As my taste in film develops with age, I find myself drifting ever closer to works with a French origin, yet always from a unique source. My knowledge of director Christophe Gans’ efforts like Silent Hill and Brotherhood of The Wolf can be tied back to my years of video games and love for Mark Decascos respectively. Being an animation fan has led me towards the works of Sylvain Chomet like The Illusionist and The Triplets of Belleville. While I was writing this, I found out that director Luc Besson was the writer behind many American films that I enjoy like Taken and The Transporter series. Which constituted my experience with French film before watching tonight’s review of 1995’s La Cité Des Enfants Perdus (The City of Lost Children), I do hope that this will be enough to do this film justice.

The City of Lost Children was directed by both Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who previously joined forces to create Delicatessen back in 1991. Since then, Marc Caro directed Dante 01 and not much else; where Jean-Pierre Jeunet went and took charge of Alien Resurrection, Amélie, and recently MicMacs. They both tend to frequently cast actor Dominque Pinon anytime post Delicatessen.

La Cité Des Enfants Perdus is a harbor side town fortressed in brick walls, clothe lines, and countless alley ways. Flyers concerning missing children plaster the walls; with rumors spreading around that the religious zealot group known as the Cyclops (identified by their single working robotic eye and their extremely sharp hearing) are behind the kidnappings. But while people understand who is taking them, they do not know for what reason. In paid transactions, the representatives of the mad scientist Krank work with the Cyclops to gain enough children for Krank’s experiments. See, by using children’s dreams they try to and manage Krank’s inability to dream, Krank’s necessity for young children stirs confrontation between his workers/family  and the film’s lead/ the film’s standout, the gorilla-like redhead Mr. One.

Mr. One’s role is of a side-show strongman, whose presenter is stabbed by a mugger during a performance where One attempts to break the chains wrapped around him. After breaking free from the failed stunt, Mr. One brings his (maybe) dead boss to their stage-coach house, being accompanied by his adopted younger brother Denree. But as One watches over his boss’s (maybe) unconscious body, members of the Cyclops break into and kidnap Denree. One gives chase but loses them, after which he stumbles upon a gang of orphan’s led by a curly-haired young girl named Miette. After a few successful robberies constructed by two conjoined twins called the Octopus (some assisted by One himself), Miette decides to help One find his little brother. Confrontation between the Cyclops and Krank’s family awaits them.

City of Lost Children is very character based and this is helped by the great acting. Mr. One is portrayed by Ron Pearlman, who was the only American in the cast. His character’s brutish but child-like amalgamation speaks in the third-person and is not abased to literally bruising the scenery. This contrasts with his small companion Miette with her stoic and no-nonsense attitude. Evil scientist Krank is snarky and scary, but at the same time likable. Actions bubble wonderfully from Daniel Emilfork’s performance, his villainy controls the otherwise benign fellow clones that live with him, all creations by the same genius scientist, where some look more like fully grown identical sextuplets, one that is the artificial pint-sized scientist’s wife, and a talking head in a jar named Irvin. They follow his lead because they want to see him happy.  However, it just happens to that their actions can be construed as evil.

What makes City of Lost Children stand out the most is the set design and costume design, making this film all the more distinctive. If I am to compare the main set to others, I would say that this port city reminded me of both the town square from Batman Returns and the in-studio Lake Lachrymose from A Series of Unfortunate Events (both done by set director Cheryl Carasik). The landscape feels like the inside of one large soundstage because everything looks closed off and the shots of the sea are narrowed by far off matte paintings. I recently visited a fashion gallery by French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, where I was able to see his original sketch designs for Miette’s red dress and the clones’ copper green suits (and I got close enough to Ruby Rhod’s leopard suit from The Fifth Element to almost knock it over). The clone colors fit the green lab interior and the designs for the Octopus tried to incorporate two outfits that were connected by the same center foot they shared.

Pros: Certain scenes, for instance an early fairy tale told by Irvin giving back story to his fellow clones that causes Krank to start crying, are just beautiful to behold for how personal they are delivered. The film has this underlying comedic tinged underlining its serious tone making it all the more absurd; similar to the original La Cage Aux Folles in allowing itself to pull a quick joke from scenes you would not expect. The violin filled soundtrack is a perfect mood setter.

Cons: I addressed earlier the final fate of One’s boss, who is completely forgotten once the film started flowing. This stuck with me because this film is filled with concepts that fit like four teeth sided puzzle pieces trying to make a coherent image. Like a very long word wrote out in cursive that you awe at before it stops, City of Lost Children has an ending that runs out of steam. For the most part you are enthralled by its phantasmal elements and at times whimsical approach, but the ending is disappointing because the film just seems to stop.

The release that I found was put out by Sony Picture Classics. The City of Lost Children is like those haunted house designed theme park rides that keeps you in an enclosed seat to take you on a personal ride. But like a ride where construction/build-up starts to take a toll at the very end of the line, so does The City of Lost Children crash into a wall. I can say that it’s more of the journey then the destination with this one. Do not let the venom less ending influence everything before, because there are just so many beautiful things to see in The City of Lost Children that it would all be a waste to turn it down, just do not expect a grand finale.

This is the first anthology I have reviewed in my short life as a reviewer, so meeting with some unfamiliarity was unavoidable. For my first anthology, 1995′s Memories was a bit disappointing, yet not  without its achievements.

