#especially when it’s aiming to impress other girls through the guise of trying to impress boys

[cecilialisbon]

we can all agree that the clique series was queer correct

[thenichibro]

Spring 2018 Anime First Impressions

Two weeks into the season - basically on schedule by my standards! This season, as always, has ups and downs as well as popular shows I’m not watching (Megalobox) and shows I immediately regret starting (Devils Line). As a further point, I don’t do impressions of sequels, and in this case I’m including Steins;Gate 0 as a sequel because it is so based on the events of the main show. Regardless, here’s what I’m watching with MAL links and original shows marked:

Legend of the Galactic Heroes - Die Neue These (MAL) Look, I'm not going to immediately say go watch the original LOGH, but I'm kidding that's exactly what I'm going to say. LOGH is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. My issue with this series is not that they will not represent the characters badly, but that 110 episodes shoved into 12 episodes and three movies is simply not enough. LOGH has a scale, a grandeur, a weight that is conveyed as you invest yourself into it for hours on end, from bombastic space battles and the minutiae of day-to-day politics. You need both scales, the imperial and the individual, to really experience LOGH, and I feel like 12 episodes isn't enough time to have both. The LOGH remake looks and sounds fine (though with way too much CG and a bit of same-facing with Reinhard and Kircheis), but I am incredibly nervous about the pacing. This is a first impression, and if Production I.G. pulls this off it will be a classic reimagined for a modern audience that deserves it. But I simply don't think that's going to happen. I'm hopeful, but apprehensive. And again, watch the original. It is pure class.

Persona 5 the Animation (MAL) Play the game first. Please.

Devils Line (MAL) A world where vampires exist under the guise of normal people and some lose control and kill under cover of night. Basically Tokyo Ghoul with less of a vampire "society" and more just individual threats, with more of a sexual twist. Tsukasa is our helpless college heroine, adrift as she finishes school, when she finds out the guy who likes her is a serial murderer who wants blood! So wacky! She's saved by Anzai, a calm, collected member of the agency tasked with dealing with vampires, before unintentionally revealing himself a vampire. Yet we are expected to just accept Anzai forcing himself on Tsukasa because he's the savior? Right. Background sound design isn't bad, art/animation are bland and at times awkward. Devils Line is trying real hard to be a new Tokyo Ghoul, but now with more sexual undertones for whatever reason. Pass.

3D Kanojo: Real Girl (MAL) Ah, otaku love. At least it can't be worse than Saekano, right? That'd be a serious challenge. 3D Kanojo follows Tsutsui, an otaku that suffers the typical ostracization of anime, when he meets Iroha, a blunt girl who for once doesn't ostracize him. The first episode has plenty of the classics - falling into a pool, talking about "3D women" being out of his league, heroics when he knows he can't win. Everything you'd expect. By the end of the episode, things progressed a helluva lot more than I expected, in many ways. It seems thus far that the otaku thing is the impetus for Tsutsui's low opinion of himself, rather than anime being the point of the show. More introspective than I would otherwise think, I think 3D Kanojo holds a lot of slight surprises. It's interesting, for sure, and I hope it continues that way.

Tachibanakan Triangle (MAL) One of two short anime I'm watching this season, Tachibanakan follows a girl who moves into a girls apartment complex and gets more yuri than she bargained for.  We've got the fang-sporting short one, the quiet one, the onee-san, the blonde foreigner, you name it. I don't expect a lot of character development or anything similar, but three and a half minutes of yuri sounds just fine to me.

Uma Musume (MAL) First off, props to the show for making the horse girls' names just as stupid as those of real racehorses. I mean, I know it’s because the girls are named after real racehorses, but still. Uma Musume involves a world where horseracing is hugely popular, only the racers are anthropomorphic horse girls. Our main girl is Special Week, a newbie transferring to a popular racing school in Tokyo. She's your typical genki type - eager, energetic, bright-eyed. Enthralled by one of the top girls Silence Suzuka, she aims to become one of the top horse girls in Japan. Oh, and the top horse girls perform as idols after each race. This sure is a mobile game adaptation, god damn. P.A. Works' art looks solid as always (props to the flowing tail animation); the OP and ED are pretty standard idolish stuff. I prefer the ED. Anthropomorphic racing is fine, yet for some reason the idol part is what makes it weird for me. This show is strange, but if it's not much more than cute horse girls doing cute horse girl things, I'll keep paying attention.

