Good morning, Princess Kana

Monday, January 07, 2008

If you watch as much anime as I do (and I know you don't unless your name is, say, "Blair"), you may find shortcuts to dismissing anime. I have my "intro song is sung by a male artist" disqualifier, and now I've been able to codify another one. A huge danger sign is when I feel compelled to hit the 4x fast-forward during an episode and I can still keep up with it. You shouldn't have wasteful downtime during an animated show unless you really want to flaunt how lazy you are. Or the name of your production company is Gainax. All three discs I received from Netflix caused me to fast-forward through them at some point. This means they're all doomed, even though two of them are the zenith of guilty pleasures.

Let's cover the genuinely bad show first. That would be Gilgamesh: Tablet 01: Orphans of the Apocalypse: Okay You Can Stop Reading Subtitles Now I'm Just Making Them Up. Just Gilgamesh for short. It's a show about the end of the world and is the most poorly directed garbage I've ever seen in my entire life. Here's the setup: a bunch of scientists working in modern day Mess-o-potamia have uncovered (or maybe constructed) a giant eye-shaped structure in the middle of the desert. Since it's plenty hot down there everyone dresses in kooky cult-like black robes. I actually question whether or not these bozos paid attention in college, as evidenced by this conversation between two scientists standing in front of an ancient wall engraving.

Male scientist: "Ishtar... a goddess of ancient Babylonia. Ishtar rules over love and fertility, and also war."
Female scientist: "Kidokoro, you know about all this? You've been studying."
Male scientist: "I'm just repeating what Dr. Madoka said."

Obviously it doesn't occur to these dolts to review the history of the civilization they're digging up. Anyway, there's something powerful deep underground at the center of the eye, explained by no one and giving me lame Central Dogma flashbacks. It could be dangerous to unearth it, some think, and after a tense meeting... the head science team decides not to do so! This, at least, surprised me. But then some lunatic runs down and opens the forbidden chamber.

Here's the problem: we just met these guys. We don't know what they're doing, what's so dangerous or why anyone should care. The viewer has no emotional attachment to anything at this point so the scene starts with zero dramatic tension. It gets worse because there's no attempt to stop the guy who's running down corridors to end the world. They don't try to put him on intercom, call his cell phone or even scream furtively at the monitors as he dooms us all. The music tries to be exciting but everyone else may as well be milking cows. And then he reaches his destination, opens some door and the world ends.

I guess. You can't be an "orphan of the apocalypse" without an apocalypse. What actually happens is that the sky becomes a mirror (but light still gets in from the sun) and, as an added bonus, electricity stops working. We spend the rest of the first disc with two ugly, ugly orphan children on the run from violent loan collectors. Maybe you don't believe me. Whoever is animating those kids doesn't believe in lips. Or eyes. Somehow this girl is able to keep her hair in that impossible feathered look but her lips (and his) look bloodless, like they're experiencing the onset of necrosis. They spend a lot of time looking silently at each other, hiding silently, creeping silently or acting horrified silently. Even when they're running it's nearly silent. This is when the fast-forward button came on.

Eventually the two deadbeats take shelter in a creepy house along with three kids who dress exactly like the guys from Organization XIII in Kingdom Hearts 2. Black on black, with a little black for color. Turns out these kids have super powers, as do the other evil kids who fight them on the roof of the house. Now, this is where I determined the animators had left the building. At one point a wall collapses and the deadbeats get to watch the fight outside. On one of the house's spires is a sort of raven monster staring down an evil girl with orange-ish hair. Cut to the raven monster. Cut to the girl. Cut to the horrified kids inside. Then back to the raven monster. Cut and cut and cut over and over again: not rapidly, but languidly, and with absolutely no changes each time you cut. Then, if you have any sense at all, eject the disc and move on to the next show.

That would be Kirameki Project, one of the guilty pleasures I mentioned earlier. It's two awful shows in one: a needlessly sincere all-male giant fighting robot show and a tooth-rottingly saccharine girly robot show. There are only two reasons to watch this thing: admiring the CGI robot animation and wondering what kind of total introvert would design Rincle (rhymes with tinkle), the most obnoxious creature ever made, synthetic or not.

