Tag: Keith Silverstein

DoroHeDoro: It’s Glorious and Gorey… Goreous? – Netflix Anime Mini-Review

I take a look at the story of a guy with a reptile head and his martial arts chef friend.

SUMMARY

Welcome to the Hole. It’s basically a city from Mad Max, except that magic wrecked the world instead of nukes. Sorcerers, a mutant species of humanity created by demons from hell that live in a different dimension, periodically come to the Hole to experiment on the humans that live there. One of those humans was Caiman (Wataru Takagi/Aleks Le), a man who was cursed by a sorcerer to have a giant lizard head. Caiman awoke without any memories and found out that when he puts his mouth around a Sorcerer’s head, that a second person crawls out of his throat and decides if that Sorcerer is the one that cursed Caiman. I know that sounds weird, but it’s literally the opening of the show, so get used to it. He’s accompanied by his friend Nikaidō (Reina Kondō/Reba Buhr), a local chef and expert fighter. The pair work together to eliminate Sorcerers from the Hole and find out who cursed Caiman. They end up drawing the ire of the Sorcerer gangster En (Kenyu Horiuchi/Keith Silverstein) and his lackeys: Shin (Yoshimasa Hosoya/Sean Chiplock), Noi (Yū Kobayashi/Cherami Leigh), Fujita (Kengo Takanashi/Bryce Papenbrook), and Ebisu (Miyu Tomita/Cristina Vee). 

Masks are very popular in the show.

END SUMMARY

From the very beginning, this show makes it clear that it’s not going to shy away from being pretty dang gross. Not only do you see a human being emerge from the throat of a lizard man, you then see a person essentially minced into a number of pieces too great to count. The wood chipper from Fargo was probably more forgiving to Steve Buscemi’s body. This sort of thing happens frequently in the show, although the cartoon effects do lessen the disturbing nature of some of the acts. This show’s not for the faint of heart, is what I’m saying. 

No, he’s not eating him. This is diagnostic.

The world that’s been built here is never fully elaborated on, but what we see of it keeps drawing the viewer further in. Sorcerers basically view humanity as lab rats to be experimented on, with very few humans willing to stand up to them. When we see the range of their abilities, this unchecked domination starts to make a lot of sense. Almost all Sorcerers only have a single ability, like “creating mushrooms” or “bringing stuff back to life,” but those are sometimes taken to horrific ends when it’s revealed that one of the sorcerers can literally just turn people into mushrooms or that bodies don’t have to be whole when they’re resurrected. It’s like everything is taken to a twisted natural conclusion. This includes the fact that once a year, the Hole’s dead come back to life as zombies due to the amount of magic that the Sorcerers leave behind.

Some sorcerers are not just strong, but nearly invulnerable, so there’s that.

The characters are compelling in that nobody really seems to be the “good” guy or the “bad” guy. Caiman is a victim, sure, but he also massacres people for his own enjoyment. Nikaido is the closest we have to an altruist, but she has her own secrets and past issues. En seems malicious, up until you find out that he was the ultimate victim in his youth and is seeking to break up a horrible societal problem. Most of his henchmen are similarly ambiguous. Everyone kills people or Sorcerers pretty frequently. It makes for a lot of interesting scenes where we know everyone’s motivations, so we feel extra invested in the conflicts. 

The character designs are also a nice blend of form and function.

Overall, it’s a pretty good show. Glad I checked it out.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.

Japan Sinks 2020: Either the Most or Least Timely Series Ever – Netflix Anime Mini-Review

Based on a 1970s novel, we follow a family living through a natural disaster.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

It’s 2020, the Tokyo Olympics are over (tells you when this was written), and a massive earthquake strikes. Four members of the Mutou family survive: Mother Mari (Yuko Sasaki/Grace Lynn Kung), Father Koichiro (Masaki Terasoma/Keith Silverstein), and children Gou and Ayumu (Tomo Muranaka/Ryan Bartley, Reina Ueda/Faye Mata). After reuniting, they set off walking across Japan in search of a place to get off. It turns out that the earthquakes are a sign of something more dire: The Japanese archipelago is sinking. 

The level of destruction in the series is horrifying.

END SUMMARY

Masaaki Yuasa, the mind behind the grim and violent Devilman Crybaby and the extremely trippy Mind Game is being hailed as the lead behind this show, but aside from the subject matter it doesn’t have most of his bitter touches or his creativity. I can’t tell if that’s a sign that he left most of the series to the other director, Pyeon-Gang Ho, or if he just completely whiffed on this one. It’s not that Japan Sinks 2020 is bad, I actually still enjoyed it, but it’s pretty run-of-the-mill in terms of disaster films or television. Nature kicks the crap out of people, people then kick the crap out of each other, rinse and repeat. 

