Film review : The Virgin Psychics (2015)

 Genre:  Sci-Fi /Comedy/Boobs

  Kamogawa Yoshiro is a fairly ordinary Japanese teenager with a  crush on one of his classmates, embarassing parents and recurring dreams about a mysterious girl who may be his destiny.  Who he may also have made a connection with when they were both in the womb.

   Anyway one night he's having a wank when a comet passes overhead and the next day he has the ability to hear other people's thoughts.

 Meanwhile other people also developed psychic powers and you know right away how that's going to go.

 Can Yoshiro and a team of other ESP-wielding misfits save the town from danger? Will Yoshiro ever meet the girl of his destiny?  And why are all the girls in town only wearing underwear?

I saw a trailer for this and it looked like exactly the sort of Japanese weirdness I might enjoy.

 

 Weird, yes. Enjoy?  Still not entirely sure. 

Whether you get on with  this film or not depends on how much Japanese-style perviness you can tolerate. Years of anime have left me with quite a high threshold and even then I found myself thinking "Dudes, dial it down a bit."  

 I think it was the bit where a middle-aged man hands a teenage boy a fleshlight which caused that particular reaction. Or it could have been the bit where one of Yoshiro's team-mates uses his newly discovered teleportation powers to wave his willy at the girls locker room.  

 

 The second problem is that at 115 minutes the film is both long but still trying to cram too much in.  There's way too many characters for a start. I get that this is based on a manga and the producers wanted to fit all the regulars in but you could easily have dropped a half-dozen - or kept them back for the sequel. 

  

  The weird part is, after an hour plus of wanking gags, knob jokes, boob jokes, gratuitous underwear and gratuitous groping you suddenly get a touching scene where Yoshiro has an actual emotional moment with one of the female leads.  That doesn't last long. 

  The Virgin Psychics is an ..interesting viewing experience. I think you have to be in the right mood and willing to roll with the silliness.  

Approach with caution.

DVD Review: Silver (1999)

  A family is brutally murdered by a secretive yet powerful criminal society.  Years later the surviving daughter is recruited by Japan's Secret Service.
  Jun Shirogane is sent undercover as a Woman wrestler; her mission - to deal with criminals who cannot be touched by regular means and in the process avenge her slaughtered family.

  I saw this one on an IMDB list and "Silver" seemed to tick a lot of my boxes.  I like wrestling. I like women's wrestling. I like weird Japanese films  and the Takashi Miike films I've seen thus far were pretty cool.

  The thing is, I watched "Hara-Kiri" and "13 Assassins"  which are Takashi Miike paying tribute to the classic samurai movies.  Miike is also famous for certain other films which , I gather, are notorious for pushing the boundaries of taste.

  What I was expecting was something daft but fun, where a spandex-clad cutie beats up improbable bad guys. (Basically a live-action Cutey Honey minus the shape-changing.)  There really isn't much of that in this film.

  What I got was a film where a dominatrix pisses into a glass - while doing a backward crab pose no less - then forces a cowering banker to drink it.  

  Just so we're clear on this, I'm not remotely entertained by that kind of thing.

 I could also have done without the overlong sex-scene, or the whipping scene or the bit where a crucified man gets his horse-sized dick smacked with a studded paddle.

 By contrast, if you're expecting much wrestling in a movie about a female wrestler, you're wasting your time.
  The showdown between our heroine and the evil dominatrix comes in two acts, neither of them much to write home about.
  And when a promising new villain is introduced there's some talking, a tiny bit of scrapping, more talking and then the film suddenly cuts off. Since there was never a sequel I guess we'll never know what the bloody hell that was all about.

 I have a theory that Miike was paying tribute to some of the tough-gal anime/movies of yesteryear . Cutey Honey is one reference point. The yo-yo-wielding heroine of Sukeban Deka is another, what with Jun's favourite weapon being rapid-fire coin-flicking.  I don't remember anybody drinking piss in either of those but maybe that was cut out of the UK releases, I dunno.

My alternative theory is that the director was just trolling everybody.

"Silver" is not a fun film to watch. Even without the unpleasant elements, there's very little here to get excited about because too much of the film is dull, half-hearted and barely coherent.

To sum up: I did not enjoy "Silver"  and having to watch somebody drinking piss is only one of the reasons why.

 

Phantom Excaliver: Fighting Evil with The Power of METAL

  Japan has a proven track record of doing things a bit differently. Pick anything you like and the Japanese will dd that little. unique twist to it and come up with something different. Animation, horror movies, wrestling, comics..and music!

  Melodeath/Power Metal outfit Phantom Excaliver already stand out from the pack thanks to frontman Kacchang's spiky. yellow barnet but their latest video is worth seeing.