SAO Alternative: Gun Gale Online (MAL) I hate SAO. I have a laundry list of reasons that I despised both seasons of SAO. The reason I'm giving GGO a chance is because the main charater is a girl playing a cute chibi girl in-game and she just wants to make friends. Hopefully, that will avoid the terrible pitfall that was anything relating to Kirito. GGO starts right in the action, with a topical Battle Royale mode putting our pink girl and her partner right into the action. The tactics are good and help set up the basic premises of the gametype, if that necessitated a bit too much monologuing by M, the partner. Also, plenty of pouts. Always a bonus. As always the invincibility of the protag is annoying, but I don't really expect breakthrough plot changes from an SAO spinoff. I mean, SAO S1 was good for the first 10 episodes too. Keep this cute girl and not-harem, focus on connecting with others through video games rather than shanking perverts in a parking lot, and it'll be solid.

Hinamatsuri (MAL) A super-powered middle-schooler falls into the life of a nicer-than-normal yakuza. Nitta is the yakuza, with a penchant for fancy porcelain. Hina is the middle-schooler, your typical otherworldly killing machine set into an unfamiliar world. Hinamatsuri puts a lot of good spins on the taking-care-of-a-supernatural-girl trope, with the main character being a yakuza rather than an "average high schooler." Furthermore, there are some nice father-daughter vibes going between the two, though it's clear Hina maintains the upper hand. Won over by Nitta's refusal to use her as just a tool, their life together begins. The comedy is your standard boke/tsukkomi, but the lightning-quick delivery of the lines had me cracking up regardless. Hinamatsuri looks like it could go darker any second, but if it doesn't I'm perfectly content to stay around.

Comic Girls (MAL) Probably the most classic cute girls doing cute things show this season, Comic Girls follows a group of mangaka girls living in a dorm together. Moeta is the worrywart crybaby, Koyume's the genki blonde, Ruki is the less-than-secret pervert, and Tsubasa is the tomboy. There's plenty of nice compliments between the girls' personalities, and Koyume and Moeta seem like a great fit as the newbies in the group. Furthermore, their personalities being informed by the manga they draw allows for a nice exploration of manga cliches through their interactions. This looks to be more on the character-driven side than a deep dive into the logistics of manga production, but that's just fine. Animation and sound aren't really anything special, but they're by no means bad. As a slice-of-life fan I'm all in, even if this show doesn't turn out to be anything super unique.

[ORIG] Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai (MAL) Tada-kun follows, well, Tada-kun - a student and photographer who runs into Teresa, a rich European while taking pictures. Tada-kun, following the show's title "Tada Doesn't Fall in Love," has a calm, somewhat stoic demeanor, while Teresa is your bright, beautiful girl finally in the Japan she'd only seen on TV. After meeting multiple times as Teresa wanders lost, Tada helps her out of the rain before she finds her hotel, right next to his family's coffee shop. And then, of course, she transfers into his school along with her bodyguard, the fiery-tempered Alec. The art is crisp and animated well, and both the OP and ED have their charms. I personally like romance focused tightly on a single pair (Tsuki ga Kirei and Ore Monogatari are two stellar examples), and I hope this delivers. With a single couple development becomes the key, but if this show keeps it up - increasing interactions leading to discovered feelings, all starting from a photo (sounds a bit like Just Because, don't you think?), this will be a emotionally engaging experience.

Fumikiri Jikan (MAL) The other short show I'm watching, Fumikiri Jikan is about conversations while waiting for the train to pass. The first episode ran the gamut all the way from peppy slice of life to romantic character drama. Being so tightly focused on conversations and with limited time, a show like this needs to nail the dialogue to set up the characters each episode. I felt like I almost watched a movie in three minutes this time, and that's a good thing. The main sticking point is that with individual stories each time, quality can vary wildly. This show is a bit strange but equally interesting, but it will certainly depend on the story being told.

Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii (MAL) Ah, otaku love. It can't be worse than Saekano, right? That would be a serious challenge. Wotaku ni Koi puts a spin on the genre by situating the main characters as adults who met each other in middle school and just now reconnected. The main cast of four and especially the banner couple Hirotaka and Narumi are uniquely quirky and their personalities gel so well with each other. Despite the long gap in meeting each other I feel the chemistry immediately between the two, and as episode one ends with their relationship actually beginning I'm all in. Not only does Wotakoi change things up by having the main characters as adults but it also gets past all the roundabout bullshit that often bogs down high-school romances. Furthermore, the true enthusiasm with which Hirotaka and Narumi can nerd out about what they like is refreshing, kind of like Animegataris before it became the Matrix. Combine that with a crisp art style and great musical themes, and maybe Wotakoi can provide the grounded otaku love story we've been waiting for. Oh, and fuck the Saekano shout-out. Not that I'm going to let that cloud my thoughts on Wotakoi - I just really, really don't like Saekano.

Golden Kamuy (MAL) This season's "a popular manga is finally getting an anime" show, Golden Kamuy is the story of a soldier and an Ainu girl suriving in the north of Japan in the Ruso-Japanese War era just after the turn of the 20th century. The pair aims to find a hidden treasure, stolen from the Ainu and stashed by a criminal somewhere, with the location hidden on tattoos of various escaped prisoners. I enjoy historical shows, and Kamuy is great in that it is more than just feudal Japan or something similar - the snowy, late-Meiji Hokkaido setting is undoubtedly unique. Sugimoto, the soldier, has earned his nickname "Immortal" due to his war exploits, and his personality shows it - confident in his skills yet cautious of threats. Asirpa, the Ainu, is the resourceful, collected partner Sugimoto needs in the wilds of Hokkaido, and shares Sugimotos motivations, having lost her father to the criminal who hid the treasure. The art is clean, and while the main characters look good there needs to be mention of the awful-looking CG of the two bears and the wolf that make appearances in the first episode. It just looks horrible. The dynamic between Sugimoto and Asirpa is great - the contrast between violence and peace especially - and I look forward to see where they're going. I only wish the overall tone was more consistent - the first episode is a great solemn look at the task in front of them, while the second episode inserts a whole lot of "comedic" moments that seem out of place with the action and Sugimoto himself. Regardless, quick shout-out to Man With a Mission for the OP - one of my favorite bands and this song is no exception.

[the-master-cylinder]

SUMMARY A terrifying centuries-old evil has awakened in the form of the wicked, voluptuous Lilith (Isa Anderson). Lilith, in the updated guise of a beautiful model, infiltrates the offices of a successful fashion magazine with the aim of corrupting the world via mass media and uses her beauty and her insatiable lust as a potent lifeforce which spreads death and destruction to all who dare to succumb to her charms. Lilith becomes the object of insane desire for all who brave her seductive gaze. Only true love can withstand her awesome powers and only one man (Linden Ashby) is strong enough to test them in a frightening test of will and death tango with Night Angel, the mistress of hell.

DEVELOPMENT Night Angel is the third horror film produced by Paragon Arts, the first two being Witchboard (1986) and Night of the Demons (1988). The company was formed two years ago by Walter Josten.

I had heard about people financing films the way we did it in the commodities market-you’re dealing with investors who want to take a shot and hope it hits big. I thought, they’ve got to love a film investment: it’s risky; it’s speculative; there’s a good chance for the upside, and the downside, with video and cable, is buffered. So we went out and looked for a script and came up with Oija, written by Kevin Tenney, who wanted to direct. I liked his philosophy: he wasn’t an artsy-craftsy director; he wanted to do a film that was gonna do some business. We formed a limited partnership, produced the film and went out and shopped it.”

The result was Witchboard, an above average supernatural thriller whose $2.3 million investment recouped $8 million at the box office. This impressive result convinced Josten to attempt a second horror film, Night of the Demons, a $2.7. million investment that traded away much of the charm of Witchboard in favor of a more extensive use of graphic special effects. “You have to believe you’re selling to a certain audience; otherwise, don’t make the movie,” said Josten, who admitted, “Night of the Demons tends to-if I may use the word pander a little more to its audience. It doesn’t have the story Witchboard does, but it has great special effects. We went more for that target kid audience.”

