From the depths of space he is coming...
Ancient beyond understanding, his power is immeasurable. He has destroyed half the universe and is on his way here. He is... Genma.
Only two people are aware of the imminent catastrophe: Princess Luna, a modern day prophetess and Vega, a cybernetic crusader from a world long since ravaged by Genma. Determined to spare the Earth from a similar fate, Luna and Vega must try to mobilize the most potent psychics in the world. Together, this army of fledging psychic warriors must succeed where billions have tried... and failed.
But will they be able to gather their champions in time? Genma's agents are already on Earth to ensure that their master meets with no opposition!
(Source: AnimeNfo)
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Comentários
busterbeam
So, Genma Taisen: Harmageddon; a super-influential 1983 anime about a bunch of psychics including a "transylvanian princess" (lol), an angsty teenage boy and a badass robot with a broken heart taking on the galaxy-destroying demonic entity Genma and his evil followers. All this with Rintaro at the director's helm, Yoshinori Kanada (AKA THE most important Japanese animator that ever lived) doing some of his all-time best and most influential animation, and a young Katsuhiro Otomo doing the character designs and a bunch of artwork. Predating it are a series of novels from the 70s written by 8-Man creator and Spiderman manga writer Kazumasa Hirai andthe original 60s manga he cooked up with one of my favorite authors, Shotaro Ishinomori. The soundtrack for the movie was done by progressive rock musician Keith Emerson and Japanese composer Nozomi Aoki. Apparently the former was high off his ass the majority of the time while recording which is extremely fitting given the film's general hippie theme.
Harmageddon is an anime considered to be one of the worst of all time by the western fanbase, devoid of any unironic merits, worth watching only for a few ironic guffaws. As usual, that's total nonsense and you shouldn't listen to it. Genma Taisen is a flawed film, but when it's good it's absolutely amazing and the quality and uniqueness of its highest highs absolutely make it worth watching despite its issues, especially if you're into historically important anime, stylish inventive visuals and progressive rock.
First, I want to get the bad out of the way: Otomo's character design input, while solid, feels like it had to be held back significantly in terms of style. There's a sort of Captain Planet-ness to the protagonists that's nowhere to be seen in his manga work from around the same period. If you compare his very own Harmageddon art book to the actual designs of the film the difference is quite obvious. I largely prefer the original cartoony manga designs over the more realistic movie versions, however there are some exceptions. Vega's girlfriend has a fantastic design and Vega himself looks absolutely freaking awesome. I love this robot design to no end and I would love to own a figure of him.
A common criticism with the film is that it draws from the epic, long-running story of the novels while failing to give that stuff any substance because it's turning a lengthy series of books into just one movie. As a result many assume that the Captain Planet-y diversity crew of psychics all had elaborate backstories in the original text. This is based on a huge misconception completely made up by The Anime Encyclopedia along with the nonsense claim that the manga came after the novels. Colony Drop sadly went on to repeat this misinformation along with the (for once) true claim that the movie only drew from the first 3 volumes of the novels. From what I gather the movie is simply a mix of the manga story and the first 3 novels; the same basic story but made to be more realistic, in tune with the novelization (the original manga had, among other things, cartoonier villains and *talking animals*). However Vol 3 did not go up to the epic final battle with Genma and in fact I'm not even sure if the novels went in that direction to begin with given from a quick skim of their illustrations. Meanwhile a lot of the movie scenes from near the end appear to be near-perfect manga adaptations. So from what I gather, the finale is instead taken straight from the manga. All of the extra psychic heroes like the Saudi Arabian guy, the Native American man and the Chinese girl seem to be anime originals. None of the novel illustrations show them off and by the end of volume 3 of the novels when the protagonists fight the giant rampaging ball thing that absorbed Sonny, the team is composed of only 4 psychics: Luna, Vega, Jo and the recently freed Sonny. By adding the new characters the anime simply creates the illusion that there's a deeper backstory to them in some kind of original source material. Instead they were just added to make the final battle more epic and give it all a teamwork feeling by having psychic fighters from all over the world come together for the final showdown. They were never meant to be deep.
