The first season of Highschool DxD distinguished itself from its fellow fanservice anime series through sheer ambition. To describe it as an impressive artistic achievement would be an overstatement, undoubtedly, but in a genre that’s generally content to cobble together panty shots and inadvertent nudity into perfunctory, predictable plotlines it was refreshing to see Highschool…
It is, by definition, impossible to give an “objective” review of art (though this review of Citizen Kane provides a hilarious example of what it might look like). Having a bad day can make an okay movie terrible; a great night with friends can make a mediocre movie seem a lot better than it is.…
Ghost in the Shell: Arise is a perfectly good anime series. Its four hour-long episodes – the first two having just been released on Australian Blu-Ray – navigate labyrinthine cyberpunk narratives layered with themes of identity and our perceptions of reality. This philosophical density is leavened by the show’s kinetic, deftly-directed action sequences and sharp…
I watched Grave of the Fireflies expecting a masterpiece. I’d never seen the film before, but its reputation preceded it – as Studio Ghibli’s second film (released simultaneously with the magnificent My Neighbour Totoro) and as a tear-jerking war drama. Based on the non-fiction novel by Nosaka Akiyuki, it tells the tale of teenage boy…
Last Saturday I made a mid-morning visit to GOMA’s Cinémathèque for a couple documentaries by Hong-Joon Kim on the subject of Korean cinema. It was hardly an accessible double feature: as a fellow critic commented, it was “too niche for its audience of five people,” presenting interesting but opaque oral histories. I expected the same…
Ever since my childhood, anime has assumed a dangerous, forbidden aura. I can recall in my early teens as these Japanese animated movies and television shows began to encroach upon video stores’ territory, scant shelves and then populated aisles of big eyes, big swords and big breasts. Give or take an Astroboy, I never watched…
Hal uses intricate futurism to examine universal themes of bereavement and obligation. Running at a slim sixty minutes, it’s simplistic in its narrative and themes, but finds a gentle profundity and quiet beauty nonetheless. Ryôtarô Makihara’s anime feature begins with a robot idling in a peaceful stream; the tranquillity is shortly interrupted by the explosion…
From a consumer point-of-view, I’m always a little sceptical of staggered releases of television/anime series, where one season is broken up into two (or more) physical releases; on the surface, it seems like straight-up profiteering. But just as the The Deathly Hallows and many of its cinematic antecdents turned their bifurcated releases into artistic strength,…
Samurai Bride follows the format established by its first season (titled Samurai Girls because apparently they don’t like “season two” in Japan), relying on its animation’s stylistic diversity to excuse its otherwise entirely conventional blend of harem tropes, fan-service and oversized showdowns. Interestingly, I’d argue the two approaches work at cross-purposes; viewers looking for a…
Discussing IkkiTousen’s third season, I described the show as “sexist, and stupid, and slapdash”.” Nonetheless I obviously enjoyed it enough to return for Xtreme Xecutor, season four of the anime. What made me come back for more was the appeal of the show’s “insistence on the insubstantial” – it’s as substantial as a helium balloon,…
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