Reviews

This is the title that initiated the Magical Girlfriend subgenre and it's also amongst the oldest and longest harems ever, with multiple adaptations and OVAs. This adaptation happens to be the best work of studio AIC and is also an improvement over the original material by rearranging the order of events so the pacing will not get bogged down by several minor events. The director decided to take out lots of racing and engineering events which were fine to show how much the mangaka loved racing but would otherwise be completely boring in anime form.

SCRIPT

The story is about a teenage dork dialing the wrong number and ending up with a beautiful goddess, ready to fulfill his wishes, of which his is to stay with him forever (wish fullfilment). Soon afterwards her godly sisters pop up (harem creation) and his life becomes complicating as he is constantly surrounded by supernatural hot chicks and has to keep using his talents to save the world from cosmic horrors (action) without messing up his personal life (comedy). The story is one big pile of comedy, romance, and drama that also blends mythology with science fiction. The core premise is always about Keichi and Belldandy being in love and staying true to each other, even when the cosmic forces conspire against them.

Unlike most harems that are hardly trying to flesh out their characters or provide internal logic to all the madness in the story, AMG is actually trying its best to make everything seem logical and excused. The girls are all there for a reason, react somewhat logical with the restrictions of the premise, have powers that are somewhat excused through science and every event has technology and mythology to back it up.

Also, the story never forgets to still be easy-going and funny, where nothing major or deadly ever happens. There is no clear plot development, other than introducing more secondary characters and ephemeral threats every now and then. But if stand-alone episodes and stale stories don't bother you, this is not a problem. There is no objective or even a conclusion, it just goes on and on indefinitely. It is wholesome and cheery, with some parts being more exciting or funny than others. Most of the duration may feel like dead time but overall it is still quite enjoyable.

CAST

Belldandy used to be amongst my favorite anime girls. Too gentle and good to be true, but then again she is a goddess and that is enough of an excuse. Her sisters Urd and Skuld are also interesting in their own way and flavor the harem nicely. The combination of great visuals, ethereal music and unearthly nature makes them feel far better than the average harem bimbo out there.

The harem lead Keichi on the other hand is, was, and still is a typical male dork that is swarmed by beautiful girls without him being anything special. Oh, sure, he is gentle, kind, good-hearted and the like; but let's face it, girls don't really notice such males. We can always justify it with Belldandy being a goddess that can see people for what they really are. But since I am not a god, I say he is a sissy for feeling embarrassed every time he has the chance to make some lovey-dovey. He and all other males like him in most harem anime are despicable! They give the male gender a bad name, he is the driest and worst character amongst the cast. But if I am to give him a few redeeming qualities, I can say he is actually using his brain from time to time to solve some problems and even finds the courage to fight for his harem. Too bad he isn't bold enough to do anything other than that.

That aside, all characters have quirks, backdrop stories and goals that go beyond their stereotypes as sex-bombs, edgy lolitas and shy male virgins. The secondary characters are all likable and color to main ones. None of them were bad or unneeded in the story. I can't say the same about Keichi (and to think he is supposed to be the protagonist!). Obviously none of them develops or finds some sort of catharsis because of the lack of an overall plot, so that could become tiresome after awhile.

PRODUCTION VALUES

The animation is great if you compare it with other similar series.

-All Slice-Of-Life series don't use flashy visual effects (they don't fit there). So, the graphics here are catchier, by default.

-Almost all comedies don't have so detailed character figures. They are usually simplistic and go chibi all the time.

-Most Harem/Ecchi series turn their female characters into obnoxious, panties-revealing sluts. The girls here retain an air of purity and gentleness. The naughty scenes are few but worthwhile, as the focus in the series is not waiting to see boobs every 10 seconds.

Music themes and voice acting are very good. The women voicing the goddesses are also the singers in the songs (a thing that was kept intact in the remake as well). Very likable voices and backdrop music that fill your heart with happiness. Even the funky sound effects during the action parts feel cool as they are usually attributed to technology or mythology.

