Happy Animeversary! - Cat Planet Cuties Review

 

** Warning: Major Spoilers Ahead!**

This wasn't how it was supposed to go. I was gonna have a whole year long event where I would write reviews for the first batch of anime I watched all the way back in 2001, the classics that made me a lifelong fan. What a great way to both re-watch a lot of shows I haven't taken the time to appreciate, rightÉ 

Too often ever since anime became mainstream, I've struggled to stay current; many times completing shows just to say that I did, earning some imaginary "otaku cred", which isn't the best way to keep myself truly engaged or happy watching anime. But every once in awhile, my impulsive method of consuming anime would lead to a pleasant surprise.

The show I'm going to be talking about wouldn't have been my second, or even fifth choice to start off this series I had planned. I was just gonna watch an episode to kill rime, and wound up watch marathoning five. Just like the first time I had watched this anime, I was prepared for light entertainment, than found myself hooked. So I figured, why not give this underrated gem it's due?

The plot of Cat Planet Cuties aka Asobi no Iku Yo! ("We Came to Play!") kicks off when our protagonist, Kio Kakazu, comes across a buxom brunette foreigner named Eris, who has cat ears and a tail to go with her latex spacesuit. Assuming the girl is a hardcore cosplayer, Kio offers to show her the sites around Okinawa. 

The next day, shock piles upon  shock. There's a naked girl in his bed; after a bit of cultural misunderstanding, Eris reveals, that she is in fact, a recon officer for a race of beings called |"Catians" (yes, really), who will soon to be opening up negotiations with Earth, allowing us to formally enter into the Federation of Sentient Beings".  She proves her identity by showing off her helper robot (an "Assistadroid")

But wait, there's more! Kio's childhood girlfriend (emphasis on "friend") another buxom brunette, is a junior CIA agent hoping to get promoted to go iut do field work, so she starts spying on Kio's new housemate. Aoi, one of Kio newer friends and fellow film buff, is in fact an assassin for the Japanese Immigration Bureau. Oh, and his teacher happens to be a member of a sci-fi cult called "Beautiful Contact" who wants to get rid of Eris because she isn't "alien enough" to be Earth's first contact.

Kio uncle is another secret agent, though we never find out more than that, who wants to see his safe and get with one of the beautiful girls around him.

All this is revealed in just TWO episodes! Needless to say, there's a lot going on here, and that's a big part of the charm.

I never thought I would make this comparison, but this show show has quite a bit in common with Outlaw Star. It combines so many elements and ideas that you assume it\s going to be a train wreck, but it just works, somehow.

Cat Planet Cuties is at its core a light-hearted romantic comedy, but there's also aspects of techno thriller, first contact, space opera, Hollywood action flick, even poignant tragedy, in it's DNA. The show does so many things well that you're constantly surprised; for as many tropes and cliches that it plays painfully straight, in other ways it catches you off guard.

Nowhere are these strengths and weaknesses reflected more in the plot and characters,

The show manages to somehow have its cliches and subvert them, making the show both frustrating and engaging. 

Kio realizes after a few close calls, that he's become the "dude in distress", a target who can become a liability if the girls are too overly concerned. So he asks Aoi to give him some combat training. This nice bit of character development, coupled with his love of film, gives him a nice bit of personality compared to other harem anime leads, who are just "nice guy" blank slates that the guys watching the story can project themselves onto.

 However, he's still annoyingly "wishy-washy", as his childhood friend Minami  puts it. Just because you point out a cliche, doesn't automatically make it okay. The show tries to once again be subversive  but not simultaneously, by having the girls talk with a holographic simulation of Kio, to try and work out their problems.  Manami orders the pseudo-love interest to "be more honest", leading her to acknowledge her own feelings for him. But, the problem is,  the real Kio always keeps his own thoughts and feelings to himself because he doesn't want to hurt anyone, allowing the tangled web of relationship drama to continue. If not for the girls themselves deciding to resolve the relationship issues, nothing would have changed. I'll come back to this later.

Eris, is far worse than Kio. She's fun, outgoing, kind, always calm in a crisis, a badass with access to everything from a skintight power suit that gives her superhuman strength, to a big rubber mallet that disintegrates clothing and weapons. 

The only time she goes through any actual turmoil is in episode 9, easily the show's best episode, and that's because she's because she's being overly sensitive about someone else's pain, not her own.

When Aoi outright tells Eris that she "hates" her, due to the fact that Eris literally dropped out of the sky and not only took Kio's attention away from her, but is also a flawless girlfriend, Aoi can't possibly measure up in any way, regardless that, if she were the protagonist, she'd definitely be cute and badass enough.

Does Eris lash out? Is she hurt emotionally, does she run away? Nope, she steps up without hesitation and hugs Aoi, saying that she understands that she loves Kio too, and doesn't to hurt her. While, to be fair, there is a good explanation for why Eris is so easygoing about this, she's still just too damn perfect to be likeable, or interesting in and of herself. 

Minami is by far the most interesting character. She's very knowledgeable when it comes to relationships, offering to help Aoi break out of her emotional shell and win Kio's heart, even though inside she in denial of her love for him. Due to a misunderstanding, she thinks Kio is just one of the guys, so she's resigned himself to being in the "friend zone".

At first, she's refreshingly laid back, even teasing Kio about bringing "a hot foreign girl" over to his house right after meeting her, without a hint of jealousy. 

Once the other girls show up, she becomes one of my least favorite anime archetypes: the Tsundere.

Tsundere are meant to be characters with hidden depths, characters who have problems communicating their feelings, and should be sympathized with. Too often, they come across as abusive jerks. At different points, remembering, the show being what it is in part (wish-fulfillment erotic fantasy) Kio accidently catches the girls in the nude or in their underwear. Each time, Manami, throughs stuff at him, puts him in painful headlocks, even shoots at him with a semi-automatic machine gun!

That last one was the worst, because Manami literally threw herself out of the bathtub, and chased after the bad guys naked on a motorcycle. 

At no point clearly oogling the girls, spying on them, or groping them. He's not Fukuyama from Girls Bravo or Ataru from Urusei Yatsura  who deserve what they get .

He's clearly flustered and nervous every time this happens, which makes it uncomfortable to watch. While this over-the-top slapstick can work in animation, imagine if the characters genders were reversed; it's a kind of character and comedy style that will problematic nowadays for obvious reasons.

If not for her genuine "sisterly" moments with Aoi and the understandable heartache she's going through as her best friend's life is changing rapidly, leaving her, sad, confused and lonely, I actually would've hated her character.

The rest of the cast is either one-note or just their to fill a quota. Ania, a fantastically rich girl who leads a cat-obsessed cult, literally has nothing to do but give the heroes resources when they need it, and to look cute.

