Neon Genesis Evangelion

Speaking of game-changing anime titles, Evangelion rocked my world when I first saw it back in 1999. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't totally consensual. If you have a heart, this show (and the theatrical films) will emotionally rape you. I remember watching this with my girlfriend at the time, being depressed for a week afterward, and loving every minute of it. This show made me a lifelong fan of it's production company, Gainax. Whatever they have up their sleeves, you can be sure I'll check it out.

A decade after mankind was nearly wiped out in a huge cataclysm, three teenagers, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei, are chosen to pilot the Evas, giant robots that have been built to protect the Earth from monsters (nicknamed Angels) that fall from the sky. For unknown reasons, these Angels are bent on destroying NERV, a corporation run by Shinji's father, Gendo Ikari. Battle after battle ensue as the Angels become smarter and more adept in their attacks. It is up to Captain Misato Katsuragi to train these kids to fight but at what cost? With the world on the brink at every turn, these questions remain: What are these creatures exactly and what are their intentions? Is the destruction of the human race really their only mission? What horrible secrets are lurking in the bowels of the NERV corporation's giant underground fortress?

Sounds a little generic, right? Sounds like a thousand other giant robot shows? Well, let me tell you something, this ain't your ordinary mecha-melodrama. This show takes high octane, high stakes action and blends it (to be fair, not always seamlessly) with psychoanalysis and religion. Evangelion is really, really smart. It is also populated by well written characters that you actually care about. It is also a gory spectacle with lots of disturbing imagery and more than a few jaw-dropping surprises throughout its run.

Now when I recommend this one, I am not fucking around. You need to see all 26 episodes of the original series and both theatrical films: Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. If you survive that then check out the newly revamped and retold Rebuild of Evangelion films which expands the story (but I feel like they don't really stand on their own; but I might be wrong, there are still 2 more full length films that haven't come out yet). So yeah, if you haven't seen this show, check it out. If you have and didn't like it, give it another go. Evangelion is a richly rewarding experience.

Harmagedon

Harmagedon
AKA Genma Taisen
Directed by Rintaro
1983
132 minutes

I was 16 years old when my mom sent me off to stay with our family friend in San Diego. I hit the local video store like a man possessed. I figured that video stores out in California would have huge selections of Japanese animation. Boy was I wrong (or maybe I was just at the wrong store). Anyway, they didn’t have crap. The only tape that wasn’t familiar to me was something called Harmagedon. It had Katsuhiro Otomo’s name all over it so I figured “Hey, this has got to be as good as Akira, right?” Boy was I wrong again. I triple hated the shit out of Harmagedon and haven’t watched it again… until now!

This fairly obnoxious doomsayer is running around Tokyo predicting terrible shit and then Princess Luna of Transylvania has a vision while flying in a big jumbo jet. A giant evil force named Genma is devouring the universe and it’s got a big (metaphoric) hard-on for Earth for some reason. The plane is destroyed by an asteroid and Luna becomes Psionic Warrior Luna, defender of the Earth. She is commanded by Floy, a benevolent supernatural force, to take Vega, a 2200 year old combat android, to save the dang world.

Luna and Vega’s first mission is to recruit Jo, an ordinary Japanese high school student (and jerkwad), and awaken his psionic powers. Jo freaks out and runs around misusing his powers. When he finally gets his shit together and faces his creepy sister-love complex, he agrees to join the fight against Genma. The slimy and weird looking monster generals that work for Genma go after Jo using the people he cares about like his bitchy girlfriend, his dorky friend, and of course, his sister Michiko. Ohhhh Michiko. Ohhhh, dear sweet, overprotective and smother MichikOH BABY BABY, OH BABY BABY!



So okay whatever, Luna gathers together her multinational team of psionic warriors to train Jo on the fly and get ready to battle Genma. New York City is destroyed and Tokyo just kind of dies in a sandstorm or something? Jo finally stops being a pussy and rises to become the strongest of the psionic duders and well, you can kind of guess the rest of the movie from there.



I am really glad I gave Harmagedon another chance. It didn't blow my mind or anything but it wasn't nearly as horrible as I remembered. Sure it is a little long in the tooth and there are a few cheese-stank maudlin moments (the scene where Jo leads the animals out of the burning forest like he was Animal Jesus!), but Harmagedon has some great scenes and even some dashes of horror that really worked for me. As for Katsuhiro Otomo's involvement, he did the character designs and some animation work. This really is Rinatro's beast.