LEGACY

Like a sunny day, it is enjoyable but also rather passable. It helped to mainstream Harem and Magical Girlfriend stereotypes and thus deserves a spot in history just for that. Despite not being original or unique anymore, it is still amongst the best of its genre. It's still watered-down and far shorter than the far bolder in erotism manga. Rewatchability is medium-high for fans of slice of life, while for most others there is very little to gain from a second watch.

Some issues that can ruin your enjoyment.

-The relationship between Keichi and Beldandy never goes beyond hugging, making the whole deal stale and without further development. The story itself has no development, other than introducing more secondary characters every now and then.

-There is a lot of character fleshing out, but very little character development. You get to know more about them but you won't see them change.

-There are lots of uninteresting episodes, where the goddesses and/or demons rival each other, just for laughs.

-There is no conclusion.

It had a big fandom when it aired, most of which were yaoi females. It was also made by DEEN, the studio anime went to die with lazy production values and poor directing by the guy who ruined Record of Lodoss War and Beelzebub with his dull handling of the source material.

ART: Don't I look hot in this robe?

A blend of medieval fantasy and science fiction, the artwork can be catchy with its fairy tale-ish aesthetics. It also combines clergy life, occult mystery and military super-soldier projects for some rather surreal backgrounds. It's also a series of bishounens, so it will be extra captivating to fujoshis. Everybody is made to look like a dream boy any fangirl would kill just to touch his hair. They have glances and smirks that can lure you into their arms in less than 3 seconds. There are some women and old people as well but they are just background decoration or cute mascots, like a perky mermaid, a fuzzy pink critter and a trio of aloof sisters.

The series can look awesome when you focus on frozen frames, but when you notice how terrible the animation is then things get messy. Action scenes and visual effects are you typical DEEN crap, with battle choreography being a joke, explosions never damaging the background, and magic attacks existing on a different plane of existence since they were computer rendered instead of drawn along with the background. The characters stand still way too much, flapping mouths is most of what is moving, and jumping is just a static picture that slides across the screen. I can go on for hours, but you can just check the opening to see that Teito fellow sitting on a spiky rooftop without it somehow sticking in his ass. So yeah the series disregards physics, making all battles completely boring and fake-looking. Just imagine that most action is limited to characters shaking their hands and magic stuff appearing that doesn't affect the environment or other characters. If you are going to make it so bad, don't make it at all.

SOUND: I love you Mikage! ... in an erotically innuendo way only!

Voice acting is nothing remarkable and it's mostly the actors trying to sound like gays in love. The music on the other hand is very pleasing, making your mind travel with various chorus pieces.

SCRIPT: Oh forget about the fate of the world and just look at me walking elegantly

It sounds mighty interesting as a concept with military secret ops, mystical temples, scary ghosts, gay innuendos, a sort of detective feeling, and a lot of daily life in a fantasy setting. The overall ideas are mighty interesting, but when you watch it is so darn slow. Most episodes don't even seem to progress the plot and the rest give you only a few seconds of important info. They could have taken out half the total duration and it still wouldn't feel rushed.

It is also straightforward, since despite its events affecting the lives of millions it centers on five people at the most. It's too focused on the military base and the temple, and it completely ignores every other location of an otherwise huge and complicating setting. There is no pay-off at the end either, since it escalates for many episodes and ends with the story left incomplete.

CAST: Pick the one you want to date

Just like playing a date sim, the series is full of ero/moe archetypes you are suppose to like for their variety in looks and mannerisms and not for their personalities. Most of the cast was useless to the plot anyways; it was just there to increase your possible dream boyfriends. The only characters the series needed was Teito and Mikage (the main couple... er, I mean pair), any one of the priests, and Ayanami the psycho military man. The rest were dressing. The only thing you are left to gasp at is the pretty faces of the males. More specifically, their frozen still faces with a smirk full of erotic innuendo, while their hair and cloths flap in the wind with a few repeating frames.