Memories is co-directed by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira, Cannon Fodder), Koji Morimoto (Animatrix, Magnetic Rose), and Tensai Okamura (Wolf’s Rain, Stink Bomb).  Now you could find this information on the reverse of the DVD box, but my tyrannical editor demands that I draw it attention, just in that off-chance any of these names mean anything to you.

On the loosest of standards, all three stories in Memories are sci-fi related; but that is where all similarities end. Because this is made up of three separate pieces that stand by themselves, I will split the review in separate parts for each clip and will make my conclusion encompassing the work as a whole.

 Magnetic Rose is a story about a team of four men: Ivanov the captain, Aoshima, his co-pilot, Heinz, the more mature half of the salvaging duo and Miguel who is the stupider one of the two; their spaceship wandering the universe as they salvage old debris from older ships. The team accidentally stumbles upon a distress signal, If you have ever watched a show set in outer space, then you probably know this has been done so many times that I am not even going to bother taking off mental points. As this salvaging team moves through a dead sea of ships, they find the source of the distress signal, a giant magnetic rose made out of ship parts. When their scout team, that is Heinz and Miguel, begins to explore the innards of the rose they find themselves on a fancy European mansion owned by an Italian opera singer; this is when things start to get creepy. Despite the surroundings being full of lavish displays of wealth and taste, the film does a nice job of slowly pouring a sense of creepiness that builds over time. Slowly ever so slowly all the members of the crew are being led to their deaths in very different manners, personally I couldn’t help but sympathize with the Heinz who not only did not fall for the atmosphere of the rose but also as a loving father and husband gave us a reason to sympathize with him, yet quite possibly met with the worst possible fate imaginable.

Ultimately the film is rather tragic but no outcome is treated as either bad or good. This subjectivity is perhaps the film’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness, there is no moral compass in this story and you are left to pass judgment on it by yourself. I personally did not like it for its neutrality nor did I feel moved by its character designs. The music does a suitable job of setting the moods of the story but it is not enough to redeem its blandness. In conclusion, I feel Magnetic Rose is a tale you had better dive in knowing you are going to get a bittersweet tale of lost love.

Stinkbomb is my favorite piece of this compilation. It begins with a young chemist seeing the doctor over a pretty annoying cold, who then goes back to work at a pharmaceutical lab. While his colleagues complain about bio hazard contamination, they send him to the office of his supervisor in order to get a new cold medicine, after all other products in the lab failed to do anything about his symptoms. Suddenly feeling groggy, he goes to sleep in a meeting room. What is about to ensue is quite possibly some of the most subtle examples of black humor I have yet to see. As soon as he wakes up, our sick protagonist find every person in a three-mile radius dead, why did this happen? Well, for those of us who like yours truly, know anything at all about chemistry or biology is that you never mix medicines and other foreign substances in your body. What results is often messy, though it usually won’t be as messy as turning your body into walking bio factory of poisonous gas.

The rest of the film involves our resident biological weapon trying to get to Tokyo under orders from an unwitting superior, who unaware of the fact that he was the cause of the deaths, asked him to bring a particular chemical sample to their Tokyo headquarters. All the while the government makes every attempt to stop him once they put two and two together once the fact that he is the sole survivor of the incident becomes known. The government will then try everything from snipers to assaults by tanks, helicopter and more than a few jet fighters, all of which fails to hit one dude in a lousy scooter. Quite frankly I am quite loathe in revealing the ending to Stinkbomb and will refrain from doing so, let it suffice to say, it reeks of black humor. Visually, Stinkbomb is the prettiest of all three clips boasting the best animation, though I can’t sing as much praise about its musical aspect, it got the job done.

Cannon Fodder is not only my least favorite of the compilation, and to be honest, I hated it. In an unnamed city, citizens work from dusk to dawn making, servicing, and preparing large cannons to be fired at an unknown enemy. That’s it. Cannon Fodder is a normal slice-of-life anime that just so happens to show the people’s lives during war. In a way, it does pay (to a certain degree) a valid commentary on war itself; however it only goes so far. What we see unfold before us is just another day in the lives of these citizens. There is nothing that makes that day stand out from any other. We, the audience learn that the conflict, in which they are so devoted towards, is in the end absolutely meaningless. Quite like watching the segment itself.

 The character designs in Cannon Fodder are plain dreadful. Skin looks like something you just messily drape on to bones for all adults and the children look like unevenly inflated balloons. Both the children and adults have horribly sunken eyes, that in one hand makes the movie deeper in its depiction of conflict, but it doesn’t make it any more bearable to watch. I have seen better things from American cartoons in the 80’s and I would be surprised if someone had the valid, but still stupid idea of using this characters as zombies for some other third-rate film, though there is a rather nice panoramic view of one of the cannons, it hardly makes up for the waste of time watching Cannon Fodder represents.

Pros: Memories features really interesting stories, though with varying degrees of success. The three segments feature some dark humor which can be quite refreshing depending on your usual line-up of anime.  Some nice visual effects here and there, particularly the falling of petals in both Magnetic Rose and Stinkbomb .

Cons: Forgettable music, so forgettable in fact, that I could not recall seconds after hearing it. Less than appealing overall character designs tend to take away the enjoyment from the segments and Cannon Fodder itself is a waste of time.

