whamontree Reviews

The Real Ghostbusters (1986–1991)

Probably the only cartoon spin-off to improve upon its source

[23 November 2001]

The Real Ghostbusters took rather blandly written, live-action movie characters and made them real. I liked the cartoon characters better as a kid and I still like them better now, nearly 20 years later. The original voice cast was excellent and the animation was probably the best out there at the time. Shuki Levy's musical score was awesome, both his own, original music and his pumped-up version of Ray Parker, Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" theme. I wish I could find a copy of the score. The music actually enhanced the series, set a mood. Most cartoon music these days is just there, just noise. Some of the earlier episodes ("Do Not Open" springs to mind) were absolutely fantastic, instant classics. I never minded the lack of an ongoing storyline; I've always liked the new adventure every week format.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. Most of the original creative staff left, including Lorenzo Music, Arsenio Hall, and Laura Summers, three of the major voice talents. The new team tried hard but couldn't capture the magic. The Real Ghostbusters entered a downward slide into shoddy animation and poor scripting until it finally died, all but forgotten.

Here's hoping Kid Rhino or someone else will come out with the first season or two on DVD!

UFO Robo Grendizer (1975–1977)

A fun series

[18 November 2001]

There are at least two United States versions of this series. One (the superior in my opinion) was part of Jim Terry's Force Five, a show composed of five different animated series from Japan. Another is a feature-length "movie" composed of four or five of the show's pivotal episodes spliced together. The Force Five version went all the way through the original series while the "movie" only covers the first "boss villain's" introduction and defeat.

Either way you get it, Grandizer is a fun show. The hero, Duke Fleed (aka Orion Quest) is an experienced pilot right off the bat so they can skip the tedious training and such that seems to be the mainstay of most super and giant robot shows. Grandizer is also interesting in that he doesn't triumph because he is much more powerful than his foes (though he is powerful), he wins because he's *better* than they are.

Duke himself is an alien, physically superior to humans. Also, he is the reluctant hero type. However, he knows it was his fault the Vegan empire came to Earth and it's his responsibility to fight them. He only hesitates for the briefest of moments before unearthing Grandizer and heading into combat once more. His angst is there but not the alpha and omega of his character. Contrast this to shows like Evangelion, in which the characters' angst was all there was to them.

The supporting cast, including Koji Kabuto from "Mazinger Z", come off well with the exception of a midget cowboy apparently put in just to make fun of Americans. Fortunately, he doesn't do much. It's a lot of fun to see how Duke will prove himself superior to Koji from episode to episode. It's as if Go Nagai, creator of both "Grandizer" and "Mazinger Z", didn't really like Koji and wanted to humiliate him at every opportunity.

If you can find the "movie" version, pick it up. It's a lot of fun especially if you enjoy "old-school" super robots. The Force Five version is more satisfying, if you can get ahold of it. I am unaware of any subtitled in English versions of the original Japanese unless you can track down a fan sub.

Pryde of the X-Men (1989 TV Movie)

If you don't care if cartoons make sense or not . . .

[18 November 2001]

Pryde of the X-Men is an interesting failure. On one hand, the animation is outstanding for its time. On the other hand, unless you already read the comic you wouldn't know what the heck was going on. And it's pretty gosh-darn stupid.

The animation, particularly the use of shadows and the particle effects, are impressive. I suspect Marvel had this animated in Japan, the style shows through. If not, the animators did a good job of emulating the efforts of most anime studios at the time. The characters all look cool and Wolvie has his brown costume (my favorite).

Unfortunately, nobody put much effort into cohering all those awesome battle scenes into a story. I mean, they didn't even try. There isn't a plot, things happen. Magneto escapes from the back of a tanker truck. Professor X introduces Kitty Pryde to the X-Men. Magneto and Juggernaut attack the X-Mansion. Not an X-Men fan? What I've typed got you a bit confused? Don't know who these people are or their relationships to one another? The cartoon won't help.

The script of a children's cartoon needn't be outstanding literature but it should at least put forth a minimum of effort into expounding on who everyone is, what they're doing, and why they're doing it. Take the more recent Fox X-Men series as an example. In the first episode, the X-Men save a little girl from the robots trying to capture her. You get to know everyone's name, their respective powers, and that they're the good guys. You get good action scenes and good exposition. Here, in Pryde of the X-Men, you get the X-Men yelling at a little girl and some other guys knocking over stuff while particle effects flash and swirl about the screen. Sure, it'll pique a kid's attention but after two or three episodes he's going to quit watching because he won't know what's going on. Yes, that does matter to children.