LEGACY: Neeext!

If you are a seasoned viewer this series will offer you nothing. It's not even remotely interesting. The plot is snoringly slow and the characters are too generic. It was only made for horny fujoshis, and even then it's a one-time watch at best, since it doesn't do much with its content and was left incomplete. It got forgotten pretty soon and is now buried under some pile of equally mediocre anime.

009-1 is an action/drama series, which tries to rekindle the spark of the Old School way of drawing. It has a sixties feeling to it, boosted with modern day flashy graphics. Based on an old title by the now deceased Shotaro Ishinomori (mostly famous for his Kamen Rider and Ultraman live action series), it has been animated by the homonymous company he left behind. It is quite close to the feeling of the original; they did a good job at retaining his trademark gloomy and a bit morbid atmosphere. Which is exactly this show is not for everyone. It won't feel likable for most of the modern audience and will be appreciated only by retro fans or middle aged men who grew up with Shotaro's shows and are fans of his work.

PRODUCTION VALUES

Its retro style helps it stands out from most other newer anime series, assuming you got tired of the cop-out looks of most modern shows. And it is all about curvy ladies (for all you pervs), packed with cybernetic limbs and a hundred gadgets, a combination of Bionic Woman and James Bond (for all you action weebs). Remarkable at first, unless you get bothered by the facial structures which is where most of the retro aesthetic is based on (doesn't look like modern anime).

Aside from that there are plenty of detailed backgrounds, dressed with nicely made lightning effects. They are pretty dark-colored, with a mostly chilly mechanical/industrialized look on them, making them claustrophobic and creepy. If you prefer cheery atmospheres, look elsewhere.

Movements are fluid for the time the show was made, backed up with computers to look more real when they turn around or spin, and there is basic battle choreography in every fight. Being a rule of cool action show also means you must not try to reason how everything works out, since you get a lot of bad guys freezing whenever the heroines pull out their secret high-tech gadgets and beat them out of the blue. Basically the bad guys suddenly move like slowpokes when the heroines go on the offensive.

SCRIPT

In an alternative history, where the Cold War still rages on and both sides still use spies, now cybernetic in nature, a team of female cyber-spies takes up missions than involve the protection of their leader/creator's status quo. The backdrop is interesting but they use it in a very light manner. Most episodes are stand alones and from time to time a flashback occurs to give a few simple twists to the story or to flesh out one of the characters.

They went easy with the technology; there is no elaborate explanation regarding how all these hi-tech gismos work. How does that cybernetic woman move around with a smokescreen bomb thrower inside her kneecap? After awhile the sci-fi setting doesn't differ from any generic fantasy realm full of magic. It is a kinda mindless sci-fi series not bogged by technobabble.

The ending is nothing major. You will get to know the characters better but that's it. You'll probably have seen the same scenario on dozens of spy films so far and most likely won't remember anything special about it after it's over. Also the series is short and ends before it becomes annoying.

CAST

Girls with hi-teck gadgets, sexy bodies, and retro-style faces that will be a major turn off for younger viewers. Besides that they will never make you wanna cheer for them. The atmosphere of the show ends up being more captivating than them. I mean, every girl has a dramatic past, it's not like they are left paper-thin in characterization, but it's not detailed. It feels rather basic and can get overblown with cheesy drama at points. For the same reason there isn't much character development, it's more like colorizing them through flashbacks. Certainly not people you will relate with; a common trait of most retro shows where the atmosphere was more important than the characters. You will probably only care about their gadgets and their sexy bodies instead of their tragic pasts.

LEGACY

Can't say I enjoyed it much. I liked the retro feeling but most of the plot was quite boring and although the drama and the action were fine on their own, I've seen it all before, in a lot better settings than this one. It was mostly the artistic aspect that I enjoyed; which tends to be a small part of the whole. The battles were not exciting, the stories lasted too little, and the characters felt basic.

