TheRetroCritic

Based on a series of light novels and a manga, R.O.D: Read Or Die sounded awesome, on "paper" at least. The plot was something akin to a bookworm school teacher/special agent known The Paper (hence the above pun) fighting off weird super-powered bad guys over books under the US President's orders as some Beethoven manuscripts could end up being the key to building a 9th Symphony weapon that makes people kill themselves The Happening -style. In a word: nonsense. But it sounded like the kind of steampunky nonsense I could get behind. Remember The Amazing Screw-On Head ? The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen ? Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow ? I like all that stuff and I was looking forward to R.O.D introducing us to a crazy, messed-up world where Thomas Edison flies blimps, shooting carrots at robot penguins or something to that effect. The result was, indeed, appropriately absurd but not quite as joyfully so as it promised to be. The animated feature isn'

Check out my review of that Sega MegaDrive Sailor Moon beat 'em up game over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !

An early-ish Hayao Miyazaki effort, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind  followed The Castle Of Cagliostro and was based on one of his own mangas and, although it was produced pre-Studio Ghibli, it opened the door for more classic anime features from the legendary director. The film is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure in which a princess called Nausicaa, who flies around in a weird little portable surf glider... thing and has a special bond with nature, becomes Earth's saviour in the middle of a potentially devastating conflict. Her people are taken over by the Tolmekian kingdom who are planning to use some weapon to destroy all the mutated giant insects in the land. Nausicaa, whose father is killed in the struggle, sets out to stop this disaster since pissing off the insects would only result in yet another global disaster. The last of which was caused, you've guessed it, by Man's greedy bullshit. As you can tell, this plot's all pretty environment-themed, whic

Here's what is quite probably the most expensive live-action anime film adaptation ever made making it basically Hollywood's biggest risk financially dipping its toe in that genre. Similarly to how the Astro Boy CGI feature lost about 20 million at the box-office, Speed Racer did make money but was ultimately a flop, losing over 25 million. But that doesn't mean anything quality-wise, after all, Blade Runner , The Thing and The Night Of The Hunter were all flops in their day. Speed Racer, however, is no Blade Runner. Right off the bat, you are thrown into a multicoloured CGI world so visually rainbowed that you'd think it was yet another Dr Seuss fairy tale come to life in movie form. The thing basically looks like an even more stylised The Cat In The Hat , with less talking cats and more bouncing cars. Directed by the Wachowski broth-... siblings, of The Matrix trilogy fame, Speed Racer takes a very old anime series and makes it into a full-blown candy-colou

Check out my review of classic NES game  Fist Of The North Star  over at retro gaming super-site  1MoreCastle !

Don't you just love early 90's anime features that are completely and utterly, unapologetically insane? I do! 1991's Psychic Wars is the story of a surgeon, Ikuyo, who removes a tumour from an old woman's body only to find that the "cancer" itself is not only alive but is, in fact, an ancient demon entity that dates back 5000 years. Ikuyo finds the remains of an ancient city (good thing it was nearby) when he somehow gets these Green Lantern-style superpowers which allow him to defeat the evil blob and travel back to Earth's past in order to fight and defeat all those demons which are threatening to travel to the future and take over the world. Ikuyo's powers include glowing, jumping really high, breathing underwater, not dying when stabbed several times, making weapons appear out of thin air and punching demons in the balls like a badass. Luckily, for an army of mighty demons, there really aren't that many of them so Ikuyo's job isn'

In this 22nd episode, fellow film buff Jamie and I discuss movie news, anime, review a recent release ( T he Counselor , this time), and rewind back to more retro cinematic topics. Guess which anime series was being referenced in this week's Big Game and get a shout-out in the next episode! You can email your answer here:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #AnimeMonth retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

I compile 10 of City Hunter 's silliest moments.