Overall, with one pretty good segment, one that was okay, and one segment I felt was just horrible; this release hardly seems from the “masters” of anime as the cover would put it. I found it a bit lackluster overall, but if nothing else. Two out of three segments are at least worth watching. So I will not condemn the entire DVD for one lousy segment.

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Hope to see you guys there.

Folk tales are considered a vital part of a region’s cultural heritage and tradition. North America is breaming with such stories:  John Henry and his role as a hard working steel driver on nineteenth century train tracks, the Native American story of how the Earth was built atop a turtle’s back, and the one with the most statue-esk representation known as the axe welding Paul Bunyan. Comic book wise, Folk tale/folklore related material usually puts the image of the Fables series into mind. 2002’s Ancient Joe plots its own points when it comes to Cuban folk tales, grabbing my interest and making it my next review.

Ancient Joe was created by C. Scott Morse, known for titles like Spaghetti Western put out by Oni Press, The Barefoot Serpent released from Top Shelf, as well as the hard to find work Soulwind that got him nominated for an Eisner and Ignatz award. He is also credited under various roles for Pixar’s films and shorts as a storyboard and background artist.

Legend tells of a man named Ancient Joe who for centuries had been incapable of escaping from the Caribbean Islands (think the island of Cuba)  for whenever he got on a boat, destruction befalls it and he is left at sea only to wait for fisherman to pull him up. He made friends with the area’s people by drinking and boxing with them.  One day he decides to get married, from there he lives with her until she dies of old age years later where Joe still appears to not aged a day. Time moves ever forward to Ancient Joe’s setting of 1998 Cuba where Joe searches for a way to find the exact location of his wife’s soul. Joe feels that his past with El Diablo might have her in his own personal hell.

During a friendly drive in the back of a friend’s pickup truck (Joe usually walks everywhere); one of the two children sitting with him asked Joe if he was the Chupacabra. Joe played this off as a joke until the other child called Joe El Bizarron and thus asking for the Devil’s gold he took. Thus we the readers are privy to a retelling of the El Bizarron story; entailing one man’s ability to convince his new employer El Diablo that he welded super-human powers. See, El Bizarron wanted to find work, so he heard that El Diablo was hiring. El Diablo tasked him with jobs that El Bizarron cleverly worked around; convincing him that he had the strength of many men. This soon led to uneasiness which lead to outright fear, leading to El Diablo sending El Bizarron far away by offering bags of gold and a burro (donkey). Thus gives us Joe’s understandable fear of his wife’s final resting place in relation to his past with El Diablo.

You might have noticed that I have yet to describe what Ancient Joe actually looks like.  Joe is a dark-skinned middle sized man with pupil-less eyes and a face hidden by a skull looking face mask that looks like an upside down “W”; black clumpy hair shoots out from the top of his head. He looks like he is perpetually ready to box with his heavily bandaged arms and legs, with a spiral set into his torso. I do believe that the look of Ancient Joe makes him iconic. I cannot say that I care for C. Scott Morse’s other character designs, with their beady soulless eyes. Every human has this unnatural way of looking like they were just possessed by a malicious spirit or are dead inside. To be fair, El Diablo’s appearance of a stone idol is pretty cool.

Pros: I enjoyed the change of pace for a comic written around Central American folk tales and settings. I personally think that Dark Horse needs to put out a statue of Joe like how they release statues of Disney characters and of Bettie Page. Transmetropolitan’s Spider Jerusalem gets one, why cannot the same go for Joe? Features a bitter sweet ending that plays off of what it means to lose a loved one (which I promise is nowhere near as sentimental as that statement would have you believe). Cover features vibrant colors of teal and rusted red.

Cons: Human character designs did distract my attention more often than I would have liked. Falls on the shorter end of comics where every comic seems to either go on forever raking up shelves of volumes like Fables mentioned earlier, or has only enough issues to require two hands to count and not warrant page numbers. Hard to describe this, but the “Hey, ese” and “Hey, man” dialog between the people Joe talks to gets old rather quickly. To be fair I might have had a problem with it even if it was not there.

Ancient Joe was originally released as three issues under something called Loud Cannoli, but later collected under a past written be the Dark Horse Imprint called Maverick. Bottom-line, Ancient Joe is a quick read that I burned through while waiting twenty-something minutes for my shuttles bus to arrive. I am fighting the urge right now to reread it in its entirety as I write this, but you will discover that it really only wants a little of your time, not a big time consumer. I personally believe that C. Scott Morse should combine his comic and his animator nature and set up an Ancient Joe short film incorporating the colors I have seen on both Ancient Joe’s cover and what I have seen on C. Scott Morse’s site. Or at the least rerelease a digital copy with Morse recoloring everything like how Jeff Smith’s comic Bone was rereleased in full color editions; thus making the C. Scott Morse equivalent of a Ben Templesmith comic. Bottom line, find it, buy it, rush through it, share it, and then restart.

The Spider Jerusalem figure image provided by CTBF’s friend Troy Rogers.

Released and serialized by Shueisha, Zombie Power premiered in 1999 within Weekly Shōnen Jump. Created by Tite Kubo (Bleach), Zombie Powder follows the story of Gamma Akutabi and his search for the twelve legendary “Rings of the Dead.” The rings are said to hold immense power, even over death itself. Gamma wants them in order to become immortal but others want them as well; and they will stop at nothing to get their hands on them.

