. However, behind Chi’s seemingly innocent manner may lie a more sinister purpose. Chi’s uniqueness is apparent right away, but just how deep this uniqueness goes becomes more and more apparently throughout the series.

The supporting cast also illustrate several examples of how people may react in a society with human shaped – and human behaving – computers, from a characters who fell in love with persocoms, to characters who have inferiority complexes over them due to their view that persocoms are the ideal woman.

Chobits spans several genres, from sci-fi to romance to comedy to philosphical and hits them all perfectly, having enough of each to make the story intriguing, but not so much of any that it alienates fans who may not be fans of one of those particular genres.

Chobits also crosses over with the anime series Angelic Layer, though you may need a sharp eye to see where they cross.

The animation is excellent in the series, being sharp and smooth. There is some minor CG additions, but they all fit in smoothly. The music is also excellent, with various types of musical scores that hit all of the genre-specific moments right on. I also thought that the dub was pretty good as well.  Overall, if you’re not opposed to a little dirty humor and a lot of laughs, Chobits is definitely a good watch.

Scores

Animation: 5/5
Story: 5/5
Music: 5/5
Dub: 5/5

Series: 5/5

First Watched: October, 2005
Do I Own: Yes
Do I Recommend: Yes

First, all three lead English voice actors from DNA² are in His and Her Circumstances:

Liam O’Brien (Junta in DNA²): Asaba in HHC
Jessica Calvello (Karin in DNA²): Tsukino (one of Yukino’s younger sisters) in HHC
Rachael Lillis (Ami in DNA²); Miyako (Yukino’s mother) & Aya Sawada

[UPDATE]:
I found another DNA² to HHC voice actor:
Michael Alston Baley a.k.a. David Brimmer, who did the voice of Mori in DNA², does the voice of the Narrator on HHC.
[/UPDATE]

On the other hand, there is a plethora of people who were in HHC who showed up in Narue:

Rachael Lillis (Miyako and Aya in HHC): Kanaka in Narue
Jessica Calvello (Tsukino in HHC): Narumi and Rin in Narue
Veronica Taylor (Yukino in HHC): Narue in Narue
Carol Jacobanis (Maho in HHC): Bathyscaphe in Narue
Lisa Ortiz (Tsubasa in HHC): Magical Girl #4 in Narue
Debora Rabbai (Sena Rika in HHC): Haruna in Narue

I just find it interesting how two anime series can share large numbers of cast members.

Name: Video Girl Ai

Genre: Romance, Science Fiction
Tankoubon: 15
Serialized In: Shonen Jump Japan, Animerica Extra (US)
Released: 1989 – 1992
Story & Art: Masakazu Katsura
Published By (Japan): Shueisha
Published By (US): Viz Media

Scores

Story: 8/10 (x3 = 24pts)
Art: 9/10 (x3 = 27pts)
Gut Score: 8/10 (x4 = 32 pts)

Total: 83/100 (83%)

Review

Video Girl Ai is an interesting science-fiction/romance story that kept me guessing about what will end up happening next. If you also like complex love triangles (or quadrangles or moreangles), Katsura usually doesn’t disappoint, and Video Girl Ai is no exception. The main character, Yota, is in love with his hot high school classmate Moemi. The problem is that Moemi loves Yota’s best friend Takashi. Just as Yota is ready to confess his love to Moemi, she confides in him her love for Takashi. Yota, being of kind heart, tries to pursuade Moemi to pursue her love of Takashi despite his own feelings. However, Takashi turns her down.

On his way home, Yota runs into a video store called Gokuraku, which can only be seen by the pure of heart. Yota qualified as being pure of heart because of his actions earlier in the day. This store appears to have some interesting titles for people who are supposedly to be “pure of heart” including some rather risque looking titles. Yota ends up renting a video of a girl named Ai Amano and tries playing it in his VCR, which broke when he accidentally dumped it on the floor earlier in the day.

Yota soon finds out that this video is no ordinary video. The video girls in the Gokuraku videos come to life – quite literally – coming out of the TV set and into the viewer’s living room. However, instead of being a loveless super-hot girl who fulfills men’s fantasies, Yota’s broken VCR turns Ai into still attractive, though perhaps not as much so, tomboy who can feel emotions. However, Ai can only exist in the real world until the timer on her tape runs out.

What occurs over the first 13 volumes of the series are the trial and tribulations of Yota, Ai, Moemi, Takashi, as well as several other characters. Yota and Ai fall in love with each other, but Ai’s timer is running out. Yota still loves Moemi as well and is unsure how to handle his dual love interests. Moemi relentlessly pursues Takashi, despite his obvious disinterest in her while Takashi tries to pursuade Moemi that it is Yota who she really loves. On top of this, Ai’s creater decides that she should be erased since she has become defective after being messed up by Yota’s VCR – most especially because of the fact that Ai can fall in love now.

You’ll also probably want to swing a heavy, blunt objects towards the heads of pretty much all of the main characters multiple times through this series because, since one reads the series from a 3rd person point of view, the reader sees that many of the conflicts can be resolved much easier than the characters think they can, with the character’s indecision making things worse or with characters failing to see what is obvious from the reader’s point of view. Of course, if the characters acted just as the reader think they should, that wouldn’t necessarily make for a compelling series either.

Also, look for the Batman references throughout the series (Katsura is a huge Batman fan) including when Yota watches a movie called “Batman” (as in, a superhero who uses bats – as in long blunt weapons – not the animals).

The final two volumes of this series (volumes 14 and 15) are actually a quasi-sequal which was originally called Video Girl Len (it’s called Video Girl Ai: Len’s Story in the American release). Also, the final chapter of volume 15 is, again, it’s own story with a different video girl. These are interesting stories on their own, but they don’t necessarily add to the story as told in the first 13 volumes.

Given that this is a Katura manga, the art is very well done with excellent (if not dated by today’s standards) character designs. The story is also above average in my opinion, keeping the reader on your toes, as well as keeping the reader interested to see if the characters will ever actually see the light.

First Read: November, 2005 – April 2006
Do I Own: Yes
Do I recommend: Yes

So what happens when I become busy for a week? Well, I don’t post anything for a week is what happens.

Thus, unless I get unbusy sometime, I’ll probably stop posting the releases.

However, whenever I have a second, I will try to post more reviews.