Recently a reader asked me why my columns lean towards bitter diatribes on books. To which I replied, “Shut the hell up and make me more pie!” But my mother had a point. Maybe I needed a vacation from reading crap. She certainly needed to make me more pie. So why not freshen up my view on entertainment by watching some crap instead of reading it?
My lucky break occurred after Genevieve’s unlucky bout of attempting to write a review on the famous anime Escaflowne. After writing LAME four hundred times, her hard-drive melted. Because I’m the only one with amazing writing prowess (or as Andrew explained, a working computer), I was blessed (stuck) with writing a two-part column on the amazing (really? Amazing? You sure?) art of anime (how about “good”or “usually less than good?”).
Generally, in this columnist’s opinion, anime is made up of four things and each one consists of boobs. So it was only natural that I start out my adventure with Ghost in the Shell, a movie not just about boobs, but cybernetic boobs that can take on a battle tank.
Give her boobs, and fanboys will come. All over the couch.
These cybernetic boobs belong to Major Motoko Kusanagi, a policewoman who works for Public Security Section 9, which is an intelligence department for the Japanese government. Kusanagi is hunting a mysterious and dangerous hacker known only as the Puppet Master. As a cyborg she has many powers, including the ability to be naked all the time with incredibly pert nipples despite the fact that she’s a robot. There’s a lot of talk about whether you are still a human even if your soul is in a cybernetic body. However, this discussion pales in comparison as to why Kusanagi has huge boobs and is the only cyborg that has to get nekkid in order to activate her therm-optic camouflage. Supposedly everyone else can just disappear while wearing clothes, but Kusanagi needs to take it all off except for some random black S&M thong I saw at this store that one time. Kusangi isn’t even fully developed down below, which begs the question, “what’s the point of building a sexy house if you can’t park your well-endowed car in the garage?”
As the movie plods forth the Puppet Master finally makes an appearance by transporting himself into the body of a newly built cyborg. Of course the cyborg is a chick. Also, naked. Then she gets hit by a car and is taken to Public Security Section 9 for “testing.” Translation: Lets hook up this torso and jerk it around to watch cybernetic boobies dance! The naked cyborg’s eyes quickly find Kusanagi in the crowd and meet her own with charged expectation. If you pause the film at this pivotal scene you can hear the gentle pit-pattering of 14 year old fanboys running to their respective Dell laptops, and quickly banging out their saucy Kusangi/Puppet Master porn with a kid sister’s Barbie and Midge dolls as inspiration.
After this the movie really starts picking up the pace, mostly because I discovered the fast-forward button. Kusanagi is fighting a tank. Naked. She is then torn asunder and at the end of the movie her ghost (soul) is placed in the body of a fourteen-year-old cyborg. Finally a movie that satisfies Mattel lust and Lolicon.
What I learned from this anime: Naked.
Next on my list was Vampire Hunter D, because, duh, it’s about vampires. Or in this case, a man who is half vampire half human and hunts his own kind! Specifically, D is a dhampir and is blessed with power, intelligence and a sarcastic symbiote known as Left Hand who lives in D’s left palm. D also wears a cape, has Fabio hair and is very pretty.
The movie opens with Doris Lang and her white cybernetic pony. Doris wears a skirt that doesn’t cover her Hanes Her Way white underwear. Wang and her pony are prancing around in the dark, maybe to catch fireflies when this random wolf animal shows up and kicks the shit out of Doris’s pony. I cry for some time, and then Doris breaks out her magical lasso and starts whipping it around. Wow, she’s lamer than Dazzler. All of a sudden, a piece of cardboard rises up from a stone. Oh, it’s a vampire man! He says his name is Count Magnus and he and Doris are totally going to do it. I feel sort of bad for the cowgirl. More for the pony though.
Magnus bites Doris and soon she’ll become his vampire bride. Why he doesn’t just take her to his castle isn’t said because the viewer is supposed to focus on Doris’s underwear. Doris then meets D on a dark road and asks him to help her and in exchange she’ll sleep with him. Ah, romance.
But D is a gentleman and says he’ll help Doris without the sexual trade-in. Sides, he has a hand with a mouth in it that can suck more powerfully than a Hoover. What does he need a girl for?
So there’s lots of fighting and a really bad English dub. D’s voice actor emotes like a broken down Volkswagen. Doris doesn’t fight much except to slap a pimp-looking guy upside the head with her “lasso” after he tries to get carnal with her. However, like all women, Doris wants the mysterious man with elf-like ears dressed in the black duster. How does one seduce such a fox? Why by tearing off one’s clothes and rubbing yourself every which way against his stoic body. D turns Doris down (hello, he’s got Hoover hand!) and defeats Count Magnus. Also Doris’s brother is a transvestite I swear.