The story of Night Angel was the brainchild of Joe Augustyn, who also produced and wrote Night of the Demons. A fan of old horror movies, Augustyn wanted to create a horror villain based on mythology, as Bram Stoker did with Dracula. “I did a lot of research,” he said. “I read tons of books. I had known about Lilith for a long time, through friends who were radical lesbian feminists in the early 70s. The more I researched, the more Lilith seemed a natural.”

Augustyn pitched the idea to Josten, who immediately liked it. “When Joe presented it, I thought this idea was really good��to have a villainess steeped in reality,” Josten explained. “This person may not be real, but you can look her up in the dictionary and read about her in the encyclopedia, and there’s a lot of lore that’s never been exploited on film before.”

Augustyn’s first draft script then went through extensive revision under the supervision of Josten before the search for a director started. Josten and Augustyn had narrowed their search down to four when Dominique Othenin-Girard popped in on a fluke. He had been in the country only a few months and was introduced to them by his apartment manager, who had written a script for Paragon Arts.

Paragon’s initial interest in Girard’s work came after a viewing of Cop Trap “Piège à flics” (1985), a French TV movie which the director himself acknowledges as “the doorway to my career in the U.S.” Piège à flics became something of a controversy in Europe”. states Girard with more than a hint of pride. It was produced for a prime time television slot, filled with violence and sex and money. And I guess the Americans understood it.

Lilith, female demonic figure of Jewish folklore. Her name and personality are thought to be derived from the class of Mesopotamian demons called lilû (feminine: lilītu), and the name is usually translated as “night monster.” A cult associated with Lilith survived among some Jews as late as the 7th century CE. The evil she threatened, especially against children and women in childbirth, was said to be counteracted by the wearing of an amulet bearing the names of certain angels. – Britannica

Girard battled the European censors in defense of his cut. “A film director is somewhat of an outlaw. We have to break open the taboos society inflicts on the people.” The public flooded him with letters, some seriously accusing Girard of being the actual devil himself. But along with those came others of very high praise. Piège à flics went on to garner top European award nominations for it’s principal leads.

“He had the best ideas, seemed the most enthusiastic, and really understood the subject matter,” said Augustyn. “Ironically, when we had first started talking about a director, we were thinking maybe Paul Verhoeven-we wanted a European director who would bring a level of sophistication to the film. A lot of young American directors come out of film school with certain limitations, especially in the area of sex. It seems anything sexual they lump into T&A. We thought Dominique could bring in the sexuality without being tacky.”

Girard was given a copy of the script and shown two previous Paragon Arts films, Night of the Demons and Tips, the latter a comedy. Said Girard, “I was impressed by the goodwill but not the manufacture of Tips. I thought Night of the Demons was a pretty straightforward, exploitative movie. That disturbed me in a way. I thought it was very empty, but I liked in some way the manufacture of the film.”

Girard continued, “We had a five-hour meeting after the two films, in which they expected me to analyze the films and the script. The script I thought was rather weak, having no real hero nor goal to the hero. Walter, Joe and Jeff Geoffray, supervising producer said, ‘How interesting!’ instead of ‘How dare he! We immediately started to work on it.”

Girard, whose stepfather is an archeologist, was already familiar with many of the world’s ancient myths, including Lilith, and he used that background to help give input to the script. “What was fascinating for me was the (notion of) two kinds of sexuality: the one that links Adam and Eve, where male and female link together in order to reach God, and the other kind, more supported by Lilith, which is just lust, sexual pleasure to manipulate. What was also fascinating was the fact that she is a legendary figure. I dug into the legend in order to find images for the film to motivate myself on how to portray this woman.”

The scripting sessions continued for three weeks while the film was simultaneously going through pre-production planning. “After three weeks, I felt that we regressed,” recalled Girard. “Unfortunately, a lot of these images never made it into the film. I found a lot of restriction on the side of Walter Josten, who thought that some of these ideas were too European, too weird. I don’t think they were, but he was a more conservative figure. I believe sometimes he is imitating too many successful films, instead of going for the original film. That was our conflict. He wanted to apply not only one formula, but mix several formulas into the same film, which I didn’t think was working too well. I was suggesting to him to be simpler about it… But who cares? The film will speak for itself.”

