Tekken: Blood Vengeance

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

15

Format:

DVD

Discs:

1.

Running time:

92 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

English, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, French

Release date:

6th February 2012

RRP:

DVD £15.99

Actual Price:

DVD £8-9ish - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

It is believed that the mysterious M-gene may hold the secret to immortality and both Mishima Zaibatsu and G Corporation - two far-reaching, dangerously powerful and diametrically opposed organisations – will stop at nothing to get their hands on it. G-Corp agent Anna Williams enlists the aid of a young female student – and skilled practitioner of martial arts – named Ling Xiaoyu to go undercover at a local high school were it’s believed that one of the students, the enigmatic Shin Kamiya, may be a carrier of the much sought-after gene. Meanwhile Anna’s sister Nina of the Mishima Zaibatsu take a different approach sending an android, Alisa Bosconovitch, to infiltrate the school with the same mission as Xiaoyu; locate & obtain Shin for her organisation before their rivals can do the same. But as these two operatives delve deeper into the secrets of Shin’s past, loyalties soon shift as allies soon become enemies, enemies become allies and the whole situation explodes into something much more Earth-shattering than just a battle between rival organisations as an ancient evil is released upon the world.

Comments:

Let’s get this out of the way first – I have never had so much fun with a fighting-game movie in my life. This thing is hilarious, and often without even trying. But before I start on what’s great about it, let’s start on the bad…which is the plot… or rather than it doesn’t really have one, which is odd as they’ve got Dai Sato (GITS, Ergo Proxy, Cowboy Bebop, EOTE and pretty much anything else recent that was halfway well-written) in to craft the script. It’s like someone said “Dai mate, don’t sweat the details, just make it exciting, funny and stick in a bunch of ‘wow’ moments and maybe a Kung-Fu panda and we’ll handle the rest”, and boy did he do it. Just don’t expect there the be any explanation of the Tekken series back-story as there isn’t any, and honestly you don't really need it as it’d just distract from the plot anywa... Ha, what am I saying? There's not enough plot to distract from. Still, don’t care, had fun.

I doubt I’m really going to spoil anything by pointing out the order of events is pretty much as follows: After a flaky set-up there’s a fight, some quick exposition, a fight, some of the worst (and most coincidental) sleuthing in the world, a big assed fight, some heart-warming "My Little Robot: Friendship is Magic" moments, and finally the biggest baddest boss fight you ever did see. Aaaaand that's it. Action, Adventure, Comedy (deliberate or not, and the jury’s most definitely out on whether the funniest bits were actually designed to be funny, but they are and that’s what counts) and all round Ass-kicking. Job done Satō-Sensei, respect is due.

So just what did the animators do with the script once it arrived? Well if you’ve got Satō-Sensei writing your words, it’d be criminal not to use some of the best CGI available… so that’s what they used and believe me, it doesn’t fail to impress. I’ve seen much higher budget films get nowhere near the level of realism that Tekken’s busting out there. The fight-scenes (of which there are many) are incredibly well animated (is there anywhere Alisa can’t pull a weapon from?), which is a good thing as when I wanna see a fighting-game film, I wanna see some damn good fights dammit Jim. And that’s what I got. Cue one happy me.

But most impressive visually is that the ascent out of uncanny valley’s really begun in earnest with this movie pulling off some of the most lifelike faces and facial expressions you’re likely to see this year without that “urgh” creepy look going on...well most of the time anyway. The only complaint I’d make about the CGI is that the more they make the character lips (and indeed whole jaw and facial muscles) move “correctly” with the dialogue… the more “off” it seems once the whole thing’s dubbed into other languages, especially ones that really don’t match the mouth movements like say, oooh, English. Luckily the English Dub job is so good, with stellar (and at times hilariously tongue-in-cheek and oh-so-knowingly camp) performances from a somewhat eclectic and often lesser heard cast list that the mismatched lip-flaps can soon be overlooked. A nice touch is that Nina Williams is voiced by The Major from GITS in both English and Japanese. Now that kinda details’s just going that extra mile.