It is a typical story dressed handsomely to appeal to the older members' emotions, a time waster at best and eventually a passable title. It has no actual replay value and is not some great spy/sci-fi series. As far mainstream appeal goes it never had much and got forgotten fast.

SUGGESTION LIST

Kamen Rider (live action sci-fi about superheroes) Ghost In The Shell (hard sci-fi cyberpunk) Battle Angel Alita (manga only, hard sci-fi cyberpunk)

Here's the movie that murdered the hype for the series, because the studio allocated most of its resources, including the main director, towards making this one, and abandoned the fourth season. As a result, it turned into a badly animated pile of mediocrity that disappointed everybody and made many to lose interest and jump onto the next bandwagon that was Demon Slayer. Because for some reason disposable filler movies with no impact on the show, deserve far better treatment than the canon material, which is what people actually care about. Oh well...

So the plot is very basic crap. The students are sent to a remote island... again. It's a rehash of the premise of the first movie. And this time, with no supervision by teachers, since that is how high schools work in this dumb universe. You leave dozens of immature, hormone crazy superhumans, completely unchecked for weeks and assume nothing will go wrong.

Then bad guys conveniently appear when the students are still on the island. Can you imagine what would happen if they had waited for the heroes to leave before doing their thing? And can you imagine their plan being to politely ask for where the boy they were looking for is and then politely ask the boy to heal their leader? They would have achieved their mission without having to throw a single punch.

But that way we wouldn't have a dumb actionfest, so yeah, let's make everything stupid and shallow. Bad guys attack, good guys counterattack, stuff blow up, and nothing matters because everybody besides Deku and Bakugo are background decorations and the fights have no impact on the plot. Then we get to the meat of the movie, which is the two main characters going up against the big boss of the movie. They can't beat him with the powers they have, so the writer decides to do some convoluted nonsense and gives Bakugo a power up, which he conveniently forgets about after the battle, so there won't be any permanent repercussions in the main storyline. Gotta love filler movies.

Anyways, just like the first film you are supposed to watch it just for the dumb battles, which unlike in the main series they don't end with a couple of punches. Unfortunately, if you follow the series and know that they threw the series under the bus for animating a pretty looking filler, then you won't even like it as much as the first one.

Paul Verhoeven is one of the most misjudged movie directors I know of. I remember loving the hell out of his movies, while at the same time reading everywhere how the majority of critics hate them for being ultraviolent and with shallow theme exploration. Nobody seemed to understand the guy was making grim satires full of rule of cool. Said critics needed 3 decades before they realized their mistake, once other directors made remakes of his movies and they were awful.

Complain all you like about the overexcessive violence and the over the top performances, but at the end of the day that's what was making them so great. The moment they try to take themselves seriously, is the moment they fail horribly. But that's the result of everyone trying to imitate the success of the Dark Knight without never getting what exactly was making that Batman movie so successful. Let me remind you in case you didn't get it either. It wasn't batman being serious and moody. It wasn't the movie taking itself seriously. It was the Joker trolling the crap out of everyone. His morbid sense of humor is what made the social commentary and the action scenes, so fun.

But nope, everybody just assumed all you have to do is have joyless characters and a mundane setting that looks like ours, which deals with current social issues. We can't have fun while watching movies anymore. We need to be constantly bombarded with current sociopolitical messages even if the movies take place in the future, or in a galaxy far, far away. You hear that, you neo-liberal Star Wars?

And the worst part is how this movie does its best to make that clear. When they are making the body of Robocop, initially it's white just like in the previous version. But then a guys says "No, make it black, so people can take Robocop seriously". Gah, Robocop is by inception not meant to be a serious story. It's about a guy becoming a robot and avenging his death. The social critique is just there to excuse why he went on a killing spree. It's there just to justify his motives. Murphy is the focal point, not the setting. They flipped that around in this version, because it worked in Batman, and it became boring.