But with all that out of the way, the movie's execution is still flawed. The mere fact that it feels like something wwas missing from the second half is still a problem. While there are still plenty of great moments, I can't help but feel there's a bit of rush-work and missed potential during the second hour. However, despite all this, I still feel that the west is horribly off in its reaction to this movie, which is just non-stop hatred. Looking at Japanese reviews, the gushing love for this movie from the 80s is not quite there anymore, but it's generally not disliked either. It's still mostly seen as above average, with a few people still loving it; not a masterpiece, but certainly not a failure. I like the film more than that, but I find that to be a reasonable response from a general Japanese audience. This is in stark contrast to the western reaction which is one of pure, unbridled, outright illogical hate that often denies any and all merits this film might have. Some people will go as far as to directly compare it to such actual abominations as Mars of Destruction. Existing flaws aside, this is total nonsense. Interestingly, the author has gone on record to state his dislike of this film; but, as I can't read Japanese and have to rely on translations for my Japanese information, I have no way of knowing if the original manga and book were significantly better. After all, one of the author's main complaints wasn't even the writing but the artwork, claiming that Otomo missed the spirit of Genma Taisen, nitpicking the hell out of the designs and complaining about Jo's forehead of all things. He just seems to have a strange hate boner for Otomo, I guess because he was popular and young and the kids liked him; a sort of "get offa my lawn" sort of attitude. Personally though I think the illustrations in the novel are extremely boring and sort of up their own ass in their seriousness, like they were trying really hard to go for a pulpy western style. I vastly prefer Otomo's work, even in its blandified form.
The first half of the film, with its mixture of surreal and down-to-earth imagery, is shockingly good. It has a relatively focused story, starting off with an exposition of the main villain's threat and the mission of the protagonists, then focusing on Jo Azuma's normal life and his eventual discovery of his psychic powers. It's filled with visually brilliant shots, from down-to-earth realistic ones to super-creative expressionistic fantasy compositions. Some scenes, like the one where Vega stops time and chases Jo around, have an absolutely fantastic sense of atmosphere. During these glorious moments, the artwork is pitch perfect. The sense for timing and cutting is spot on. And to top it all off, it's delivered with kickass animation from some of the best people in the industry; such as the climax of the aforementioned chase scene, by Takashi Nakamura, who went on to animation-direct Akira and then come up with his very own charming creations, like the Robot Carnical short Nightmare and the underappreciated children's anime film Catnapped. My favorite part from the first half, though, is the moment when Jo finally accepts his ESP powers and starts screwing around with them, having the time of life. It's a very well animated, well voiced, well drawn scene of a boy discovering something fantastical in an otherwise quotidian, realistically portrayed world. In fact, it reminds me of the equally awesome first Digimon short film by Mamoru Hosoda, right down to the use of classical music. Also worth noting is the oldschool monster movie tinge they gave to the title screen.
Despite what you might have read, the film is not internally inconsistent, confusing or thematically incoherent, and in fact it has an obvious message: one of throwing away prejudice, not being single-minded and being a philantropic person. Above all else, the messagea that impacted me the most was the one about embracing a love of the entire world instead of clining to a single-minded obsession with one person. A relationship might fail, someone you cared for deeply might change beyond recognition and someone you've dedicated your entire existence to might end up leaving you one way or the other. Given my personal life experiences this is a very effective message that had a legitimate emotional impact on me. But of course, the highest high of the movie is the climax. Like a modern day Hokusai, Yoshinori Kanada brought us one of the greatest masterpieces of Japanese animation. The uniquely Japanese, hyper-stylized, super-flat yet gloriously alive final "boss form" of Genma, that of the now-iconic Kanada fire dragon. A sequence of pure creative genius that left a massive mark on the minds of many animators and still inspired young artists to this day. What's even more impressive is that the idea of the final battle being against not just a dragon, but a shape-shifting dragon made of fire, was an anime original. While still very cool, the manga version was a far more standard design and the manga-to-anime change was a brilliant one that takes great advantage of the medium. And then there's the criticism of the stereotyped nature of the "Captain Planet diversity crew"; but really now, the same thing applies to Cyborg 009 and that one is considered a classic, yet somehow it arbitrarily makes this movie an abomination. The thing is, I'm Romanian and I should be the first one to take issue with Luna's characterization, yet I don't really give a crap given the overall message is a good one and the staff have their hearts in the right place. And hey, they definitely toned down Sonny hugely from his offensive blackface manga incarnation. I don't think Ishinomori was racist, and in fact he showed great respect for African and other black people in Cyborg 009, but he way he chose to stylize them is hard to morally justify in this day and age.
