Monthly Archives: April 2011

Shimmering Pretty Boys Fighting For Love

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Saint Seiya is a franchise, like Fist of the North Star and Go Nagai, that’s globally appreciated everywhere but in the United States. No Fist of the North Star online community is complete without a sizable Saint Seiya fanbase, primarily hailing from Latin America. It’s in that inclusive spirit (and in partial thanks to the Puerto Rican blood running through me) that I decided to check out Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas last weekend.

There’s a lot of background information I could give you–who Masami Kurumada is, what other series he’s responsible for, how Lost Canvas fits into his Saint Seiya universe… but let’s be honest, if you’re truly curious about those things, you’re better off hitting up Wikipedia. My point is that Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas is an exceptional anime you can just pick up and watch, and I highly recommend it.

Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas takes place in a fictionalized 18th century Italy where Greek gods actually exist. A select few humans are able to harness a superpower inside of themselves called Cosmo, and battle on behalf of the gods in very shiny armor. The plot concerns three childhood friends who now find themselves on different sides of a war that risks the total annihilation of mankind. Sounds heavy? It is. The war features many intriguing characters with unique abilities, and it’s a war that plays for keeps. No one’s life is safe.

One of the best things about this OVA series is that it doesn’t waste your time. Even in anime I adore, there’s no denying the presence of padding, either in the storyline itself or the animation practices which underlie it. Lost Canvas is shackled by neither of these frequent annoyances, instead moving at a fast clip without ever sacrificing the basic character development required to make a shonen anime interesting. What I would give that the Fist of the North Star manga could receive such a comprehensive adaptation…

Even if you’re skeptical of the Saint Seiya franchise or the work of Masami Kurumada in general, you should still check out Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas. It’s an ongoing OVA series, but the first “season” of 13 episodes was completed in April 2010. All of it is streaming for free in standard definition on Crunchyroll, but it’s definitely worth the few shekels it costs to stream the 720p version.

Flash is more badass than you think: Genryu’s Blade

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It’s impossible for me to think back to my middle school days without thinking of Flash. Flash is a web technology best known nowadays for interactive banner ads and streaming video. What is often overlooked is that it also gave anyone with a computer the power to create cartoons, and more than anime itself, it got me excited about the art of animation.

Most of the stuff I created and watched in my teenage years was unspeakably crude. But in 2000, a kid named Nelxon released a trailer for his six minute short Genryu’s Blade, and my mind was blown.

Genryu’s Blade was made entirely by one person and it took a year to complete, using nothing but a mouse and keyboard. The animation steadily improves over the course of the short, with the final 60 seconds setting the bar so high that it was easily unmatched by Flash animators for years afterward. Genryu’s Blade garnered so much acclaim that Macromedia, the company which created Flash, actually licensed it, and it aired on television multiple times.

Since then, there has been no shortage of studio-quality animation made by lone individuals using Flash. The increased affordability of Wacom tablets and bandwidth meant more people could draw their animation frame by frame, rather than relying on the automatic interpolation Flash offers (tweening). For example, the Bitey of Brackenwood series, by Adam Phillips, debuted in 2004 and evolved into the next gold standard.

Genryu’s Blade might appear rough around the edges by today’s standards, but seeing something so awesome made by a single person was awe inspiring. I can watch it all these years later and still get excited over the best parts. When you compare it to some of the digital animation that was just starting to come out in Japan at the time, it’s even more impressive.

The Flash animation scene is now an enormous beast with many tentacles, nevertheless GB remains a watershed moment in its development. There’s nothing quite like it.

There’s no longer a high-quality official source for Genryu’s Blade, however many mirrors exist. Here’s one that’s working at the time of this writing. Like a lot of would-be animation talent, Nelson “Nelxon” Hurst has gone on to work in the video game industry. You can visit his official website and follow him on Twitter.

These are the old days, the bad days, the all-or-nothing days. They’re back!

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Your mileage may vary, but when I think of Shonen Jump, I don’t think of Naruto, One Piece or Bleach. I think of THIS:

Pictured left to right, top to bottom: Hokuto no Ken, Kinnikuman, JoJo's Bizarre Adventures, Sakigake!! Otokojuku, Rokudenashi Blues, Slam Dunk, City Hunter, Cobra

It’s never a good idea to pin all your hopes to one thing, but with Toriko, I’m hoping a little bit of that older SJ flavor is finally making its way back home.

Toriko doesn’t plumb dramatic depths nor is it artistically stunning, nevertheless it’s fun without being all funny. It’s most comporable to Kinnikuman, a light-as-a-feather-hearted action series governed by a wild and unpredictable spirit. In Kinnikuman, wrestlers with absurd appearances duel in neverending tournaments. In Toriko, superhuman gourmet hunters kill absurd creatures and eat them.

The series also caters to the seemingly-inborn affection some of us have for kaiju (monsters), which I’ve always preferred drawn rather than live-acted. Whether it be Berserk or Guyver, I’ve always found more impact in a stroke of the artist’s pen than a rubber suit or CGI effect.

In these ways, to me Toriko is more than just a goofy cartoon. It’s a return of the old guard, a recognition that an all-ages story doesn’t have to star a child to be effective, nor does it have to be completely neutered. This is perhaps where the anime adaptation falls short the most–by the first episode many scenes have already been altered or redacted to remove references to smoking and alchohol. At the same time, the creatures are rendered in a less cartoony way in the anime than they are in the early manga, which I liked.

The first four volumes of the Toriko manga have been released in English by Viz Media, with a fifth volume going on sale in June. Update: On April 13, Toei Animation announced Funimation would be streaming the show on their website.

A Very Particular Set of South Korean Skills

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Remember the 2009 movie Taken? It’s about Liam Neeson using his skills as a CIA agent to try and rescue his kidnapped teenage daughter. Before the action starts, a lot of time is devoted to showing their father/daughter relationship, which is a bit cheesy and predictable. A weak emotional undercurrent took away from an otherwise great movie, but its grittiness and Neeson’s performance are what make Taken a must-see.

The Man from Nowhere is a 2010 South Korean movie with a similar premise, but it does a terrific job of feeling real and relatable. The movie stars Won Bin as a man with an indeterminate past whose only connection to the real world, a young girl frequently in hiding from her drug-addicted mother, gets tangled up in an underground child slavery ring and worse.

It’s got just about everything I love: pyrrhic victories, self-redemption, revenge, stylized violence, and unflinching melodrama; The Man from Nowhere is a no holds barred thriller which doesn’t pull any of its punches. The film includes a balance of both gun violence and hand-to-hand combat that is more visceral than cool. It all lends itself to an extremely exciting action movie, the likes of which I haven’t seen in quite some time.

The Man from Nowhere is available on Blu-ray, DVD and Netflix, and is also streaming on Amazon. Trailer available here.