LoveMe2Times's Journal: Kiki's Delivery Service And Other Anime

Over the weekend, I picked up the new release of Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away on DVD. There was a good discount if you bought 2, so that was cool. Anyway, I had seen Kiki many years ago, but I had not seen Spirited Away. After watching them, here's my reactions:

1) Kiki's Delivery Service is *amazing*; she was Harry Potter before Harry Potter. Gotta be in top 5 animated films ever, and I would rank it in the top 100 films. Not that I'm a cinephile, but this movie is just too good to ignore. The painting and animation is gorgeous, for starters, and it has more personality and character than any other movie I can think of. And it's *adorable*! Don't worry that it's G rated, this movie is definitely recommended for everyone. I give it 10.5 on a 1-10 scale.

2) Spirited Away is also great, but not on the same level. It's a little too Japanese to appeal to everybody, and Chihiro (the young girl/star) is not as interesting as Kiki. However, I find Spirited Away to be what I hoped Princess Mononoke would be. They both have a lot in common, with their spiritual sides, cast of characters, and just general feel. But Spirited Away is somehow much more vibrant than Pincess M. Princess M. herself is a more interesting foil than Haku, but the no-face monster and various gods and spirits in SA are more endearing than the animal spirits in PM. Even though Spirited Away has a PG rating, it seems much more like a kids movie than Kiki. The setting, a bath-house for the gods, is very interesting, although the ocean-front city that Kiki settles in has that European charm. I give SA an 8.5 out of 10.

In all, both are great movies, and a great way to introduce someone to Anime.

***Note Added 4/21/2003
I just watched Kiki over the weekend again with a friend, and he didn't want to read subtitles. So we watched the English dub. While not truly horrid, it definitely ruins the movie. My rating of the English version is about a 6 out of 10. Ouch! Phil Hartman as Jiji (the black cat) is the worst part, with the atrocious musical changes not far behind. They also added in a lot of extra dialog (when the characters aren't facing camera, so they can get away with it). Some of the added dialog is OK, but most of it is irritating. Of course, the voice acting is stiff, over-the-top, rediculous stuff. All in all, they did their best to turn this wonderful movie into a Disney flick without changing the animation. I thought that the intro by that Pixar shmuck was bad enough. At least they give you the Japanese language track, so this is all self-inflicted pain.

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Added 4-29-2003
I just watched Metropolis, a recent addition to the Anime universe. Overall, I was disappointed, as I was expecting something really good. The problem with Metropolis is that it's a rehash of things you've seen over and over already, and it adds nothing new, interesting, or original to the mix. In fact, it's a pretty poor retelling of the same themes. Take Blade Runner, Battle Angel, and Ghost in the Shell, and cross them, you've got a good idea of the story arc. You have social stratification with robots/cyborgs at the bottom, and the Heaven/Hell symbolism where the rich live higher up than the poor people. In Metropolis, there are different zones; Battle Angel has a floating city--whatever. Harrison Ford's character from Blade Runner is reborn as Rock, who is no longer the main character, and is now something of a bad guy. Gally, the cyborg girl from Battle Angel, and Kusanagi, the Cyborg girl from Ghost in the Shell, are both more violent and more interesting than Tima, the robot girl in Metropolis. Although these cybernetic counterparts play more of a lead role than Tima, ultimately Tima has to be the central character of Metropolis. I would say that Tima is a flimsy cardboard character with no depth, but that's true of *all* the characters in Metropolis. Ken Ichi is the only other important character in Metropolis; he finds Tima when the factory she was made in is destroyed by Rock. Being just completed, she takes Ken Ichi to be her "father," much like baby animals will accept a care-taker as "mother." Then we go on a pointless adventure as Ken Ichi and Tima run from Rock, who is hunting them. After a few dull diversions, getting captured, escaping, getting captured again, etc, Tima is finally turned into the super being she was meant to be, destroys Metropolis, and is herself destroyed. Boo hoo. Move along, you've seen this all before, except 10 times better. Now that I'm done dissing hard on Metropolis, let me take a moment to talk about what everybody likes: art direction. Even though the movie sucks story wise, character wise, etc, it has the most amazing art direction I've ever seen. It reminds me strongly of Who Framed Roger Rabit? It juxtaposes animated and real like Rober Rabit, although in Metropolis it's early style animations (think Popeye) for all of the characters set against CGI sets. It is very awkward, but intentionally so; I think it's a love-it-or-hate-it kind of thing. Unfortunately, this gorgeous art style is wasted on a stupid movie, and ultimately can't redeem the movie from being a poor rehash of other good movies. I give Metropolis a 6 out of 10.