It could still be a fun action flick if at least the setting was fun to watch, like the over the top dystopia that was Detroit in the older version, but no, there is nothing memorable about it. All the bad guys behave in such a normal way, to the point you have nothing to remember them for. Being over the top cartoonishly evil is what was making them memorable. They even took out the violence which is what was making the action scenes so memorable. Now they look like videogame cut scenes where the option to show the blood has been turned off.

There were a few things liked in it, such as Murphy being aware of turning into a cyborg right away and even willingly taking away his emotions, so he can perform better in his job. The psychological pressure he was going through shows ten times more. Another one is making it clear the robotic body he is using is just one of countless mass-produced bodies out there. This is taking away his uniqueness and lets you feel how unimportant he is next to all the sociopolitical schemes going on out there. Giving him a faceguard and beacons that clarify what counts as a target he cannot attack were also fixing small issues of the older version.

But these are not making up for the overall dullness of the film. There is nothing of interest going on half of the time, the characters have no charisma, and the action scenes have no impact because of how safe they made them for a mainstream audience. Well that's what you get for making Robocop mainstream. Nobody liked it as much as when it was niche.

It's not a complete and utter mess like Dragonball Evolution, but it still didn't get what was making the original so good. First and foremost, it never stood a chance in being praised for its visual presentation. The 90s version was a marvel of animation that didn't resemble any other movie of its time, while also looking far more detailed than any other animated sci-fi movie in general. The new version on the other hand, just looks okay. Not so much because they didn't work much on the visuals, but rather because you can find a hundred other movies just like it. It doesn't stand out as much, because nowadays we get lots of CGI-heavy movies.

Something I do not blame it for, is having a different storyline. A good remake does not try to have the exact same plot and themes as the previous version. The 90s movie was not a faithful adaptation of the 80s manga. It was a beacon of the time it came out and was dealing with the issues of that decade in that part of the world. The 00s Stand Alone Complex tv-series is also its own version and has its own themes, relevant to the time it came out. Now imagine how less interesting it would be for the new movie to try copying any of that after a thousand other films were already inspired to do exactly that over the years. It would feel completely derivative and passable. Thus, having its own storyline is not a bad thing.

The problem is, despite being different from any other in the franchise, the new storyline is still not special because it's also something that has been done a lot over the years. It took a far more mundane Hollywood action flick approach, where the heroine has a dark past that needs to be revealed, the corporations have evil representatives you can just shoot, and problems can be solved by just blowing them up. There is nothing deep or subtle in any of this. It can work for a movie such as the original Robocop, which has the exact same plot if you think about it, but even there it had to be presented as an ultraviolent satire of capitalism. The new Ghost in the Shell just wants you to take it seriously with nothing worthy of being called serious or special.

The biggest disappointment is how it's not inspiring. It's not trying to expand to themes of philosophy and religion like the previous versions did. Motoko does not have an identity crisis based on who she wants to be, she simply has amnesia and wants to remember who she was all along. That is not the core motif of the story. The whitewashing of the protagonist is not the actual issue here, despite everyone making a big fuss about it at first. That could have served the narrative for a setting where race and gender are fluid. They can switch bodies and replace parts of them with cybernetic implants. What's the problem with having a Japanese person inside a Caucasian-looking body?

The actual issue is the movie not exploring that concept, so it can have and in-story excuse for the whitewashing. The core theme behind the whole concept of Ghost in the Shell, was always an identity crisis. How much of you, is still you when you can change bodies or you can replace organs with machines. -The 80s manga gave emphasis on how the body can change with cybernatics to the point it becomes a sexual fetish, since the mangaka was that sort of guy. -The 90s movie switched the emphasis to transhumanism, and how mankind can move to a different state of being or how programs can gain conscience. -The 00s series switched the focus to sociology, and how technology changes the way people can live in a world where technology keeps them in touch all the time.