Zombie Powder is your everyday generic shonen manga. Its story is not original; you’ve got your “badass” hero and the young naïve companion on a journey. The journey is to collect X number of legendary items in order to fulfill their wishes. It is similar to a number of titles under Shonen Jump and does not differ from the pack in terms of storytelling or art to a degree. Our main hero Gamma is similar to Vash the Stampede from Trigun or Kenshin Himura from Rurouni Kenshin in that he is serious when he wants to be and seemingly weak the next. There are also archetypes in this manga; from the eye candy of Wolfina, to C.T. Smith the mysterious character you know nothing about. Zombie Powder is filled to the brim with generic components but that does not mean there are no good points to it.

The art is nothing new or special with little to no backgrounds appearing. Every once in a while the reader will be graced with a building interior or exterior but do not expect panels to be brimming with flora and fauna. The costume design on the other hand is something to be admired. Tite Kubo thought about become a fashion designer when he was younger but a faithful encounter with the Saint Seiya manga (Masami Kurumada) inspired and led him to become a mangaka. This love of fashion is prevalent when looking at certain characters and also by the splash pages that separate each chapter. Another example of this knack for fashion is in his other series Bleach. In this anime some episode openings will have the characters dressed in everyday cloths that look fantastic and match excellently. The clothes look like you would be able to find them in the real world, Kubo has said “I just put the characters in the clothes I wish I could buy, but can’t find in stores.” Aside from the main characters and a few sides, everyone else, such as the town’s people and those who show up in one panel, will wear basic threads. The volumes themselves are durable with the covers being the same as anything else you would expect from Shonen Jump. With that the paper quality is average, not the best and yet not the worst, dead middle. Zombie Powder ends with an eloquent poem by Kubo and is a nice ending to the canceled series.

Fans of Tite Kubo will be treated to three different stories found within the volumes of Zombie Powder. In Volume two there is Ultra Unholy Hearted Machine, which was written when Kubo was only eighteen years old and is his very first manga story. Volume three includes Rune Master Urara, and finally volume four has Bad Shield United. Each of these stories has nothing unique to them but do provide an interesting read as well as a short break from Zombie Powder. They can be classified as shōnen and still follow the same rule as any other manga or anime. The art looks like sketches and not as sharp as what you are reading but nothing too distracting. At the end of each story I found myself wanting more; it gives you just enough to peak your curiosity and then ends.

Zombie Powder is not a well known series, even for fans of Bleach. For claiming to love Kubo’s immensely popular show they looked puzzled when this series is mentioned; at least to the ones I have talked to. Even though it is not the best or even close to the best manga out there it is still a good short read. Anyone wanting a quick read to add to their repertoire and not wanting to sink money into twenty plus volumes should pick up Zombie Powder. Even though it offers nothing new it still is worth at least one read.

Pros:

A short read that gives you just enough shōnen without overwhelming your mind. Zombie Powder would be considered a light version of other such mangas such as Rave Master.

Cons:

A problem I have with Zombie Powder is that I find it a bit too short story wise. I feel as though it should have been at least expanded out to an eight volume series to be able to wrap things up nicely. Unfortunately, you cannot help cancellation so this becomes only a little quam I have understanding their circumstances.

Back in my younger days as an Anime fan; my first Anime Convention was A-Kon 19 taking place the last day of my freshman year of high school. Even though it is considered the U.S.’s oldest Anime convention, nowadays I consider A-Kon to be a multi-media convention instead of an Anime and Manga convention. Taking that aside, A-Kon was originally called Project A-Kon in reference to the 1986 Anime film Project A-Ko. I personally believe that love of eighties’ anime went away with A-Kon’s original intent, with the Dirty-Pair/Makoto Kusanagi mascot designs being the only indicator that it existed. Sadly, the original artist (whose name escapes me), seems to have dropped off as of a year or two ago. But enough of this wallowing for things that were in the past; let’s try to focus on things that are in the present. Coincidently it’s Project A-Ko, so how about we look into what influenced A-Kon’s original staff so much that they name a convention in reference.

Project A-Ko was directed by Katsuhiko Nishijima, director of such fine dreck as Najica Blitz Tactics and Agent Aika. Works that Discotek (the distributor) thought might coerce my buying position. That answer would be no, but in Project A-Ko’s favor I ignored this misstep. Character Designs are by Yuji Moriyama, a character designers on Maison Ikkoku and the Fire Emblem OVA. He also took over directing the various Project A-Ko OVA sequels.

Now about the story, Graviton City is a popular locale that sits in a sixteen year old crater caused by a space ship crash. Instead of building around the ship like in Macross, the city is build right on top and high atop one of the highest spots in the city sits Graviton High, a gated all-girls school that finds itself with two new transfer students. One is the fiery red Eiko (spelled A-Ko in the sub) Magami; the other is A-Ko’s friend Shiko (C-Ko) Kotobuki, who looks much too young to be attending “high school loudmouth”. C-Ko’s overtly childish nature alienates all of her other classmates. All that is, but Biko (B-Ko) Daitokuji, the class brain who finds C-Ko’s childish nature to be infatuating to the point that B-Ko decides to force A-Ko out of the picture, taking C-Ko for herself.