X

X
Directed by Rintaro (AKA Hayashi Shigeyuki)
1996
97 minutes

The city of Tokyo is about to be ass raped. The final battle to determine the fate of the planet Earth is about to go down within the city limits and you know it's gonna get ugly. Kamui, who has mommy issues and looks really good in a cape, is coming to town even though his presence will bring about the apocalypse. He just can't resist meeting up with his childhood friends, brother and sister: Fuma and Kotari.



Some evil wizardy type folks with crazy powers are going to recruit Fuma to fight with Kamui over the city, the planet, and Kotari. Not surprisingly, Kamui is in love with Kotari so yeah, that's a thing too. Kamui is not alone in his fight since there are also good wizardy type folks with crazy powers who want to save the Earth. Blah blah blah, energy dragons, people with swords inside their hearts, cherry blossom petals, angel wings, etc. You get the idea.




Don't let my snark fool you, I really dig X. The score is epic as are the battle scenes and prophetic visions. The animation is outstanding and I'm just guessing that this had a huge budget from the looks of things. Director Rintaro (Galaxy Express 999) really, really loves destroying Tokyo and it shows. This film makes me very curious about the 2001 animated series based on the same manga from Clamp.



My only complaints about this film are 1) it feels a little too long and 2) it also feels condensed at the same time. X has a lot of characters and many of them are barely introduced at all. At the risk of contradicting myself, I wish this film didn't feel longer but actually was longer. Fleshing out the characters, even just a little, would have helped things greatly. I would avoid the English dub on this one. The corny dialog is less painful when it's subtitled. For rivers of blood and lots of destruction, give this film a look. Just turn your brain off when it comes to the story.

Queen Millennia

Queen Millennia
AKA Sen-nen Joo
Directed Masayuki Akehi
1982
121 minutes

The place: Tokyo. The time: 1999. You know what though? Tokyo 1999 looks like Pittsburgh 2076. Anyway, Yukino is just your average young lady who also happens to be a friggin' alien space queen (or whatever). She stays on the Earth to keep an eye on us stupid humans. Her one thousand year reign is up and it's time for one of her sisters (chick has a lot sisters) to take over. On Lar Metal, Yukino's planet, all of its people sleep during winter -which is a thousand years long- and they only wake up during the "momentary spring".



Well, these guardians are sick of the warlike, moronic humans who are always destroying the Earth and they want it for themselves so they can stay awake all throughout the millennium. They trick Yukino and the humans into thinking that Lar Metal is going to collide with Earth by throwing the entire planet into chaos with a wicked meteor shower. BUT IN REALITY, they are just going to get the planets close enough so that they can cross the "ephemeral bridge" (?) and take our planet for themselves. Bastards!



Yukino says, "Fuck you, fuckers!" (I'm paraphrasing) to her alien comrades and decides to rescue as many humans as she can and go to war against her own kind. With her student Hajime (one of those damn pygmy-sized male lead characters that you see over and over again in manga artists's Leiji Matsumoto work), her badass sister Selen, and a continent sized warship on her side, Yukino gives her all to stop the plot that her dumb dickhead alien shitface friends have concocted.



One of my favorite things about Queen Millennia is the score by Kitaro. It is electro-fabulousness of the highest order mixed with the most melodramatic orchestra in the universe. I fucking love it. For a 2 hour movie, I'd say the pacing is pretty good. Once you get through the first half hour or so, you'll probably get hooked. And when you've got all the gothic overtones and straight-faced, pretentious, and hokey dialog under your skin, it's hard to shake and that's a good thing. There is also some nice atmosphere, great animation, and some pretty spectacular disaster sequences.

Demon City Shinjuku

Demon City Shinjuku
AKA Makaitoshi Shinjuku
Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Released: 1988
Starring Hideyuki Hori, Hiromi Tsuru, Kiyoshi Kobayashi, Yusaka Yara
Running Time: 82 minutes
Country of Origin: Japan



Ten years after a terrible disaster that left Shinjuku in ruins but the rest of Tokyo intact, a man named Levih Rah (voiced by Kiyoshi Kobayashi), who sold his soul to hell, is preparing to call forth demons from a rift in the sky to destroy humanity. A young man named Kyoya (Hideyuki Hori), who possesses great psychic powers, rises up against him after discovering that Rah killed his father. After the president is cursed by one of Rah’s assassins, his daughter, Sayaka (Hiromi Tsuru), approaches Kyoya to ask for help. She wants to get into Shinjuku and stop Rah before her father dies from the curse. Knowing that Sayaka will go in alone if he doesn’t bring her along, Kyoya reluctantly agrees to help. Inside the cursed city, the two face many perils including demons, bandits, two-headed dogs, and Rah himself.