Perhaps the biggest failure of Pryde of the X-Men is the "subplot" (I wince at using any form of the word 'plot' in reference to this show) regarding Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler is one ugly dude, he looks about like a cathedral gargoyle. Kitty is scared of him but later comes to realize that just because he's ugly doesn't mean he's evil. That's all fine and good IF HE WASN'T A TOTAL PERV! When he meets Kitty he reaches out to her (and I really hope this was unintentional on the animator's part) like he's going to grab at her breasts. He practically drools on her. Later, when he rescues a little girl from a fiery inferno (more particle effects!) he, well, puts his hands about her bum and her crotch. I remember that from when I was a kid, too. I wasn't scared of how he looked, I was afraid he grab me and talk soothingly to me while fondling my private parts. The way he acts, he's the last person you'd want your kids watching on a weekly basis. And his costume is apparently a red, v-shaped vest with nothing underneath. Brrrr.

All in all, good eye candy for its time but it lacks enough direction and coherence to keep even small children watching. That's probably why no one picked it up as a series. That and Wolverine's Aussie accent was really bad.

Hen (1996)

This "sex-comedy" delivers very little of either.

[13 November 2001]

The premise of "Hen" a.k.a. "Strange Love" is this: A very large-breasted girl.

That's about it.

The two episodes I saw weren't very interesting. The girl models as a way to support herself, since she lives alone, but also attends a university which forbids its students to work. To disguise herself, she wears tinted contact lenses. One of her professors manages to recognize her in a commercial, despite this awesome camouflage, by her breasts. Face it, there aren't that many ZZZ-cup women walking around. He blackmails her and she agrees to "stay over" at his place, with predictable results.

The second episode brings up that old standby guaranteed to perk the interest of any hormonally-overdriven young man: lesbianism. There's a new girl at the university who awakens those special feelings in our heroine. Her boyfriend isn't all that happy about it, though.

Each episode is overlong by at least 15 minutes, skimping on both the "sex" and the "comedy". There is a decent amount of animated nudity, if that's your thing, but it isn't as explicit as it could (and probably should) be. There was only one moment that made me laugh, and nothing that titillated me (forgive the pun). About the only recommending factor I can think of is that this is "clean", not full of phallic tentacles violently molesting helpless schoolgirls.

Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996)

One of the absolute stupidest TV series of all time

[13 September 2001]

Sorry, boys and ghouls, this show was not scary, nor funny, nor dramatic, nor anything but stupid. Did you notice that no matter what crime anyone committed they always got the death penalty? "What? You stole an old lady's purse? It's the chair for you!" And, oh yes, sentence was carried out as soon as they left the court room. I also liked the way the series' "zombie" episodes kept true to the tradition of the verrrrrrrrry slowly moving things "paralyzing people with fear" so that they could actually get close enough to someone to make the kill. The outright stupidest episode I remember is one about a woman who dumps her husband into a soap-making machine and then takes a shower using the soap (yeah right) which then dissolves her because of the various acids found in the human body. Just to make sure we would "get it" the husband constantly made references to said acids throughout the entire episode, then those same comments were dubbed over the woman's death scene in case we forgot. Or wait, maybe the dumbest one was about a man who faked his own death, got a nose job, and then tried to come back. He was arrested, charged with his own murder, and executed. That's right, nobody believed he was himself because his nose was a bit different. I know there's such a thing as willful suspension of disbelief, but come on!

All in all, a waste of time, money, and film.

