TheRetroCritic

Well, Anime Month (and a half) finally draws to a close so here's a list of all the anime-related reviews we've had over the past month (and a half). A couple more will be written before Christmas, anime series will be reviewed over the next year (sorry I couldn't get around to those) and live-action anime Vlogs will become a regular thing and will be posted on our Youtube channel every so often so stay tuned! Thanks again for all your support ;) Spirited Away Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade Howl's Moving Castle Millennium Actress Battle Royale My Neighbor Totoro Dr Slump Arale: Ncha! Bycha (Game Review) Tokyo Godfathers Origin: Spirits Of The Past Devilman City Hunter (Game Review) Golgo 13: The Professional Guyver: Dark Hero Porco Rosso Ponyo Casshern R.O.D: Read Or Die Sailor Moon (Game Review) Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind Speed Racer Psychic Wars Fist Of The North Star (Game R

Watching Spirited Away at the cinema upon its release was something of a personal event for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first anime feature I'd ever seen on the big screen but it was also my first Hayao Miyazaki film and it was, on top of that, really bloody good. Coming at a time when 2D animated films looked like they were on their way out with Disney focusing its attention on CGI animation, the anime was a breath of fresh air and proved once and for all that this kind of animated feature more than deserved to stay. The film follows a young girl called Chihiro who is about to move into a new house with her parents. She's reluctant to leave her old life behind and start a new one. Her father drives towards what he believes to be a shortcut but instead finds an abandoned old fair accessible through a creepy tunnel (as all the best fairs are). They wander aimlessly until Chihiro's parents decide to stuff their faces with random food they find lying arou

Based on a manga by Mamoru Oshii ( Ghost In The Shell , Patlabor ), Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is set in an alternate universe Japan where Germany has conquered the country and things look bleak to say the least: the cops are scary as hell, women and children have turned to suicide bombing... It's not looking good. The film opens on a little girl nicknamed "Little Red Riding Hood", some member of a guerilla group called The Sect, who is running through the sewers trying to escape the Panzer Cops, a bunch of armed cops with elephant-style gas masks. One of them, Kazuki, finds himself facing the little girl who reveals a bomb strapped to her chest. He is ordered to shoot her but doesn't and she sets off the bomb. He somehow survives but an enquiry is made into why he didn't carry out his orders and he is made to go back to training. After visiting the little girl's grave, he meets her sister Kei and develops a sort of friendship/relationship with her. The

Spirited Away sure must have been a tough act to follow so you would have expected Hayao Miyazaki to take it easy and release a lighter, smaller film before bringing us another substantial effort but that didn't happen. Instead, we got Howl's Moving Castle , one of the director's most creative works to date. Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the film follows 18 year-old Sophie as she is turned into a 90 year-old woman by a witch because the latter was jealous about the young hatter meeting some wizard called Howl, which she herself had her eye on. Sophie then wanders the land in search of the witch, potentially the only one who could reverse the spell at this point, but instead she finds some weird-looking scarecrow who ends up leading her to the titular castle. There, she meets Calcifer, an adorable fire demon, voiced by Billy Crystal in the English version, who agrees to help turn her back into her old... well, young self, rather, if she can help break his own c

Sorry, it's a two-parter. Because Youtube's being ass. You can read the full Casshern review HERE .

From the makers of Perfect Blue and Tokyo Godfathers comes Millennium Actress , the story of an ageing actress telling her life story for a TV interviewer and his cameraman as the latter two imagine everything she went through by transporting themselves into her stories. It's a cute idea in that it links the present with the past without having to resort to constant flashback and forths or one long drawn-out voice-over. This is a much more slow-burning film than Satoshi Kon's aforementioned works, which makes sense when you realise it's essentially a melodrama. Similarly to how Perfect Blue merged real life with the world of film, Chiyoko's story dips into her various acting jobs without transition so every so often we end up with her on the Moon, in medieval times or surrounded by geishas in the middle of a certain scene before we realise we've followed her into that world. The interviewer and his camera guy act as both comic relief and as a link to the pres

