Do
not immediately dismiss a film because it does not contain the excessive
nudity of "Ghost in the Shell" or the graphic violence of "Akira".
If you have heard good things about a title like the buzz there is for "Neon Genesis Evangelion", the title is not
a waste of money.
Dual!
Parallel Trouble Adventure:
Visions
Dual Parallel
Trouble Adventure!
© 1999 AIC / Pioneer
Distributed by
Genre: sci-fi (includes a great
deal of "Tenchi Muyo!" style
comedy)
Length: 100 minutes (4 episodes) Audience
Age: 13+
Opinion: One of the better cutting edge titles.
This is a review of the DVD release.
It maybe that I have not had the same amount of cash
to spend on overpriced videos. It maybe that the previews on the videos
I do buy are not enticing enough. It maybe that I am spending my cash
on the recent ECW, FMW, and XPW videos (this is not a wrestling web site,
but look for the first company's tapes first). Maybe it is all these reasons,
but I am having a problem finding Japanese animated videos to buy.
Since I got a DVD player for Christmas, I figured
it was time to seriously restart my anime collection, but where to start?
While flipping through the discs at SunCoast, I found "Dual! Parallel
Trouble Adventure". If you have seen
Neon Genesis Evangelion, you should instantly become a giant
robot fan, and Dual! has them. The disc also had a sticker on its
wrapping which boast that it was "From the creators of
Tenchi Muyo!" (specifically, writer Masaki Kajishima),
and I am a big Tenchi fan. So far this anime was irresistible from this
buyer's standpoint.
It
would seem to be just an ordinary day in Tokyo, but that is not the case
for Kazuki. For him, he has to continue to question his sanity as he constantly
sees visions of giant robots using the city as their battleground.
Despite these
visions ability to drive Kazuki crazy, he has been able to create a popular
website from his accounts of these battles. This site even gets repeat
hits from the most popular girl in school, Mitsuki, who is so intrigued
about the robots that she approaches Kazuki with questions about them.
After saving
Kazuki from a beating by the high school's athletes, Mitsuki (this
may not be the correct name; but this is what I have picked up as her
name after watching this DVD thrice) takes her to visit her father,
an assistant University professor, who is also a huge, possibly larger
enthusiast of the boy's visions. Such an enthusiast that he offers Kazuki
an explanation for his visual stimuli.
The professor
explains that Kazuki's visions are actually the reality of another dimension
that he wants to prove the existence of. Fortunately/Unfortunately, we
find out he is correct by accidently sending the main character to the alternate dimesion and in the center of a battle none the less.
So to solve
his even deadlier dilemna, Kazuki must find the professor of this dimension
and pray that he is a little more responsible than the one from his dimension.
Purchasing
Dual! Parallel Trouble Adventure really paid off for me. I think
what really made this investment worth while was the series' having a
plot premise that was similar to "El-Hazard:
The Magnificent World", a series I cannot get enough of.
There
just seems to be something captivating about an anime based on the idea
of a weird boy becoming a hero in an alternative world which has a large
population of girls who have some kind of attraction to him. I guess Masaki
Kajishima, the writer of Tenchi
Muyo! and this series, really knows how to write toward the stereotypical
adolescent male's dreams.
Dual!'s
great premise leads to good stories, but none of them are as good as the
best of Tenchi
Muyo! or El-Hazard:
The Magnificent World episodes. Some of the attempts to sympathize
with the main character make a few of the episodes a little too sappy,
and maybe this type of story does not cross over well with giant robots officianados.
Fortunately, this series does not seem like it will allow the robot influence
to change the light-hearted characters, so if you do not want to see the
dark, bleak atmosphere of Neon
Genesis Evangelion, this series will not feature it.
These robots
may not be appropriate with their story premise, but man do they look
good. Most of the CGI (computer generated image(s)) are integrated well
with the traditional animation and also looks great. And even with the
CGI being almost outstanding, the regular hand drawn animation is good
enough not to be blown away by it, so the efforts of the many animators
with their pencils are not wasted.
Dual!
is by no means as funny as El-Hazard:
The Magnificent World and Tenchi
Muyo, but is unique enough to be enjoyable with its great animation,
futuristic giant robot plot, characters with bright personalities, and
good use of computer animation. If you dislike the animes that this is
similar to, you maybe wasting a couple hours at your job trying to earn
enough money to buy this, but as far as I can tell, Dual! is definitely
one of the better cutting-edge titles which any audience that is suited
to see it can enjoy.
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.
Ever
since I finished watching