B-Ko sends out one of her friends named Mari, whose physical appearance can only be described as Kenshiro parody, to handle A-Ko. But what B-Ko does not know is that A-Ko has this unexplainable super-human strength and speed that easily defeated Mari, wrecking part of the school in the process.  B-Ko does not give up, so for the next few days she designs and builds robots that her other friends pilot in order to continue her mission. Outside of the school grounds, a suspicious looking investigator reports whatever it’s observation to a space ship looming above the Earth’s atmosphere.  The ship’s inhabitants appear to be looking for its planet’s long-lost princess. Let me just say that the collateral damage that A-Ko is causing will soon break away from those Graviton High grounds.

Like many Anime in the eighties Project A-Ko follows the path of series like the Starship Troopers Anime or as covered in my previous review of Area 88,that it was cool for the music to be sung by English vocalists. Main themes “Follow Your Dream”, “In Your Eyes”, and “Dance Away” were all sung by American singers, one of them being Samantha Newark, the voice actress for Jem from Jem and The Holograms. The synthesizer heavy (crazy unheard for the eighties right?) tracks tend to keep a quick tempo to keep up with Project A-Ko’s motion.

Pros: The soundtrack alone rocks hard enough that it makes worth listening. B-Ko’s cool demeanor and genius level of robotics makes her Project A-Ko’s greatest character and driving force. It houses fantastic fight scenes that work solely off of A-Ko’s and B-Ko’s competition for C-Ko. B-Ko’s and A-Ko’s character designs are distinct enough for them to stand out as interesting characters both visually and mentally. I caught myself laughing quite regularly, succeeding at many of its comedic attempts.

Cons: Literally reverse everything above about A-Ko and B-Ko and you have my opinion of C-Ko. This whinny child of a character is part of this comedies artillery that cannot seem to fire straight. When you get down to it, she is the catalyst for all of the conflict in Project A-Ko, and what causes my hammer of agitation to slam is when all of the good characters in a work become obsessed with their lousy counterparts. The leads are constantly off-model to the point that it gets distracting.

Discotek Media’s business model seems to me to be rereleasing past titles that fans like me want to buy (I will stop now as to not sound like an unpaid Discotek advertisement). Best case being the much appreciated flood of extras that were in this release. Spotlights on the production side of Project A-Ko’s creation could be a pro in and of themselves. Project A-Ko was back in its day a new attempt to get a new franchise going (as those countless OVA do attest to), and it’s filled with enough cool concepts and visuals to qualify. But it did not leave me flabbergasted or jumping up on my couch in zealous glee. Watching this alone made this viewing less memorable, something that maybe sharing with others might bring more fulfillment. Thus it is hard to suggest Project A-Koto someone who does not have a captive audience on hand.

We here at Children of The Blazing Fist are fans of Japan’s famed Colonel Sanders impersonator Kazuo Koike. Series like Crying Freeman, Wounded Man, and Lone Wolf and Cub have entertained us to no end with absurd exploits with this gekiga (dramatic pictures) movement’s long withstanding torch-bearer. Yet while he is a great representation of this form, he is not its earliest practitioner. That title goes to Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Tatsumi’s fight to counter modern (at the time) ideals about what manga represented as a medium influenced future writers; going as far as at one point influencing Osamu Tezuka. But instead of hitting up one of his more gritty stories during his heyday, I decided to drift back to 1956 where a twenty-one year old Yoshihiro Tatsumi sits at his desk,  as he works on tonight’s review known as Black Blizzard.

Yoshihiro Tatsumi is best known in the States from his 2008 memoir work A Drifting Life, but has other titles published here like Abandon the Old In Tokyo and The Push Man and Other Stories. To be honest, my experience with Yoshihiro Tatsumi before Black Blizzard was his short story Lover’s Bride found inside the pages of AX Vol. One. This story details with an often heard commonplace in Yoshiro Tatsumi’s manga; the discouraged man who is brought down by the woman in his life.  And as I will go into detail later, contrasting the two really showcases just how far his art style has come in fifty years (you might be surprised to learn that he still keeps many of the same traits).

Young Pianist Susumu Yamaji finds himself arrested for murder, handcuffed to a rough-and-tumble stern looking man (who remains nameless for the gestation of the manga), and is being escorted by an officer on a moving train shooting to God knows where through the mountain side. The heavily packed snow mountain drop contrasts with the rocky terrain under the railroad tracks, but as Susumu reads a letter from his dear friend Saeko, the conductor yells of a landslide on the tracks ahead. The conductor’s quick attempt to slow down the train causes it to jump off the rails. The man handcuffed to Susumu takes this opportunity to pull him from the refuge and flee, just as a blizzard starts to cover the panels.

Their trek hits a snag when they come to the conclusion that being handcuffed will only slow them down. The gruff man believes that the only way to successfully escape is for one of them to cut off their arm. This is unthinkable for Susumu who works specifically with his hand, yet the same is said about the gruff man’s career as a professional Card Shark. Finishing their argument, they stumble upon a Ranger’s cottage where they get in from the cold, then elaborating on why they were arrested in the first place, delving especially into Susumu’s relationship to his friend Saeko and her role as a traveling circus performer.

From what I have heard/read from summaries of his other work off of Drawn and Quarterly’s site, Black Blizzard this might just predate the sorrow filled stories of overworked salary men that are pushed too far by their wives, to the point that they retaliate through physical (if not sexual at times) force. I consider Black Blizzard to be a male comradely story that has you play at a “catch up to the protagonists” pace that slows down only at the end. Yet it keeps a gruff edge to it, with Susumu’s alcohol stained broken aspirations convincing him outside of the murder that he is blamed. This one is by no means trying to make you cringe at what the characters are doing to each other.

