Father Geek here with Scott's column on Manga & Anime for this week...

AnimAICN...

by Scott Green

Anime Spotlight: Steam Boy

(Based on English subtitled/Japanese audio release)

Steam Boy is more evidence to the rarity of great anime movies. Katushiro Otomo is one of the great anime movie makers, and he still had problem creating a follow up to Akira. Steam Boy is a kinetic (often literally), brilliantly animated feature that draws you in, frequently distracting you from how fun it isn't. With Victorian steam-tech mixed to both encroaching pulp age heroes, and World War I international wars, set off against beautiful complexity in the formless billows of CGI steam, and artificial anarchy of gears, girders, and vents the movie nearly misses becoming a geek landmark. While plenty of clever ideas, and clever takes on familiar are worked in, along an evidently staggeringly work load in creating the visuals dimension, ultimately, the movie comes across as an audience pleaser where other goals trumped putting together something that would appeal to the audience.

During the movie, it is inviting to get taken in by the display of young Ray Steam’s introduction to where science and history collide, with the feuds between his father, grandfather and their rivals, along with and his brush with American arms-heiress Scarlet O’Hara. Though the girders and rivets look carries some unfortunate baggage from the likes of Wild Wild West, with scenes like the battles of wits between scientist adventurers, with Victorian-tech tanks or amphibious assault crafts, or a flying tower fending off train mounted grappling hooks, the movie boasts some amazingly memorable sights. However, afterwards, it doesn’t seem like something to recommend.

As a fun movie, it isn’t very. For an indomitable youth inventor, propelled by fate and genius to take the world by storm, there's plenty to be disquieted about in Steam Boy. There’s a great deal of half-consequence. Problems with greater implications are shown, almost acknowledged, then almost downplayed. A newly industrialized factory is makes a significant early appearance, with an indifferent owner and exploding machines, but after everyone dodges a nasty indecent, and the hero fixes some bad valves, and the issue’s gone. Densely populated city blocks are subjected to every sort of barrage, but a room full of children look out from a now missing wall, and it’s just about averting the next disaster.

The advanced birth of mechanized war does cast a shadow over the proceedings. However it’s mostly an "oh, that's quite bad" reaction before servicing as a straw horse to be kicked about with Victorian pre-post-modern bombast of great ideals forwarded by a lineage of infernal scientist geniuses and their rivals as they engage the discussion at its most abstract level (capitalism against idealism against nationalism).

The technology, which allows the hero to rocket around and fly doesn’t have the big spectacle quality of liberation. Rather than danger defying, it seems just dangerous. There are so many well rendered snapping cables, flying gears and spigots, shattering glass and marble, that it is a miracle that there's only on mutilated character in the piece.

The plotting isn’t as bad as many anime movie, which is helped in some ways by the fact the movie is staged as an origin story for a pulp mythos. (If something doesn’t pay off, or it bumps of the climax, part of the issue can be explained as a pastiche of the style).

The struggle to fit the desired story and visual ideas in the films seems to continually plague the form of anime movies. The reviewers who said that movie had pacing problems haven't seen many features in which a visual treat is accompanied by the jumbled pieces of a plot. Though this Steam Boy moves with more easy than many anime movies, watching the subtitled version, easy to spot what was taken out for the dub, and false endings, exasperated by a few moments of inflicted stupidity on the characters, and non-clarity in the mechanics hit to call attention to the flaws.

Manga Preview: Yotsuba&! Volume 1 by Kyohiko Azuma

To be released by ADV Manga June 6th

Azumanga Daioh creator Kyohiko Azuma doesn’t play fair. If you're into cute, Yotsuba has it bottled. But, if you're not, he constructs a wide eyed whirling dervish orphan with too much insistent energy to deny. By condensing the cast of his between-moments school comedy into one green haired child with Chiyo's sprite cuteness, Tomo's energy and Osaka's disconnect from normal routes of thinking, Azuma could have easily created a Frankenstein's monster that would be at home among the loathsome precious children of sitcoms and romantic comedies. The series does play the boundary between adorable and "get this saccharine Satan spawn from me" pretty close, but Yotsuba is ultimately irresistible. The character is bound to infect the manga fan consciousness as much as her Azumanga sisters.

