TheRetroCritic

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 .

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

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

Surprised this exists? I was too. This independent short film based on the popular manga and anime series Sailor Moon was made by DGS Studios and stars Avery Danielle in the title role. I won't review it since it's a fan film but check it out. You can find more stuff on their Youtube channel and Tumblr .

From punk supergroup Osaka Popstar (John Cafiero, Jerry Only, Marky Ramone, Dez Cadena, Ivan Julian) comes a couple of anime intro songs done in their own, unique way. You can find them all on their 2006 album Osaka Popstar And The American Legends Of Punk . Of course, Youtube being Youtube, it was pretty easy to find people who made fan videos from those songs so here's Sailor Moon , first off: Now, how about some Astro Boy ? Unfortunately the video's modelled on the CG movie rather than the original series but hey, it still works really well: Alas, Shaolin Monkeys may not be a real anime series (even though it really should be) so the song didn't get its own video but here it is regardless: Besides, the Shaolin Monkeys have their own website , and in my book that means they're real. You can also find a cute little flash animation for one of the band's songs called Wicked World : More cool stuff on the band's website: osakapopst

Made in 1997 and based on the novel of the same name, Perfect Blue is one of those rare anime features which could have easily been live-action but which works so well as what it is that it's hard to picture it as anything else. A psychological thriller, Perfect Blue follows a character called Mima, the leader of a popular girl band called CHAM! who decides to retire from her music career in order to focus on trying to be a respected actress. Unfortunately, she learns that her new career is a very different, much scarier path to take which demands various un-glamorous undertakings which, she fears, might end up ruining her life. Throughout all this she is not only plagued by a creepy fan who may or may not be messing with her through the internet but also by the ghost of her old self who constantly judges everything she does and might just be driving her insane. Eventually, strange murders start occurring around her and the film world, her hallucinations, her dreams and reali

In this 21st episode, fellow film buff Jamie and I discuss movie news, anime, review a recent release ( Gravity , this time), and rewind back to more retro cinematic topics. Guess which anime series was being referenced in this week's Big Game  "I Shat Myself"  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

Based on Masamune Shirow's popular manga, Appleseed  is a sci-fi animated feature set in a post-World War III test city called Olympus, a utopia peopled with humans, cyborgs and bioroids and run by some kind of super computer. Kinda like a more cyberpunky, better version of Elysium . The film follows an ESWAT team (Enhanced SWAT) as they try to stop some cyborg known as A.J. Sebastian who seems to be responsible for more and more terrorist attacks within Olympus. As it turns out, he might not be working alone and there's even some suspicion that there might be a traitor within the police department itself. Then again, there's also the growing feeling that this utopia might not exactly be all that perfect either so the morals of this whole affair are blurred throughout. You could compare the film to something like Ghost In The Shell but it's certainly much lighter in tone and in content. The film does a good job at setting up its concept but it doesn't really

The first attempt at a Dragonball movie was always going to be a disappointment, especially in the hands of a Hollywood studio. Unless they were willing to spend an Avatar -style budget on a movie adaptation of the classic manga/anime series, the project was basically doomed to fail from the start. And so we waited years and years for... Dragonball Evolution . Taking the basic Goku-centric plot of Dragonball and taking out of it key elements and dozens of iconic characters, Dragonball Evolution was about as lazy and generic of an adaptation as you could have possibly expected. Justin Chatwin, known previously for his part as Tom Cruise's rebellious son in War Of The Worlds , plays Goku and, although he's likeable enough, he's just not given anything tangible to work with and that ends up affecting his performance quite a bit. Yes, he's strong-willed and always hungry but he's pretty skinny, his haircut's nowhere near what it should look like and he's

Based on the anime series (and the manga) also known as Samurai X , Rurouni Kenshin is the new Japanese live-action adaptation starring Takeru Sato as the titular former killer with a guilty conscience. The film follows Himura Kenshin, an ex-assassin who participated in the Bakumatsu war and has since given up his killing ways, and his name (Battosai), instead going around offering help to anyone that needs it. His sword has a reversed blade and he's not looking for a fight: he's perfectly happy just being a wanderer. Unfortunately, some guy is going around calling himself Battosai and killing policemen in his name for some weird-looking, cruel businessman with a pet rabbit. No, I'm not making that up. And thus, trouble soon finds Kenshin and, whether he wanted to deal with it or not, he finds that he kinda has to. He meets a girl called Kamiya, who owns a small dojo, and it's when that dojo gets ransacked by thugs, that he starts intervening. Kamiya's big thi

Seto No Hanayome (aka My Bride Is A Mermaid ) may not sound like the best show seeing as it's mermaid-themed and brings up all kinds of Splash flashbacks, or "Splashbacks", if you will. Splash was a fun comedy but an entire anime series like that? Hardly sounds worth it. And yet, here is a guilty pleasure I don't even feel all that guilty about enjoying! The plot sees a young dude, Nagasumi, almost drown before getting saved by a mermaid called Sun. All should be well that ends well except that humans aren't meant to know about mermaids, mermen, all that crap, so Nagasumi is brought in to meet Sun's family, who are basically mobsters, and he is given the choice to either die or marry Sun. It's a really random sitcom plot but boy do they make the most of it! We follow Nagasumi and Sun as they try to make their impromptu engagement work and Sun's father goes ape shit trying to resist the urge to destroy Nagasumi. Along the way, the couple get in