Girl looking for family sees violent fight over a can of beans.

There are a few things that the show definitely gets “right.” First, plot armor pretty much doesn’t exist in this show, for good or ill. Anyone can die, much like Game of Thrones, and that includes the people you like. In fact, having a conscience often proves a liability. This becomes apparent early on when Ayumu helps an older couple by offering them some water, but they immediately take advantage of her generosity. Stuff like that happens throughout, and even though the story does ultimately show that we are stronger together, the fact that times of chaos result in people killing each other for resources (that they don’t even need) is shown painfully well by the show. Second, the show does a good job of demonstrating the extent to which people will act irrationally when confronted with things out of their control. Considering that America is currently dealing with a preventable pandemic that is largely due to the inability for people to take reasonable steps, this seems… on the nose. Third, the relationships between the family members and those of their temporary family are strong and believable. There is a love that speaks to a great willingness to sacrifice for others, and that’s always going to be a powerful message when done right. 

Nature can always just kill us all if it wants. Fun.

Unfortunately, some of this is somewhat undermined by the show. Even though anyone can die, for some reason natural disasters appear to pick off the greedy or the selfish at opportune moments. It’s like the Earthquakes are paying attention for “d*ck moves.” The message of sacrifice appears mostly to be based on the old being willing to sacrifice for the young, which seems to often have the older people dumping all of their failings on the next generation. It’s like someone saying “sorry about the global warming, but I’ll be dead before it’s a big deal.” Ultimately, that’s the biggest weakness of the series, it keeps trying to force narrative occurrences in order to try and make the story into an allegory, rather than just letting the journey of the characters supply the meaning. 

Also, the animation is not particularly creative.

Overall, the series is not the strongest, but if you want a disaster anime, the scale of this one does still make it worth watching.

A Whisker Away (Nakitai Watashi wa Neko wo Kaburu): IT’S SO CUTE!!! – Netflix Mini-Review

It starts off kind of creepy, then straight to adorable.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

Miyo Sasaki (Mirai Shida/Cherami Leigh) is a middle school girl with a crush on her classmate Kento Hinode (Natsuki Hanae/Johnny Yong Bosch). Unfortunately, while she is an outgoing and emotional person, Hinode is usually cold and distant. However, Miyo receives a mask from a talking cat (Koichi Yamadera/Keith Silverstein) that lets her turn into a cat whenever she puts it on. She uses this mask to pretend to be a stray cat that Hinode plays with, named “Taro.” Using her time as Hinode’s cat, she tries to build her relationship with him. Unfortunately, it turns out that magic tends to have a price in stories like this.

And no, she doesn’t get 8 extra lives by wearing it.

END SUMMARY

Okay, so, I realize that there’s something inherently a little weird about a story of spying on your crush, but a big part of the movie is that Miyo (or “Muge” as she is called) is being immature. As the movie continues, she starts to realize that her worldview has always been undeveloped and she grows as a result. At the same time, she starts to get a better picture of who Hinode is, which does nothing to deter her feelings, but instead deepens them. We discover that both of them are hurting, but that they both have responded to their pain in completely different ways. Their relationships with their families are strained by circumstances beyond their control and, like kids do, they have difficulty really coping with it.

Playing with pets is a normal way to cope. Playing AS pets, not so much.

The depth of the characterizations of the two leads is what makes A Whisker Away work. Miyo’s need for affection may make her seem weird to the rest of the world, but it’s just a representation of her desire to receive love. As a cat, she receives all of the cuddles she could ever ask for from the object of her desire. On the opposite end, Hinode is always repressing his feelings due to having to provide for his family. Their financial burden embarasses him a little and puts unnatural pressure on him to get a job to support them, but his loyalty to them prevents him from complaining. This is presented mostly through show rather than narration, which benefits heavily from the very expressive animation style. 

You can even get ideas about characters from how they eat.

That brings me to the animation, which is… just so damned cute. Seriously, when Miyo is “Taro,” she is one of the most adorably animated animals I’ve ever seen. She still has a lot of expressions that reflect her status as having human consciousness, but anyone who has owned a cat will still acknowledge that they can give you those looks. It gets even better when the film decides to say that every cat out there really IS sentient, even having a secret place to go that is accessible only to cats. Despite relying on a supernatural premise, the movie doesn’t really dip heavily into fantasy until the third act, and the slow build-up really helps heighten the drama. 

Omg, I want hugs so bad.

Overall, just a really cute movie, if a bit weird. I recommend giving it a try.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.