One of the main reasons to experience this story is to realize just how massively influential it was on pretty much everything from Japan that was "nerd-related" in some way. From anime and manga (Akira) to video games (Chrono Trigger, Streets of Rage 2, even more obscure stuff like Monster Party) to Gainax's second Daicon short, the influence is just all over the place in Japanese culture. In fact, from what I gather, one of the main reasons this movie was hated at first was that Americans thought it was a ripoff of Akira, which is absolutely ridiculous.
But perhaps the most shameful criticism people direct towards Genma Taisen is the claim that it's badly animated. I mean, sure, there is some budget saving; the cataclismic scenes are mostly a slideshow. But they're well-drawn slideshows. One of them was even done by Otomo himself and it looks great. Not to mention, no one bitched when Gunbuster slideshowed its way out of the final battle. Besides, there's still a ton of wonderful art and animation in this movie.
This is a flawed film, but one that's nonetheless a must-see for fans of iconic, stylish old-school Japanese cartoons and I assume it's utterly fantastic if you've read the novels, manga or both first. I'm sad to announce there are no translations of either of those. I'd like to read both in English, but the Ishinomori-drawn manga is the one I REALLY want to experience because I love that guy's artwork. Scanlators, please pick that up. For now, though, watch this film and unironically enjoy the good parts, because they're definitely there and they're super-underrated.
Shura-shurato
One of the BEST oldskool anime movies ever made, just because it contains NO drop of blood, and its really fun, if u like long movies. Personaly this is really an anime movie to watch with the whole fammily, wich is really an reccomendation, or just for a good movienight alone, the story is easygoing and fun how it develops, same wich intro of the char. througout the movie, its animation was , more mature like for its time wich a lot of ppl these days have forgotten about 80´s anime movies, and they had time to kill for making such a nice story, notrushed like a lot of todays anime. Overall i enjoyed the psychic development and internal struggle of some persons as well to make it really compassionate at times!
Jayma
After getting a good laugh from the infamous Mars of Destruction, I decided to watch Genma Taisen thinking that I would have a somewhat similar experience. I was gravely mistaken... Story- 2/10 Typical save the world from the bad guy plot. Things happen for no apparent reason, and anytime something did happen I felt like punching myself in the throat. Art- 3/10 Still frames, expressionless faces, recycled/ choppy animations, and horribly drawn backdrops (with the exception of a few decently animated scenes). Nothing much else to say here. Sound- 3/10 Below average voice acting. Terrible soundtrack. Cheesy sound effects (this is a plus though). Again, nothing much else to say.Character- 1/10
This is by far the worst aspect of the entire movie. There is little to no character development at all (not that I was expecting any). The inner conflict of, whom I can only assume is the protagonist, is completely trivial. Every few minutes a new character is introduced for no reason whatsoever and they contribute absolutely nothing. Their physical features are the only thing that distinguish them from one another and they all have the complexity of a cardboard box. I actually grew increasingly frustrated with the introduction of each new character.
Enjoyment- 2/10
The only semblance of enjoyment that I received from this garbage was from the unintentionally created comedy, which was surprisingly almost nonexistent.