Janis, the main antagonist, a member of the Dognasians,  (yes, really!!) is there to be a threat to the Catians mission, and while she is a credible antagonist, this being a 12 episode show, she gets no backstory or personality outside of her stone-cold serious personality and drive to destroy her enemies. While that serves to make her dog pun-laden dialogue funnier, it doesn't make for an interesting villain.

Eris' crewmates are meant to be obvious stand-ins for Star Trek characters: The motherly,wise captain, the snarky,cooly professional doctor, the youngest member, who wants to just go out and explore and be given more responsibility, and the fun one, to round it out. The characters are their because they're hot, or to provide a bit of exposition or help to move the plot forward,

Other elements are either used well, like Kio's teacher, who being a fan of obscure hard sci-fi featuring scary incomprehensible aliens, is hilariously exasperated with everything going on around her. But the Beautiful Contact group sub-plot goes nowhere, the cat-worshipping cult  sub-plot goes nowhere. For every great idea, or bit of character development, there's no much stuff unresolved.

Episode nine may be a self-contained story, but it's easily the highlight of the show, covering hard topics like grief, the repercussions of creating human-level AI, attempted genocide, and, oh yeah, a loving homage to pulp sci-fi. You really won't be prepared for it, and I wish the show could have shown that kind of poignancy throughout, but at least this song is awesome enough to make up for ir:

You're probably unaware of this, but the Cat Planet Cuties novel series is quite long. According to Light Novel Database (LNDB), the series ran for 20 volumes, each book on average 250+ pages. 

Clearly, a we're missing a lot of content. Unfortunately, the novels are not available in English. Had the show been released just a few years later, it might've been (it might still be, hopefully) picked up by a North American distribution company. Too often, though, in Japan, light novel adaptations are intros, basically glorified commercials, for the source material. Only the most popular properties get multiple seasons, let alone full adaptations. Animation is expensive, and too often cult classic gems like this show are pushed to the wayside.

And while the English light novel market has grown exponentially, with novels now being translated before the shows even premiere, it doesn't take the sting that we don't get to see this fascinating universe in it's entirety.

It one way, Cat Planet Cuties has a satisfying conclusion, though. 

After another good fight sequence, Eris, Minami and Aoi all confess their feelings. Then, right after, Eris drops a bombshell; since females outnumber males 8 to 1 on Catia, her home planet, polygamy is the norm there.

The show ends with all the leading ladies kissing our MC, declaring their intent to share him; Kio, or course, is too overwhelmed to say anything. 

That surprising resolution to the romance, coupled with all the clever sci-fi humor and references, push this from a guilty pleasure to a legit good show. It leaves you satisfied, but also intrigued. The heroes beat the villains, but not permanently. Earth has been given a brand new space elevator for Christmas, greatly advancing Earth's space program. Kio even gers a chance to shine in the final fight with the help Eris' power armor.

The show ended on a high note, stringing together the last three episodes in a tight mini-arc to keep you interested in the story, rather than just be episodic.

Keep in mind also, that, at the time, I thought it was rare for harem anime to end this way (ironic, considering how often this type of resolution was popping up in other manga and novels).

The point is, that to me, it was a great twist. Maybe not so shocking now, but considering how many shows still have an obvious "best girl" love interest, it still earns praise from me.

If you're a sci-fi fan, you;ll definitely enjoy this a lot. Not as much as a classic series  like Irresponsibel Captain Tylor, perhaps, but   Taking out the humor though, there's plenty of character development, cool action, sweet romance and funny times for everyone.

An easy 4/5 score from me. 

Next time, a more nostalgic sci-fi/action/romantic comedy show. Which also features a kick-ass sexy cat girl. It's not a fetish, I swear!

Hot Restart Review - Poor Man's Space Harem

 Reviewing books like this is awkward, but not for the reasons you would think. 

Yes, 'erotica' is obviously another word for porn. "HaremLit" is basically just a sub-genre of written porn. It's not much of a wish-fulfillment fantasy without graphic sex scenes with multiple hot women/

It's the content in and of itself that's awkward. It's the task of reviewing a book that it simultaneously well-executed but suffers from being too much about being what it's trying to be.

Riley is, on paper, a good character. His background gives him enough skills, knowledge, experience and instincts to succeed at defeating slave traders, making multiple women fall in love with him, exposing a huge multi-corporate conspiracy, while at the same time, being constantly in over his head or out of his depth/

The plot is of itself, in a vacuum, would be interesting: corporate conspiracies, sentient AIs, psychic powers non-humanoid aliens, mercenary groups, FTL, all that good space opera goodness.

However, let's do a recap of this book's events: by the end of the book, Riley has 3 lovers, an advanced, luxurious star ship, billions of dollars (or credits, to use the in-universe currency),and contacts with well-connected, morally grey criminal organizations who, while they aren't 100% on his side, will not betray him.

Even for a wish-fulfillment, there should be limits. It seems absurd that I should basically expecting a certain amount of porn, but here me our.

What's worse, is how fast everything happens. Within THREE DAYS of meeting Selene, the hot  assassin android who has recently gained sentience, he's having sex with her.

Even if he doesn't personally buy into the false argument that AIs will automatically turn against their creators and destroy all biological life once they gain sentience, he is told, point blank, they she is capable of mimicking complex facial tics, body language and speech patterns to seduce a target, and ironically it takes very little convincing for him to build trust with her.

Yes, you'll say, it's erotica, you were expecting a slow burn romance?

Now, hold on, let's look at another military sci-fi story with erotica elements, The Occupation Saga by J.L. Williams.

The main character, Jason Linford, is put into a space marine boot camp surrounded by female aliens called the Shii'vati, who look human except for bring much taller than an average human females, have purple skin, and tusks sticking out of their lower jaws. It takes, weeks, if not months, of being around them before he feels comfortable bring sexual with an alien species. Also, while he does enter a polyamorous relationship later on, he still ends the book with one lover.

Why do I like one more than the other? Plot and execution. While Elliot Kay is no doubt a good writer. the plot is so cliche that I'm not invested to follow it. I only finished it as fast as I did because the pacing was break neck, bit I wasn't satisfied at the end. It's Chobits meets Firefly meets Cat Planet Cuties, meets Mass Effect, meets Saber Marionette J meets...well, you get the point. It's not 

Jason, has both a slower build up and also a more interesting one. I want to him rise up the ranks of the Shii'vati military and bang hot alien chicks.

Hot Restart hits all the right beats, but it's not engaging. The corporate asshole Whitmore is the main bad guy, and he's as bland as bland could be.

