Dear readers,
Today I'm going to do a review of the anime Soul Eater. The reason for the review is that the manga for the series is ending soon (I believe it has one more chapter left) and I want to put my thoughts down about the anime before the manga ends.
Now, you may be wondering "if the manga (source material) hasn't ended did the anime end?" The answer to that is yes. While the manga is over one hundred and ten chapters, the anime received an early end that allowed it to be only fifty one episodes long. This was done because the anime was going to overtake the original work and they didn't want to do a ton of filler in the wait (which I do applaud). Now this is both good and bad: Good because it makes the show a quick watch and bad because the ending involved a giant ass pull (for the sake of spoilers that is all I'll say about it).
The premise of the series is that the main cast can either transform into weapons or use said weapons to fight against demons and witches who threaten to destroy order in the world. The vast majority of these warriors go to a school (or teach at said school) which is run by the grim reaper (who is portrayed rather comically. I think its refreshing to see such a laid back death personification). Ultimately, their cause is to defeat the first "kishin" (an extremely powerful demon) Asura who is the cause of "madness".
With that out of the way, let us discuss the over arching themes. The most prevalent one is of fear vs. courage. This is probably one of the better themes one can use in general because it allows us to question what the meaning of fear is, why we experience it, why we bother being brave and more importantly if fear is good to have. Another prevalent theme is that of teamwork, or more specifically, that you need to rely on other people in order to develop.
The voice acting presented (I was watching the English dub) was pretty well done. With the exception of Black Star, the cast gave a marvelous performance. In the case of Black Star, his higher pitched voice didn't fit well next to Soul who sounded like he'd already gone through puberty.
One the point of characters, they're all well done. The main character, Maka, is a legacy child who has to deal with the stress of being a legacy while going through a divorce caused by the philandering of her father-who still dots over her. Her weapon, Soul, is a former musical prodigy who left home because of the skill gap between himself and his brother. The series begins with him losing his chance for a promotion.
The other characters that stood out as exceptional were Stein, Chrona and Free. In Stein's case I thought that the over used character type of "mad scientist" would get boring quickly but some of the best moments in the series involved him fighting his sociopathic tendencies and his madness. Chrona, being a character with essentially no prior human interaction, is both terrifying and lovable. Free, being an idiotic yet powerful immortal being, is rather charming. Particularly the part where he got arrested so he could dig out of prison with a spoon.
The most interesting part of the series is its setting for the reason that it not only lends credibility to some of the nightmare fuel that populates the series but it also looks some what like a series from Tim Burton. The moon and sun have faces, people sprout blades from their bodies and terrible eldritch abominations exist and fight against a skeleton person. I think you see what I'm getting at.
Now the worst point of the series is the rushed ending. I won't give anything away but when you see what I'm talking about you'll see what I'm talking about.
For now I'll leave with this AMV I found some of the nightmare fuel moments set to Marilyn Manson's "This is Halloween" so you can get a small taste of the series. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T51kyM7DS7k
I hoped you enjoyed,
Mike Hand
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Dear readers,
I am generally an advocate of allowing film adaptations of books to take artistic liberties. Far too often I hear people complain about how some minor character or call back from a book was cut from the movie version. Other times I hear that the movie simply wasn't as good with no deeper explanation (which makes sense because we tend to bond with characters when they are new). Occasionally I blame the book for being bad (ie. Twilight) but often I blame it on over zealous fans.
For this film, I know exactly what to blame it on. You see, when I first read the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close I wasn't sure I knew what to feel about it. For those who are unaware, the book presented three complementary narratives discussing communication, death and the horrors of war. Our main narrative follows Oskar Schell as he attempts to decipher what he views as the last message left to him by his father before his father died in 9/11. Understandably, this quest involves exploring the five boroughs to meet everyone there named "Black". The second narrative is that of Thomas Schell Sr.- Oskar's Grandfather- through letters to his unborn child explaining his life in Dresden before the fire bombing and why he fell out with his wife. The third narrative is of Oskar's Grandmother done in the form of letters to Oskar about her perspective on why her marriage fell a part. Each of these segments often include full page pictures, one phrase/word pages and (at one point) several blank pages.
Now what I won't criticize the film for are these: A. Making Oskar autistic (while Jonathon Safran Foer has said that Oskar was never meant to be autistic- although one could read the character as such- I will not criticize the film for this change because it came up that Oskar could be read as autistic in a college discussion by some one who had never seen the film); B. The removal of characters (The movie is over two hours long, of course some characters are going to be fused or removed). So lets get to what I will criticize this film for.
The first thing I need to criticize is the voice overs. I firmly believe in the visual powers of film and I hate it when the character I'm supposed to like is telling me what I can already see on the screen. The second thing to criticize is how much his father showed up. Now, I know this may be weird to criticize as most people tell me that the thing they hated most was how little Tom Hanks appeared. The thing is though, his character is dead when the film begins. We didn't need to be as flash back heavy in the beginning to get that he was a good guy and that we should miss him. The point is moving on, not hanging onto (also in some of that time we could have had the interview with the deaf Black or Ron could have appeared or any other countless possibilities).
Another thing to criticize is the truncation of metaphors from the book-most notably the Sixth Borough metaphor. The book made the sixth borough be the story of the character's relationships with each other, carefully crafted to tell story of Oskar's family. Here it served only as a metaphor for letting go, which I felt was a wasted potential.
The final big thing to criticize is the removal of the two complementary plots. I can understand why this is done (as mentioned earlier its a long film from Oskar's point of view already) but that doesn't exclude the fact that the bombing of Dresden was, by far, the most brutal and striking scene in the book. Given how flash back heavy the movie already was by the point Thomas Schell Sr. was introduced, I find it hard to understand why there wasn't a Dresden flashback along with his rather vague story.