Overall- 2.2/10
The message that the film is trying to convey is so mind-numbingly retarded that it makes me want to throw myself off of a bridge; generic love thy neighbor bullshit (which isn't a problem within itself, but rather how poorly it was executed). The vast majority of this movie isn't even laughably bad and if your sole purpose for watching this is to laugh at it: I would strongly recommend that you just watch the last ten or so minutes. On the other hand, if you have the mental capacity of a four year old or just like the feeling of your brain cells killing themselves then this may be the movie for you.
However, my advice to anyone is: do not waste your time with this.
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*Note that this is a review for the subbed version, the dub has potential to be hilarious.*
herbeey
Angering. If myanimelist let me, that would be the entirety of the review. Here's my old review: This film left me annoyed, invigorated, frustrated and amazed. This is about a boy getting love-powered psychic abilities and his journey as he discovers this, plays with this, discovers the consequences, and of course has to help the handful of other psychic warriors on Earth defeat a countless-galaxies-destroying being. I found myself really enjoying and relating, not only to his journey, but to a few other characters. Until the last third. Oh god what did I just see. I have mixed feelings about this anime, but they're mostly a mixture of goodthings. At first it seemed awful, then it seemed so bad it was good. The visuals fluctuate from excellent and lavish to pretty appalling - there is a lot to like here. The plot initially seems awful and it is. It goes out of its way to be awful around the last third. It's still watchable, but it's mostly coasting off goodwill earnt in the middle and pretty visuals.
Who the hell is the character at the start is a fair question. Where the hell did nearly all the cast go in the last third and how much time has elapsed just after that and how has what appears to have happened happened at that point? THESE ARE ALL FAIR QUESTIONS. But I don't begrudge it because it's amusing. But seriously, it managed to endear me to a large cast and then changed most of the cast very suddenly, which was unsatisfying and confusing.
The dubbing is awful, but for this kind of movie that's not really a bad thing. I honestly don't want someone telling me with convincing emotion that the psychic abilities are powered by love. I want to enjoy how explicitly hammy that premise is.
This feels like it's set in a similar world to Dragonball Z, but the comedy is unintentional coz it takes itself much more seriously... which can be really interesting at times. What would you really do if you got psychic powers? It makes you wonder that and I love this movie for helping me explore that.
I love this movie. I think. Don't expect much and it'll be a good fun ride in ways it didn't often intend.
If you want a drinking game, trying taking a shot every time someone catches someone else.
Please do message me if this review made your life significantly better or worse!
barcaman101
After surviving a mysterious airline explosion princess Luna then encounter a supernatural being that warn her about the impending fate of the earth.The evil demonic entity called Genma plots to whip out all life on earth and only her and other special individuals with psychic powers called psionic warriors can stop him.She most gather the other from across the globe and unite to defeat Genma and his evil minions I Seriously deserve the title of sainthood for sitting through this;which although overall wasn't completely awful, at times was a dung fest.The pacing is ridiculously slow and the plot transparent and uninspiring.The characters were blandand completely forgettable.It did have few strong point such as the issue of racism that arouse and a few decent voice acting from what was an overall atrocious dub. Just your" run of the mill"anime.
Overall an anime to watch when you have nothing better to do.
punishedsneed
Genma Taisen is thoroughly gorgeous. Its visuals are just what you'd expect from when it was made and whose behind it. The animation carries this movie, really bringing a lot of its concepts to life. I wonder why it has a 5.15 on here, though I'd estimate that because while the visuals are well done and interesting, the story probably doesn't hit for most people. I'd say the story here is only just decent, and most of the characters, besides the protagonist, are pretty flat. Still, the movie is a long, winding journey full of interesting visuals and scenes, so I wouldn't pass up onwatching it if you're interested in anime movies from this period.
I imagine that Genma Taisen's weaker links are a result of its format. It's a movie, and like many anime movies from this period, it's more then 2 hours long. Also like other anime movies from this period, it's trying to fit a lot more then it can into film's more limited format. While with a series like an OVA or a TV show, you have anywhere from 10 to 50 episodes to work with, movies rarely exceed two hours and twenty minutes, and when they exceed two hours to begin with, there's a good chance they'll start to drag.
