This is embarassing. I, a devout fan of live action rubber suit monster cheapness, starting a thread about anime! So I threw in the "Monster shows too this time" in the title so I can post about space giants later and not be off topic (Nyah-Ha-ha!).
But I promised a review of the DevilLady boxed set of Go Nagai's animated series in the first version of this thread (lost in the crash/attack thing), and I do try to keep my word.
To review: Devilman was a 1970's animated television show in Japan created by Go Nagai. It was never translated or (to my knowledge) even subtitled, but built up a following here anyhow. I wound up buying the complete series on LD (Laser Disc) (remember them?) and still have it to this day.
It was surprisingly diverse in it's content. There was everything from slapstick comedy to dismemberment and borderline erotic stuff. The viloence had real consequences. Killed characters stayed dead. Injured characters took several episodes to recover and maimed characters stayed maimed. Giant monsters designed by Go Nagai are very impressive and this is early, less restrained in terms of design, work.
My favorite character was a kid who consistently peed himself whenevr he saw a monster. There was even one scene which I still remember when Devilman picked him up and threw him out of the way of a charging monster. The kid left a streaming trail of pee behind as he flew off camera. It was just so silly.
Then in the 1980's he did a pair of OAVs (Original Animation Videos) (also on LD) with most of the same cast, but absolutely not for television. These were fantastic and should be sought out by anyone with a taste for violent monsters.
I fell off the face of the planet (went back to college in my 30's) in the 1990's when he did something with a character called Amon of which I am only aware from the previous, lost, version of this thread. I gotta find that someday.
And that brings this to the topic of the DevilLady boxed set of anime. I found it at Best Buy for under $30. 6 discs. 26 half-hour episodes. Some extras, but nothing special. Highly Recommended!
The series starts off strong with a twisting of the old material (many characters appear who seem to be from the original series, but of opposite gender). Jun Fudo is recruited by a group of humans who are fighting demons that have begun appearing around town. They seem to know more than she does because she has the ability to transform into DevilLady, but is unaware of it.
They trigger the tranformation and get her to start hunting demons for them.
The plot moves along at a good pace for the whole first two discs and is well structured. The English voice-overs do not make my head want to explode. In heat waves like we have been having while I was watching this I have lots of fans on and like to watch discs that have the option with the English subtitles since the fans are loud and I hate blastingly loud TV. I was surprised by the HUGE differences in what was said and what was subtitled. I think the subs are translated from the Japanese and the spoken dialogue went through the Americanization Process.
Sadly the third through fifth discs were slow in terms of moving the plot along. It moved along, but very slowly. The Go Nagai designs kept each episode interesting, but this segment watched more like a string of episodes than an ongoing story. But the end of the fifth disc had the appearance of a character who looked exactly like the human half of the original Devilman. Down to the trademark hair do and red shirt with a yellow letter A on it.
That got my interest.
From there the story picked back up to full speed and provided a very satisfying ending.
I thought that the art and animation were better than usual for anime these days, and with all those monsters, it can't be bad.
But I promised a review of the DevilLady boxed set of Go Nagai's animated series in the first version of this thread (lost in the crash/attack thing), and I do try to keep my word.
To review: Devilman was a 1970's animated television show in Japan created by Go Nagai. It was never translated or (to my knowledge) even subtitled, but built up a following here anyhow. I wound up buying the complete series on LD (Laser Disc) (remember them?) and still have it to this day.
It was surprisingly diverse in it's content. There was everything from slapstick comedy to dismemberment and borderline erotic stuff. The viloence had real consequences. Killed characters stayed dead. Injured characters took several episodes to recover and maimed characters stayed maimed. Giant monsters designed by Go Nagai are very impressive and this is early, less restrained in terms of design, work.
My favorite character was a kid who consistently peed himself whenevr he saw a monster. There was even one scene which I still remember when Devilman picked him up and threw him out of the way of a charging monster. The kid left a streaming trail of pee behind as he flew off camera. It was just so silly.
Then in the 1980's he did a pair of OAVs (Original Animation Videos) (also on LD) with most of the same cast, but absolutely not for television. These were fantastic and should be sought out by anyone with a taste for violent monsters.
I fell off the face of the planet (went back to college in my 30's) in the 1990's when he did something with a character called Amon of which I am only aware from the previous, lost, version of this thread. I gotta find that someday.
And that brings this to the topic of the DevilLady boxed set of anime. I found it at Best Buy for under $30. 6 discs. 26 half-hour episodes. Some extras, but nothing special. Highly Recommended!
The series starts off strong with a twisting of the old material (many characters appear who seem to be from the original series, but of opposite gender). Jun Fudo is recruited by a group of humans who are fighting demons that have begun appearing around town. They seem to know more than she does because she has the ability to transform into DevilLady, but is unaware of it.
They trigger the tranformation and get her to start hunting demons for them.
The plot moves along at a good pace for the whole first two discs and is well structured. The English voice-overs do not make my head want to explode. In heat waves like we have been having while I was watching this I have lots of fans on and like to watch discs that have the option with the English subtitles since the fans are loud and I hate blastingly loud TV. I was surprised by the HUGE differences in what was said and what was subtitled. I think the subs are translated from the Japanese and the spoken dialogue went through the Americanization Process.
Sadly the third through fifth discs were slow in terms of moving the plot along. It moved along, but very slowly. The Go Nagai designs kept each episode interesting, but this segment watched more like a string of episodes than an ongoing story. But the end of the fifth disc had the appearance of a character who looked exactly like the human half of the original Devilman. Down to the trademark hair do and red shirt with a yellow letter A on it.
That got my interest.
From there the story picked back up to full speed and provided a very satisfying ending.
I thought that the art and animation were better than usual for anime these days, and with all those monsters, it can't be bad.
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