With The Hunger Games becoming a popular franchise and all, it's only fair that I should re-watch and review the movie which first introduced us to the concept of kids going ape shit and killing each other for no particular reason. Let's talk Battle Royale . Directed by the late, great Kinji Fukasaku, Battle Royale is set in a troubled dystopian version of Japan where, every so often, a high school class is picked for an elaborate, deadly game where everyone is sent to a deserted island and made to kill each other until only one remains. A chilling yet always likeable Takeshi Kitano teaches them the rules of the game, they are then given weapons, necklaces rigged to explode, maps, a list of danger zones to avoid and a time limit before being sent out into the wild. You'd think that it would take longer for these kids to kill one another but the action starts straight away and the kills are always completely satisfying in how gory and bloody they are. It's a sadi

Ever wonder what the singers of some of your favourite anime themes actually look like? Well, here's a selection of classic intro songs sung live! First, Ichiro Mizuki singing the Mazinger Z theme and being awesome: Now, a truly energetic performance by Hironobu Kageyama singing "Cha-La Head-Cha-La" , the immortal intro theme to Dragon Ball Z : Let's get some Doraemon action going with Satoko Yamano singing her intro for the show (the one after Kumiko Osugi's original): Time to step things up a notch with Make-Up's classic Saint Seya theme : Another memorable one you might recall is Yoko Takahashi's theme for Neon Genesis Evangelion : And, to end things with a bang, here's Gundam Wing 's intro song "Just Communication" by Two-Mix: Any more to recommend or any specific ones you'd like me to post? Let us know in the comments below ;)

Growing up in France, where I discovered anime, I was introduced to Grendizer under the name Goldorak and it was all kinds of badass. The show boasted not one, not two but FOUR different intros. The first one, sung by Enrique, was a direct adaptation of the original Japanese intro and, apparently, it ended up being censored because the word "race" was used in the lyrics even if it was referring to big-ass robots: The second intro, by Noam, was much more light-hearted and kid-friendly. Also much more boring: The third intro was another version of Enrique's first intro, this time sung by The Goldies and improved slightly: French anime theme go-to guy back in the day, Bernard Minet, then gave us this intro which, weirdly, ended up being my favourite of the bunch: Hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane, here's the original Grendizer theme which is, of course, just as epic as it always was:

One of Hayao Miyazaki's most memorable efforts, My Neighbor Totoro introduced the world to a simpler, more kid-friendly style of anime we'd seen from Studio Ghibli up to this point (the film followed Castle In The Sky ) and yet retained all the artistry and creativity we've come to love from the director. This is one film where the story really comes second to the characters. We follow two young girls who move into an old house in the countryside as they discover a hidden place in the nearby woods where these bizarre but friendly spirits live. There's an underlying subplot involving the girls' sick mother which adds some welcome reality to the whole thing and even suggests that maybe these forest spirits are all just the girls' way of dealing with their mother's illness. But there's no need to look too deeply into things, essentially it's just a fun little Alice In Wonderland / Secret Garden -style tale about little girls meeting all sorts of o

Check out my review of Tiger Electronics game Dr Slump Arale: Ncha! Bycha , based on the Dr Slump anime series, over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !

I honestly wasn't sure what to expect from this movie before watching it. Was it a comedy? Was it a tear-jerker? From Satoshi Kon, the director of Millenium Actress and Perfect Blue , Tokyo Godfathers tells the story of three homeless people who find a baby abandoned on a pile of trash in the street and try to find the baby's parents. It's a simple plot, a simple concept and this leaves a lot of room for subtle character development and mini threads within this overarching storyline. Our main characters are Miyuki, a rebellious young runaway, Gin, an older grumpy, bearded guy and Hana, a gay transvestite who dreams of being a mother. Well, Hana's dream comes true early on when the homeless trio find the lost child and the film, from then on, explores the connections between people, their pasts and their futures as life offers them surprising coincidences. These characters are instantly loveable and are the heart and soul of this movie. You really care about th

Here's an anime feature I'd been wanting to check out for a long time, the good-looking visuals the trailers boasted being the primary source of interest. Origin: Spirits Of The Past is, indeed, a visually stunning film. Its well crafted mix of 3D textures, detailed backgrounds and fluid animation, when put together with a grand, epic score like Taku Iwasaki's, creates an altogether gorgeous film which really aspires for something meaningful. The film is set in post-apocalyptic Earth which, following a failed experiment on the Moon, is separated between the forest (and its spirits) and battle-friendly humans who want to get rid of the forest altogether since it controls the world's water supply. In the middle of it all is Neutral City, a peaceful place acting as a bridge between both sides. One day, a couple of kids wander off into the forest and find a young woman, Toola, who was sleeping in a glass box, they wake her up and, turns out, she was cryogenically froz