Considering how many characters this movie has, and how only one of them, our protagonist Azuma Jo, gets any real development, I believe they just didn't want to cut out anything. They came up with these characters and especially wanted them in place to make the story seem more globally significant, since the other characters are from places like Taiwan, India, New York City, etc... Basically, they had these characters designed and mostly thought out, but struggled to make them do anything but just appear in the story. Only one of these characters gets an introductory scene - the rest are just basically flung into the plot.
But even these weakly developed characters are better then the plot, which is presented in a rather dreary, apocalyptic fashion, but is basic and predictable underneath that prophetic window-dressing. Bad guy energy wants to destroy everything, the universe's life energy intervenes to make sure that doesn't happen, and so our story begins... in the end, something about love being greater then hate; you know, typical feel-good messaging. The movie comes off as quite New Age. The New Age movement is where it gets its psionic abilities, its global nature, and its basic spiritual themes of love conquering all, yadda-yadda. Maybe since I'm normal and don't subscribe to any New Age spirituality, and instead rely on hierarchal Catholicism, this wishy-washy message comes off as boring. Don't get me wrong, pure dualism can be thematically interesting, but not here. The plot itself is a device; a device to give us the movie's stunning visuals and animation.
And since it gives us that, I can't say it's so bad it isn't worth watching.
When we look at anime and even film, half of it is plot, characters, writing, and the other half is visual. A movie can be mediocre on one half if the other half excels. It won't be a masterpiece, but it'll be "good." And that's why I'll call Genma Taisen "good."
upsetkiller456
Before i start this review I would like to state I am being 100% serious about this and believe this movie is one of the greatest(shittiest) movies of all time. Story-10/10(1.5) Wow. Just wow never have I would have a imagined that a film like this would create such a heart warming(more like heart killing) and brilliant(retarded) story. The story follows Jo who has just learned that he is actually a "PSIONIC WARRIOR!" and he is destined to save the universe from the wrath of the evil Genma!(who is actually just a giant red skull floating in space for no fucking reason). I thought the story wasvery well thought out and everything that happened, had happened for a reason(not really everything that happens in this film is completely pointless and has no reason behind it what so ever.) and in the last 10 minutes of the film made me so happy(miserable) that I wanted to cry out in happiness(agony)!
Art-10/10(1.5/10)
This is another area of the film where it excels(hopelessly fails) at. From having amazing(awful) backgrounds, extremely fluid(commonly choppy) animations, you can tell they put a lot of time and effort into the animations!
Sound-10/10(3/10)
You know after seeing them put so much(little) effort into animation and story you might think "Well there is no way the rest of the movie can be any good." but if you think that you will find you are mistaken(correct.) The acting in this movie is some the best(worst) I have ever heard! Many of the sound effects the film are very high(low) quality and you may even find yourself paying attention( i.e. muting your computer) to what the people say even more than the animations themselves!
Character-10/10(1/10)
Now THIS is where the movie is best(most atrocious) at. I mean seriously the amount of character progression in this is insane(and by that I mean nearly non-existent) and whenever they give us a new character(which seems like every 10 minutes) it gives them an excellent(literally invisible) back story to follow. Not to mention every action they do you can see so much emotion put into it just by looking at their faces!(actually no every character has a completely expressionless face at seems to have no thought process what so ever.)
Enjoyment-10/10(2/10)
What was there not to enjoy about this movie!(A lot of things, that's what) never once was I bored during this film. I enjoyed this film so much!(Just so you all know this segment was a complete lie, in fact the only "enjoyable" moments of this film was the unintentional comedic charm some of the scenes had due to the complete lack of good acting and animations, but even that can't save this pile of shit.)
Overall-10/10(1.8/10)
In conclusion, This movie has clearly proven to me that it is here to stay due to it's phenomenal animations, superb acting, memorable characters, and heart warming story. I highly recommend this movie to anyone that wants to see one of the greatest movies ever. (Just kidding there is seriously NOTHING good about this movie or even average, I highly suggest if you want to see a horrible show/ movie just go watch something by idea factory because those are at least funny to watch. In the end avoid this movie at all costs.)