Yotsuba is some brand of fairly young child (second grade-ish?), with huge eyes, four protruding tuffs of hair, and a mind that hold one track of thought at a time, but one that is played it at volume 11. There's almost a halo of vivacity around the title character that follows her like walking ball of energy.

The humor steams from the manner in which she takes everything to its basic level. She’s a kid with the mind of Seinfeld’s Kramer, over-reacting, jumping to conclusion, or over simplifying all experiences, especially mundane ones. Yotsuba finding a swing set for the first time and not understanding the object, or being introduced to air conditioners and global warming in the same conversation are examples of how the series exercises the character. The setup works surprisingly well in manga form thanks to characteristics of Azuma's illustration. He's very adept at the manga strategy of iconic characters set against detailed objects: big expressively cartoon-ed faces, with a memorable, humorous emotional nomenclature (recycled from Azumanga to some extent, but still great) against familiar looking, unstylized backdrops.

The manga is constructed with full length chapters rather than Azumanga Daioh's 4 panel strips. The extra space isn't used to spiral out of control as might be expected with a high energy character, but to inhabit the moment, and let it play out.

Manga Spotlight: Tenjho Tenge Volume 1 By Oh! great

Released by CMX Manga

Tenjho Tenge After releasing a number of quirky, older for the most part enjoyable titles, Tenjho Tenge is first of the really anticipated titles from DC Comic's CMX manga. Reputed to be an energetic, mature, but not cerebrally sophisticate fighting manga, it's been overshadow by the displeasure of many in its localization edits.

Sculpting the series into a 13+ title is forcing a square peg into a round hole. The series isn't a Shonen Jump title, it's not Dragon Ball or Yu Yu Hakusho, or Ruruoni Kenshin. It's an Ultra Jump work, which points it at an older audiences. Sex, violence and sexual violence aren't going to win you any literature or humanitarian awards, but they’re what Tenjho Tenge creator Oh! Great and TenTen does well, exceedingly well, and that's more or less the point of the series.

The CMX adaptation is still a fun, exciting series, with great fist and kick action but it's like a cable network edit of Kill Bill; non-subtle additions of drawn on cloths or obscuring logos and sound effect illustrations. It can't be read without noticing the changes. The missing material is gratuitous, and in less capable hands it wouldn't be a huge loss, but here, you want the pure form.

Long time manga fans have taken the shrinking market share of older audience manga in stride as an inevitable factor in the growth of the medium's acceptance, and lamented the loss of gems like the Pulp anthology. However, with reason, TenTen has many up in arms. It's not that there isn’t cleaner fighting manga that hasn’t been licensed, or that DC's imprints don't release mature content (CMX itself does according to the solicitations for future releases), but that someone decided to make TenTen a young teen title.

Younger audiences get enough material to choose from and there's enough teen shonen getting released, it would be nice to have kept this one for the older crowd. It's a thumb in the eye to get a lauded series in striped down form.

Oh! great's sex and violence works so well because there is a sense of physical presence in his design and motion. Not that there is realism, from Oh! My Goddess degree architected hair styles to hyper-sexualized body structures, it's all very stylized, but there is a volume to the characters that put that gets some real flesh on the page. Oh! great doesn't waste opportunities, and whether it's nudity or a punch, though the actors are rather cartoonish, it leaves a distinct impression.

The story skeleton of TenTen doesn't offer any novel departure from what is expected from a high school set fighting manga, where the inter-workings of Japan's academic life is spiced up with people putting each other through walls. It's the details and implementation that make the series fun. Nagi (a wild haired punk) and Bob (a big guy of some African descent with dreadlocks and facial piercing) burst onto the scene of Todoh High School, interrupting the work out of the stubby-cute Natsume Maya, her leggy-busty sister Aya, and Maya's straight laced, good-guy student Takayanagi. Nagi and Bob's attempt to prove themselves at the school, renowned for its fighters is cut short by Maya and Takayanagi, who recruit them their Juken Club. Nagi and Bob's not so subtle introduction to the school bring down the wrath of the upper classmen Year Executive Committee, and matters quickly get exceedingly nasty.