  In the promo for 幻の聖剣 (Phantom Holy sword) the band pay tribute to Super Sentai shows by becoming superheros.  The fact that they clearly had a budget of £8.50 just makes it even more entertaining.

Watch and see for yourself. 

That's All Folks

Anime From The Vaults: Love City (1986)

In which I dig out an anime cassette that I haven't watched in ...(counts on fingers)...about 10 years.

  Tokyo, somewhere in the future.  "Headmeters" are powerful espers who can do all sorts of cool psionic shit - flying, blowing stuff up, all that jazz. Kei was a failed attempt at creating a Headmeter who has done a runner with his daughter Ai,  ex cop Raiden and a large cat that's way smarter than it ought to be. 
 Kei's bosses want Kei back or dead. And they really want Ai back since she's some sort of living psionic booster.
  In the process stuff gets broken, people die messily and some seriously weird shit happens. 

  During the initial anime boom the various companies quickly established a House Style. Manga Video tended towards SciFi and Horror aimed at the "Lad" crowd, the bloodier the better (Urotsukidoji, Fist Of The North Star) . Anime Projects released gentler, subtitled material forthe more hardcore Anime fanbase (Urusei Yatsura, Oh My Goddess)  while Kiseki sat somewhere in between the two (Black Magic M66, Plastic Little)

 And Western Connection released a bunch of stuff that they could get hold of cheaply. quickly slap subtitles on and dump onto the market with infamously poor tape quality.

 Even so, sometimes they released some decent stuff. The Lupin III movies and Devil Hunter Yohko were definitely worth buying. Ladius...um...not so much.
  So I had to wonder how well "Love City" would stand up after all this time.

For an anime from the 1980s, Love City holds up surprisingly well although some bits better than others.

 The animation isn't bad, especially given the era, although it is a bit strange seeing certain characters mugging like they just popped in from the "Urusei Yatsura" comedy next door.
 Espers making people explode followed by borderline slapstick is just odd.

Does this look like a man in a Dystopian SF/Horror?

On the subject of weird, there's some creative ideas in this OVA, starting with the aforementioned Headmeters
"Why are they called that?" I hear you ask cautiously.

  Every time a Headmeter uses their power, a handy guide appears on their forehead. Head...Meter. See?

 The serious looking redhead above is K2. Later on she gets a costume change.

 If I haven't said it already, this is not a comedy so don't ask me why she's dressed as a bunny. 

One of the villains is a wrinkly old dude in a robot suit. 

The mental image you just had is wrong. 

Here he is. 

 I don't know what that liquid is but I'm fairly certain it's at least 40% piss. 

Then there's this bit. 

We haven't got to the ending yet. The ending is where it gets really weird. 

 Allow me to go off on a tangent for a minute.  I've been watching anime now for about 20 years so I'm kinda used to it. 

But back when this stuff was just starting to trickle into the UK there was nothing around to compare. "Mindblowing" is not the word. Anime introduced me to whole new levels of bizarre. 

  The storyline is fairly simple by contrast. Bad guys want the girl. Good guys want to stop them. Bad guys want to bring about a messy armageddon. Good guys want to stop that too.  Simple but it's done decently and with some little wrinkles to keep things interesting. 

It goes without saying that the climax involves flesh squirming and mutating in ways that only happen in horror anime. Luckily there's no tentacle rape involved, which as far as I'm concerned is a bonus.  

To sum up: Love City is very much a product of it's era and is not without flaws. That doesn't mean it's without merit and if you like your anime bloody and a bit strange then Love City might be worth keeping an eye out for.   

DVD Review: DeadBall (2011)

Once Jubeh Yakyu was a teenage baseball prodigy, destined for stardom. But when he accidentally killed his father with a super-powerful baseball pitch, Jubeh abandoned baseball and became the most feared juvenile delinquent in Japan.
 After a wild rampage of mayhem, murder and dropping televisions on people, Jubeh was caught and thrown into the infamous Pterodactyl Reformatory.
 And the only way he's getting out is to put together a baseball team and lead them to victory.

Do you like sports movies?

Do you like prison sports movies where a defiant rebel with a troubled past has to lead a team of misfits to glory?

Do you like Japanese prison sports movies where a defiant rebel and his team of violent misfits are forced to play in a  Baseball league run by Nazis, against a team of mass-murdering psychotic schoolgirls? 

You might like "DeadBall" then. 

  For , I dunno, the first five minutes or so you might think you're watching a normal sports movie as a teenage boy practises baseball pitches with his aging father, while the younger brother looks on with hero worship in his eyes.
 But then the youngster leaps about a mile into the air and unleashes a  fiery missile that turns's dad's face into a bloody pulp. That sets the tone for the rest of the film:  Over the top violence, and a procession of sports film, prison film and delinquent film cliches lining up to get a slap in the mouth and their nipples twisted, all done with daft humour and a knowing wink at the audience.