Compare that with Lilith from Mike Truk's Five Trials series by contrast. A powerful, cunning foe, who has already corrupted and killed her enemies, is literally on the cusp of ruling the ENTIRE COSMOS. Now, it might seem that I might be comparing apples and oranges, so let me explain

On paper, watching a Chosen One getting power ups, by having sex with his harem shouldn't work as well as it does/ Here's the thing; to succeed he doesn't need to be strong, he needs to suceed despite his flaws. he has to create deep spiritual bonds with every member of his harem. He has to fight with temptation, the stress of responsibility, the weight of failing, and making very morally questionable choices. Oh, and the Kabbalistic based magic system is legitimately cool too.

Is Riley in peril, does he struggle? Yes, but it's so much engaging on an emotional level.to watch Noah fight and fuck, because everything is always tied into the narrative and character development. The sex scenes are satisfying on multiple levels. 

While yes, Mike Truk is at the end of the day an erotica writer, I will always give props for putting effort into your storytelling.

Mike Truk, for whatever reason wants to harem cliches and make something EPIC out of it. Elliott Kay just wants to tell a decent erotica story. Which is fine as it goes, but what would you actually want give :

A steak from The Keg, or a Macdonald's burger?

A Not So Heroic Journey - Waldo Rabbit Book 1 Review

 *Warinng: Major Spoilers Ahead!*

We all love underdogs. Rocky Balboa. Daniel Larusso. Harry Potter. Peter Parker. 

Waldo Corpselover isn't necessarily one of those. 

Born to the most powerful dark mage family in Aletha, he hasn't wanted for anything. Sure, his older brother Walter is a zombie who is constantly trying to kill him, his sister Gwendolyn is a ghost, and his grandfather, the powerful arch-lich Lucius, wants to drink his blood for the "evulz". Still, his isn't bad, all things considered.

His mother Lilith. the head of the Corpselover clan, loves him dearly, and Waldo has been blessed with immense magical talent on top of living in the lap of luxury. Problem is, his talent is in Light magic, healing and protection specifically. 

Waldo is annoyed about being the white sheep of the family. He wants to crush his enemies and conquer the world just like everybody else. But he can't do the simplest dark spell, and contrary to his upbringing, has not developed the cold, borderline sociopathic mentality needed to survive in  the harsh, back-stabbing world of dark mage politics.

This problem of Waldo's magical orientation comes to a head when Lilith's enemies, the other heads of the seven ruling families, see an opportunity to get rid of Waldo, who they view as a mistake that must be dealt with, and weaken Lilith's position in one go. 

Every dark mage must undergo a quest after they come of age to prove their worth. They must meet three requirements: they must bind three familiars to them, kill a knight, and steal a valuable treasure, not necessarily in that order.

But since Waldo is barely 16, and an inept dark mage, the other family heads see this quest as a suicide mission. Since several of Waldo's siblings died on their own quests, there is good reason to be confident that the plan will work.

Before setting out, Waldo gets some unexpected help from Ember, the household vampire butler. Despite hating Waldo's guts, Ember tells Waldo the locations of three powerful monsters. Gwendolyn, who is also a seer, cheers Waldo up by assuring him that he will "return in glory" within a few years time.

So despite some understandable nervousness, Waldo heads out on his quest determined to do bad by his family. 

Waldo is not necessarily an underdog, but he is definitely a fish out of water. He has lived all his life in what is basically Mordor except with more undead than orcs walking around. As soon as he leaves Aletha, he freaks out over a bright sunny day, and is baffled that everyone he comes across doesn't fear him as a dark god. This "evil is good" mentality, very similar the Addams Family, is a great source of black comedy throughout the book. It constantly plays with your expectations of the classic fantasy adventure story.

There are times where it gets legitimately disturbing. Monsters and lower class humans are treated like chattel, to be bought and sold and bargained over. Only skilled workers have anything resembling real freedom. It definitely sucks to be a peasant. If you don't get killed for accidentally insulting a noble, a wizard can mess you up with impunity. Even the so-called white mages from Avalon are on the whole a bunch of religious zealots who want to destroy Aletha and all monsters everywhere, regardless of who or what they are.

Don't get me wrong, the black comedy, for the most part, works very well, but every character's callous disregard for the well-being of the lower classes gets outright creepy in parts. There are times where it's intentional, to be fair.

The plot really kicks off when when Waldo runs into his first familiar, a barmaid named Alice.

Waldo hit the jackpot with her. Not only is she a fiery redhead with a killer body, (quite literally being a succubus and all), but she also has super strength, razor sharp claws and the ability to charm men with a look, making them her willing love slaves.

Thanks to a funny bit of miscommunication and a botched binding ritual, the naïve sweet young girl believes that Waldo proposes to her, making them husband and wife. No matter how much Waldo protests that they are master and servant, this girl will not let her romantic fantasies go.

Alice and Waldo's relationship forms the crux of the whole book, and it is consistently entertaining and heartwarming. 

Alice, despite being basically an indentured slave who has worked at a brothel most of her life, is surprisingly innocent. She is knowledgeable and tough when the story requires her to be, and it doesn't go against her character, but she is also a great foil for Waldo, acting as his conscience and common sense all in one role. 

Her willingness to look past all the horrible things he says and does has him questioning himself, but also allows him to be stronger as a person and mage by tempting him not just physically, but emotionally.

The writer does a good job of having these people with two internal struggles constantly butting heads, Alice wanting to not be seen as a creature of evil to be spurned and killed on sight, and Waldo wanting to be bad, and a large part of him fully believing it, but he just doesn't have it in him. I was constantly chuckling reading their back and forth. It's the classic "buddy cop" dynamic with a romantic undertone. 

Is isn't all sickly sweet sunshine and rainbows between them, far from it in fact. The huge culture gap makes for a lot of funny material, but also gives us exposition and drama, switching constantly between all three. Especially when you find out why Waldo seems immune to her advances, and how he struggles to understand the female mind. Those parts are pretty run-of-the mill men vs. women humor; but more times and not, as Waldo reveals his background to Alice, there are some surprises. 

There is a great scene when his grandfather Lucius, his powers somewhat diminished due to being undead, is still a serious threat to him and Alice. For the first time, Waldo really must confront the fact, that the 'smart' thing would be to use Alice as a shield and run, but his heart wins out. Waldo shows us that he has a conscience, and is actually quite a skilled mage.

The scene also really drives home how messed up Waldo's life has been up to this point. His grandfather is attempting to kill him, simply because Waldo's blood tastes good (apparently, the closer the relation, the better the flavor). Lucius, who was summoned by Walter (who even in death, can't let his jealousy go) wants to test his grandson before he kills him . Keep in mind, this is normal behavior in Altera. It's like all the worst families from Game of Thrones founded a nation together and just dropped all pretense of familial piety over time. It's just a great fight scene, showing us exactly why we should be on Waldo's side. Yes, he is still very much a villain, but he's hardly holds a candle to the monster that he's fighting.

