Trigun: The $$60,000,000,000 Man or Boast in Quality

Trigun: The $$60,000,000,000 Man

© 1998 Yasuhiro Nightow / Shonen Gaho-Sha, Tokuma Shoten, JVC
Genre: sci-fi action (could be considered a western)
Length: 100 minutes (4 episodes) Audience Age: 13+
Opinion: A bit pricy for VHS, but still a solid buy.
This is a review of the dubbed VHS version.
Animation by Mad House.

To tell you the truth, I did not want to write this review so soon (I wanted to get my way through the alphabet and I just finished the numerals with "801 TTS Airbats"), but Vash the Stampede, "Trigun's" main character, keeps popping up in the overall site make up for this update because he is just so damn cool. This may sound like an immediate recommendation and I will eventually do so in the conclusion of this review. It just does not feel right to not go through the tale of how I came across this title, the show's plot, and all the other bull $$hit.

When you want to buy anime, and you do not know jack about this art form, titles with the Pioneer logo are usually safe bets. For someone who is just looking for a new series to start viewing, Pioneer's box art is so attractive that it is hard to resist buying their tapes/discs. This is how I came across Trigun (to further support my argument, I also came across "Serial Experiments Lain" this way). My dad is a big Clint Eastwood and John Wayne fan, and I guess this maybe hereditary, so finding out that this title was western/sci-fi, I soon became $25 poorer. Well, only at the financial level that is.

There seems to be an abundance of accidents on a futuristic desert planet and they all seem to be related to the "Humanoid Typhoon", Vash the Stampede, a gunman with a 60 billion double dollar bounty on his head. The Bernard Daily Insurance Society is taking huge losses because of this, so they feel that sending the short tempered and short of stature Marill Strife and the extra tall and extra dense Millie Thompson (reminiscent of the Lina/Naga pairing from "Slayers") to find and survey every action that this man takes to prevent future catastrophes. These two girls witness a lot of disasters in their search for the Stampede, but unless they are willing to accept that a clumsy, adolescent-behaved hero they keep running into is Vash, there mission is nothing more than a very expensive business trip with very poor lodging options.

There are very few flaws with this nearly irresistible sci-fi story. Despite the dark look the box presents, the first four episodes of this series are rather light and comedic. Somewhat simple-minded villains, an odd couple for side kicks, and an apparently clueless hero is used a lot in anime, but it really works well in this TV series. At some points, the plots become overly moralistic, but the high moral standards of Vash along with his humorous strategies and unnatural abilities make him one of the best heroes in all of the realms of Japanese animation. As for the technical qualities of Trigun, the art work is good and the soundtrack is a great mix of western (spaghetti style) background music and good old J-pop.

I should mention that the action sequences so far are not exceptional, but the gun play is rather clever. The fights are not John Woo clever, but I am sure that the quality will only improve based on what I have heard from those who have seen most of this series.

Trigun has promise to become a great action series and its comedy and main character almost make this title a must buy. Only those who have problems with slow development of characters that TV shows always suffer from and those who cannot get into sci-fi (the true weirdoes) may not be able to get into this series. It is pricy to collect the entire series, but so far it is a solid buy for those who want 100 minutes of virtually guaranteed entertainment.

RG Veda - Did the Graphic Novels Have Exposition?

As is the norm, everything has settled down in my life. It has settled to the point that I got to have what use to be my normal evening. Wait till girlfriend goes to bed and watch stuff she does not approve of. I was even able to get a few rum drinks in (Kraken Black Roast Coffee Rum is sippable to the point that it is a shame to dilute to make it last).

Best of all, I was able to get to bed before midnight. Worst of all, it is balanced by 19 consecutive days of work. Managers are just boomers when it comes to internal email.

The more pressing downside is that it was a reminder of how little the two of us actually have in common. Her debate of whether or not she should go to bed in the nine o'clock hour came as I was watching "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" because there is nothing to watch on a Thursday.

The best time on the basketball floor are when the mats are down door to door. That sums up my opinion of Thursday's cable TV offerings.