Now tell me what the recent movie explores regarding that. It's not like we don't have material for identity crisis in this decade, where everyone can be someone else by playing videogames, are liberals are constantly pushing gender fluidity in mass media and entertainment. This movie does no theme exploration regarding the identity crisis of our times, so it really comes off as a lazy excuse for having a white actress playing a Japanese character. It doesn't connect with people like the previous versions did, because over there Motoko was just another cyborg, while in this one she is one of a kind. If there are millions more like her, she is not special, the body switching and the race hopping feel like an everyday thing in that world. This doesn't show when you have a prototype, more advanced than any other, able to do stuff no other cyborg can do.

And to put it bluntly, people didn't like the previous versions for the pew-pew and the bam-bam. It was never a type of story aimed for mainstream audiences that seeks thrill-rides. It's mesmerizing for its themes and atmosphere. It's not meant to be entertaining like a mindless action flick, or relatable for having fleshed out characters you can identify with. The 90s movie is very dry in this regard. But so was 2001 Space Odyssey, and Solaris, and the very first Star Trek movie. You don't watch those films to have fun while eating popcorn and laughing with your drunken buddies. You watch them as an existential journey, where you are supposed to ponder about stuff. The only thing you ponder while watching the 2017 version of Ghost in the Shell is "how did they not get this?"

Breakdown: -Faithful adaptation of the source, with changes and additions working to its favor. -The presentation is superb as Netflix didn't hold back on the visual effects and the elaborate futuristic world building. -The writing is competent in its descriptions of terminology. -The battles are exciting and savage. -The inner thoughts were pretty good at showing us the mentality of the characters. -The dialogues were compelling when they were about a war of ideologies on the ups and downs of this technology. -Gratuitous sex scenes and full frontal nudity.

Altered Carbon is a very hit or miss series. It has an interesting theme of memory transference inside a film noir story that combines with futuristic gun action. At the same time, it fell victim of a typical grave sin when it comes to science fiction: not creating a plausible setting based on its own in-series laws.

The story is about a man hired to solve a murder mystery in a society where you can change bodies if you are rich enough. The effects such a technology can have on the minds of people are looked into from multiple perspectives, such as driving them insane or becoming cynical, and superficially it seems to be doing a good job at fleshing out the world and its denizens.

If you do not think too much about it, it can be very intriguing. You have this super soldier working as a detective for a rich guy who died a few hours ago, without being actually dead. If you store your memories in a bank, you can create a copy of yourself even after you are dead, without of course remembering what happened since the last time you saved the file that is your brain. It's well-excused amnesia to hide the truth.

The biggest problems are present in the plot. Although we are made to understand how the whole memory transfer fuss works and how it affects people on a personal level, there is little to no effort in showing how people behave on an interpersonal level. For example, it's impossible to tell when someone is really dead if he can copy his brain at any moment without telling anyone about it. So every time someone was saying a person is dead for good, there is no way he can be sure about it.

Also, if this is a setting where you can switch bodies, it's impossible to be sure the person you are talking to is the same as it was yesterday, and yet everyone in the book takes for granted that they are always talking to the same person as before.

Also, if this is a setting where you can copy yourself, there is nothing to stop any military organization from creating an army of clones out of the same one soldier. Yet everybody acts as if there can only be one copy of anyone at any given time. And yes, they do mention it's both illegal and hard to have doubles or more of someone throughout the first half of the story, only to conveniently make it easy and commonplace in the second half.

Basically, the notions of death and identity should have been a lot hazier. The author treated them the same way we do in present time, which makes it anachronistic and immersion breaking. It was the selling point of the whole book, and the adaptation didn't bother to fix it enough.

In a nutshell, I applaud the work they did with the visuals and see the extra characters they included as a great addition to what was initially a mostly one-man story. The violence and sex were a bit over the top at times and can come off as edgy and schlocky for many. My biggest gripe remains the way everyone assumes they know to whom they are talking to in a setting where anyone can look however he likes.

