SKY BLUE AND ANIME IN REVIEW

Sometimes a film review tells me more about myself than about the film itself. I think I finally get anime' but it still doesn't mean the form isn't light years behind what it could be- especially for it's size. But one of the better recent examples is Sky Blue. More emotionally resonant than most anime despite it's overblown sci-fi premise, and character dwarfing visuals. Then again maybe it's we anime fans who are the characters. Movie, video game or something in between? You decide.

SKY BLUE
Maxmedia

What bugs me about anime? I love Akira, Ghost in the Shell. And of course Miyazaki can do almost no wrong especially these days. But the recent crop of releases all fell short of expectations in a way that seemed sad for an art form that has had plenty of time to grow and develop. I read in one review of Sky Blue that Korean animation plays Dreamworks to Japan’s Pixar. I think a more apt expression of how I feel would be that most recent anime plays like the WB, meets Michael Bay meets pulp sci fi. Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell2 and Sky Blue are examples. In a sense, to review one is to review them all. Why do anime creators keep making the same mistakes over and over again.

But recently I’ve come to question myself more than the films. I can offer criticism aplenty of just how Sky Blue falls short of great cinema but I also realized that the same criticisms might be just as applicable to the work of Ray Harryhausen. I can hear the haters now! I can also hear people saying Harrywho? For those who desperately need to hustle to the nearest video outlet ray Harryhausen pioneered stop motion animation and miniature work. His legacy is incredible; the Sinbad films, Jason and the Argonauts and

But even bad movies that use his effects are stunning when his monsters and mythic creatures are onscreen. Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, The Valley of Gwangi and 20,000,000 Miles to Earth reek of both B movie and sheer wonder.

No critics will tell you a bad movie is a bad movie. I think that’s fine if they want to talk to critics. But if they want to help the audience I believe they have to put themselves in the audience’ shoes. And I’m convinced after talking to anime films that the visual style and effects work commonly seen in most anime (and in many video games) these days creates what I call the Harryhausen effect. We are immersed in a world that is utterly other and a mentality of childlikeness that creates an atmosphere I’ll call animether.

Think about it. Doe-eyed characters, adolescent sexuality, impossible physics, and a bizarre collage of real elements, CGI and animation all combine in a way that’s reminiscent of all that’s been great about science fiction based fine art for the last seventy years. Only in anime we get to see those images move! Landscapes, vehicles, technology; whether the film depicts utopia or dystopia these are the elements that invite us inside. The characters and the spirituality of anime are, more often than not, simply types.

If people find the spirituality of anime vague and confusing it’s because they pay too much attention the dialogue which is at best an attempt to put into words something that must be experienced. Words a part of experience? Certainly but just as images do, words fall short. The individual imagination must take over before the world that is any particular anime can come alive. And for many, many hardcore fans this seems to describe their experience.

I realize I have left out Cowboy Bebop and Vampire Hunter D and Blood the Last Vampire. These are also excellent examples. But only Bebop has the connection to technology that puts it in the same ballpark as the other films discussed here.

Now there is plenty of room for the form to grow and it has resisted that growth. Just as Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts is a better film that It Came from Beneath the Sea there’s little doubt that Akira buries any of the recent anime despite the fact that Akira is sneaking up on twenty years of age. Only Ghost in the Shell has combined similar themes as well. Sky Blue tries and almost succeeds.

In order to survive the increasingly polluted atmosphere on earth humans create the utopian city of Ecoban which grows everything the cities inhabitants need from the pollution outside. But only a few are allowed inside. The rest are used as slave labor to continue producing pollution and live outside in the filthy dying landscape. When pollution levels begin to drop the rulers of Ecoban make preparations to destroy the cities outside. Soon a civil war is brewing leaving a small band of rebels to attempt to destroy Ecoban and return a blue sky to earth’s inhabitants. Center stage in this conflict is a pair of childhood sweethearts one from Ecoban and one from outside.

The relationship works well here and generates a little emotional resonance but not enough. If anything holds back Sky Blue it’s that somehow we aren’t made to care enough about whether the sky ever does turn blue again. Still the end note in which an act of self sacrifice leads to a better world for all is a much needed message to send to a world polluted by all kinds of things.

In the end Sky Blue succeeds not a great movie but a great immersion in the world of anime. Much better than the overwrought and melodramatic Appleseed and much more accessible than Ghost in the Shell Innocence, what Sky Blue says to me is not that anime has grown up but that it’s followers are desperate to see the world through a child’s eyes. I plan to keep looking especially since Akira’s creator director Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s Steamboy is just on the horizon of it’s US debut.

The recent crop of anime has been offered hardly anything in terms of marketing and promotion here stateside. A vibrant internet scene, and comic book shop word of mouth have been the mainstay of the US anime scene for years now but they’ve only led to art house screenings and there’s no real sign things are going to change despite the widespread acceptance and big box office of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. The bottom line is the suits just won’t toss enough cabbage at the huge fanbase out there. We’re going to keep seeing DVD availability grow but when it comes to feature film distribution stateside we’re probably going to have to settle for what we’ve got.