Created by prolific manga mastermind Go Nagai, the man responsible for the likes of Grendizer and Violence Jack , Devilman was a popular 70's anime which, in 2004, saw itself get made into a full-blown live-action adventure. On paper, this sounded like it could have gone either way: either the film was going to be ludicrous and cartoonish or a dark, Casshern -style epic. The result, strangely, was a bit of both. The film opens much like a typically emo high school drama where a couple of friends are dealing with clichéd groups of bullies, until we realise that demons exist and one of them inhabits our lead character Akira (Hisato Izaki). As it turns out, his weirdo friend Ryo (Yusuke Izaki) was already a demon himself and a demonic take-over is underway by all sorts of winged ghouls. Then, the film goes insane and turns into an apocalyptic disaster movie in which demons are invading and turning the Earth inside out. Obviously, the weight of all of this ends up resting on Aki

Check out my review of PC Engine game City Hunter , based on the anime series, over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !

And you thought Daniel Craig made a tough Bond… You clearly haven’t met Golgo 13. One of the longest running mangas out there, Golgo 13 has prompted all kinds of things from live-action movies to games and this first animated feature. Golgo 13: The Professional follows Duke, a stern hitman with a heart of stone who goes from job to job, taking out the people he’s been hired to get rid of, never getting emotionally involved. This is shown with all the grisly details, every gun shot looks like its pulverising these people from within, and we’re never made to particularly like this seemingly soulless killer. That is, until he meets the maniacal toothless Snake, a demented, reptile-like, Joker-like madman who actually enjoys terrifying people and even reveals rapist tendencies towards the end. He’s so odious that Golgo 13, in comparison, comes off as a true class act. Throughout the film, our hitman sure meets some shady douchebags including two twin brothers called Gold and Si

Ever watch a film and feel slightly dumber after watching it? Well I finally checked out Guyver: Dark Hero , the sequel to The Guyver , and, let me tell ya, I’ve rarely felt this unsmart. Based on an anime series and a manga, this live-action effort was a cheap Hollywood production and was released straight-to-video in the US back in 1994. With a non-star cast leading the way, this sequel follows a dude, Sean (David Hayter, not Mark Hamill this time, sadly), who can turn into some kind of ghoulish superhero as he discovers that an archeological dig going on over in Utah may have the answers to his past he’s been looking for. As it turns out, he’s not the only “Guyver” out there and the finding of a spaceship unveils more uncomfortable truths about his alter ego's origin. Now I know it’s cheaper for this kind of low-budget production to just film in one place, one set, but 95% of this film takes place in and around the archaeological dig, making it feel a little claustr

It's about time that plane-flying Italian pilot pigs got their own movie! Set between WWI and II, Porco Rosso follows an ex-fighter pilot-turned-freelance bounty hunter, who was cursed some time ago to physically look exactly like a pig, as he befriends a young mechanic called Fio and faces off against a bunch of moronic air pirates. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, this one's not too dense in terms of story but it does have a lot of subtleties about it which help make the film's straight-forward plot a little fuller and more interesting. This is more of a character piece, the film slowly but surely letting us discover the real man behind the pig (yes, I realise how silly this sounds) and, like Fio, we get to eventually filter out the introverted character's true humanity. It's a sweet, mature movie with some top notch animation which really starts showing off during the exciting and beautiful-looking action sequences. Porco Rosso thankfully

After the world-dominating Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle , Hayao Miyazaki decided to go back down the My Neighbor Totoro route and create a work of ultimate cuteness. A film so adorable it's like a kitten made it FOR kittens. I'm talking, of course, about Ponyo . This one took me a little by surprise, despite me having no expectations going in except for it being good, which it was. I didn't think it would be geared towards a younger audience but, luckily, Miyazaki's smart enough that people of any age can usually enjoy his work and Ponyo's no exception. The plot is like a weirder version of The Little Mermaid as a goldfish princess somehow makes her way to the shore, befriends a small boy and starts wanting to become human, which she slowly does, through a bizarre process of her looking goofier and goofier then less and less goofy. Ponyo's father Fujimoto, voiced by Liam Neeson, meanwhile, tries desperately to keep the ocean in balance si