Based on a manga (not an anime, I'm cheating a bit here), Oldboy was the second and, arguably, best part of Park Chan-wook's Vengeance Trilogy. It cemented Korean cinema in the West as something to really look out for and received a cult status pretty quickly, even spawning an upcoming remake by Spike Lee, starring Josh Brolin. Taking a page out of Alexandre Dumas' classic tale The Count Of Monte Cristo , Oldboy follows an average guy, played by Choi Min-sik, who is inexplicably kidnapped by an unknown enemy and kept locked away in a room for 15 years without any clue as to why he was taken or by whom. Finally, he is released and sets out to find his incarcerator and get his revenge. Along the way, he meets a young girl called Mi-do (a terrific Kang Hye-jung) who befriends him and starts helping him with his disturbing quest. What follows is a truly brutal and unpleasant journey full of teeth-pulling, live octopus eating, head hammering, tongue-cutting and horrible r

Yes. It's exactly what you're thinking.

That Akira is still, to this day, respected this much and seen as one of the great anime classics is no accident. Watching it as a kid, I had no idea what the hell was going on but the film stayed with me, it had an impact. After a re-watch, I can finally say without hesitation that Akira is, indeed, one of the most important anime features every made. First off, it looks amazing. The film's futuristic setting, a neon-lit, 80's-style Neo Tokyo worthy of Blade Runner is not only believably depicted but is detailed, colourful and has depth. It's a violent, dangerous new world but a beautiful one nonetheless. Katsuhiro Otomo's film is visually extremely creative and delivers some of the most unforgettable, craziest anime action sequences you'll ever see. I mean, there's a scene in this where a giant teddy bear, a giant rabbit and a giant toy car go ape shit and start wrecking havoc thanks to a bunch of weird blue old people children. Akira deals with big the

So I just re-watched Akira . Luckily, it wasn't quite like this :P

Some time ago, I wrote a joke short story lovingly poking fun at Pacific Rim and anime in general, that story was Hard Warriors . Enjoy ;) (click the pic above)

Here are a couple of Maison Ikkoku -related music videos for all you fans of the classic anime series starting with the popular Japanese song Kanashimi Yo Konnichiwa sung back in the day by Yuki Saito: Here's another live performance of the song, this time with... less flowers: You can check out those classic opening titles HERE . And finally, here's French singer Bernard Minet's own song for the show which, in France, was known as Juliette, Je T'Aime : The French opening titles for the show can be found HERE .

Classic.

Made in 2000, Blood: The Last Vampire could easily be boiled down to "emo Buffy" but it's actually a little more original and interesting than that. Something of a cult hit, this is one of those rare instances when the anime feature inspired a manga, a game and an anime series as well as a live-action film, not the other way around. The film is set in the late 60's and follows a demon slayer called Saya (voiced by Youki Kudoh) as she goes on a new mission to get rid of a handful of bat-like monsters near a US air base in Japan. The blood-thirsty demons can make themselves look like humans, which is a pain, but luckily she can kind of sense when someone's one of them in disguise. She goes undercover as a high-school student to investigate the potential ghouls and, just as a costumed Halloween party gets underway at the school, she finds and pursues those monsters all around the nearby air base. A witness to the crazy events is the school nurse who is dragged

Clearly THIS should have been the whole show!

From manga king Katsuhiro Otomo, known for his iconic work on Akira , comes Memories , a collection of three unique animated sci-fi short films based on his own manga stories. It was made in 1995 and showcased three different styles by three experienced animators. The first one, Magnetic Rose , is directed by Koji Morimoto and is actually my favourite of the bunch. It's a space opera which actually includes both space and opera! Can't believe it took this long for someone to take this genre literally, to be honest... The short follows a group of dudes in a space salvage freighter as they receive a distress signal and are called in to check it out. They find the signal is coming from some graveyard ship that's orbiting a space station and, once they go in, they find elaborate simulations seemingly emanating from a European opera singer's memories/soul. Turns out, these simulations aren't quite as harmless and nice-looking as they originally seemed. As bizarre an