PRE-PRODUCTION The next hurdle was casting the part of Lilith. “We wanted to use an actress that we’d never seen before, who could be anybody, because Lilith takes many forms.” said Josten. Dominique Girard added, “I didn’t want to go for the simple bimbo who could lift up her skirt and take off her bra. That was not the point; the point was the charisma.”

Finally, after literally hundreds of actresses were auditioned, Isa Anderson was chosen. “Some actresses who came in were incredible knockouts until someone tried to direct them to be seductive, and then they were like little girls,” said Augustyn. “We were really lucky to get Isa. She really got what we were trying to do. She read books about Lilith. She is elegant and very sensual. She was a model, so she can pull off a lot of different looks, and she’s a really good actress. Her accent is nondescript. Dominique and I, if we could have run with it, probably would have gone more for a middle Eastern accent, to be true to the myth, but Walter was really concerned. He wanted her to sound as if she could have come from anywhere—which also makes sense, on one level.”

After final script revisions, in order to bring the project to a level manageable on its budget, the film shot four six-day weeks last year on various locations scattered around Los Angeles. “I have experience making small-budget films in Europe,” said Girard. “I have a reputation of giving a very polished look with very little money. I of course wanted to obtain this in order to transcend the formula of an exploitative movie. I believe we achieved an incredible quality. The producers are very glad about it, because they know this film will establish them as a company with credibility.”

SPECIAL EFFECTS The rushed production schedule prevented Steve Johnson’s crew from being able to film many of the planned special effects during principal photography. By that time, Johnson had left to work on James Cameron’s The Abyss, so the additional effects were assigned to KNB. Fortunately, the budget included additional money for shooting pick-ups, so after the principle footage was assembled, the crew shot an additional eight days of effects footage late last year.

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Steve Johnson was hired to handle the psychological requirements. Girard calls the effects artist Magnificent. He was very precise. A great pleasure. He had the hand going into the chest and you could see the fingers, just plunging. The chest piece was a seamless appliance and there was a fake arm used for Lilith, where you could actually see the blood traveling through her veins.”

Likewise, when additional pick up shots were needed, the magnificent requirements continued, even without the services of Johnson.

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Girard found working with both teams to be an educational and rewarding experience. “I had some special effects in my previous movies but never to the extent of Night Angel,” he said. “I enjoyed learning about special effects and learning how to shoot special effects in order to sell them. Special effects people know what they need to get, but they don’t necessarily know how to sell the effect to the audience. That’s my part of the work. I’ve got to push them not only to do the effect correctly, but to give me the freedom to shoot the effect with a specific camera angle and movement. Instead of having a prosthetic person totally steady —that wouldn’t sell the effect. I need that person to move, and that sometimes makes for incredible complications.”

POST PRODUCTION After completing the effects photography, Girard left the production temporarily, going to Salt Lake City to film Halloween V. Paragon Arts, meanwhile, put the project on hiatus for a couple of months in order to raise money to complete post-production work. In mid-June, Girard and Steve Johnson returned to the production to film an opening prologue sequence; Girard is also supervising the soundtrack’s music and effects. The score is by Cory Lerios, of Pablo Cruise fame.

“If a horror film is successful, it is very much because of the soundtrack,” Girard claimed. “I love films because they are fluid-they are composed more like a piece of music than a novel, to my mind. Corey Lerios is a very imaginative composer. He’s a bit taken short by the number of cues he has to do. There is in the movie an enormous amount of music, but I don’t think we are drowning the film with music. It’s music which clarifies the story, which imposes the threat of Lilith upon our young characters even when she’s not there-because the music carries her. It is a complimentary story-telling point instead of just an accompanying soundtrack.”

  Night Angel (1990) Music Tracks

CAST/CREW Director Dominique Othenin-Girard Writers Joe Augustyn, Walter Josten

Isa Jank        Lilith (as Isa Andersen) Linden Ashby Craig Debra Feuer Kirstie Helen Martin Sadie Karen Black  Rita Doug Jones  Ken

CREDITS/REFERENCES/SOURCES/BIBLIOGRAPHY Horrorfan#04 Gorezone#13 Slaughterhouse#05 blu-ray.com

    Night Angel (1990) Retrospective SUMMARY A terrifying centuries-old evil has awakened in the form of the wicked, voluptuous Lilith (Isa Anderson).