Metropolis

2001-05-17

I saw a new movie today called "Metropolis" with some relation to Tezuka Osamu the creator of the Mighty Atom and considered the father of Japanese Anime.

Anyway, one of the supposedly unique things about it is that it's CG mixed with anime. Of course wasn't that done not only in Golgo 13 like 10 years ago but also in every Disney animation since "The Rescuers Down Under" so I'm not exactly sure what the big deal was supposed to be.

I was a little interesting in that the seemed to mix styles. There are robots that look semi−cg. There are characters that look like current typical anime, there are also a couple of characters that look like old style 1950s anime.

One thing that did stick out as that for the most part, unlike most Japanese animation this one is actually animated. Full body movements, mostly full facial movements. It still looks like 4 to 6 hertz vs Disney's 12 but it's a big step up from most anime.

One the other hand it wasn't a very good story. I was in Japanese so there's a strong possibility that because I didn't really understand the dialog that maybe I would have liked it better with subtitles or in English but judging from the audience my impression was that the Japanese didn't care for it much either.

It's by−line is "can a robot fall in love" which is funny because it sounds like at least by theme it's very similar to A.I. the new movie by Spielberg coming out soon.

I'm really curious what makes the majority of Japanese anime, movies in particular, so bad. The stereotype is that the story is not well thought out at all and the movie mostly consists of ideas that apparently the director thought would "look cool". Like, "hey, it would look cool if 3 men in dark suits came out with guns and briefcases right here". "Um, but isn't this supposed to be about Alice in Wonderland?" "Yea, but it's *cool* so lets put it in". That how I often feel watching anime movies and actually most Japanese movies in general.

There are exceptions of course, those are the ones that make it to the states (usually), the really bad stuff has *generally* been filtered out before it makes it overseas.

In other news a new 'Ghibi Studio' movie is coming out next month called "Sen to chihiro no kamikakushi" which I guess translated is "Mysterious Disappearence of Sen and Chihiro". I'm not sure if that's the correct translation or not. But, the trailers look really cool. Some girl shows up at some large temple and asks to be let in (to study) but she is told buy an old witch at the reception desk (after being whisked across the room by magic) that this is not a place for humans and they show inside and it looks like a sento (public bath) for strange creatures (like the kinds you seen in the netherworld in Beetleguese.) I have higher hope for that one.

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