Voivodian
Being an early Madhouse production alone is enough to make an anime notable; but this production has even more going for it. With art done by the Otomo, this supergroup anime indeed becomes a proto Akira, featuring apocalyptic ruin and grand psychic battles. Fitting the sheer devastation promised by its premise, art and production overall is just stunning for early 1980s standards; the trademark grim metropolises of Madhouse is contrasted sharply with vibrant glimmers of light before seguing into the downright surreal of distorted acid paintings. The latter I assume is courtesy of Rintaro and he doesn't stop there, going on to gift uswith a wacky Bambi expy!
The supergroup however, does not stop here. Soundwise, half the ost is done by THE Keith Emerson of ELP fame! His synth/moog music brilliantly accentuates the pulsating, flashy beauty of the psychic battle scenes, creating some of the most enjoyable light and sound experiences I've ever had in any anime!
The plot, or more accurately, the loosely connected 4 or so narrative arcs is just that, very lackluster. This is no normal anime or show for that matter, the plot is the last thing that matters, this anime is a brilliant sensory adventure that will utterly wow anyone who remotely appreciates older anime!
Also a shout out for the cyborg dude Vega for being a glimmering example of amazing character design.
chrissy_poo_too
Harmagedon is an early madhouse film with ties to Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame. A group of psychics and a cyborg from the future (but also the past?) are trying to stop a Galactus like being from destroying Earth because that’s the kind of thing he’s into. It’s really weird and dumb and pseudo-deep, but I liked it quite a bit. I was surprised by the amount of Akira-isms this film has, including a couple of scenes that are almost identical (Tetsuo and Joe learning that they have the ability to fly, for example). Despite the similarities, this movie is not nearly as well put togetheras Akira.
In fact, Harmagedon is pretty much a giant clusterf*ck. We swing from intergalactic warfare to teen melodrama to Dark City like psychic battles to awkward oedipal sibling relationships to hilarious racial stereotypes and back again, with very little regard for transition or explanation.
It’s…pretty stupid.
But it’s pretty damn entertaining too. I imagine some really talented people did some really good drugs while making this and it resulted in a whole lot of absurdity. Maybe not quality in the strictest sense, but absurdity that results in a certain type of quality.
It’s difficult to score Harmagedon on its art and sound and other specifics in that vein just because everything fluctuates so much. There will be a beautifully animated scene followed by a static background shot followed by recycled animation. How does someone rate that? It’s something you have to see for yourself I suppose. Also the dub is ridiculous and has one of the worst performances I’ve ever heard (Joe’s buddy Shiro). It borders on comedy in that respect.
That being said, I can confidently say I had a good time watching Harmagedon. I suggest watching it with a group and not taking it too seriously, and I bet you’ll have a good time too. I can't in good conscience give it more than a 6, but know that as far my enjoyment goes this rates much higher.
neetonatto
This movie has severe pacing issues. About 15 minutes in I decided it would be a good idea to speed the movie up 10%. This was a good idea, as every single scene hangs on and drags juuuuust long enough that i would forget what it was that i was concentrating on. My brain kept wanting to jump out of the movie, I couldn't get settled in for a single moment. I haven't seen many anime with this kind of problem. The story is very simple, so i wasn't really lost at all the entire time, it's just that it was directed in such anamateurish way that many scenes which probably should've been pulled for pacing were left in. I don't imagine much was left on the cutting room floor, and to it's detriment, what should be a pulse-pounding action flick is reduced to the level of entertainment i could get from watching my goldfish. This was a very mediocre film compared to other similar 80's post-apocalyptic demon anime. In terms of that particular sub-genre, it is close to the bottom, but definitely not one of worst anime I've ever seen. I would put this on the same level as "X Densha de Ikou" or "Toki no Tabibito: Time Stranger". They're both strange and imperfect but also kind-of important from a historical standpoint. These three films all could have been elevated by better directors, but they instead became experimental works proudly showing all of their flaws.
