Manga film reviews
by Kei/Carnage
Any of you that know me know that I'm a manga/anime nut with a
collection fast approaching 300 titles. Anyway, here's a quick review
of my fabourite titles.
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Title : Ghost In The Shell
Rating: 9/10
A cyberpunk manga based in the near future. Large corporations rule
and several companies provide cyborg bodies to everyone and anyone. The
main character is a female cyborg attached to a special police force.
Her partner even sports some special cyborg lenses as described in
Gibsons Neuromancer!
A criminal known as the Puppet Master is erasing both humans and
cyborgs memories and replacing them with generated ones so they do not
know who they are only what he wants them to do. The humans are given a
fake memory so they live normal lives and are hard to detect. These
people are known as ghosts, hence ghosts in their shells.
This anime style is very modern and I look forward to seeing more of
it's type. While in London recently I noticed a store had a full size
model cyborg of the main character in naked form on display in their
window with bits of flesh stripped back revealing her servos and
mechanisms and wires protroduing from everywhere.
At present there is no cyberpunk manga that can beat this film.
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Title : Megazone 23
Rating: 8/10
An area of land contained within an artificial environment to prevent
outside contaminants from getting in, and containg large citties is
known as a megazone. The story centres around a group of hackers turned
proffesionals that are used against other hackers known as "net
jackers". They steal electricity and information by re-routing it and
can gain control to most of the cities equipment much to the annoyance
of the policing body. However this police force is corrupt and the
newly recruited hackers and net jackers eventually join forces to
release Eve in order to correct the problem by giving her control of the
central mainframe.
It gets more complicated than this but to sum it up, it is a modern day
Akira featuring hackers who want to return power to the people and
restore our original way of living.
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Title : M.D.Geist
Rating: 7/10
M.D meaning Most Dangerous, is a Geist. Geist's are artificially
created humans used in war. M.D.Geist however became so violent and
dangerous that he was confined to a geostationary orbitting satellite
prison. Suspended in cryogenics for years and forgotten about, his
satellite accidentally crashes back down to the plannets surface where
he is released. Challenged by a gang of bandits he kills their leader
by cutting off his arms. Now with the most powerfull gang behind him he
takes on his former creators and joins his former enemies but he becomes
insane.
Further on in the desert another Geist plays god to a colony of humans
protecting him from the human eating robots now plaguing the surrounding
cities. M.D.Geist wonders into camp and the ruling Geist challenges
him.
This is where I started loosing the thread of the story because
M.D.Geist is portrayed as evil and the other Geist as good but M.D.Geist
is invincible.
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Title : Cyber City ODEO 808 File 1 : Virtual Death
Rating: 8/10
The sound track to this is great! Three criminals are sentenced to
life sentences in prison but are offered a deal. For every job they do
for the company they get time taken off their sentences. However it
will take an enormos amount of tasks to erase the sentences completly
and if they die in the process, the company looses nothing.
There are 3 files to this series each based around one of the 3
characters. The first one is my favourite as it is more cyberpunk. The
second is about hacking and the third, vampyres.
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Title : Gunhed
Rating: 7/10
Listed as anime but actually a film. Set in the future, scavengers
land on an island controlled by a central computer. They only want
parts to sell on the black market but they end up dying for their
troubles. One of the scavengers and a female (only american in the
film) and 2 kids are all that is left and try to escape using an
abondoned tank with an AI processor, known as Gunhed.
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Title : AD Police Episodes 1-3
Rating: 8/10
I'm a big fan of Bubblegum Crisis and when I heard this was based
around this I had to check it out. However it is based on the character
Leon in BGC and is set before BGC which is weird because in BGC, Leon is
a bit of a wanker but in this he's a tough bastard.
It's a bit like Dominion Tank Police in style but it has a more
cyberpunk edge to it especially if you used to read the old 2000AD
comics like I did. BTW, does anyone know what will happen to 2000AD
comics in the year 2000 which is getting nearer?
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Title : Angel Cop Parts 1-6
Rating: 7/10
Angel is a cop with an attitude. Taking no shit from no one and riding
motor bikes like nobodies business, she takes on anyone giving her
attitude from terrorists using porshes to launch missiles to mad cyborg
bitches.
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Title : Armitage III Parts 1-4
Rating: 8/10
Armitage is an AI cyborg. Part of a series of cyborgs that are being
hunted by someone wishing their extinction. Armitage is a cop however
and is teamed with a human to catch this guy. However Armitage falls
for her human partner but cannot come to terms with who she is.
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Title : Battle Angel Alita
Rating: 8/10
Alita is a cyborg that falls in love with Hugo, a black marketeer and
wanted criminal sentenced to death. Alita makes her living bringing in
people like Hugo and collecting the bounties on their heads (literarly).
However she cannot bring herself to bring in Hugo and when other bounty
hunters hunt Hugo she illiminates them.
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Title : Catgirl Nuku-Nuku Episodes 1-3
Rating: 7/10
A young boys father escapes from the company he works for with the body
shell of his new prototype cyborg. The boys cat dies and he is sad so
the father implants the cats brain into the cyborgs body shell. The boy
then has a playmate in the form of a beautiful female girl (the cyborg)
but with a mind of a playfull kitten. It's a comedy based around
Nuku-Nuku who wants to play all the time but does not realise her own
strength (she can pick up cars to get at a ball that rolled underneath
it).