I wrote earlier that I will be contrasting tonight’s review, specifically the artwork, with that of a more recent Yoshihiro Tatsumi’s work. The distinctive shading and crosshatching that made Lover’s Bride stand out to me can be found in here, but done with much thicker strokes. Clothes and objects have a same level of thickness to them that makes me think that they were all done with a stamp (the Q&A at the back of the book has Tatsumi bringing to attention drawing plates that contained the four basic printer colors of black, red, yellow, and blue that added certain densities of color to the panels). Tatsumi’s character designs share a “square” or “boxy” look to the way their heads are shaped (making everyone look akin to Tatsumi himself and CTBF’s writer Alex Hajdar) that I consider a staple of even his modern work. Everyone’s faces reminded me, Susumu’s especially, of the henohenomoheji faces that pop up in Japanese comedy from time to time, thus taking some of the tension out of this super serious work.

Pros: A relatively quick read that never stops to take a long breath. The stern man was by far the best aspect of Black Blizzard, from his demeanor and crass attitude, to his overall character design. Q& A in the back spreads some interesting light on the manga industry at the time. A rather humbling ending that makes the journey worth the investment.

Cons: To keep up with its own pace, expository dialogue is bleated out haphazardly and sticks out as making the characters just too easily convinced to share their life stories. Character designs could be considered distractingly simple at times.

Black Blizzard pretty tiny when you see it in person. Yes the literal size is bigger than your average tankobon, but this twenty-dollar Drawn and Quarterly release is nowhere near even one hundred and fifty pages. This in mind, I suggest this one as something that you loan out constantly to friends, or read it over again in its entirety when you have a little less than thirty minutes to kill. To be honest, I am playing with the idea myself, and this is coming from someone who is in desperate need of sleep as tomorrow’s classes’ loom overhead.

I have no idea if this is just a problem with the release copies that I found (used…I bought it used sitting next to many others), but the pages are yellowed similar to something maybe published originally so those many years ago. I bring this up because this release is only from 2010. If you do not see this on any copies you might find, then my comment holds no water and you can ignore it.

Lions Gate is known as a top-tier independent production house in the West. They may not be as reaching as say MGM or Warner Bros., but even the average movie goer should be able to list off a title or two after they remember seeing the interconnecting clock-work mechanism lock of the preverbal “Lions Gate” before a film. Lions Gate as a company fascinates me for its ability to capitalize revenue for its productions. Whenever I bring up Lions Gate I usually reference their slew of adult focused Hard “R” action films or their very unsuccessful outings like Punisher: War Zone and Fido that suffer in theaters; whose existence is thanked solely to the cash cow that is Saw. Tonight I decided to flip through the Lions Gate catalog and select a film that fits under the second category, 2008’s The Midnight Meat Train, for even films brought out by main stream distributers can have a unique or eccentric air about them.

Midnight Meat Train is directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, who is known for both Versus and the Godzilla fan disputed powerhouse Godzilla: Final Wars. The story is based on one of Clive Barker’s earliest short stories released in the first, Books of Blood collection. It is interesting to note that Clive Barker also contributed self-made paintings for certain shoots.

The story commences with a lonely man inhabiting a late night subway train, located deep in an unknown city. Startled by a banging noise, the complacent man’s startled notion coerced him into reaching for the connecting door. He slips, lands on his back in a puddle of blood, uneasiness sets in as he tries unsuccessfully to position himself amongst the fluid covered thus slippery metal. He hears the banging continue and finally peers into the connecting window, past columns of blood into the adjacent train car. A silver meat hammer shines through the dark, bashing flesh as it descends. The occupant screams.

Leon (Bradley Cooper) is a photographer living in an unnamed city with his waitress girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb), who has been trying to capture what he considers the heart of the city through his photography. His method of scatter shooting local gangs in action in the dead of night leads to confrontation when he attracts their ire as they are caught roughing up a woman (Erika Sakaki) at a train station. Leon successfully deters the gangs’ responses by addressing a security camera positioned in view. The gang leaves and Leon watches as the thankful woman departs on an almost empty train, with only an imposing suit wearing man holding the door; Leon continues his photo taking as she  embarks on the train from the platform. The next day, Leon sees a report that the woman he helped was a model, and that she disappeared in the night. Camera in hand Leon takes his photos to the police, and when they do not believe him, he starts his own investigation.

Following the photos he took, Leon stumbles upon the larger man (named once as Mahogany who is played by Vinnie Jones) who rode the train during the same night that the model went missing. Leon stalks him during his daily routine following him from his apartment complex to his job at the meat-packing plant and then to his late night visit to the train station. After doing research at the local library Leon thinks that this man is connected to local disappearances that have been going on for the last century. He believes that he uses his butcher tools; a meat hammer, meat hooks, and iron apron  to brutalize his victims. When the investigation turns to obsession, concern for Leon’s very sanity increases every passing day.

Midnight Meat Train is truly effective as a horror film through its realism. Mahogany appears to be the sole menace terrorizing the passengers. And when he performs what is later revealed to be a semi-job for a higher power, you see that he does so with the most professional means. There are shots of Mahogany getting cleaned up for work in the morning by combing his hair and fixing his dress shirt which makes his work seem more methodic. He is human like everyone else, but purports this level of volume that makes his human actions tenser than anything that I have seen in quite some time.