I called Waldo "not really an underdog" earlier in the review, and throughout the book, he repeatedly show's that he's really not when you learn more about. The thing is, everyone else, basically everyone else who knows him besides his mother, sister, and lover, see him as one, which arguably makes him one anyway. 

He's good at magic, he just refuses to accept that he's not built for truly evil spell work. He's naïve and self-centered, but also cunning, well-read and charismatic. He's clueless about women, but in a romantic scene near the end of the book that caught me off-guard with how sweet it was, shows himself to a lover talented enough to please a sex demon. Waldo has strengths and weaknesses like any other good character.

Even though the narrative switches between several characters besides Waldo, very few are really that interesting or really fleshed out. Although this is the first book in a series, there is plenty of time for character building, the cast feels thin right now.

Lilith Corpselover is by far the most interesting secondary character. A powerful and intelligent woman, she has risen to the top through talent and ruthlessness. She is an unrepentant villain; in one particularly uncomfortable scene she prolongs the torture of a young man, though indirectly, just to take a rival down a peg. Several household slaves are tortured and killed by Ember everyday and she doesn't bat an eye. Ember is her familiar, which means she could make him stop this at any point.

Yet, despite her cold-blooded, iron-fisted persona, she does have a genuine love for all her children, not just Waldo, and also his father, who is heavily hinted to have been a white mage. Her genuine grief over losing nearly all her children clashes with her mindset that might makes right, that you have to destroy threats to yourself and your family, either through physical force or psychological manipulation if necessary.

Lilith's personality, that of a monster who is neither sadistic, nor lenient, is fascinating to read. It is very hard, in my opinion, to create a noble demon character, yet the author pulls it off well.

Beyond her, the characters feel lackluster. Melissa, a white mage who hears of Waldo by chance, and is determined to track him down and bring him to harsh justice, is your typical white hat crusader,. Reading a religious zealot's thoughts isn't terribly exciting, especially when she isn't even insane per se, just dedicated to the job.

You have pompous nobles, greedy slaveholders, one note villains,  albeit some smarter than others. 

Even Ember isn't interesting, you would think he would be, being a vampire forced into servitude. His motivation for helping Waldo are for predictably selfish reasons. 

Walter, who would think would be interesting, being an undead and a far better dark mage in life than Waldo, in a whiny narcissistic idiot who never shuts up about how he's the "true heir" to the Corpselover name. Everyone else is disgusted with him too, so he's meant to be annoying, but that doesn't add any points in my book.

The world this story takes place in very by-the-numbers as well. Mages use wands and incantations. The world is divided between slaves, peasants, nobility and royalty. Monsters are hated and feared by everyone; even the bad guys see them as useful canon fodder, nothing more. The currency system is straight out of an RPG. The monsters look and behave exactly like you think they will. Yes, Alice is a good person, but like any other succubus, she still needs to feed off of the lust of men to survive. 

Outside of an interesting Cold War scenario between Aletha and Avalon, the white mage capital, there's nothing new here. Which is a shame, because the comedy is very good. 

With a very interesting non-underdog on his way to becoming an unwilling anti-hero, a very sharp, sometimes uncomfortable dark sense of humor, and a very strong ending that makes you eager for the next book, The (Not So) Dark Mage is a good start. There's plenty of room for improvement, but there is a solid foundation here as well.

I can't wait to see how Waldo and Alice continue on their quest with their new friend Gronk, who is shaping up to be the most...unique ogre you've probably seen since Shrek. Definitely check this book out when you have a chance.

 

 

Still Zany To The Max - An Animaniacs Revival Review

 

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The '90's are now widely considered among casual and hardcore fans alike to be the second "Golden Age" of Animation. 

Are you the kind of person who is skeptical whenever you hear the words "golden age" of anything?

Ok, do a small exercise for me. Take a minute to think about the '90's, and see how many great cartoon shows comes to mind:

 Batman The Animated Series, Spider-man and X-men (I think of these shows the "superhero trinity", but there were other shows too) Ren and Stimpy, South Park, The Simpsons (it totally counts; the series premiered on Dec 17, '89;  so it's only an '80's show on a technicality), Reboot, Arthur, King of the Hill, Doug, Rugrats, most of the Disney Afternoon lineup. Besides Quack Pack, we don't talk about that one. 

 Even shows that were not critically acclaimed were a ton of fun to watch. Mummies Alive, Biker Mice from Mars, Mighty Max, heck, the freakin' goddamn  Mighty Ducks was better then it should've been. 

Fox Kids and YTV were introducing us to all kinds of stuff, from anime, to movies that we were too young to watch, to the wonders of stop-motion, even when it had long since become obsolete.

There was a lot of talent unleashed all at once during the decade. A new wave of innovation and creativity was popping up everywhere. The generation that had grown up watching Saturday morning cartoons were now making new shows for us, their kids . 

Whether it was breaking new ground, finding new spins on old ideas, or paying homage to the great classics of the first Golden Age, their was now shortage of cool stuff to watch once we were free from school. 

One special show managed to do all three at once, and in the process, became a classic that has endured for nearly three decades.

On the surface, Animaniacs was clearly riding on the coat tails of Tiny Toon Adventures when it premiered on September 13th, 1993. It had a lot of the same humor, the same basic setup (cartoon characters that were a) living in the "real world" alongside humans and b) cartoon "actors" who knew  they were performing on a kids' show). Animaniacs even had the same staff as Tiny Toons, and aired just a year after its parent show ended in 1992.

Tiny Toons is considered a fine show in it's own right, with a large healthy fandom still going to this day. I consider Animaniacs ro be the superior show. 

Why, though? Tiny Toons did it first, right? They have the same style, same people, same multi-demographic appeal. What's the special sauce that Animaniacs had that made it the TRUE successor to Looney Tunes, when the Tiny Toons cast were the literal proteges of the great masters Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck?

Well, the problem, if you want to see it that way, is that Tiny Toons was explicitly made to be the Looney Tunes of the '90's. Even though the cast and crew put in a sincere effort with the show, avoiding it coming off as a pathetically lazy cash-grab, there's no getting around the fact that the Tiny Toons were standing in the shadow of greatness. The Warner Brothers and Sister were also in that shadow, to be fair. The only difference is that Animaniacs was able to capture the spirit and magic of their predecessors without coming across as pale imitations. 

To put it another way, it's the difference between reading about Harry Potter's son and another badass wizard in another setting. Even if it uses the general ideas of "wizarding schools" and "magic existing in secret alongside our world", tt takes more effort to come up with more general ideas, using the concepts and storytelling of what came before rather than "updating" Harry or trying to be Harry all over again. No matter how well-intentioned, the writer for Harry Potter 2.0 is, he or she still relying on the audience's investment in the Wizarding World.

