So there's this Katsuhiro Otomo anime anthology called
Memoriesyou've probably heard of it, but here's a xardpost for everyone anyway
Episode 1 - Magnetic Rose [title card]smooth jazz saxophone! Yoko Kanno! in space!I'll start with what sticks out:
Magnetic Rose is equal shades
2001: A Space Odyssey,
Solaris (1972), and also a little of
Macross Plus and Otomo's earlier
The Order to Stop Construction in certain regards. As a result of Kanno's presence the first seven or so minutes feels a little like Bebop regardless of the fact that it had not yet been made. But I digress.
Magnetic Rose, I suppose, can be broken down into a few key points: the crew of a space garbage hauler identify an emergency signal, it's coming from a region of space that they'd rather avoid, only because they've heard it they are obliged by maritime law to answer it. The twist: the emergency signal is the voice of a woman singing opera. The two engineers, Heintz and Miguel, go on a rescue mission. Here is Heintz's face:
Apparently they have to record their identification and why they are there before they go in. In case there is an accident or something, I suppose. It is a good idea, but one you'd never see on Star Trek.And so begins the sort of
ghost story atmosphere that you would expect from any episode of Star Trek when somebody has to look around on an abandoned or wrecked ship. And, like Star Trek, our pair of rescuers eventually decide to split up to cover more ground and save time. As you should be well aware, decisions like these do not have good outcomes in science fiction - as the audience we're safe, so we keep watching. But I'm a bit ahead of myself.
The ship - or station - still has its internal atmosphere going, the elevator still works, and upon inspection the interior the interior is rather lavishly decorated. It all appears to be a monument to a distinguished opera singer from years past - and it is the vision of this woman that occupies this space, both physically and psychologically.
I am not going to say much more about the story, though it is my favourite of the three shorts, so I'll offer a few notes:
a) if you have seen
2001: A Space Odyssey, or
The Order to Stop Construction, you should be as aware as I am that computers, left to their own devices in isolation, are not to be trusted
b) if you have seen
Solaris (the original, not the remake), you should be as aware as I am that, in deep space, visions and/or manifestations of beautiful women are not to be trusted.
having said that, I advise allowing yourself a moment to observe the plight of
the other guy as I'm sure you will agree,
he deadAs a note on the aforementioned similarity to
Macross Plus, I am referring to the character of Sharon Apple. It is worthwhile however to observe that Sharon Apple, who had ambitions of world domination through the power of song, is in a different league to the echo of Eva Friedal. Eva Friedal - who uses an emergency signal as bait to lure unsuspecting victims to her gargantuan space rose so that she can sap their memories and their desires to claim new vessels for the memory of her beloved Carlo, whom she murdered after he decided to back out of her marriage, and in said 'memory' Eva's Carlo never changed his mind. Conclusion: Eva Friedal eats men for breakfast and is not waifu material
I found the animation of this short to be nothing short of superb, and as was the case in those days, the computer-assisted sequences are fine; although it could be obvious where the computers where helping out, I did not find it at all awkward or out of place.
If you have not yet had a reason to see
Memories, I can safely say that you should not find yourself disappointed by
Magnetic Rose. It also has lazors. Lazors!
Episode 2 - Stink Bomb [title card]oh no!Stink Bomb is not high art. It's probably not art, either. But it is funny, probably borderline hilarious, if you like the kind of stories where the inept employee somehow becomes the cause of a national epidemic. I do not believe there are many of those stories, so I'll elaborate: Nobuo Tanaka, who works at a medical research facility, has the flu. It's not going very well for Nobuo - he's already had his shot, and the over-the-counter stuff he's been taking hasn't helped. So a co-worker makes a recommendation: 'borrow' some experimental pills from the boss's office.
How the epidemic unfolds is a rather unsurprising tale - but having said that there is an epidemic, and that our character
becomes the cause of it, rather than being the cause of it, I've probably spoiled plot of the story. But that's okay - because
Stink Bomb isn't really a story about plot, or complexity: it is a comic tale. To illustrate my point, here are some pics (yay pics) from when Nobou is recommended to the pill's in the boss's office, and scene in said boss's office:
So anyway, he takes the pill, things happen off-screen, and when he awakes ... everyone in the joint is unconscious. The alarm was turned off though, so he turns it on, talks to the boss of the company - who tells him to bring the medicine and the documents to Tokyo and not tell anyone about it or that he works for the company. Fiasco ensues, as do discussions between officials in a NERV-like command centre. It's all very over-the-top, following the unbelievable for the sake of it, but I don't feel it overstayed its welcome.
I am skipping over a few lines of dialogue between those two shots, but I think you get the point:
Stink Bomb is something unusual indeed
As to how
Stink Bomb fares when compared to the entries in Otomo's other film anthologies, I think I can forgive its simplicities on account of how unusual its premise is, and how once it recognises it is going beyond the point of believability, it does not stop and it doesn't hold back. It goes with it, and so should you.
Episode 3 - Cannon Fodder [no pics for this one][/url]Nineteen Eighty-Four!Cannon Fodder is is the third and final short in
Memories I have not taken any screenshots of. Or at least not yet. Anyway, this is the one that is directed by Otomo himself, but in contrast to his previous outings, the illustrated style employed here is fairly distinguished from his other works and probably also from a fair few other titles around that time and since.
Cannon Fodder is a short day-in-the-life-of style stories that isn't really there to tell some grand narrative, instead its aim is to paint a portrait of a society through a few short glimpses into the daily lives of a father, mother, and son. In this regard, the title is descriptive, and playful: the entire society is fortress, and from the exterior shots that were are shown, every building either has a turret built into the top or has been built out of a turret; their lives revolve around the operation of said turrets: the father works in a turret operation time, the mother works on an ammunition plant, and at the school the teacher is lecturing the students on how trigonometry is required to aim the turrets, etc.
All of the machinery shown in this short steam-powered by the way, and there is a a fair presence of computer-assisted animation - it is used or the motion of set pieces, either by the movement of the machines or of the surroundings that the characters move through. Now that I think of it, speaking it reminds me a little of the laying of campus in
The Adolescence of Utena (aesthetically speaking, that is) - but stylistically speaking, it is clear evidence of the direction that Otomo would move towards for
Steam Boy (2004).
As a last note on
Cannon Fodder, it is fairly plain that there is some social commentary going on - and by noting George Orwell's
Nineteen Eighty-Four, I am mostly referring to the Goldstein book sections therein, for the exposition in those sections are more or less applicable to the society that Otomo has set up here. Not that it should surprise anyone that the novel could have inspired Otomo's in this short (and the manga it was based from), but let us not forget we're talking about the creator of
Akira, and so
Cannon Fodder is not at all a departure from his form.
...
So yeah, go see
Memories. Or don't.
It's your choice, really.
Just don't make that psycho-woman your waifu. Or if you do, don't say it here, because I'll tease you about it. And because maybe she's mine. Now shoo, shoo! I've watched an anime! leave me alone!
InstrumentalityOne wrote:dude we know Ranka lost
![[title card]](http://i.imgur.com/TynEgGF.png){kind=link}
![[title card]](http://i.imgur.com/4vs0hwD.jpg){kind=link}