New from Japan: Anime Film Reviews
R.O.D. (Read Or Die).
Read or Die is a fast-paced, visually exciting direct-to-video three-episode serial (released May 23 and July 18, 2001 and February 2002) that works excellently as a 90-minute feature. Full of exotic backgrounds, high-quality 2D/3D animation by Studio Deen (it reportedly was the highest-budgeted 90-minute OAV production to that time), spectacular action sequences in the James Bond tradition, attractive character designs, famous names and the best pseudo-James Bond movie score you ever heard (by Taku Iwasaki), R.O.D. has won top praise from almost every reviewer plus such awards as Best OVA at Anime Expo 2002. A TV series is about to debut in Japan.
It makes almost no sense, but it sure does look cool!
R.O.D. is a highly tongue-in-cheek pastiche of action-based fantasy/sci-fi big-budget live-action (but heavily CGI) movies; everything from The Terminator to The Matrix to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It seems that the British Library has an international division of super-powered secret agents to — well, never mind why the British Library would need secret agents with super-powers. One of these is Yomiko Readman, a cute heavy-spectacled high-school substitute teacher (this makes no sense unless you have read Hideyuki Kurata's R.O.D. seven novels or comic books — four volumes, art by Shutaro Yamada — which are not yet available in English; this Kurata-scripted anime adventure begins with no background information) who has an orgasm when she finds a rare book. Her code name is "The Paper," because her super-power is that she can magically manipulate paper to, for example, turn a wastebasket full of scrap paper into a jet-propelled paper airplane.
Some villain has been gathering the DNA of famous historical persons and cloning copies of them infused with superpowers, but brainwashed into becoming villains. Yomiko and the British Library get involved when a super-villain copy of Jean-Henri Fabre riding a giant grasshopper tries to steal Ludwig van Beethoven's personal copy of Die "Unsterbliche Liebe," to resurrect Beethoven into an evil composer of a "Suicide Symphony" so powerful that all who hear it must kill themselves.
Yomiko, teamed up with Library super-agent "Miss Deep" (a leather-clad sexpot with bigger breasts than Lara Croft) and studly American commando Drake Anderson (depressed at being the "weak sister" of the trio because he does not have superpowers), must trail the prestigious villains (including 18th century Japanese inventor Gennai Hiraga and 19th century German aeronaut Otto Lilienthal who destroy the Library of Congress) across the world. Eventually they race to stop Beethoven and 14th century Zen Buddhist monk Ikkyu from destroying the world in a high-tech climax ripped off from the Bond Moonraker movie.
Read or Die is a get-out-the-popcorn-turn-off-your-brain-and-have-fun comic-book thriller. Yumiko is awfully sweet and convincingly spunky when she needs to be; Miss Deep (who turns out to be another famous historical character in disguise) is a martial artist who jiggles all over the screen as she fights; and just don't worry about where a villain would find DNA of people who died a 1,000+ years ago (maybe that secret government vault where the Lost Ark was stored at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie!).
OAV series (three episodes), 2001. Director: Kouji Masunari. 90 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.95. Distributor: Manga Entertainment.
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