Right from the beginning, Animaniacs was a giant, loving homage to animation history, while also being it's own thing. The Warners themselves were inspired by the simple, animal-like designs of classic characters like Bosko, Felix the Cat and Oswald the Rabbit. If, like me, you had no idea about those characters, then the Animaniacs were something new to you. For adults, it was a great easter egg; and Animaniacs were filled with them. Animaniacs may not seem original right now to you considering what I just wrote, and they weren't, not completely. 

But unlike Tiny Toons, they could be more subtle, more broad, a true new cartoon that was well aware of its roots, and damn proud of it.

Ironically, by not outright claiming to be the successors to the Looney Tunes, they became the successors to the Looney Tunes. Animaniacs is, in my opinion, one the greatest cartoon shows ever made. Let me count the ways. 

It did everything well. The songs were catchy (and educational without being too ham-fisted about it), the dialogue was consistently witty and delivered beautifully; there's a reason why the show has spawned so many memes, even Yakko's signature "uhhhhh" pause is funny every time. The characters were varied and fun to watch. 

Although, not everything worked. Chicken Boo and Katie Kaboom were very one dimensional, one-note characters. 

In Katie's case. a ordinary human teenager who would literally explode or transform into a monster when she lost her temper, it's borderline offensive. The Hip Hippos, I just didn't find funny, but they have their fans. But everyone else was great, the voice acting was always top notch, really bringing these wacky personalities to life. 

Rob Paulsen (Yakko) Jess Harnell (Wakko) and Tress Macneil (Dot) were not only all great in their own right, but when they act off each other it is great stuff. Sadly though, the characters were kept in their own segments, barring a few special occasions. And of course, who could forget Maurice LaMarche as The Brain.

 The writing took that classic Looney Tunes formula of being timely and timeless simultaneously. It's what happens when you have pop culture references out the wazoo, either a story ripped from the  headlines (the episode "Plane Pals", for instance, had the Warners harassing a parody of Ivan Boesky, of all people) to something like "Meatballs and Consequences", where they parody The Seventh Seal, brilliantly, I might add). Skits varied wildly in content, but they were almost always consistently good. 

Again, no one's perfect.

The roster of characters really allowed Animaniacs to live up to it's title. Rita and Runt had a great dynamic of being cynical and innocent; same with Slappy and Skippy, except with more slapstick and the added bonus of Slappy Squirrel being a washed out retired cartoon actor, who takes her nephew under her wing. But for every parody that has aged like fine wine (the Power Rangers spoof "Super Strong Warner Siblings" is a particularly great example), there were misshots here and there. Take this as 'exhibit A' :

It comes with the territory; but to the writers' credit, more often than not, they weren't trying too hard to be timely, which has made the show stand out from others who were cashing on popular trends, like Yo Yogi! or Street Sharks. 

They weren't above that sort of thing, but Animaniacs had the balls to call itself out on it though, as well as  "edutaiment" segments, which, once you see how much smack they talked about it, was mostly likely put in due to executive meddling. Oh yeah, one other thing about Animaniacs, it was really meta, and it was really awesome at it. Again, Looney Tunes and others did it first, but Animaniacs did it just as good. Need proof, here's one of the show's best running gags that capped off many episodes, "The Wheel of Morality".

To give a great example of what I mean by saying that the show's humor was timely and timeless, consider the episode "Survey Ladies", the basic premise still works; I mean, sure, surveys are all done online now. But, in my opinion, the humor still works, because it was true to life, and since there's a lot of gags slapstick and visual gags, there is something for kids and adults to enjoy. Or, an even better example, "Chairman of the Bored". For every dated reference or shallow parody the show may have done, at it's heart the show had a broad, even dare I say, universal type humor that everyone can enjoy. 

It was built from the ground up as something for kids and adults. And the kids became adults, so for a lot of people (like me) the show just kept getting better over time, 'cause you kept discovering new jokes that were always waiting for you to discover them. You'll be watching episodes over and over again, because you can't get everything right away: I re-watch Animaniacs almost annually and. I see no signs of that stopping anytime soon.

So, when I heard back in 2018 they were reviving this show, it was like I was a kid again. Except now it's on Hulu; no more wating till next week's episode nowadays. 

Of course, I was happy, but I was also scared. Too often I have been let down by reboots and revivals. Would even Animaniacs be just like I remembered it? Can we actually have something truly great come back, with a whole new staff, and be good? Can it be possible, in 2020, that we can have good things?   Can Animaniacs, live up to its own legacy this time? 

Well, after marathoning the whole of season 1 is one sitting, these are my thoughts.

**Spoilers From This Point On**

First of all, I should make a note that very few of the show's original staff are part of the reboot. If showrunner Wellesley Wild, and the writers, animators, composers ect working under him hadn't proven themselves over and over during this revival's first season to be huge fans of the original show, I wouldn't have liked this at all. I'm not one of those snobby fans who believes that a property can only work with the original creators making new stuff. That's like saying only Bob Kane can write Batman comics.

But not including original creator and executive producer of Animaniacs, Tom Reugger  is a baffling move to me. 

Reugger was not exactly the heart and soul of the original show, but he came up with the key concepts that became the show we all know and love. Like I already said, Wild seems more than capable of handling the property, but there was enough misfires in the jokes where I found myself thinking that including the original crew and consultants and producers would've really helped the overall quality.

Then there is the other big glaring elephant in the room. Very few of the original characters are returning to the show. It's not even that they were replaced by new characters. The Warner siblings, along with Pinky and Brain, carry the vast amount of the work-load. I could understand retiring Katie Kaboom and Hello Nurse. They really don't work at all in this day and age.   But Slappy and Skippy Squirrel?! You could get so much mileage out of Slappy ranting about CGI and motion capture. Or Skippy, having grown up during the show's hiatus, has become an anime fan, and it annoys his aunt to no end. So many plotlines, so much comedic potential, wasted.

What's worse, the show explains the characters absence in one of the show's best episodes (or segments, each episode is composed of 3)  "Good Warner Hunting" has them all return at the end in a great plot twist, which I won't spoil here. And...that's it, nothing else happens. They're never seen from again  for  the rest of the season. I don't get it. You can't revive a variety show with only a few characters. While the skits of each episode definitely delivers on a lot of different ideas, the humor lacks a certain punch without having the whole gang back together.

The lack of familiar faces is really limiting the show's potential right now. While their are a few new characters who I think work very well and can be organically integrated into the new cast, they're only given one episode each to shine, so they're not given a lot of time to prove themselves. I'll come back to these new characters later on. 

Next, I want to talk about what works and what doesn't with the revival. I've seen enough to say that while the show is very good, there is room for improvement.      

The segment "Warners Unbound" from episode 2, shows the new series at its best. It's a clever parody of Homer's Odyssey. 