Gsarthotegga
Genma Taisen is a dated, ambitious mess. The art, animation, and atmosphere are the only reasons anyone would want to watch this, and all three are inconsistent. The other reason might be that this is something like a proto-Akira, bringing to mind the similarly dubious Ai City dystopic sci-fi film. Katsuhiro Otomo was also involved here, which suggests it might have been another influence leading up to that vastly superior film. There's an impressive fluidity and style to the animation in numerous scenes and plenty of staff overlap with Akira, featuring many of the same key animators. The art is oftentimes bold and sharp and givena great stylistic flair from Rintaro's direction and exceptional moments of fluid animation. Unfortunately, Certain shots look flat in terms of both composition and color—like something out of a 1970s series. Other moments are like the wonderful near-monochromatic scenes when time is stopped, a sequence which is among the most elaborate in terms of production values, storyboarding, and accentuated by those smoldering red lanterns that are used to incredible effect. Takashi Nakamura has a few incredible scenes, and the fiery finale from Yoshinori Kanada is spectacular, but no matter how impressive these scenes are can make up for its flaws. There are plenty of budget saving techniques used to offset the otherwise decent to impressive animation. One of the worst offenders is the devastation of America, featuring loads of pans and zooms and wacky camera movements dancing around stills. Rintaro can be an interesting director, but he doesn't always have an easy time telling a story, and Genma Taisen is one of his bellyflops onto asphalt, from the top of a high-rise building.
I thought it was a safe bet that I'd give this a better rating for the visual prowess alone, but the writing, pacing, and characters are all trash. On some level, I feel this is at least a 3/10 for how impressive some of the scenes are, but the movie is so unbearably hollow and boring that it's hard to do better than a 2/10. There's no emotional connection amongst the characters. Friends of the main even get turned into monsters but we never get any clues as to whether they were killed or if some human component of them remained, as the main dispatches them with the ease of a psychopath, and we promptly forget about them. We get a lot of time with the Japanese high schooler, the android, and Luna, sans any development or characterization to differentiate them from any other generic "we have to save the world" cast, but all of the other characters assemble without an effective introduction and have almost no lines of significance. The only other character I can remember is the black kid with roller skates because of the ridiculous line the android delivers to Luna about how he thinks she's uncomfortable teaming up with the boy because he's black. It came out of nowhere and was outrageously funny, yet the intent was obviously social commentary finger wagging!
There's nothing to offer in terms of storytelling or thematics, the film is simultaneously too long and too rushed, and In the few instances where they squeeze in a theme, it's nauseating, preachy, and half-formed. Worst of all, there's so much gooey B-movie cheese and horrendous jazz-funk muzak stinking up the film to the point one can't even turn off his brain and appreciate the aesthetics or atmosphere. What on earth was with the film turning into a mawkish Bambi ripoff toward the end!? At heart, it's basically a Captain Planet precursor but instead of an environmental hazard, they combine their forces to save the world from a cosmic evil of generic proportions, complete with a kumbaya song and dance finale.
matthigh
An eighties classic movie with lots of high-powered staff that worked on it -- and yet, as classic as it may be, it comes away...lacking. The main storyline is set up very early, as a galactic scourge is coming to destroy the planet, and the fate of the planet falls on the shoulders of a young Japanese boy, unaware of his latent abilities. Helped (and hindered) along the way repeatedly by a cast of misfits that guide him how to use his powers or try to destroy him, he fumbles along towards the inevitable showdown. It certainly isa motley crew that is assembled in the process. The character designs are very nice (as expected of early Otomo), the animation is usually pretty good as well. The plot is sort of trite, but perfectly serviceable - but where it falls short is in the actual storytelling. It's just not compelling or interesting, and sort of just plods from scene to scene without much energy. You know where this whole movie is going from the beginning, it just takes two hours to finally get to that point. And that journey is just, well, pretty flat.
