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WHITE BASE WIRES
6.18.03
by
Matt McConnel
Featuring
reviews of Descendants of Darkness and Samurai Showdown
Descendants
of Darkness
More info: Central
Park Media
Rating: 
When I
was at ACen, I had the good fortune to attend the industry
panel featuring Central Park Media. One of the questions posed
to the producers was what prompted the decision to translate
the original Japanese title to 'Descendants of Darkness'?
The response was that they did not want to turn off the average
anime goer with a title like 'Undead Pretty-boy Homosexual
Investigators of the Paranormal.' Fair enough.
The basis
is that buried, no pun intended, deep in the layers of bureaucracy
there is a Ministry of Hades. This government branch is responsible
for the gateway between the living and the dead, and should
anything either crosses, interferes, or abrogates that boundary,
they must deal with it. Lost spirits, vampires, you name it,
they deal with it. The main character is one of these Guardians
of Death, Tsuzuki, a spiritually gifted young (albeit dead)
man who is assigned a new partner. Hioska is a recently dead
16 year old who is apparently quite spiritually potent, even
if he is troubled by disturbing visions of his death. While
Hioska constantly tries to push Tsuzuki away, Tsuzuki persists
in trying to help the troubled youth. However, it is by the
machinations of the villain, Muraki that the bond between
the two actually cements.
There
are four DVDs, and four story arcs. Each one concerns a different
case for the Ministry that is in one shape or form the result
of Muraki's meddling in the world of the living and dead.
Muraki seems to be bent on using Tsuzuki for his own ends,
but that evil purpose remains clouded in mystery.
While
the story is fairly interesting there are two things that
really detract from enjoying this series. One is the horribly
melodramatic voice acting, and the other is the fact that
the villain, while undeniably malicious, sometimes comes off
as being silly and a really sad little man. The animation
is very pretty, and is wonderfully consistent; a real treat
for the eyes. While my own tastes in anime don't generally
run towards this bent of shojo style, it was nevertheless
an enjoyable viewing. One incongruity that does not detract
or harm the narrative, but is confusing was the decision by
the voice director of the English language to drastically
change the voice style of one of the characters. The librarian
who accompanies Tsuzuki sometimes has a deep and resonant
basso, while his twin has a high twang. In the Japanese, the
two have the same high tenor. Strange. While I liked the idea
of the little bird creature sounding like a lounge singer,
it just didn't make sense when I watched the Japanese language
track.
A warning:
Descendants of Darkness is somewhat a victim of its own success.
You get so engrossed in the story that you often forget there
are other arcs and veins involved. When these come up and
dominate an episode, the mental gear shift can be a little
hard to manage from the previous two episodes. The duality
between police style drama and supernatural shojo works however,
and is well worth checking out.
Samurai
Showdown: The Movie
More info: ADV
Rating:
Alright,
I understand the profitability of bringing a video game to
an animated show, and I'll even accept that sometimes this
is not always a smooth or easy transition. Most of the time
the results are mediocre, but they still try and rise above
the video game's usually scanty storyline. Then sometimes.
Sometimes, the results are just bad. Samurai Showdown is one
such.
The story
primarily concerns itself with the two dimensional bozo of
a main character Haohmaru. One hundred years ago, one of the
seven warriors charged to protect the gates of heaven betrayed
the other six to an evil god and killed them. But since they
are warriors with divine purpose, they cannot really die,
and they are reborn 100 years later. When this happens, the
Judas warrior sends out her minions to stop them from completing
the task they left undone 100 years before, namely her defeat.
The above sentences take almost 20 minutes to get through,
and the rest of the first 40 minutes is taken up with the
antics of the overly strong and underly brained Haomaru. When
one of the henchmen turns up with faceless goons, to ransack
and destroy our hero's native village, he is of course off
doing something else and returns to find the village destroyed
and his mother killed. Then he learns the truth that he was
not actually born, but found with his sword in the woods,
and that he must have some great destiny. Fight with henchman,
and Haomaru discovers his great power. Enter the other five
heroes and they explain the situation to him. But because
he is the hot-headed protagonist, he rushes off to confront
the villain. More goons, more henchmen, final battle, protagonist
finds peace with himself and joins his comrades in one final
push to victory. That is 80 minutes there in just under a
paragraph. And that's all it is.
Most of
the time is taken up with fighting sequences which would be
great except for two things. The animation is of such a poor
quality that what is seen is little more than a daily cartoon
show. Secondly, the fights are just a showcase for the progression
of the character's special maneuvers. There is really no calculation,
trickery, or even intelligence behind the fights, just brute
spiritual force.
Admittedly
there is an interesting subplot with the character of Jubai
(yes, THAT Jubai), the head of the palace ninjas and the kabuki
fighter character from the game, but this is really sidelined
in favor of big pointless fights. The voice actors are really
tried. Both in English and in Japanese, the effort is there,
but the script just sucks.
Just don't
bother unless you are a huge fan of the game. Otherwise pass
this one by. It has so little in the way of redeeming value
that it amazes me ADV bothered putting onto disc from the
VHS.
Matt
is our anime guru. Email him here.
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