Odysseus, now a glory seeking meat-head who angers the Warner siblings up on Mount Olympus, who, in classic Animaniacs fashion, try to torture the jerk, but Odysseus is so dense he somehow enjoys himself even in Hades. thinking it's some sort of game show. \

Not only is it a great parody of an iconic story that is full of great in-jokes ("My hubris is telling me to go this way" might be one of the best lines ever written), but the satire works extremely well. The classic depiction of the ideal Greek hero has been full of huge problems for a long, from Odysseus cheating on his wife multiple times, to killing the suitors staying at his house, whose only real crime was free-loading in a stranger's house, when you think about it.

Odysseus' portrayal in the skit exaggerates his negative traits in a way that kids can understand, while the adults can pick up on the depiction of toxic masculinity. Not to mention, seeing his comeuppance by a suspicious looking cyclops who might remind you of a certain tan-skinned president, is a hilarious finish. that works in multiple levels.

 Shorts like these perfectly capture the spirit of the original show's brand of slapstick visual gags and satire of contemporary trends while adding something timeless to the mix. Can't get more timeless than one the core stories of Western literature, after all.

"Ani-nyet" from episode 10, on the other hand, shows the writers trying way, way too hard to be contemporary.and political, and failing at both.

The Warner siblings are chilling out at the water tower when they stumble across a Russian made knock-off of "Animaniacs." Offended at the shallow and inaccurate portrayal of themselves, they take a plane to Russia, where they attempt to put a stop to things. The episode comes across as a script that was written back when Rocky and Bullwinkle was on the air, and Putin's name was put in to "update" it.

Russia is portrayed as such a dirt-poor, backwards hellhole, that, well, let me put it this way. If the background characters were anything besides European Caucasians, it would be taken off the air before you could say "N-word". on a talk show.

 Very few of the jokes work, and outside of a cool cameo from original Animaniacs song writer Randy Rogel, where he helps the Warners with a nice musical number, there's really nothing witty or clever in this sketch. They take the same easy shots at Trump and Putin while not offering anything meaningful to say. The tone-deafness of the jokes here is so bad it's honestly baffling.

Several critics have criticized the amount of overt political humour in the revival, but honestly, it doesn't bother me. I find stuff like Edward Snowden's odd obsession with gardening funny. The Brain taking the place of Senator McCqrthy in a disguise so see-through that it's not only funny, but also a great history lesson for the kids.

It's not like the original show didn't have political humor too. Granted, it wasn't as in your face. But it's actually only a handful of skits in this 13 episode season that revolve around politics. It never got irritating or distracting to me, but of course, your mileage will vary.

It's hard to rate each episode, because each segment, even "Ani-nyet", has good and bad parts. 

Episode 4's "Bun Control" for example, has an amazing anime-style fight sequence in it. But it comes out of nowhere, and doesn't fit the tone of the episode. Using bunnies, of all things, as a metaphor for guns, makes no sense to me; the bunnies aren't like the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They just look cute and swarm everywhere; it's an ecological problem that's portrayed in the episode, not a violence one.

There are only four new characters introduced. The new, no-nonsense CEO, Nora Rita Norita (yes, really), is great whenever she's on screen. Julia, the newest genetically enhanced mouse on the block, only appears in one episode, but she's clearly sept-up to the Brain's arch-nemesis. 

Starbox and Cindy are great. A little girl keeping a small green alien as a pet, saving the world in the process. It sounds pretty one-note on paper, but there\s a lot of potential for humor here. I should know, being the huge sci-fi geek that I am.

The only things I can safely say that are too good to argue about are the voice acting, songs and animation, which are consistently top-notch. The rap battle in "Gift Rapper" highlights this the best, in my opinion. Imagine, a rap song in a kid's show that doesn't suck!

Everything else is up to personal taste. You might like surreal jokes, you might not. You might get the references, you might not. You might know who Nils Niedhart is supposed to be an expy of. Also, gross-out humor; not my cup of coffee, and thankfully, it's not prevalent.

Animaniacs is not like how I remember it. Quite a few people are upset by this fact, some of it understandable. Even the Hip Hippos were somebody's favorite. The lack of old favorites, both in the credits and on the screen, is a huge loss.

Here's the thing that a few critics seem to overlooking; Animaniacs was always contemporary, making fun of what was current. Please refer to Exhibit A. A lot of things that the show made fun of back in the '90's, 'Friends', 'Power Rangers' 'Barney' etc., only seem timeless in retrospect. It comes across as more clever to people in my demographic, because we all grew up with them. Of course Animaniacs was going to seem dated tackling internet memes, Russian election tampering, and Edward Snowden, but hey, that's what was current in 2018, what can you do?

If they made all '90's refs they missed the first time around, like The Matrix, Fight Club, Fresh Prince, Pokemon, Beverly Hills 90210, as well as many other examples, then critics would say they are selling out to Milllenial nostalgia.

The writers were, and are, between a rock and a hard place. Or more accurately, between old and new.

In my opinion, they have done a very good job navigating a tough assignment. The spirit of the original show definitely shines through. It's not as good an update, as say, the Disney Channel's fantastic reboot of Ducktales, but there is a clear, sincere effort here by the cast and crew to do right by us, the fans, even if they didn't do right by the creators.

Sure, there may be flaws and misfires. But the original show was the same way, It's a variety show, it comes with the territory. But, there is a a lot to like, a lot to recommend, If you're an old fan, I think you;ll like it overall. If you're new, it's a great intro to the Warners. as well as Pinky and the Brain, but you should check out the original show if you want the full experience.

When that opening song started, I had tears in my eyes and a huge grin on my face. Animaniacs had come back, not as I knew it, but just as good as when I watched it every day before going to school.

I can't wait for season 2. I only hope Hulu allows the show's staff to bring back everyone for a truly special reunion.

And guess what? In October of this year, less a month before the season premiere of more Animaniacs, a Tiny Toons reboot was announced to be in development for HBO Max and Cartoon Network. It's a funny role reversal, ain't it?

Animaniacs is back my friends, and it looks like their bringing some friends along for the ride. 

Here's to six seasons and a movie! 

               

So Much Despair, So Much Hype: The 2018 Blue Jays Season

"There is no joy in Mudville. Mighty Casey has struck out." - "Casey At The Bat" by Ernest Thayer

That line always plays in my mind after every losing season. That poem, for over 120 years, has encapsulated the ups and downs of baseball more than any sportswriter could.

For the 2018 Jays, there were very few ups. Only five things stand out as positives in my mind, at first glance. 

Vlad Jr.'s walk-off home run in the final at bat of Spring Training, Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s big break out performance in July, Morales' home run streak, Ryan Borucki's pitching, and the 7-run comeback in the 9th six games ago.