Robotix (1990 Video)

Startlingly brutal for its time

[19 August 2001]

Having watched Robotix recently for the first time in years I can say I was surprised by how frankly brutal it was. The animators must have figured that, hey, these are robots so we'll be as mean as we want to them. Even shows like Transformers balked at showing too much violence done to their metallic heroes. Not so with Robotix: when one robot swings a huge pipe at another robot's back, it connects. Legs, arms, and heads are ripped off, faces are slammed into the dirt. Startlingly, most of this violence is done to the protagonists. The villains constantly get the better of the heroes and deal out vicious poundings -- even to the "female" robot. Perhaps more startlingly, the violence is dished out in fair portions to the humans. Not even the little boy, Zaru, is safe. In one scene, he is quite harshly knocked aside by the leader of the evil robots. In a later scene, the leader of the good robots slams one bad guy human into a wall with great force, apparently killing him. My favorite scene involves the leaders of the rival human forces, Exedore and Kanawk, the "hero" and the "villain" respectively. They are in a ship which has lost atmosphere. Kanawk shatters the hatch of Exedore's capsule to suffocate him. So Exedore pulls out a gun and blasts the hatch off of Kanawk's capsule! For a cartoon "hero" in 1985 that's quite a thing to do! All in all, it has its flaws but it is surprisingly well-made for a cartoon based on an unpopular and widely unknown toy.

Gunan, King of the Barbarians (1982)

Amazingly funny

[16 May 2001]

I think somebody bought a video camera and decided to make a barbarian movie. Some of the "swords" look like tin foil cut into a sword shapes. The acting is, well, let's not discuss that . . . The fights are ridiculous, they don't even pretend that the swords are really cutting people. However, this movie's heart is in the right place. Whoever made it set out to make a movie about a big guy avenging his people (I think that's what was going on) and they did. No pretense, no self-importance, no pretending that this is anything special. It was made and, I bet, the people who made it were proud of themselves for the effort they put forth. Watch for the guy who looks exactly like Adam Carolla.

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996)

Infuriating

[15 May 2001]

The show starts off well, giving us real characters who seem to actually live, breathe, and feel. Everyone who watches can easily identify with all the main players. Then, all of a sudden, the character development (not to mention the plot) comes to a screeching halt. Rei, who was beginning to show some real personality, is pretty much forgotten about while Asuka -- wonderful, lovable Asuka -- becomes the writer's favorite little victim. What we get stuck with is whiny old Shinji, who was showing a little backbone but then lost it again. Everything gets metaphysical and weird, and the series begins to practically beat you over the head with its religious subtext. The general feel is that the plot was abandoned and they just made it up as they went along after episode 20 or so. The last two, excruciating, maddening episodes are mostly a combination of recycled footage and what look like colored-in storyboards with the actors speaking over the whole mess. I guess it was "art." Either that or the animators just up and quit (most likely the writer too). I hate a series that gives me characters I like a great deal and then proceeds to mess them over brutally for no reason other then to provoke a knee-jerk reaction in the audience.

BraveStarr (1987–1989)

Was bolder than most other cartoons of the time

[14 February 2001]

BraveStarr was the only cartoon I remember to show someone, a child no less, die of a drug overdose. Most other cartoons had a kid drawn into drugs by some sleazy, awful looking guy, massively OD, than make a complete recovery with no ill effects, just in time to say, "I'm sure glad I learned my lesson," before the end of the show. BraveStarr's "drug episode" had a pretty cool looking, suave guy convincing a kid to steal from his mother in order to buy the drugs, showed the kid's transition from handsome, healthy young lad to burned-out junkie, and then showed him die when he finally OD'd. If I saw that episode today, I might see that it isn't as good as I thought it was when I was a kid, but, darn it, it DID hit me hard and make me think when I was eight and that was the point. For that, I will always hold BraveStarr a little higher in regard than the other cartoons of the period.

Megazone 23 Part II: Please Give Me Your Secret (1986 Video)

Despite some great animation, downright awful

[3/10 · 10 January 2001]

My main gripe with this hard to find bit of anime is that the wrong people are the heroes. The biker gang runs around, terrorizing people and causing meyhem, and they are the heroes. The military tries to stop them and they are the villains. Also, there are some robot octopus alien things, but they never really figure in.

Some great gore and decent action segments (especially an awesome extended chase scene through the city) aside, I found this to be a piece of garbage.

X (1996)

X is quite simply, the worst anime I've ever seen

[2 October 2000]

I've been told that to appreciate X, I must read the manga first. Well, let me tell you something. I SHOULDN'T have to read the source material to appreciate the movie, IF the filmmakers do a good job of adapting it. Of course, the source material for this film was incomplete as of the time this film was made, but surely, a better job could have been done. The animation is little more than a bunch of crumbling buildings with a lot of blood-colored cel paint thrown around for good measure. Characters talk about things that don't need talking about for minutes upon minutes, then someone gets killed. That cycle repeats itself and you have your movie. There are a few good moments, but that's like saying a rotten apple still has some fresh spots.