PRODUCTION VALUES

-The CGI quality has improved even more than the second movie, making it pretty close to photo-realistic. -The setting is a collection of different areas from the games, almost like fan service. Nothing sticks out or has much variety, making it hollow in comparison to the theme-central war zone of Damnation. - Voice acting was professional and fairly close to natural. The context of the dialogues is still corny but at least it's not made up of silly one-liners.

SCRIPT

-The story is, just like the back grounds, fan service. It takes ideas from all the games and throws them without much thought on the screen, with the ultimate goal being mindless action. -The zombies in this film are treated as sick people who kill anything not-sick. For the very first time they can be cured back to normality, although they do not bother to show the psychological scars they would have after killing so many innocents, and then being covered in their blood. Also, they have very inconsistent powers, as they can spring like crazy in one scene and stumble slowly in another. -The plot is about the straightforward revenge of a merchant, whose wedding was ruined by an assassination attempt. It doesn't have any political intrigue, or messages around terrorism and wars for natural resources. It's a huge downgrade from Damnation, but still bearable compared to the complete train wreck that was Degeneration. -The monsters were defeated too easily by the heroes, so there was never a case where you would think the heroes might not win.

CAST

Every known character from the games became a complete bad-ass who can perform improbable acrobatics and defeat a hundred opponents all alone. Everyone who is not in the games, is a complete fodder who dies after a single hit. Rebecca is treated like a damsel in distress at the hands of a sociopath, even when she is supposed to be dynamic and competent. None has depth to his personality and comes off as a one-dimensional archetype.

LEGACY

Despite the breath-taking visuals, I place it between Degeneration and Damnation. It is serviceable as a mindless action flick that panders the fans of the games, but has nothing interesting outside of the action.

Zootopia is a movie that knows how to keep you engaged from start to finish. Something happens all the time, the characters are funny, the setting is creative, something is always moving to attract your attention, nothing overstay its welcome until something else happens to replace it. I wasn't bored for a single second while watching it. And that's all the good things I have to say about it, for everything else is one big mess.

Starting with the fabled racism topic where herbivores are afraid of carnivores and discriminate them. That's not racism you guys, racism is something that applies to races of the same species, not throughout different ones. When a man considers himself superior to a fruit fly, that is not racism.

Even if we are to assume all animals in the move are supposed to be the same species and just happens to look completely different, and eat completely different things, it's still not working out because we are never given an explanation to why the ecosystem hasn't been messed up beyond repair.

For example there is the joke about bunnies multiplying extremely fast. If carnivores are no longer a threat why isn't overpopulation an issue? And yes, it's a joke, it's not supposed to be taken seriously. The same can be said about the whole theme. It's not really explored, it's just tongue in check and a lazy excuse for a conflict.

Then it's plot which, holy smokes, is it riddled with plot convenience or what? Every single event the heroine takes part in just happens to be part of the same conspiracy and working to her benefit. When things get really grim she just happens to have an epiphany. Also that carrot recorder is panacea. There is nothing you can't fix by secretly recording someone against his knowledge. Which by the way it's illegal to use without a warrant and can't be used in court. Also, they can easily sue you for invasion of privacy. But what do I know, this movie is supposed to be smart.

And then there is also the issue of the furries, which is there to attract people with very peculiar preferences. Calling this a movie for kids, so I should not be very critical, is lying to yourselves. Just because it has cute talking animals does not mean it's childish, for it's full of pop references and sexual fetishes.

As a whole, I had a blast watching it. If I were to score it on enjoyment alone, I would have given it a perfect score. But I am not a pleb, so I won't. The script is lazy, the themes are not really explored, and since I am not a furry, I was a bit creeped out by the bestiality innuendoes. It's entertaining but it's neither as smart nor as deep as it wants you to think it is.