 There's a  fight between Jubeh and Headmistress Ishihara like something out of an "Itchy and Scratchy" cartoon, for instance. Then there's the way Jubeh's cellmate Four Eyes runs through the team's various misdemeanors (Using TNT in a boxing match and so forth) before going on to explain why the girls of St. Black Dahlia High School scare the shit out of him. And the baseball match itself is an utter bloodbath.

 "DeadBall" is not a subtle film. Not even close. It's the sort of absurd gorefest only the Japanese seem able to produce. The small matter of the effects being a bit crap just adds to the enjoyment.
 I loved it.

If you've ever wanted to see a cross between "Shaolin Soccer" and "Ilsa: She-wolf Of The SS" then check out "DeadBall"

 Time for some screenshots.   I'm not posting any of the bloody bits.

Jubeh arrives at his new home. 

Yes, he is wearing a poncho.

No, I don't know why.

It's not exactly the most bizarre thing in this film. 

Jubeh's new friend - the gentle Four Eyes.

Ilsa the warden really enjoys her job. Especially the cavity searches.

Headmistress Ishihara has some interesting political leanings.

And a sidekick who is creepy-looking as all hell.

 The demure young ladies of St. Black Dahlia high school introduce themselves 

Interesting choice of uniform.

Trailer here if you're interested.

 That's all folks. 

  

10 Things I Learned From Anime

1. It makes perfect sense to entrust a sophisticated military project to emotionally damaged, hormonal teenagers.  For extra effectiveness, try to ensure they’ve never practised with the weapons system.
 Or even seen it before.
2. Fighting spirit will overcome superior numbers, combat experience, more advanced technology and the inconsequential matter of the other guy being a foot taller and built like Hulk Hogan.  Keep getting back up. Every time he punches you in the face it wears him out just a little more.
3. Pint-sized, teenage girl v army of heavily armed commandos?… bet on the girl every time. Every single schoolgirl in Japan could kick Buffy’s ass and steal her dinner money.
4. No matter how puny you are or how much life keeps kicking you in the face, there is a beautiful girl out there who will love you for who you are.
5. Once one girl decides you are worth bothering with, you will suddenly find yourself surrounded by  hotties. Sadly quite a few of them will be utterly nuts.  And by “Quite a few” I mean “Nearly all of them”
6. A girl putting you in hospital every other day means she really likes you.  Or it could mean she genuinely hates your guts. She doesn’t know herself so you stand no bloody chance. Either way, get used to bruises because you‘re never allowed to tell her “Fuck off, you loonie.”
7.  There is always another Martial Arts technique you need to learn.  And you will need it because every time you defeat a bad guy, another one steps forward to start making your life miserable.
8.  It is generally considered polite to let the other person finish their Transformation Sequence before wading into them.  If it’s a magical girl show, you might as well pull out a book. This will take a while.
9. Japanese schools are bloody lethal.  If the local delinquents aren’t battering each other with baseball bats, then  it’s only because the Karate club put them in hospital -  when they weren’t busy fighting the Judo club, the Boxing club, the Chess club and that clique of super powered prefects that even the yakuza are scared of.  Oh and half the schools in Tokyo seem to be built over some sort of Hellmouth.
 That might explain the overabundance of super powered teenage girls. Natural selection. All the rest got eaten.
And finally...
10.  Teachers are enormous pervs. Female teachers especially so.
 Somehow an oversexed 20-something rubbing her boobs in his face will be the boy's fault and he will get hit with a desk.
 And the male teacher trying to get at look at the 15 year old's knickers?  Might end up in hospital but he's never going to get fired.  Because school boards will ignore everything up to and including the school getting blown to tiny bits provided the exam results are good.

 Let me know if there's anything I missed.

Been Watching: Redline and Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack

 Today's post is devoted to a couple of anime DVDs I watched the other day  and I suspect I could not find a more startling contrast if I tried.
 Let's start with:

 Redline (2009)

  "Redline" is the biggest and baddest motor-race in the entire Galaxy, where a select few test themselves and their machines to the limit. There's no restrictions on engine-size, very few safety measures and firing missiles at the competition is actively encouraged. 

  To add an extra element of fun, this year the contest is being held on the fiercely xenophobic Roboworld and the locals have promised that any "Redline" racer even arriving in their atmosphere is going to get turned into a cloud of singed atoms.

  Bequiffed Human racer "Sweet JP" made it through to Redline on a fluke. His car is in bits, his support team detest each other and The Mob are looking over his shoulder but what the hell, he's pretty sure he can win anyway.   And he's just met a girl he rather likes.

 Pity she's one of the other racers.