Silly me, I had Demon City Shinjuku mixed up with Doomed Megalopolis which I didn’t like (but should probably revisit). So I didn’t give this one a chance when I should have AKA a long ass time ago. Director Kawajiri would go on to direct Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (both based on works by author Hideyuki Kekuchi) but I really like what he did here. My only complaints about this flick are the presence of kooky side characters with annoying character designs and some very dated music queues. But there are enough haunting moments and action-packed battles to compensate for these not-so-hot stylistic complaints.



A word of warning: if you can avoid the English dub of this flick, then do it. It’s good for a laugh but the subtitled version of the Japanese is much better thanks to a great cast. The dub is quite different with its total lack of logic and loads of very silly and pointless cursing. Anime fans have no idea what a crap shoot the English dubbing was "back in the day". It wasn't that the voice actors of old were uniformly terrible or anything but most of the production companies couldn't always afford the best voice actors. It was quite rare to hear a good cast on a series or an animated feature film during the lean years of anime.



I speak from experience when I say that to find horror anime from the 80s that isn’t embarrassing or totally lame is pretty special. There isn’t even any tentacle rape in Demon City Shinjuku! (That might be a disappointment to some of you out there.) This is just the kind of thing that could have fueled my childhood imagination. And since I’m on my 8th childhood now, this is fitting in just fine. There are more cool characters than lame ones and there's also some gore on display. The story might be a little on the silly side but the short running time certainly keeps any potential meandering in check. All in all, I'm really glad I finally got around to Demon City Shinjuku.



Quotes (from the English Dub)

“You’re reached the end of your Earthly time, are you prepared?”

“I’ve got more important things to do than saving the world’s asshole.”

Holocaust 2000

Holocaust 2000, from director Alberto De Martino, is a big budget (okay, modest budget) rip-off of The Omen but I have to admit, it does have its charm. Kirk Douglas stars as a businessman who wants to set up the world's biggest nuclear reactor out in the desert in order to solve the energy crisis. Unfortunately, his son (played by Simon Ward) is the spawn of Satan and wants to use an accident at the plant to start World War III. The film features some bizarre imagery, a few decent gore sequences, and a great score by Ennio Morricone. This movie quietly showed up on DVD a couple years back under one of its many alternate titles, Rain of Fire, and it's worth a rental even if it's just for a laugh or for the lovely Agostina Belli (Night of the Devils).


Mr. Douglas, look out! Dario Argento is right behind you!


John Jacob JingleheimerJesus, his name is my name too!


Surprise! I'm not a Superman villian.


Article 16 of Mr. Douglas' Contract: Oily butt shot!


The seven-headed dragon of suck.



Here's the best death scene:

2012

Nafa returns to that fateful year once again. Isn't it weird that it's 2009 but like 2012 is already over? Does that mean that like we're dead and pseudoscience (and/or pseudonature) wins again? A little while ago, in anticipation of the real 2012, Nafa reviewed the fake 2012. It was called 2012: Doomsday. Well, that is old news, kids. Here is his take on the real 2012. I'm getting confused. I don't know where I am. It's the end of the world as we know it and I wear pants. I WEAR PANTS!

The End of the Dang World AGAIN ?!?!

Why is the world always coming to a dang end? The doomsday clock started ticking when J.Lo released her first fragrance on the world. Was that what Nostradamus was talking about when he said "I am from you! I am from the people!" Maybe that was Schopenhauer.

Anyway! Something new has been birthed onto the pages of Doomed Moviethon. It is the first Doomed Discussiethon. Nafa and I chose a movie neither of us had seen, watched it separately and then talked about it. Wow, this sounds really not exciting at all. But that's stinkin' thinkin'. Click here to see our disastrous thoughts on The Day the Sky Exploded.

Take care, kids.

The End of the Dang World (?)

My fellow moviethoner, Nafa, has contributed a review for a film from a genre that I am truly terrified of. Disaster movies freak me out! I just can't handle that shit, yo. Anyway, click here to check out Nafa's review of the miraculous miracle that is 2012: Doomsday.