I cried at this
I had not talked about fandoms in a journal since the J-Pop Summit, haven't I? That will change, now that I've become attached to a new one.
Since our mutual pals were a little more busy this Saturday night, we remaining few decided to watch an animated movie called Redline to make-up for the lack of our usual activities. Redline, I was told, was seven years in the making and is the directorial debut of Madhouse's Takeshi Koike. Conceptually, it is Wacky Races or maybe even Speed Racer, in space.
It was the greatest animated movie I had seen.
It might also be the greatest anime I had seen.
There was a great variety in character and mechanical designs, though not so much in the (high tech noir) environments. I trust this was to emphasize the uniting force of illegal street racing? The music was excellent, and consisted of the following: techno, funk, folk pop, electropop, heavy metal, and Spaghetti Western. There's an amusing meme going around that consists of the techno track Yellow Line's beat being repeated ad nauseam, as it and its remixes were the most commonly used. The main plot and numerous subplots were nothing to write home about, but that wasn't the point: this was art for its own sake.
My favorite character had to be either Little Deyzuna or Sonoshee. JP (and his pompadour) the main character was great, but I felt he was overshadowed by these two and their characterizations. Little Deyzuna is a robot biker with a cowboy hat and Confederate outfit, so brownie points for that. He's also capable of increasing his strength by crying. He has some history with Trava and Shinkai, two characters from a 2003 that Koike took part in. Did I mention he was a supporting character? Sonoshee, on the other hand, is a determined racing queen with a hydroplane-car hybrid called, appropriately, the Crab Sonoshee. Her character design is bright and colorful; she looks like she was created from a sorbet. At one point she wore a dress with horizontal stripes and somehow pulled-off the look! She also has the most facial expressions of all the characters. Gee, I wonder why, Koike? Hahaha.
Other characters include a slutty pop duo supported by a magical girl, a crooked cop (grrr) gorilla, a superhero and his Boy Wonder based on Beavis and Butt-head, two Japanese game show rejects, a duo from another show, and the King of Kings Mr. Redline himself, Machine Head Tetsujin. These are just the racers!
Every single frame was beautifully detailed and in motion. You could literally screencap any part of Redline and use the result as your wallpaper. This would explain why it was seven gigabytes big.
Here's the first ten minutes of it, as a sampler. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/JhqaDFX4CE4
Since our mutual pals were a little more busy this Saturday night, we remaining few decided to watch an animated movie called Redline to make-up for the lack of our usual activities. Redline, I was told, was seven years in the making and is the directorial debut of Madhouse's Takeshi Koike. Conceptually, it is Wacky Races or maybe even Speed Racer, in space.
It was the greatest animated movie I had seen.
It might also be the greatest anime I had seen.
There was a great variety in character and mechanical designs, though not so much in the (high tech noir) environments. I trust this was to emphasize the uniting force of illegal street racing? The music was excellent, and consisted of the following: techno, funk, folk pop, electropop, heavy metal, and Spaghetti Western. There's an amusing meme going around that consists of the techno track Yellow Line's beat being repeated ad nauseam, as it and its remixes were the most commonly used. The main plot and numerous subplots were nothing to write home about, but that wasn't the point: this was art for its own sake.
My favorite character had to be either Little Deyzuna or Sonoshee. JP (and his pompadour) the main character was great, but I felt he was overshadowed by these two and their characterizations. Little Deyzuna is a robot biker with a cowboy hat and Confederate outfit, so brownie points for that. He's also capable of increasing his strength by crying. He has some history with Trava and Shinkai, two characters from a 2003 that Koike took part in. Did I mention he was a supporting character? Sonoshee, on the other hand, is a determined racing queen with a hydroplane-car hybrid called, appropriately, the Crab Sonoshee. Her character design is bright and colorful; she looks like she was created from a sorbet. At one point she wore a dress with horizontal stripes and somehow pulled-off the look! She also has the most facial expressions of all the characters. Gee, I wonder why, Koike? Hahaha.
Other characters include a slutty pop duo supported by a magical girl, a crooked cop (grrr) gorilla, a superhero and his Boy Wonder based on Beavis and Butt-head, two Japanese game show rejects, a duo from another show, and the King of Kings Mr. Redline himself, Machine Head Tetsujin. These are just the racers!
Every single frame was beautifully detailed and in motion. You could literally screencap any part of Redline and use the result as your wallpaper. This would explain why it was seven gigabytes big.
Here's the first ten minutes of it, as a sampler. Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/JhqaDFX4CE4