Spring Anime 2014 (Part 8)

Title: Captain Earth
Release Date: April 5, 2014
Studio: Bones
Genre: Science Fiction, Mecha
Premise: Second-year high school student Daichi Manatsu is drawn to Tanegashima after a mysterious circular rainbow appears in the sky. Deep underground he finds the Earth Engine Impacter - a giant robot designed to intercept alien threats.

Verdict: Now that's how you do a mecha. The level of talent here is truly remarkable; with scripts penned by Yoji Enokido (FLCL) and direction from Takuya Igarashi (Soul Eater, Star Driver), Studio Bones delivers a solid, traditional mecha series.

Daichi Manatsu is a typical mild-mannered teenager, aside from the fact that he is calmly failing out of his second year of high school. He's also not too keen to hang out with his peers, turning down an invite to a classmate's villa. Both seem to have something to do with the boy's dead father, an astronaut who died in an accident when Daichi was just a child.

After the disk rainbow appears in the skies above the island where his father trained (and died), Daichi runs away to the island and revisits his childhood haunts. One of these hangouts happens to be a large base with hundreds of sublevels. Deep in the underbelly, he discovers a strange mute boy who leads him to a stranger elevator and...well you know how this goes.

The pilot is far from perfect. I refer to this as a "traditional" mecha because there are a lot of familiar tropes here - a troubled male protagonist with complicated feelings about his father (aka "daddy issues"), a looming (but possibly just misunderstood) alien threat, and a mysterious female lead with an adorable companion animal, just to name a few. But instead of feeling tired or exasperated, the episode left me only with feelings of nostalgia and anticipation for what's to come. This deserves a spot on your list is you have any love for all things giant and robotic.

The Fall Anime Season is Here (Part 8)!

Title: Kyousogiga
Release Date: Oct. 10, 2013
Studio: Toei Animation
Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural, Action/Adventure
Premise: A monk whose drawings come to life and his anthropomorphic bunny wife create and inhabit a fictionalized version of Kyoto for several years before disappearing. Some time later the monk's son, who has taken his name, encounters a young girl - the first human to cross into the "other" Kyoto in several years.

Verdict: Every once in a while an anime comes along that is so original, so wildly creative and ambitiously different, that it demands to be seen. At the turn of the century, it was FLCL. In 2010, it was The Tatami Galaxy. And when industry powerhouse Toei Animation trotted out the first Kyousogiga ONA roughly two years ago, I had a feeling that another masterful experiment in animation had come along. After viewing the first episode of the series proper, that feeling is quickly crystallizing into certainty.

Serving as a prologue of sorts, the first episode sets up the origins of "Kyoto" (spelled using the characters for "Mirror Capitol" and pronounced "Kyoto"). We meet Kyoto's creator, Myoe, a monk whose enchanted drawings become real. Myoe's unique talents get him relocated to a remote village in Kyoto, where he is immediately shunned by the superstitious town folk. Lonely, he draws a bunny with black hair and red eyes for companionship.

The bunny, named Koto, begins to develop feelings for her creator, and her love is noticed by a bodhisattva residing in a nearby Buddha statue. The bodhisattva offers to give Koto a human form, so that she may express her feelings for Myoe more clearly, and she obliges. At first reluctant, Myoe gradually warms to his bunny wife, eventually starting a family with her: Yakushimaru, a human boy, Kurama, a boy born from Myoe's drawing, and Yase, a demonic girl with bouncy blonde curls. When disdain continues to pour in from the outside world, Myoe and his family decide to depart to a different Kyoto that has been created from his drawings.

In this separate dimension, the family lives out many happy days until Koto reveals the unfortunate truth about her human form. Although she was given a human form to express her love for Myoe, she was supposed to relinquish it the moment her feelings were returned; although Myoe has loved her back for quite some time, she has selfishly remained in her form, not wanting to return to the world outside. Touched by her devotion, Myoe agrees to leave Kyoto with her, leaving his son Yakushimaru with the title of Myoe and appointing him to watch over Kyoto in his absence.

The story then jumps forward several years, when a fully grown Yakushimaru, now going by the name "Myoe," notices a disturbance at the entrance to Kyoto. Thinking his father has returned, he rushes to the source...only to find a magical hammer-wielding teenager named Koto and her twin younger brothers.

What brings Koto to this dimension, her connection to Myoe, and the whereabouts of the original Myoe and Koto remain to be seen. All that I know is that I'll be along for the ride. Despite the heavy exposition, newcomer director and series creator Rie Matsumoto is able to string together beautiful image after beautiful image. The streets of Mirror Capitol Kyoto are colorful, bizarre and teeming with character; Matsumoto has created an interesting world for her characters to inhabit, and if Koto's sudden arrival is any indication, it might not be the only one out there. I will definitely be tuning in to find out.

Names You Should Know: Hiroyuki Imaishi

This is part of a new series I've wanted to do about some of the less-well known names in anime. I'm not sure how it is in other countries, but there isn't much familiarity with the anime industry in America. Sure, any self-respecting convention-goer may be able to rattle off a whole string of names, but the average American would be hard-pressed to name one...and that one name would probably be Hayao Miyazaki (thanks, Disney). Fortunately, just as there is more than one great director running around Hollywood, there are plenty more great anime directors in the Land of the Rising Sun. Here's one:

Hiroyuki Imaishi. This name probably means nothing to you now, but you've definitely heard of him. He got his start doing key animation on projects like Diebuster, Kare Kano, and FLCL (he directed the manga scenes), but his big break came when he made his debut as series director for one of the greatest mecha of all time: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The show went on to win the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival (think Anime Oscars) and developed a devoted fan base.

Perhaps too devoted.

But before he was the man behind TTGL, Imaishi directed a short feature-length film about a man with a TV for a head and a woman with a panda-esque mark on her eye who are sent to a maximum-security prison on the moon (seriously. I'm not making this up). The film only gets weirder from there and it's absolutely wonderful, a bizarre, action-packed fever dream of drill penises, cyborg wardens, Uzi-touting babies, and copious amounts of explosions. It may lack the polish of TTGL, but Dead Leaves is a perfect display of Imaishi's vintage style. The heady blend of energetic, exaggerated animation, over-the-top action and unbridled, almost recklessly creative art design have since come to define his unique work.

The influences behind Imaishi's rise to prominence are as colorful and varied as the work itself. Imaishi started off at Gainax, working on the projects I mentioned above under the great Hideaki Anno, who is himself a protege of Miyazki. He also cites his main influence as the late Yoshinori Kanada, a frequent Miyazaki collaborator whose animation style has inspired an entire generation of animators.

You will never be as cool as this picture.

In spite of, or perhaps because of, his star-studded past, things don't appear to be slowing down for Imaishi any time soon. Following his success with the epic TTGL and the epically silly Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt, he has left Gainax to form his own studio, Trigger. They've hit the ground running, premiering a ridiculously, hilariously low-budget ONA called Inferno Cop (think Japanese Newgrounds cartoon in terms of quality), and following it up with the more traditionally animated Little Witch Academia. The former tickled reviewers' funny bones and the latter spawned a follow-up Kickstarter which reached its goal in just three hours. And it seems Imaishi-san and co. aren't stopping there, as work on his newest series, Kill La Kill, has already gotten underway.

With so many links to the past, it should be no surprise that Hiroyuki Imaishi is anime's future.