Which brings me onto the music, which was, well a bit “meh” really. There’s hardy any of it but what what there is is there, doing it’s job, hanging the background not getting in the way but to be honest there wasn’t anything special about it special enough to make me take notice of it over all the asskicking. Did I mention the asskicking yet? There’s plenty of that, and it’s good.

EDIT – I have just been reliably informed that the panda does not practice Kung-Fu. To this news I say... I don’t care, she’s a panda, she uses martial arts to kick major ass, so in my book she's a Kung-Fu panda. So there.

Extras:

Well there’s a distinct lack of bonus features per se, but what it does have, apart from a shed load of trailers, is the option to replay the disc in French, Italian, or Dutch all of which are worth trying if not just for the sheer comedy value of it all.

Tekken: Blood Vengeance will be available from most high streets and online retailers from 6th February 2012. Trailers and all kinda stuff that can be found on MangaUK’s official page here.

 

Samurai Girls

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

18

Format:

DVD / BluRay

Discs:

3. (12 episodes)

Running time:

300 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

English, Japanese, French

Release date:

30th January 2012

RRP:

DVD - £34.99 Blu-ray - £44.99

Actual Price:

DVD £23ish - Amazon - Play

Actual Price:

BluRay £33ish - Amazon - Play

Brief synopsis:

It’s early 21st century, the Tokugawa Shogunate still holds Great Japan tightly in it’s grasp while the nation has successfully resisted the corrupting influence of the decadent west for hundreds of years. Samurai and their Generals are still the cornerstone of Japanese society and their presence is felt in every aspect of the nation’s daily lives. High-schooler Yagyuu Muneakira returns to his home dojo after many years away only to find himself caught up in a rebellion against an oppressive school council, a council headed by non other than the eldest daughter of the Tokugawa Shogunate and Muneakira’s childhood friend Tokugawa Sen. Just when it looks like things can’t possibly get any worse for Muneakira, a naked woman falls from the sky and into his arms. But this is no damsel in distress, no, with one kiss from Muneakira this young lady lets rip with a split – and rather badass – personality and wipes the floor with anyone who’s so much as looking at her funny before Princess Sen arrives to take them all in custody. Now Muneakira finds himself caught between the Rebels, the School Council and this mysterious swordswoman who descended from the heavens.

Comments:

So when someone tells you about a new anime starring characters with names lifted direct from the pages of a Japanese history textbook like Yagyū Jūbei, Hattori Hanzō or Naoe Kanetsugu, you’d probably be thinking of something along the lines of Basilisk meets Battle Vixens with huge great lashings of Samurai Kings, thrown in for good measure… And if you throw in a big old handful of Sekirei while you’re at it then you’d wouldn’t be far off. To be honest, the connection any of these characters have to their historical counterparts is superficial at best, but it doesn’t matter because what this show does is 3 important things, ie, it looks good, has lots of fights and shows lots of (uncensored) breasts.

If there’s two things that Japan reeeaaally loves it’s breasts and an idle fantasy in which the Feudal era never ended - meaning Commodore Perry was told to go stick his black ships right where the land of the rising sun don’t shine; so what could ever be better than a combination of these two things into a single anime? And Japan does love to revisit the fantasy that they never opened their borders or that returning to feudal ways is somehow a viable option, much like Southern state Rednecks who swear that “the south will rise again” or the Brits who steadfastly cling onto the idea that we’re still some kind superpower and not just the 51st state.

