10-24-2020, 10:15 PM
This is a three-part sci fi anime by Katsuhiro Otomo, who brought us Akira.
Magnetic Rose is about some space salvagers who get a distress call from a zone full of space trash and a disruptive magnetic field. What ensues is a haunting ghost tale, part hologram, part bot, the memories of a princess opera diva. It's wonderfully hallucinogenic and y'all know how I love a good hallucination as much as a good sword fight. The animation is dated now, but still robust with just an accent of CGI. I liked the way 0-G was depicted - the ships had no orienation (unlike the ships of Star Trek and Star Wars which always have a right way up). A beautifully told short.
Stink Bomb starts with a lab tech who is sick and wearing a mask because that's what you do in Japan when there's a cold going about, even a quarter century ago. That caught my attention right away. But then he takes an experimental drug that turns him into a walking stink bomb, and a very lethal one at that. When he first wakes up and finds the entire lab dead, that was cool. But the rest played out like a kaiju movie with him advancing on Tokyo and the military struggling to defend against him. The U.S. is the villain of sorts, behind the development of the super weapon. This one started good but I was fading about halfway through and predicted the ending. It went too long.
Cannon Fodder is the third installment. I'll save that for later. I've already had my Powers Gold and two lovely wedges of night cheese and I'm ready to turn in early on this Saturday night.
Magnetic Rose is about some space salvagers who get a distress call from a zone full of space trash and a disruptive magnetic field. What ensues is a haunting ghost tale, part hologram, part bot, the memories of a princess opera diva. It's wonderfully hallucinogenic and y'all know how I love a good hallucination as much as a good sword fight. The animation is dated now, but still robust with just an accent of CGI. I liked the way 0-G was depicted - the ships had no orienation (unlike the ships of Star Trek and Star Wars which always have a right way up). A beautifully told short.
Stink Bomb starts with a lab tech who is sick and wearing a mask because that's what you do in Japan when there's a cold going about, even a quarter century ago. That caught my attention right away. But then he takes an experimental drug that turns him into a walking stink bomb, and a very lethal one at that. When he first wakes up and finds the entire lab dead, that was cool. But the rest played out like a kaiju movie with him advancing on Tokyo and the military struggling to defend against him. The U.S. is the villain of sorts, behind the development of the super weapon. This one started good but I was fading about halfway through and predicted the ending. It went too long.
Cannon Fodder is the third installment. I'll save that for later. I've already had my Powers Gold and two lovely wedges of night cheese and I'm ready to turn in early on this Saturday night.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse