Today Jo and I were set to watch a couple of anime movies, since she is studying manga art. I picked up a couple of DVDs from the local hire place – Iria: Zeiram the Animation and Voices of a Distant Star.
Iria was split into three episodes (I’ve learned there are another three out there somewhere) and was reminiscent of anime series like Yugioh, DragonBallZ – full of action, fighting and strange looking alien creatures. The story revolves around Iria, a young female bounty hunter seeking revenge for her brothers death at the hands of a ruthless corporation and the evil alien creature which escaped their control. Entertaining.
Voices was a very arty anime. Beautiful graphics and a poetic quality, it tells the story of a teenage couple who become separated by time and space when the girl, Mikomo is drafted into the war against an alien enemy, and their only form of communication is by text messages via mobile phone. As she advances further out into space the time lapse between their communications increase – the 15 year old Mikomo sends Noboro a birthday greeting for his 24th birthday because she knows it will take more than 8 years for the message to reach him. We don’t find out if Mikomo is ever reunited with Noboro, although their thoughts unite in the final part of the story. Arty and beautiful, it reminded us of the movie we saw recently The Lake House.
Jo commented that there are many anime stories that cast a female as the action hero; these two were no exception.
While at the DVD place I also picked up a movie copy of Beyond the Sea – Kevin Spacey’s tribute to Bobby Darin. I love Spacey’s work and in this movie he was fantastic, superb acting and singing – he actually sings Bobby Darin’s songs in the movie! What a talent.