Pros: Leon and Maya are sizable characters that can keep up with the movie they are in; Modern Horror has made their normal lead roles almost antagonistic to which the audience really roots for, yet engaging enough that I felt actual concern about their survival. Vinnie Jones is imposing on his own, making his silent visage all the more suspenseful. Actually creates tension and fear, something new that I usually do not get from the type of Horror films I experience. Some excellent camera shots that make the train come alive.

Cons: The CG distracts from certain shots. I will remark that there is more than enough red karo syrup for gore fans, but from time to time that pool of gushing blood looks as unreal as one can expect. Like many films before it (especially in Horror) Midnight Meat Train cannot get over its need to overly darken a scene. Making things “scary” aside, it is annoying when you have a hard time looking at everything in the shot.

The Midnight Meat Train, as stated earlier, was put out by Lions Gate. There are a few good intense scenes and some impressive atmosphere from this one, and I believe that Mahogany is shooting right up there in my heart for most impressive Modern Horror killer. I cannot suggest this enjoyable film enough.

Throughout Comic publishing’s long history of breeding countless companies, you are bound to find just as many imprints. Dark Horse has had past imprints like Legend where well-known creators like Mike Mignola and Frank Miller tried to create a creator-owned name under Dark Horse’s own. Publishers like Del Rey and D.C. Comics used to have Manga imprints like Del Rey Manga and CMX. Even the all-encompassing Vertigo is but a monstrous imprint of D.C. Comics. I bring this all up because I decided to take a look at one of Vertigo’s own sub-imprints, simply named Vertigo Crime. Vertigo Crime, by my definition a recent line of crime focused comics that were self-identified by similar stylized covers, done by Lee Bermejo. Since is my nature, I choose the one with the skull on the front, otherwise known as 2009’s Dark Entries.

Dark Entries is a step-on-a-new-island for Scottish crime novelist Ian Rankin(hard to miss his name, it takes up a quarter of the cover), whose known for the long running stories of the heavy drinking Detective Rebus, which starting with the 1987’s Knots and Crosses. I take it that Ian Rankin was chosen to write for this title based off of his history with U.K. set crime fiction. Italian artist Werther Dell’edera wears the artist’s hat for Dark Entries, having worked previously on The Mission and House of Mystery.

Dark Entries, is what would be considered a side-story of Hellblazer’s own chain-smoking John Constantine and his relationship with demons and spirits (Before you stop reading entirely by this notion, do know that I was perfectly fine in the context of the story with the little knowledge I had, which pretty much centered around the Keanu Reeves film and flipping through an issue or two of Hellblazer). We see our lead man walking back to his Anytown, England apartment where he discovers that he has an unwanted guest waiting for him. This home invader being Mr. Matthew Keene, an employee of a local British T.V. channel that focuses on reality T.V. Mr. Keene wants to hire Constantine for one of their latest programs, called Dark Entries, where six contestants are locked up in a large in studio house where their actions are watched and enjoyed by the viewer. The program focuses on introducing fear into a controlled environment; the only problem is that the toll has already started to take effect on the contestants.  They are experiencing unique nightmares that have started, way ahead of anything the company had cooked up. Constantine’s job is to investigate and see what could be the cause of the early onset nightmares.

Constantine arrives at the station video surveillance room where he is privy to shots of the contestants. His interest hits its peak when he discovers that a contestant by the name of Stephanie looks exactly like his past love. Realizing that he is wasting his time outside of the action, he persuades Mr. Keene to allow him to take part in the show as a contestant to get to the bottom of this. Mr. Keene gladly follows suit and sends Constantine inside to investigate. Once inside the contestants greet Constantine with a mix of sincerity and suspicion. Constantine learns that all of the contestants do not remember signing up for the show or anything before that for that matter. Some hours after a contestant created drinking party, the lights shut off, starting the ball in motion when one of the contestants disappears. They go looking and thus starts Constantine’s detective’s story that let me just say has all of Hell’s demons clamoring for more.

As I stated earlier, Ian Rankin has been around the U.K. Crime Fiction scene (that was not intentional) for over two decades before putting out Dark Entries. Now, while most of my crime fiction knowledge comes from being an avid Jeff Lindsay fan, I tend to see the Crime Fiction genre unanimous with the Detective Fiction sub-genre. I interpreted Dark Entries as a detective story with sleuthing to be had, where in a Crime story the plot might have a recent murder act as the catalyst, as in say Scars. Ian Rankin’s story ran with Constantine being more of detective than anything else, but not in the beat-cop/ badge showing way I had in mind.  I do play devil’s advocate by stating that this was impossible with the closed-door environment that he created.

I have mixed feelings on Werther Dell’edera’s artwork and its use of extreme shadow. Now while there is shading here and there, his art style is focused more on characters and objects being white figures contrasted with  pure pitch blackness. It almost looks like every other thing is sitting in a black panel with a light shooting down at them from a random angle. I liked how he would bother to draw the character’s age lines to illustrate general age difference, with Constantine looking as rugged and gruff as needed. In an attempt to not spoil too much of the plot, I did really enjoy his demon designs that reminded me of the Armless Man/Trojan Man from Silent Hill.  I also liked how he changed the panel frame from white to black after a certain point in the story.