Everything else, besides a good April (15-9) was not horrible (that label goes to the entire Orioles season)it was just purely mediocre and absolutely forgettable.

Our hitters didn't hit, our top 2 pitchers were too injured to pitch, we lost our closer (one of the youngest and best in baseball) to an off field controversy, and our best players were nowhere to be seen, either because they were traded in July, or couldn't stay healthy.

There was nothing exciting about this team, nothing exceptional, no matter where you looked.

But if you happened to look at our farm system...well, it was a whole different story.

Three of our minor league teams made it to the post-season: Dunedin BJays, Lansing Lugnuts, and New Hampshire Fisher Cats

Our High A and AA teams are studded with promising prospects, but Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is on a whole another level.

That is not mere pretty hyperbole. Not only is he the son of new Hall of Famer Vlad Sr. Not only is he considered the No. 1 prospect in baseball by every major publication who follows prospects. In 91 games, at just 19 years of age, he dominated the minors, hitting an incredible .381 at AA and AAA. Had he not missed a month due to injury, there's a very real possibility that he would've hit over .400 for the season.

The lengths that Jays President Mark Shapiro took to maximize the years under team control by holding down in the minors is absolutely ridiculous. With Donaldson and Solarte injured, we had to watch Russell Martin play 3rd base, rather than call up Vlad. I don't blame the front office. The arbitration rules in this instance are stupid and need to be changed post haste.

But the media circus that followed the next face of Canadian baseball shed some light on several of our other good prospects on the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, of which there are many, considering that they won the Eastern League Championship a couple weeks back.

 Bo Bichette everyone already knew, because he is the other crown jewel of our farm system. But then Cavan Biggio found his bat this year. Harold Ramirez also broke out. Lourdes Gurriel was brought right up to the majors to replace a slumping Devon Travis and looked right at home immediately.

Pitchers T.J. Zeuch, Jordan Romano, Sean Reid Foley, Patrick Murphy and Jon Harris were also being talked about all over the Jays blogosphere. Nate Pearson would've been in the conversation as well, if he hadn't gotten injured and missed the whole season. Thankfully he's being given reps at the Arizona Fall League.

Ryan Borucki was called up mid season and was impressive. Rowdy Tellez and Danny Jansen were putting up solid numbers, wih Tellez hitting doubles everywhere.

On top all those guys, Kevin Smith had a huge year. Ryan Noda also got on base a lot.

Add to that, our new guys were making waves too. 17 year old Eric Padinho pitched very well in his first crack at pro ball. Our first pick at the 2018 MLB Draft, Jordan Groshans, hit the ground running in his first year, hitting so well, that he jumped up a level. We also signed Orelvez Martinez, one of the top prospects from the  Dominican Republic, this year.

No wonder Baseball America named our farm system third best in all of baseball!

Want to know the last time that the Jays system was this good? 1993. I'm sure everyone can grasp the significance of that.

So the Jays have been horrible, but our prospects have been great.

But prospects are prospects. Prospects only really matter to many people until as they're good in the MLB.

I'm sure we all remember the forgotten promises of Brett Lawrie, Travis Snider, Ricky Romero and Colby Rasmus.

But you can't have future stars without prospects. It's the life cycle of all pro sports.

It's impossible to not be optimistic about our current crop of youngsters. Even if only a handful of guys make it, it's better than hanging everything on Vlad. One superstar doesn't win games, but many good players do.

Look no further than the Athletics, Braves, Phillies, Mariners, and Rays for proof. There's even quite a bit of evidence on our home turf.

Borucki has been very solid. If not for a lack of run support, he would've won more than he lost. Tellez and Jansen have looked very solid. Gurriel seemed to get better with each game. His .281 average wouldn't look as impressive, if you didn't know that he was sent back down to the minors and missed a month to injury.

Teoscar Hernandez has looked lost in left field and at the plate this season, but 20+ home runs is nothing to sneeze at.

The Jays are in a unique position here, to almost completely rebuild the team next year with raw. talented players. But no team would put out an all rookie line-up. Conventional wisdom dictates that a mix of veterans and younger guys works best. There is also the problem of all those pesky contracts to Martin, Morales and Tulo. Let's assume that Smoak and Morales are the only locks. What would the 2019 Blue Jays look like?

Yes, I am not making predictions on who will be our manager. It seems highly likely that Canadian Stubby Clapp will be the new Jays skipper, but there are many candidates.

Putting Biggio, Vlad and Bichette alone into our lineup would dramatically improve our offense. Add in Hernandez's raw power, Gurriel's untapped potential, Tellez and Jansen's solid bats, and Anthony Alford's speed, and you have a lineup that can (potentially) rival any team.

Assuming that Teoscar can be moved to DH eventually, our defense would also improve.

Pitching is our biggest problem. Paradinho is 3 years away. Reid-Foley, Panone have been inconsistent, and Pearson and T.J. Zeuch are also years away.

Even if the worst should happen and the team falls flat on it's face, by 2020 we will have lots of money freed up to go sign some free agents to fix our weaknesses.

Not even Vlad, as good as he is, is a sure thing. But the odds are definitely stacked in our favor.

We've seen many teams over the years turn into perennial contenders. The Astros, Cubs and Red Sox weren't always the teams they are now. The Orioles, by far the worst MLB team, made the playoffs just 4 years ago.

2015 and 2016 were great, and those banners will always be a reminder of how great Bautista, Encarnacion and Donaldson were. Happ and Estrada too. Can't forget about Gibby!

But players can't be great forever. It's really painful to watch this team be dismantled, but it's necessary/ I think a lot of the anger directed at Shapiro and Atkins has less to do with losing, and more to do with disliking change.

Anyone else remember when Anthopoulos' big trade in the 2012 off-season backfired, and we tanked for two years? I think Shapiro has done as good a job. The only big difference is the lack of surprising trades and an unwillingness to trade prospects for short term gain.

It's time for new faces, new memories, new games.

It's time for Vlad 2.0 . Let the Age of Plakata begin!

Heck, bring on all the kids, let's see what they've got!

Cyber War, Familial Bonds

There are many films that add many different elements together to make something unique.

 

Just look at Captain America: Winter Soldier. Combines the superhero genre with political intrigue. Ghostbusters is probably the most famous example of combining horror with comedy, which is hard to pull off, considering how different the two genres are. The movie I’m going to be reviewing today, the 2009 Japanese animated film Summer Wars, directed by Mamoru Hosoda, is another one of those movies.

t combines elements of cyberpunk science fiction with slice-of-life family drama. The film handles both of these two genres extremely well, weaving two parallel plots together to make something new and really awesome.

Ok, let’s get the intro out of the way. In the near future, almost everyone in the world uses a huge virtual reality online network known as OZ. People do everything in this virtual world. Socialize and date using their crazy and weird online avatars. Conduct business meetings and auctions. Play games, go to school, even get married.

