New from Japan: Anime Film Reviews
Fancy Lala. V.1, A Star is Born! V.2, Sharing the Spotlight. V.3, Taking Center Stage. V.4, Double Duty. V.5, Rise to Stardom. V.6, A Passing Dream.
The "magical little girl" TV anime genre goes back to the 1960s, but Studio Pierrot made so many of the most popular of them in the '80s that "a typical Studio Pierrot magical girl show" has become a catchphrase. Magical Stage Fancy Lala was a 26-episode updated reprise for the late '90s (April 5 to September 27, 1998). As director Omori and character designer Akemi Takada explain on one of the DVD extras, today's little girls are more sophisticated than their earlier counterparts. Where a 1980s young audience would accept a third grade protagonist who can magically transform into a 15 to 18 year old immensely popular model or singing star, today's kids know that making it in the entertainment industry means hard work. Earlier magical girls appeared in one gaudy stage dress for all occasions including street wear, while today's magical girl is expected to have a varied and more realistic wardrobe.
Third grader Miho Shinohara is introduced to two sprites who look like cute plush dinosaur dolls, who give her a magical pen and sketchbook. When she draws clothing for a teen version of herself and says a mystic chant, she turns into 15-year-old Fancy Lala. She is immediately recruited by a struggling new talent agency, Lyrical Productions, to promote as their new star ranging from an advertising model to TV actress to pop singer. But this means less glory than long days of rehearsals, jealousy of professional rivals, irresponsible or malicious fan-magazine gossip, and humorously creepy stalker-fans. Lala/Miho becomes exhausted accomplishing this plus transforming back to keep up her regular life as an elementary school student. Miho's own mother is a TV producer, and meeting her as Lala on an assignment gives Miho added insight into the emotional pressures on a mother who has a professional career.
The viewpoint is always that of a young girl, whether an episode is about Miho in Lala's body getting a backstage observation of the real entertainment industry, or about Miho as herself with her third grade best friends cheering the elementary school's baseball team or trying to discover whether two of their school's teachers are dating each other. There is a three-episode sequence in which Miho is allowed to travel alone for the first time, on a vacation to see her grandparents in a farming village, and has the temporary fright of getting on the wrong train. This sequence is a pleasant travelogue introducing modern Japanese urban children to the rural countryside. In the "Miho" epsiodes such as these, Lala and the dinosaur sprites make only a token appearance. A significant difference between Fancy Lala and the earlier magical girl TV series is that the earlier ones emphasized the glitter and glamour of fantastic adventures, while in Fancy Lala the magic is a prop in allegorical domestic or vocational scenarios to show 10 year old girls what to expect or what they may realistically hope for as they enter adolescence.
TV series (26 episodes), 1998. Director: Takahiro Omori. V.1-2, 5 episodes/125 minutes; V.3-6, 4 episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $24.98. Distributor: Bandai Entertainment.
Hellsing. V.1, Impure Souls. V.2, Blood Brothers. V.3, Search and Destroy. V.4, Eternal Damnation.
Hellsing (adapted from the manga by Kouta Hirano) was an adult after-midnight TV series (13 episodes, October 10, 2001 to January 16, 2002) analogous to MTV's Spawn in the U.S. It is a vampire horror thriller clearly designed for shock value (the DVD rating is 16+), with lots of implied off-camera gore and sadism. Some episodes involve snuff videos, homosexuality, prostitution and child molestation. However, it is well-directed and suspenseful, emphasizing intelligent, mature dialogue. The animation (by Studio Gonzo) is unexceptional, but the character designs (by Toshiharu Murata) are popular enough that Hellsing-character costumes are currently "in" at the anime fan conventions.
Present-day Britain is unexpectedly beset by a horrific wave of gruesome mass killings. They are actually the work of vampires, which is kept secret from the public. The first episode establishes that Britain has had a top-secret anti-vampire force for over a century, the Royal Order of Religious Knights, whispered of in the highest government circles as the Hellsing Organization because its leadership is hereditary in the Hellsing family. This is at least partly because the Hellsings personally command the service of a powerful vampire, Arucard, who kills other vampires at their orders. Arucard is a sardonic individual whose attitude and dialogue make it clear that he is serving the Hellsings for motives of his own, not because he is under any compulsion. A vampire slaughters an entire English village, as well as an elite police force sent to investigate with the exception of young rookie policewoman Seras Victoria. Arucard is forced to kill Victoria to get the vampire; to save her life, he turns her into a vampire but leaves her with free will. (Normal vampire victims become mindless cannibalistic ghouls; one of the Hellsing Organization's duties is to completely destroy the bodies of all vampire victims.) The H.O., with considerable misgivings, accepts Victoria under Arucard's sponsorship as a new recruit to its private paramilitary army. Much of the action in subsequent episodes, plus what is revealed about the situation, is seen through Victoria's traumatized point of view as she tries to adjust to the secret human-vampire war within England while coping with her own new vampiric abilities and needs.
TV series (13 episodes), 2001-2002. Director: Yasunori Urata. V.1-3, 3 episodes/75 minutes, V.4, 4 episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: Pioneer Entertainment.
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