Anime Spotlight: Rumiko Takahashi's Anthology Volumes 1 and 2

Released by Geneon

Rumiko Takashi's megaton shoujo (male audience) series, from pre-Love Hina Maison Ikkuku to the resent Inu-Yasha made her a perennial resident in Japan's lists of highest tax paying earners in Japan's entertainment industry, but she also branched out into smaller, more mundane or more off-beat works through her career. With appealing design, memorable personalities, and the ability to create both drama and action, Takahashi crosses genre with ease, succeeding wildly with hundreds of chapters long shonen (male audience) series that can be confused shojo (female audience) thanks to their humor and personality, and barring exhaustion on the part of the reader, are nearly universally likable.

Rumiko Takahashi's Anthology collects episode long anime adaptations of Takahashi short stories. They're superficially overlapping, slightly odd character pieces about adapting to what life presents, mostly dealing when Borden urban life hits the skids or throws out something unexpected. There's nothing truly dire, and they are more about staying positive than surviving, but plenty of emotional resonance in the stories. Given the Takahashi flair for character and design, you can't help feel an emotional charge during the viewing, and it's hard not to like the characters by the end of an episode.

They aren't strictly profound stories or inventive and twists or resolutions are easy to see coming but the stories do sink in as interesting fictional anecdotes, It takes work to remember the contents of a given volume after it's viewing, a, but later the brand of slightly bizarre latches on with some staying power Generally, they are kind of material that in reality wouldn't strain credibility and wouldn't make the papers, but if you witnessed it, or heard about it, you'd be repeating the story for a long time.

Anime Spotlight: Shingu - Secret of the Stellar Wars Volume 1:Altered Perceptions

Released by The Right Stuf International

Tatsuo Sato is an unpredictable anime creator. Relevant to the sci-fi take-off Shingu, he turned Kia Asamiya's Leiji Matsumoto space opera pastiche Nadesico into a complex stew of anime parody, relationship dramady, giant robot war, big idea sci-fi, and he also wrote and directed quirky space academy anime Stellvia. However, his projects also branched out into the more singular corners of anime, from working on bring Azumanga Daioh to anime, to directing the almost free association near death experience Cat Soup.

Shingu is an unconventional, laid back anime, with the sci-fi culture details of Crest of the Stars , the relationship webs of a school drama, and mannerisms almost like an hour comedy-drama scaled into an anime. So far, plot progression has taken a back seat to mundane lives with nicely convoluted roots. From background music that's used sparingly to characters design the right degree of distinctive appearance, Shingu is anime done with rare moderation. Spotting and piecing out the clues and putting together the mechanisms of the series is one of its best features.

The series follows a slightly popular, slightly well regarded, but generally average student who finds old ties between his community and alien governments. Though the series is set in the year 2070, after the existence of aliens has been revealed the series' subtly means that the exact evolution is a bit hard to pick up. It doesn't look too different from modern life. A few technological gadgets, such as lab tops that fold to fit into a pocket, or an odd chalk board/monitor integration have appeared (video games seem have devolved a bit to the level where they're aren't that much more complex manual games like thumb wrestling or bloody knuckles). It's harder to pick out many of the social changes without a good knowledge of current Japanese culture as a baseline. Schools appear to be a bit more American-ish, no uniforms, more relaxed.

Despite a few battles between odd flying constructs, and super powered individuals, the series is more a showcase of interesting characters and design. Slowly, over the course of the series' first five episodes the series paints a compelling social networks that functions both as a small community, and a foothold of something larger. There are serious aspects to the work, but not much urgency, and people are allowed to act in a largely mundane fashion.

Howl's Movig Castle Dub Cast

TwitchFilm reports that the English dub cast for Howl's Moving Castle will feature Christian Bale as Howl, Jean Simmons as Old Sophie, Lauren Bacall as Witch of the Wast, Billy Crystal as Calcifer, and Blythe Danner as Madam Sulliman.

The film opens in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco on June 10th, and in another 60 cities and up to 800 theatres on June 17th.