Pros: Constantine as a character does not require twenty plus years of Hellblazer knowledge to bog down first time readers. The story is self-contained enough that it works as a quick loan to anyone who dreads multi-volume magnum opus. Werther Dell’edera’s artwork.

Cons: Reading this far, you might have realized that I did not bother to name the other contestants. As the plot moves along, I started to understand that they were more extensions of the Stephanie character, even though they were flushed out to a degree. Certain supernatural plot points that poked holes in the narrative. A justified nitpick; most of the characters address the contestant as teenagers, but they look and act like people in their early to mid-twenties. This just drew on my nerves because they try to dig this in too deep. Werther Dell’edera’s artwork.

Well that was Dark Entries. Bottom line, it did not blow me away by any stretch of the imagination, making a picture perfect example of an “It was fine”. But it was enjoyable enough that I will be trying to loan it out to non-comic readers in the future. And in my book that counts as something because there is no need to let Dark Entries swim only through the streams of the super-informed comic reader.

Most samurai films are just that, films involving samurai (usually ronin) in a war-torn country and a lordless swordsman trying not to attract attention, just to have destiny kick him into something major that only his skills can solve. The great majority of films work this way, some shake things up, others do not, and others simply decide to add a few other elements to maybe span another genre or two. Sword of The Stranger is one such movie, where a few, and I do mean just a few, elements of the supernatural and mysticism are used to support the plot, it does not really work out that way, but it does work itself out in a memorable way.

Directed by Masahiro Ando (Hanasaku Iroha, CANAAN), who also had storyboard and unit direction roles. Admittedly, I have not seen much of his work as a director, but he does, at least in my opinion, seem to have a knack for making characters with believable traits and reactions. Character design was done by Tsunenori Saito (Halo Legends OVA), with music score by Naoki Sato (The Familiar of Zero, Tales of Agriculture aka Moyashimon).

Sword of The Stranger is quite an interesting tale, it goes like this: Kotaro, a young Japanese boy in the Sengoku period, is being targeted by a group of assassins from the Chinese Ming dynasty, because his blood is apparently the final ingredient needed to create a medicine that would grant immortality. One afternoon as he is having dinner with his dog, Tobimaru, he meets a nameless ronin who goes by Nanashi (No Name), if you must call him anything; now, no name is your typical ronin with a blood-stained, tragic past. And an origin story so mysterious not even he knows it; to be honest, he just screams “I AM GONNA FIND PEACE AND DIE BY THE END OF THE MOVIE!” at you, but that fate is fittingly averted. The premise of the film is nothing too impressive, but it is well and fully supported by its cast of characters. The ambitions of its many characters shape the flow and direction of the movie, there is the Chinese emperor who directly causes the conflict within the movie by sending out his assassins.

The conflict is further compounded by the conflict raging within the leader of the assassins, Master Bai-Luan who is torn between relinquishing the medicine to his emperor or to use it on himself. There is also the seemingly unnecessary samurai who once knew no name, Shogen Itadori and whose ambitions give rise to the final confrontation in the movie unfortunately, just as many characters, the assassins in particular, feel flat and almost unnecessary, their motivation goes no farther than following orders, or they are simply reacting to their circumstances. Luo-Lang for example is a simple battle maniac seeking for a fun fight throughout the movie, he is not a very complex character, but it gives No Name someone to kill at the end of the movie to announce it is all over.

Since this is a film about samurai in the Sengoku period, it is no stranger to swordfights, most of which are awesomely brutal, and just as short, and while that is certainly realistic, their choreography it is most certainly not; I take no stance on the realistic vs. ideal debate on any work of fiction so it is up the viewer whether they like them or not, but I did.

Studio BONES has yet to leave me unimpressed with their work, and this film is no exception. Each background would fit just as comfortably in an old Japanese painting, than in this animated film. The characters also blend in perfectly with the unusual backgrounds, not a single minute of the movie can be found where they look out of place. Their designs do not disappoint either, every character has their own unique look and there are no pretty boys or girls to be found.

The film can be gritty and brutal, but it is also quite idealistic, with its well-placed moments of comic relief using Kotaro’s and No Name’s interactions, and growing relationship that usually get along as well as two siblings with a twenty year gap. The film it is also quite satisfying on its body count as it kills just about any character you could possibly want dead by the end of the movie.

The one thing I found rather strange is that Luo-Lang, the big antagonist in the film (boasting the largest list of fatalities) is quite possibly the least reproachable of all the villains, having a rather simple amoral sort of personality that nevertheless is honest, direct and fair.

Pros: Enthralling fight scenes that will leave you rewinding over and over again. Strong, realistic characters guide the plot along.  Their ambitions can be clearly seen shaping the plot by the second with some relatively unexpected twists at several turns. Fitting music that enhances the impact of moment; be it at peace, having fun, or really having fun (in Luo-Lang’s case). Beautiful backgrounds that seem to come right out of an old Japanese painting; they blend seamlessly with the modern, animated foreground and characters. Decent voice acting.

Cons: Has a rather weak, forgettable premise. Some characters felt bland or even unnecessary, jarring when considering some of those characters feature rather prominently. The protagonists can be endearing, depending on how you look at them. But they do not have enough to make them stand out in any sort of meaningful way and their motivations are rather shallow.

Sword of the Stranger is a film that can be enjoyed by any action fan and is worth the purchase. It has few betters and anyone would agree there are much worse ways to spend 104 minutes.