She also does not dig immediate action sequences. Thus, we did not get past "John Wick: Chapter 2's" car reclamation. And this seems to be the case with anime as well because she was very quick to tell me to grab the Netflix DVD after a few minutes of "RG Veda."

Another key difference between us is her embrace of religion. Hence, it takes a little more work to try selling her a feminism agenda via the history of the Clamp Studio than my other female friends. This turned out to be a poor assessment of her judgement. It has nothing to do with having an open mind and everything to do with intuition.

RG Veda

It is now the time for Kuyo's prophesy to come to fruition. After awakening Ashura, Northern King Yasha is joined by fellow Stars Ryu and Soma to avenge the death of the Heavenly Emperor by the hands of Taishakuten. All that is left to bring peace to the land is to find the sixth and final Star which will grant Ashura all the strength of her fallen father. The greatest problem with that task is, whoever the star is, they are in Taishakuten's castle. Getting to this castle will be quite the challenge let alone maintaining the strength to escape.

The first Clamp anime adaptation I saw was "X (X/1999)". I thought it was a solid and beautiful film, but you could tell they slammed a lot of content into a 1 hour 41 minute feature. With that feature, they established rules when a character was introduced, so an action would at least make sense. "RG Veda" presumes that you are a fan or have an understanding of Hindu mythology. Since that is expected, you should not complain about a 1 minute 30 second exposition montage that explains the world, but not the characters. Well, I picked this up at a used bookstore for six bucks.

I am a fan of Clamp's style (big eyes that nothing can obscure the outlines of). When I look back on the "X" movie, the concept of heroes uniting to put the world back in order with little expository content is common in their product. "RG Veda" fails to focus on who the characters are, so aside from the two leads, we have very little idea of who they are beyond what their weapons are. Fighting game characters from the early 90's had more depth.

Also, when the directions fails to effectively define the world, the audience is going to be lost the entire time. If they have the nerve to watch the second half of this two-part series, they may be comfortable letting the action guide them, but they will be zoned out otherwise. Or they are on their third rum on the rocks like I was.

"RG Veda's" character design of its leads are beautiful, so with enough drinks or other influence(s), it is a nice visual for a party's background. Otherwise, only fans of the manga or Indians can appreciate it. I guess since this was direct-to-video, a large audience was not the creator's intentions. And this is probably why none of the 90's anime distributors exist.

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Tenchi the Movie 2: The First Take on Midsommar

Tenchi the Movie 2: Daughter of Darkness

© 1998 AIC • Tenchi Muyo Committee • Pioneer LDC, Inc.

Genre: comedy/sci-fi fantasy
Length: 60 minutes (Theatrical Film)
Audience Age: 16+

Opinion: It is a let down unless  you are looking for a Christmas themed Japanese-animated cartoon.

This is a review of the dubbed VHS version (close captioned).

Also known as Tenchi Muyo! Midsummer's Eve.

Like most adventures for Tenchi, it seems like a normal day until a strange girl shows up claiming to be Tenchi's daughter. This is seemingly impossible, but Washu's DNA test on a black hair of the girl proves that Tenchi is the father, but who is the mother of Mayuka. She seems to have no memory of her mother and Ryoko senses something evil about her.

Can Mihoshi give insight about who the new comer is by a silver hair she found that Yosho, Tenchi's grandfather, recognizes? Does this mean she is a danger to Tenchi or is she just dying her hair? Whatever the answer to the problem, will Ryoko let her survive long enough to let us find out Mayuka's true intentions?

I think "Tenchi the Movie 2" is a decent source of entertainment for an hour, but it seems like this film was rushed out to capitalize on the success of the first film, "Tenchi Muyo! In Love", so it suffers for that. Unlike the first film, this feels like an extended TV or OVA episode instead of a theatrical film. What makes matters worse is that the film still has the classic motion picture anime series extension dark and dreary plot. The animation has not been improved from the TV/OVA series which is unfortunately a major flaw for any anime motion picture spin off. Well, at least the soundtrack is superior to the first film.

If you are a Tenchi fan, Tenchi the Movie 2 is worth a viewing. Any other anime fan will be let down if they purchase this video, unless they are looking for a Christmas-themed Japanese-animated cartoon and feel that "Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz" is stretching that terminology.