Now onto what I liked. First off is the acting. Given what everyone has said about the film, I figured that the entire thing would be atrocious-especially the acting. When I had first heard that they were having a child actor portray a character with Asperger's (small note: in the film Oskar refers to it as Asperger's Disease. It is not Asperger's Disease but rather the DSM-IV refers to Asperger's as a disorder. Given that the DSM-IV was released in 2000 Oskar should be aware of its standing in 2002 and the writers of the film should be aware of its standing in 2011) I thought that he would be terrible. I was wrong, I thought he was great. In fact, the acting was all around great in the film.
The other thing I liked was when the film actually tried to use its visual abilities-and damn were they striking. Don't believe me? Look up the sensory overload scenes some times. Once Oskar starts to get panicked and the film tries to overload us, it actually does a pretty decent job of it. I have to give kudos to them for that.
So, did I like the film? Yes, but only as a stand alone film. Now that I've seen it I can reliably say that I know why people don't like it: It is not the book. And that may sound like a silly reason but it really isn't. The book had multiple ongoing stories and extremely complex characters, a few of which ended up destroying their relationship due to a lack of communication. Oskar's long monologues felt more natural in the books while the movie the first eleven minutes were too crowded with them. This really is a case of the movie not being capable of standing up to the book.
Hoping this was enjoyable,
Mike Hand
I am generally an advocate of allowing film adaptations of books to take artistic liberties. Far too often I hear people complain about how some minor character or call back from a book was cut from the movie version. Other times I hear that the movie simply wasn't as good with no deeper explanation (which makes sense because we tend to bond with characters when they are new). Occasionally I blame the book for being bad (ie. Twilight) but often I blame it on over zealous fans.
For this film, I know exactly what to blame it on. You see, when I first read the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close I wasn't sure I knew what to feel about it. For those who are unaware, the book presented three complementary narratives discussing communication, death and the horrors of war. Our main narrative follows Oskar Schell as he attempts to decipher what he views as the last message left to him by his father before his father died in 9/11. Understandably, this quest involves exploring the five boroughs to meet everyone there named "Black". The second narrative is that of Thomas Schell Sr.- Oskar's Grandfather- through letters to his unborn child explaining his life in Dresden before the fire bombing and why he fell out with his wife. The third narrative is of Oskar's Grandmother done in the form of letters to Oskar about her perspective on why her marriage fell a part. Each of these segments often include full page pictures, one phrase/word pages and (at one point) several blank pages.
Now what I won't criticize the film for are these: A. Making Oskar autistic (while Jonathon Safran Foer has said that Oskar was never meant to be autistic- although one could read the character as such- I will not criticize the film for this change because it came up that Oskar could be read as autistic in a college discussion by some one who had never seen the film); B. The removal of characters (The movie is over two hours long, of course some characters are going to be fused or removed). So lets get to what I will criticize this film for.
The first thing I need to criticize is the voice overs. I firmly believe in the visual powers of film and I hate it when the character I'm supposed to like is telling me what I can already see on the screen. The second thing to criticize is how much his father showed up. Now, I know this may be weird to criticize as most people tell me that the thing they hated most was how little Tom Hanks appeared. The thing is though, his character is dead when the film begins. We didn't need to be as flash back heavy in the beginning to get that he was a good guy and that we should miss him. The point is moving on, not hanging onto (also in some of that time we could have had the interview with the deaf Black or Ron could have appeared or any other countless possibilities).
Another thing to criticize is the truncation of metaphors from the book-most notably the Sixth Borough metaphor. The book made the sixth borough be the story of the character's relationships with each other, carefully crafted to tell story of Oskar's family. Here it served only as a metaphor for letting go, which I felt was a wasted potential.
The final big thing to criticize is the removal of the two complementary plots. I can understand why this is done (as mentioned earlier its a long film from Oskar's point of view already) but that doesn't exclude the fact that the bombing of Dresden was, by far, the most brutal and striking scene in the book. Given how flash back heavy the movie already was by the point Thomas Schell Sr. was introduced, I find it hard to understand why there wasn't a Dresden flashback along with his rather vague story.
Now onto what I liked. First off is the acting. Given what everyone has said about the film, I figured that the entire thing would be atrocious-especially the acting. When I had first heard that they were having a child actor portray a character with Asperger's (small note: in the film Oskar refers to it as Asperger's Disease. It is not Asperger's Disease but rather the DSM-IV refers to Asperger's as a disorder. Given that the DSM-IV was released in 2000 Oskar should be aware of its standing in 2002 and the writers of the film should be aware of its standing in 2011) I thought that he would be terrible. I was wrong, I thought he was great. In fact, the acting was all around great in the film.
The other thing I liked was when the film actually tried to use its visual abilities-and damn were they striking. Don't believe me? Look up the sensory overload scenes some times. Once Oskar starts to get panicked and the film tries to overload us, it actually does a pretty decent job of it. I have to give kudos to them for that.
So, did I like the film? Yes, but only as a stand alone film. Now that I've seen it I can reliably say that I know why people don't like it: It is not the book. And that may sound like a silly reason but it really isn't. The book had multiple ongoing stories and extremely complex characters, a few of which ended up destroying their relationship due to a lack of communication. Oskar's long monologues felt more natural in the books while the movie the first eleven minutes were too crowded with them. This really is a case of the movie not being capable of standing up to the book.
Hoping this was enjoyable,
Mike Hand
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