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Title : Dominion Tank Police Acts 1-10
Rating: 8/10
A young female police officer and her partner build a prototype police
tank that is smaller than the rest but faster, more agile and tougher
(called Napolean). They patrol the streets hunting criminals in their
tanks. However 2 cyborg (yes cyborg, ok so I have a lot of films about
cyborgs..) cat girls (puma sisters) are the tank polices main openents
as they carry out criminal acts with the uttermost of stupidity.
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Title : Goku Midnight Eye 1-2
Rating: 7/10
Goku is sent on a mission and fails. Left for dead, an unknown person
finds him and implants a cybernetic eye into his head replacing his
damaged one. Combined with a new weapon in the form of a cydrinical bar
which extends at either end into an indistructable staff, Goku sees
things he never saw before. He returns to complete his mission with an
advantage that his openents were not expecting.
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Title : Mad * Bull 34 1-4
Rating: 7/10
An adult manga title focused on a young japanese cop in New York and
his big american partner known as Mad Bull. Mad Bull runs a prostitute
ring in his spare time and spends his breaks fucking women while the
young cop waits in the car. Whenever they are faced with criminals
though, Mad Bull has a tendancy to kill them then ask questions later.
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Title : Maison Ikkoku Parts 1-2
Rating: 7/10
A young college student finds it hard to study in his flat because of
his flat mates constantly holding parties in his room. His studying is
made harder by the new landlord who is a beautiful young woman he
developes the hots for.
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Title : Moldiver Tapes 1-3
Rating: 7/10
Moldiver is a project. A special project designed by a hacker which is
held in a box that looks suspiciously like a walkman. When held above
the head and the word "Metamorforce" is spoken, the holder is
transformed into Moldiver. Designed for the project creator, Moldiver
is a male superman clone but his young sister keeps stealing the device
and transforms into a cute Moldiver which she uses to help get a guy to
notice her. However there is a criminal organisation trying to destroy
Moldiver but the girl sees them as a mere irratation that gets in her
way so she swats them like flies much to their annoyance.
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Title : Ninja Scroll
Rating: 6/10
A very blood thirsty adult movie this. A young ninja feared throughout
the land is tricked into helping an old man. Teamed with a beautiful
girl whose skin is pure poison to anyone that touches or kisses her, he
must complete his mission in order to live.
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Title : Ranma (ANY)
Rating: 7/10
There are so many Ranma titles out there. It's popular in Japan. The
basic storyline is a father and son are cursed by an old hag. Whenever
the father gets wet he turns into a giant panda. Whenever the son gets
wet he turns into a beautiful girl. This causes problems for the son as
when he takes a shower and his mates walk in they see a beautiful girl.
Ranma however has several loves both tring to obtain the phoenix pill
for him which will remove the curse.
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Title : Riding Bean
Rating: 7/10
Bean and team are for hire to anyone requiring their services. Framed
for a crime they did not commit they must clear their names. I had
never seen this title before but from what I can gather, Bean is not
human seen as how bullets don't seem to hurt him. Just a guess.
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Title : Silent Mobius
Rating: 7/10
A very weird set of films based around the concept that ESP exists. In
the future a cop department known as AMD recruits girls with high ESP
levels to help protect the world from the demon dimension. It's very
cutesy and romantic at times and you can't help but get the feeling that
it was created by people with no life and girlfriends but it's graphic
style outways any fears of it being too crap. Plus the storyline is so
entwined and deep that you'd probably spend most of your time working
out who is who.
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Title : Tenchi Muyo
Rating: 9/10
One of my favourite comedy mangas. There are 2 storylines to Tenchi
depending on whether you are watching the films or series. The films
are available in the UK as tapes with 2 titles on each and in them
Tenchi accidentally frees a demon who falls in love with him. In the
series however he does not free the demon, she comes to see him.
Tenchi is hilarious and a most for any manga enthusiast. Tenchi is in
the middle of a love triangle where the girls want his body and he wants
out. The cute graphics and humour will make you laugh unless you get
the subtitled versions, read fast and you should still laugh though!
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Title : Uresei Yatsura (aka: Lum)
Rating: 6/10
The main character is girl crazy except when it comes to Lum. Lum is
crazy about settling down with her "darling" but he's crazy about
anything that goes by in a skirt. This is a weird long winded comedy
with weird characters. For instance the postman looks like an
over-weight penguin on a push bike!
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Title : Ushio & Tora 1-2
Rating: 6/10
Ushio frees an ancient demon from his cellar called Tora. With the
constant threat of Ushio placing him back in his former prison, Tora
reluctantly agrees to help Ushio battle evil demons.
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Title : Video Girl AI 1-6
Rating: 7/10
A lonely heart broken kid goes to rent a video from his local store.
The owner takes pity on him and gives him a special tape which plays for
6 days. During this time the video girl (her name is "Ai" pronounced
"eye") will teach him how to win the love of his life. However his
video recorder is broken and Ai starts to fall in love with the boy but
she knows she must complete her task soon and put her own feeling's
aside before her time is up.
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That's a few to keep ya going...
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