Kenji Koiso, a high school math genius who works on the OZ network as a moderator/maintenance worker in his spare time with his friend, is suddenly asked by the girl he’s secretly sweet on, Natsuki Shinohara, to come with her to attend a huge family get-together out in the country in honor of her great-grandmother Sakae Jinnouichi, who is going to be celebrating her 90th birthday in a few days.

On the way there, Natsuki fills Kenji in on a few details about her family. One, they are very large. Two, they are very proud of their heritage, being able to trace their family history back nearly 800 years. Three, they are very close-knit. So all poor Kenji can do now is just go with the flow and try to make it through the next four days.

She neglected to mention that she needs him to pose as her fiance in order to appease her meddling aunts, uncles and cousins, and to make her great-grandmother happy that she has finally found someone to bring home.

If things couldn’t get anymore complicated, Kenji accidentally lets loose a super-virus called “Love Machine” after breaking an encryption puzzle anonymously sent by email, which goes out into the cyber playground of OZ to wreck havoc  on the world, real and virtual. Even worse, he’s branded as a cyber-criminal on national TV by the police in front of the whole family. Once everything is explained, it’s up to Kenji and his newfound family to save the world from history’s biggest cyber attack.

Before I get into why I love the film so much, let me bring up one of my major nitpicks about the story. While the design and scope of the “OZ” network is visually stunning and creative, it doesn’t feel like something that would ever exist in real life. Don’t get me wrong, everything you see people do in made-up virtual world, does happen on the real Internet.

But think about this. Twitter, Youtube, Twitch, Instagram and Facebook are all extremely popular Internet services. But they’re not on the same “network” or provide every type of service to everyone that uses the internet, and they are owned by different companies, who compete in separate markets. We’re never told whether OZ is some kind of  a joint project run by every major internet company. So that means that whoever created OZ has a monopoly on the world’s online activities. Sure, we can speculate on explanations as to how OZ works, but with not much in-universe explanation, the way OZ works just bugs me a lot.

Also, other aspects of the movie are dated, even if it came out only 7 years ago. That’s not really the movie’s fault, to be fair. But it feels really weird to see something as advanced as OZ, and see everyone using flip-cell phones of all things to access it. It’s not just the fact that there are no smart phones in this world;. there’s no AR, or any futuristic technology besides OZ. Every piece of tech, like computers, phones, etc.  is what was currently available in 2008/2009. It’s sort of disconcerting to me, since I read a lot of sci-fi. But it shouldn’t be a problem for most people.

Now that that nitpick is out of the way, let’s talk about what I actually like about this thing. The movie depicts family life very realistically. When I say “realistic”, I mean that, even if you don’t have a large family or attend many family gatherings, you will see interactions, personalities and dialogue, that immediately feels familiar and natural to you over the course of this story.

The best example of what I’m talking about happens during the big family dinner, which also marks the end of the first part of the story.

The really little kids running around the table yelling excitedly, a few babies crying over the noise of conversation. High school and college age kids getting into old arguments with their parents. The aunts are swapping anecdotes while they needle the poor boyfriend for info about his background and career prospects. The dads and uncles are talking about work and joking around. A small group is clustered around the TV, because one of the other kids is participating in the Koshien baseball tournament  (which in Japan is a REALLY BIG deal). Sakae, the woman of the hour and family matriarch, is holding court at the head of the table, calm and soft-spoken.

It’s a depiction of family life that seems to be occurring less and less in TV and film. Not too sappy sweet, but not too depressingly dysfunctional either. Almost every member of the family is loving and supportive, but they also squabble and and have their differences.

Of course, every family has their black sheep. This is one of my problems with the movie.

Uncle Rinnosuke crashes the party, and things get really tense, really fast. Of course, Natsuki is completely oblivious to all this, because all she sees is that her cool, easy-going “uncle Suke” is back in her life. It’s clear that the guy has a genuine soft spot for his niece; their interaction is genuinely sweet to watch.

Ok, so what’s the problem? Well, here it is. Rinnosuke is the bastard child of Sakae’s late husband, the product of an affair. After the old man died, the kid ran off to America with his share of his father’s inheritance.That’s it, that’s the whole “scandal” with this guy. The way all the adults react the second he appears at the party, you would think he did jail time for selling crack to children, or stealing from a hospital fund. All he actually did was a) be born out of wedlock and b) he acted a bit like a selfish jerk. Yes, we do find out later that he made a main contribution to the crisis happening with “Love Machine”, but even then, it’s unclear what was the writer’s intent here. Are we supposed to side with the family from the outset, or are we supposed to side with Rinnosuke, because his family is being unfairly judgemental? Maybe this is just a part of Japanese culture that doesn’t translate well to a Western mindset like mine.

Another aspect of the movie that I will praise, with all my heart, is the animation and visuals. Everything looks great and all the movement is fluid and feels natural when the human characters move around and interact with each other. Everyone has their own unique look and way they express themselves. That amount of subtle realism takes a lot of work, and I applaud the staff for taking the effort.

The cast is great in both the original Japanese and the English dub. No matter how small the part, everyone brings their A-game to make each character come off as a real person, and all these people feel like part of a real family.

At the heart of this movie are two themes, one familiar, one more specific and much more urgent.

“Always treasure and respect the bonds you have with people, no matter if they are family or not”. By the middle point of the movie, the family is split between dealing with a big loss to the family, and focusing on stopping “Love Machine” from destroying humanity. The point the movie makes is that neither side is in the wrong for feeling or thinking the way that they do. A loss is meaningful and important, no matter how many people it affects. A crisis is a crisis, no matter if it is personal or of national importance. When something is in front of you at home, it’s hard to think of the world at large. But everyone is a part of a family, and human society is composed of families.

The second theme of the movie “Don’t adopt new technology without knowing the possible dangers involved, or get too comfortable with it.” I feel that this is a very important cautionary part of the story. You may think that “Love Machine” is a fantastical invention of the screen writers, but computer viruses in real life, like Stuxnet, can and have created that much damage and chaos in the world today. The Internet is shockingly vulnerable to cyber attacks, and it will only get worse the more people become part of the online community. It’s not that technology is itself a bad thing; it’s that our ignorance and our irresponsibility are as much to blame for what happens, and technology can help us fix the problems that it creates.

So in conclusion, what we have here is a beautifully animated, well-acted family drama with a fair bit of inventive sci-fi action. Regardless of what gets your attention first, the genuine human warmth of the movie will win you over. The actual plot points and story may have been done before, but they haven’t been done quite like this yet, as far as I know. 

 The result, is a smile on your face when the credits start rolling. You’ll keep smiling no matter how many times you watch this movie.