  There is no other way of describing this anime but "OTT".  I mean there are lot's of other words I could use: "Colouful", "Bold" and "Brash" all come to mind. "Restrained", however, doesn't.
  The colour palette is all bright colours, the character designs are gloriously unhinged and if you asked a ten year old boy to design a racing car for the year 3000, he'd come up with something like these, only the Redline cars have more engine, more firepower, more everything.
Think "Wacky Races" updated for the 21st century and created by petrolheads fuelled on Red Bull and bad amphetamines.
  But is the animation any good?
It's by Studio Madhouse, so what do you think?
 Everything is so bright and- one the race gets started - so intense  that visually, this is the most jawdropping thing I've seen in quite a while.
 Provided you don''t want your anime tainted by anything resembling reality, this one is enormous fun. Here's the trailer. Play loud after eating lots of sugar

Compare and contrast with :

Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack (2012)

  Newly engaged Kaori and her friends Erika and Aki arrive in Okinawa for a holiday. With the three being quite different personalities there's a certain amount of tension bubbling under the surface but frankly this is a minor concern compared to the large, angry shark on mechanical legs that just smashed it's way in through the window and tried to eat them. 

 Understandably shaken by the experience Kaori tries to contact Tadashi, her fiance, but is horrified to discover that Tokyo has been overrun by scuttling fish-cyborgs and Tadashi isn't answering his phone... 

  I picked up this film expecting it to be goofy monster-fun and I really should have looked at the credits list more closely because "Gyo: Tokyo Fish Attack" is based on a manga by Junji Ito. 

 Over the years I have read  precisely two manga that have seriously disturbed me and Junji Ito wrote both of them. (Uzumaki and  The Enigma Of Amigara Fault )

 So less "Goofy monster fun" and more "Weapons-Grade Nightmare Fuel". 
 The premise may sound silly - and it is - but as Kaori struggles to get back to Tokyo the film gradually descends into something darker and weirder.  Without wanting to give too much away, the invasion of fish is only the curtain raiser and by the end we're looking at something between "Zombie Apocalypse" and "Return of The Old Gods."
 The animation is functional rather than pretty, the characters especially having that "flat" look you see in  some tv anime. The animation crew do make up for it with their work on the fish-beasties and the scene where a Jumbo jet tries to land on an infested airfield is quite impressive, as is the initial shark-attack.
 Apparently there's a lot of changes from the original manga -  the story is condensed quite a bit, characters are mucked about with and the ending is quite different - so  if you're a fan of the manga you may not like this.  I, on the other hand, couldn't really say I enjoyed it but it was an interesting viewing experience.
Problem is, I'm confidently expecting my upcoming nightmares to feature lots of scuttling mechanical legs. 
Trailer here if you're interested:

 

 

WTF? Japan

  For years Japanese game shows have had a reputation for being...how can I put this...

Sadistic
Mental
Utterly bizarre.

 For example:

If anybody knows what the Holy Blue Hell is going on here please explain.   

WTF? Japan.

 I have a rule that runs like this: No matter what the weirdest thing you have ever seen might be, the Japanese will find a way to top it.

 A more concise version: 

In support of this theory I shall offer the following evidence:

NSFW

 Well you have to admire the choreography if nothing else.

Bloke in leather teaches kids to cook while wiggling disturbingly

Japan is known for some of the most technical, hardhitting wrestling in the world.

And then there's stuff like this:

And this;

The prosecution rests.

Anime I've been watching lately: Strike Witches.

An alternate 1940s Earth is invaded by aliens. When conventional weapons don't work the military is forced to draft in young women with magical abilities to battle the invaders.
So is this a gritty war story? Or an Evanglion-style deconstruction?


  So that would be "No" then.
One of the things I love about anime is the sheer levels of WTF? obtained. Let's take this series as an example.
The main characters are a gaggle of teenage girls, each based on a real life WW2 fighter ace. . Who are witches. And turn into catgirls when they use their powers. And who fly into combat with propellors attached to their legs, wielding a selection of lovingly drawn WW2 machine guns.
At no point is it ever explained why they are unable to wear trousers.

Strike Witches is - mostly - a goofy, fanservice heavy affair where all the cast could have been slotted into a harem comedy or suchlike without much effort. When the aliens show up you do get some surprisingly good dogfights. And there is some attempt to give each girl her own character and something approaching a backstory.  But when an entire episode revolves around the girls stealing each other's underwear  you know that Akira this isn't. It is entertaining, though, in a frothy, vaguely guilty sort of way.
Then, as seems to happen a lot,  Strike Witches suddenly pushes the drama button for the last few episodes and you find yourself watching a final battle that has to be seen to be believed.
 Here's a link to an AMV. Since it does include lots of butt-shots of teenage girls watching it at work is probably a bad idea.