What I learned from this anime: Doris’s quote of “A vampire hunter! Won’t you please help me?” turned into an awesome drum and bass song by Gridlock. Yeah, you don’t have to thank me, Doris’s underwear is thanks enough.
Speed Grapher is the story of Tatsumi Saiga, a veteran war journalist who loved taking pictures of war so much he would get a stiffy. But now he’s stuck taking pictures of the rich and famous. Tasumi is totally bishounen because all the girls love him, specifically prostitutes and this crazy cop named Hibari Ginza who often blackmails Tatsumti into having sex with her at gunpoint.
This romantic comedy has a dark side, however, as we are introduced to Kagura Tennouzu. She is the daughter of the richest woman on earth. However, despite Kagura being incredibly adorable and equipped with a school girl outfit, her mother, Shinsen, starves her in order to “lessen her beauty.” Because society does not view incredibly skinny women as ideals of beauty at all. Shinsen is an evil woman because she’s attractive and has lots of money. She’s in love with Chouji Suitengu, her head henchman who rules the city with his iron fist and a black boa of injustice. Everyone fears him. And the boa. And he fondles Shinsen’s boob like it’s a stress ball. Sexy.
At one point, Kagura is so hungry she passes out in school. Her school teacher, alarmed, promises she will talk to Kagura’s mother. Kagura is relieved as she has resorted to eating some of the house plants because they look like salad. And I can totally relate. Once my brother’s girlfriend made a gingerbread house and I tried to eat it. She was totally pissed because I guess it’s not the type of gingerbread house you eat, which is pretty dumb in my opinion. I tasted glue for a week, is all I can say.
Anyways, Kagura walks into her house and sees her mother applying some oral dictation to her school teacher. Kagura is incredibly upset and runs out of the room. Shinsen then gives the teacher millions of dollars and tells her to mind her own business. Well, Kagura is definitely going to score an A this year. I commend Shinsen for her devotion, my mother wouldn’t even bake brownies for the drama club.
Back to cameraman Tatsumi. He follows a lead that takes him to an underground lair where rich people go to indulge in their fantasies. Basically it’s the set from the movie Eyes Wide Shut. Tom Cruise and a bunch of other fat men loll around naked as Tatsumi hunts for his next stiffy–picture. All of a sudden he finds himself watching a séance involving a man ready to be blessed by the goddess. Suddenly a beautiful woman wearing lingerie from the Victoria Secret clearance bin falls from the sky. She is about to bless the man when Tatsumi is discovered due to his intrusion it is decided he must be killed, but the woman makes out with Tatsumi. Suddenly, Tatsumi has the power to make his camera blow things up. He escapes, but comes back later because he has fallen in love with the goddess.
Turns out the goddess is actually schoolgirl and so-not-legal Kagura. Should Eileen be:
A) Insulted that a man in his late 30s who gets a hard-on from shooting pictures of dead bodies is in love with a tween?
B) Be insulted that there is a tween running around in flimsy negligee and (as the plot soon reveals) is pretty much being forced to make out with fat old men?
Or:
C) Insulted that if indeed a tween is the object of desire for a sadistic man in his 30s and unconsciously tonguing paunchy old men, that at least they could give her a better outfit?
Listen, I don’t have to justify my answer. Cute outfits make the world go round.
To fulfill every man’s fantasy of rescuing a barely legal, Tatsumi and Kagura run away together. They soon learn that Kagura is a carrier for a mysterious virus that she can bestow on people that will open them up to supernatural powers related to their innermost desire. She also has an inoperable brain tumor, which means she only has six months to live. And her dog died.
So, Tatsumi’s innermost desire has been revealed: he wants to blow crap up with his camera, and when he does it his eye turns all pinkeye. Despite Kagura having the ability to bestow supernatural powers, all she can do is cry. Maybe that’s why all the powers she gives out are retarded, such as Tsujidou’s. His power is the ability to smell everything. Why you would want the ability to get a whiff of what’s in and about a large city is confusing, especially since I can just look at a city and know it smells. Hello New York.
His nose pouch was once worn as a bathing suit by Roberto Cavalli.
Lamer still is a villain who is a total rip off of Hellboy’s Kroenen. This brings me to the four things anime consists of:
- Schoolgirls
- Borrowing heavily from movies, TV shows and books but instead saying “inspired by.”
- Food. Specifically constant mentioning of food, eating food or trying to get food. Basically it’s like a Weight Watchers meeting in 2D.
- Robots.
See? Boobs in everything!
Next Week: I descend into madness. Also I watch more anime!
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Frequent target of fallen angels, Eileen hides from their seductive wrath in the hallowed confines of Defenestration HQ, where she hopes to erect a wall of words between herself and the forces of evil.