Sorry, I’m getting off topic, so let’s go back at those three points I mentioned earlier -

1: It does look very pretty, there’s no denying that. The production quality is amazingly high throughout and the art style is quite distinctive, with backgrounds done in faux watercolours with random ink-splots to invoke the feel of pieces of antique Japanese artwork. The character designs are attention grabbing and the animation fluid, especially during the many fight scenes, which leads me onto;

2: Fights, and lots of them. Come on, it’s full name is “Hyakka Ryōran Samurai Girls”, what else did you expect? If the main characters aren’t either arguing, eating or jiggling then you can bet dollars to donuts that there’s a fight starting, ending or smack bang in the middle of one. Well choreographed and beautifully animated with a lot of inventive moves going down. Studio ARMS (who unsurprisingly also animated Queen’s Blade and Battle Vixens) know how to work a fight scene, but then they also know how to work the fan-service element as well which leads me onto:

3: The fanservice. Oh My God the fanservice! One of the comments I got quite often while I had this show running at home was “are you watching porn?” especially if the person asking couldn’t see the screen and could only hear what was going on, which I think only makes it worse. Studio ARMS seem deliberately to be actively pushing the boundary between Ecchi and Hentai (Wiki is your friend here) and only adding any kind of self-censorship when this boundary is not only crossed but jumped over repeatedly like it’s some kind of skipping rope. Basically, there’s so much uncensored smut on display here that when the show was aired on Japanese TV back in 2010, they had to add so many censor bars to the animation that at times it was almost impossible to tell what the hell was going on. Luckily for home release they left out the 99% of the censor bars, slapped a well-deserved 18 certificate on it (the likes of the Daily Mail would go mental otherwise) and declared it all good.

But is there actually something like a plot or some decent characters or any of that other bothersome stuff that we usually like in our anime for some strange reason? Well surprisingly, yes, yes there is even though it might take a little while to kick in. Also, several of the characters actually get a reassuring amount of character development, especially our hero Muneakira who has greatness thrust upon him whether he wants it or not and has to rise to the challenges it entails as well as the un-abashed “spoiled princess” Tokugawa Sen who has to realise that there’s more to life than power and social position.

Another thing it has going for it is the audio, with special mention going to the Dub cast who give an oftentimes funny but at all times heartfelt performance. When you read the cast list and clock that almost all the stage-names are really bad puns, such as Eileen Dover, Teresa Krowd and my favourite, Ophelia Cox, then you just know that the cast just aren’t going to be approaching the job with the kind of gravitas you’d expect for say, The Merchant of Venice or The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but honestly, this series comes out all the better for it.

Just as a side note, while these discs seem to play fine in ordinary DVD and BluRay players, I’ve never seen a release cause so many problems playback-wise on either PCs, Games consoles or Macs. 10 different pieces of DVD software spread over 4 different machines and I still couldn’t watch one from start to end without it pissing me off so much that I went back to my standalone player instead. Grrrr.

Extras:

There’s the usual trailers, promo spots, the ever present Textless opening and closing animation, 6 short manga slideshows voiced by the Japanese vocal cast and - saving the best for last - 6 mini OVA episodes, each of which is fairly light on the plot and heavy on the boing factor.

Samurai Girls is available now from most high streets and online retailers as well as MangaUK’s offical site here.

 

OK, I'm almost done. Just time left for:

Strike Witches Complete Series Collection

Label:

MangaUK

Certificate:

12

Format:

DVD

Discs:

3. (12 episodes)

Running time:

278 mins approx

Subtitles:

English

Video:

16:9 widescreen

Sound:

English, Japanese

Release date:

10th October 2011

RRP:

DVD - £24.99

Actual Price:

DVD £15ish - Amazon - Play

Comments:

Now, I’ve always said I wasn’t going to be reviewing any loli, and I’m still not going to. But as:

A: There’s no trailers for Tekken and Samurai Girls available for me to post (maybe they couldn’t find a suitable amount of footage for Samurai Girls with enough coverage of teenage skin to stop the tabloid press going into meltdown) and,

B: This is the most patently ridiculous thing I’ve ever been sent…

I’ll just be leaving this here and nonchalantly walking away. Make of it what you will.