Giant robot shows are obviously a dime a dozen, but I will give Kirameki project credit for trying. Oh sure: the crew of the robot are all boring anime stereotypes, the weapons are just plain silly and the reason they pilot the robot going around beating up other robots makes no sense whatsoever. But there's a real grace in its movements and those of its enemies, even if the main robot is named "Big Mighty" and resembles Big O to a remarkable degree. If you make the mistake of subjecting yourself to this much bad anime you'll come to appreciate the finer details, even if that's all there is to appreciate. Our super manly robot is in the process of beating up all the other super manly robots on Earth, and so it arrives at the tiny Mediterranean island nation of Genes (not Geneon?) where the girly robot show takes over.

Genes is ruled (a forgiving term) by three princesses: the sane one, the insane busty one, and the quiet brainiac. Every morning they stand at a long table and solemnly recite this speech:

"To our mother, who watches over us from another land: in your absence, our glorious nation is in the care of your three princesses, and we promise to deliver another day of peace and hope for the future."

At one end of the table is a wide painting of their mother. They reverently gaze at her as the music swells and I'm rolling around on the couch, choking from laughter. Oh wow. Kirameki Project bills itself as a comedy but there are definitely a lot more yuks than intended. There's even some horror. Accidental horror, but horror nonetheless. Here's our introduction to Princess Kana and her #1 robot Rincle, the one with the red hair. Yes, Princess Kana built those robots as her friends. It looks like an absolute torture chamber to me, but you know how girls are.

Maybe you do, but I know for a fact that the creators of Kirameki Project don't. In a fit of morbid curiosity I watched an extra on the disc and got to see the production crew. Here's another shocker: it's 100% male. A greasy looking guy with shoulder length black hair was demonstrating the 3D robots to the girl who plays Rincle (and was playing an interviewer that day). I wonder if she was their input on the fairer sex.

Kana has constructed a giant robot girl and reluctantly asks her friend (the robot) to defend Genes against the male robot intruder. Her robot ends up beats the living daylights out of Big Mighty using her purse. Watching a ten-story pink robot emerge from a fifteen-story doll house and teleport during combat like Vegeta is really something else.

The grave I've dug for myself is pretty deep by now. I don't know if I can reasonably explain why I like this show (except for the dull Big Mighty parts that I fast-forward through). Rincle's obnoxiousness reminds me a lot of Steel Angel Kurumi, but this robot girl emotes differently and has a narrower range. Some scenes in Genes deal with the busty princess in her invisible power armor as she tries to prove herself a worthy defender of the kingdom. They're designed to be mortifying, watch-through-your-hands examples of excess and they certainly succeed. In the end it's all harmless fun, designed to burn through only a small amount of your dignity.

My true mortification comes from admitting I love the show Space Pirate Mito. Let me summarize the plot and see if you don't immediately go insane: Mito is an alien space pirate who is supposedly a mature adult on her home planet but looks like a grade-schooler. Twenty years ago she went to Earth, fell in love with a native and bore a son called Aoi. Dad died ten years ago. She tells him she's a fashion model in New York and visits now and then (inside a suit that makes her look like a normal woman), but as the series starts she decides to settle down and reveals the truth to him.

Aoi doesn't take it very well. In addition, the evil Galaxy Police are in disguise on Earth to try and capture Mito and her son. They act as the villain-of-the-week, and the young female Galaxy Police officer goes undercover at Aoi's school and ends up falling in love with the dweeb. Nothing special, really. The animation in the show ranges from poor to terrible and Mito can switch between compassionate and motherly to jealous and irrational whenever it suits her.

I know it's supposed to be a kid's show, but what saves Space Pirate Mito for me are the rare moments it generates emotional warmth. When Mito first gets to hold her son in her own real (tiny) arms, she sounds genuinely moved. I also like how the romance between Aoi and the undercover sister is handled: it's your standard mildly forbidden fruit angle, but I enjoy hearing her conflicted thoughts as she struggles to not pull out her space laser and use the kid as a hostage. Oh, and this is also the first show where the cute space alien isn't trying to get our hero into the sack. When Mito says all she wants is to be called "mom" I breathe a huge sigh of relief. Take that, UFO Ultramaiden Valkyrie.

For the curious (i.e. myself, re-reading this blog in two years wondering what the heck I was thinking) I present the opening of Space Pirate Mito.