So, I watched Shin Godzilla just because I wanted to see why Hideaki Anno was delaying the final Neon Genesis movie for all these years. I got something close to Neon Genesis, not in terms of psychologically troubled teenagers or religious symbolism, but rather the familiar scene of a giant monster attacking a Japanese city while the military is trying to stop it. I kept seeing the whole thing as a live action version of Angels attacking Tokyo 3.

Not that it was, outside of its superficial similarities, since it was actually closer to an allegorical version of the nuclear plant crisis that struck Japan in 2011. This instantly makes the movie interesting as a product of its time, as well as staying close to the feeling of the original. The initial Godzilla was about the nuclear disaster of Hiroshima, the new Godzilla is about the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. At the same time, it feels like a Hideaki movie since it seems to be superficially about giant monsters attacking a city, when in reality it talks about the problems his country is facing at the moment.

What makes it even better is that for a military-heavy movie, it is not pandering the growing patriotism in the land of the rising sun. There is no super giant robot, which only the superior Japanese scientists can build, to defeat Godzilla. There is no super army, which only the superior Japanese military can put together, to defeat Godzilla. Even the initial xenophobia coming from the evil America, which constantly intervenes and plans to nuke poor innocent Japan, so it can harvest the cells of the monster as a new form of power source, is eventually replaced with a cooperation among all nations against a common threat. You are not going to please your inner fascist with military propaganda by watching this film. It's promoting teamwork instead of overpowered Japanese teenagers wasting armies of evil foreign nations.

This is why it will never have a global appeal in the likes of something like Kimi No Na Wa. It is anti-escapism, very focused on Japanese politics, and on top of it, it's not even that action heavy to be seen as a brainless Michael Bay film. Also, no high schools, no time resents, no steamy romance, cute girls doing cute things, or giant robots blowing up giant monsters. Who the hell is going to like that, am I right? As far as the plot is concerned, the pacing is slow to the most part, which is done deliberately for portraying the problems of inactivity. The politicians spend a lot of time in talking instead of doing something about the crisis, showing the problem of bureaucracy. The military spends a lot of time in confirming an order before executing it, showing the multiple safety protocols it needs to go through. Even Godzilla moves slowly through the cities, making him a looming terror you can outrun but also not something that will depart from your city after an hour. The slow build-up keeps the tension permanently high without ever lowering the stakes, which is something I love and is a trademark of retro movies and series. Something which was sadly lost in our age, because smartphones lowered the attention span of the newer generation to less than that of a goldfish. Retro wins, modern sucks.

And it's not like the movie is boring or something. It takes awhile for something to hit the fan, but when it does, boy oh boy, it's an amazing spectacle of helicopters, tanks, airplanes, and even battleships, bombarding the hell out of a skyscraper-tall lizard that is smashing its way through multi-stored buildings. Amazing visual effects, very realistic depiction of military operations.

And guess what, Godzilla is not a sitting duck either. He looks really stupid when he first appears, which made me face-palm with how dorky and non-threatening he acts. But that wasn't even his final form, as he mutates into a far more terrifying beast later on, and uses special attacks that level entire city squares if you make him angry. There is still entertainment as a movie about mass destruction, while not forgetting to show the horror of people running away from this monstrosity, losing their houses, and many of their loved ones. There are casualties and there are repercussions for mistakes. I love it! And if you want me to be a bit negative about it, here are two things I didn't like. The protagonist is a secretary in the Japanese government and he is acting a lot like a naive hero in some manga for kids. He is too idealistic and emotional for his position as a politician, which was a bit immersion breaking. And the final operation to take down Godzilla worked out too perfectly, when in reality the debris would have made it impossible for the trains or the trucks to get that close to the monster. I also highly doubt Godzilla would just leave his mouth open for so long while being stuffed with tons of coolant.

Other than these two rather minor issues, it's a great movie, highly recommended.