A few questions this movie made me ask:

Why do evil women in anime usually have huge breasts?

Why is the youngest female always sexualized?

Why is the hero always the least interesting character? I mean by far the least interesting.

What is with the "cradling severed heads" motif?

Why did I not just walk out when I realized this movie was a waste of my time?

Space Thing (1968)

Sort of like Flesh Gordon, just not as good

[18 September 2000]

Much like Flesh Gordon, Space Thing is a porno movie from the days when they actually tried to be movies. It centers around an alien who takes human form to learn the ways of lovemaking. The women are refreshingly real looking but the guys ought to have worked out some more. If whip wielding sadist lesbians are your cup of tea, you can't go wrong with Space Thing.

Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (1995–1996)

With a little thought, this show is very good

[10 July 2000]

The main reason I watch this show is, duh, because I like big robots duking it out and firing lasers and artillary at each other. The second reason is for the characters -- some of them. Heero and Trowa have no personalities. Heero almost gets one for a while, but then it goes away. Trowa and his Gundam Heavyarms had potential but are hardly ever seen. Wu Fei keeps going on and on about his philosophies of strength and weakness, and I disagree with him most of the time. Quatre is more like it, however he eventually is one dimensional. But it is, at least, an interesting dimension. Duo Maxwell is my (and everyone else's apparently) favorite. He's the only one who can carry on a conversation about anything besides war or the true meaning of peace and is also the only one to forge a lasting, working relationship of consequence outside the battlefield. Zechs (preferable to Milliardo) is the most mysterious and most interesting until he goes crazy (you try explain his actions otherwise). Treize, well, he's there, and he does things, but what's he about? The "military" females, Lady Une, Noin, Sally Po, are refreshingly strong and smart compared to most anime women. The "civilian" females, Relena, Dorothy, and Catherine, are good to watch as well for their honesty, scheming, and T&A factor respectively. Duo's girlfriend, Hilde, could have used more fleshing out, but she serves her purpose quite well. Aside from the characters and mecha, this series falters on plot. It's a big plot. A complex plot. A plot you have to think about and use your imagination if you want to figure it out. Really, the motives and explanations I came up with on my own are better than what the show presented. Do I recommend Gundam Wing for everyone? Yes. It is enjoyable on several levels: Awesome mecha, good battles, intriguing characters, storyline that holds your interest, and pretty boys and girls. Its bad points include: Dialouge that frequently goes nowhere and leaves one asking, "Huh?" Characters who, while they need to be there, aren't properly developed. Actions by characters that go totally against what we know about them. But, despite its faults, Gundam Wing deserves the wide American recognition that Cartoon Network gives it.

The Dark Crystal (1982)

Lovingly crafted

[10/10 · 2 July 2000]

This isn't like the CGI laden films we have today. Everything in this film was created by the human hand with utmost care and concern. The human element really comes through in the viewing, as one realizes this isn't some schlock turned out to make millions of dollars, it is a great movie that was made because Jim Henson and Co. wanted it to be made. I imagine that the production meetings were more concerned with how well the film was turning out than how much it was projected to earn.

God bless Jim Henson, he did good.

Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest (1990)

The best of the Dragon Ball Z movies so far

[9/10 · 26 June 2000]

From the opening frames of an icy wasteland, to the pounding drumbeat of the opening credits, to the simply awesome appearance of Dr. Wheelo, this movie is a standout amongst action animes. Most of the action takes place inside a huge fortress (which always offers limitless potential for coolness) before moving to the upper atmosphere for the climax. Almost everything here is perfectly realized and I'm guessing the animators were very pleased with the result of their hard work. Check it out, whether you're a DBZ fan or not, you won't be disappointed.

Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might (1990)

Lacks the fun of the other two DBZ movies

[26 June 2000]

This is the third in the series of three Dragon Ball Z OAVs currently available in the US. The first two had a sense of fun and adventure about them which this one sorely lacks. Everything here is serious business. If you haven't been initiated into DBZ, this isn't a bad start. I would however, recommend this OAV's direct predecessor, "The World's Strongest", instead.