Chainsaw Man is a weird and grotesque animated show.

I recently finished watching the first season of Chainsaw Man on CrunchyRoll. If you are unfamiliar with this anime, it is an adaptation done by a studio called MAPPA of Tatsuki Fujimoto's action shonen anime. To define "shonen," this is a genre of Japanese comics and animated films aimed primarily at a young male audience, and they are typically characterized by action-filled plots. For example, you may have heard of DragonBall Z. This is a kind of "shonen anime," although what it shares with Chainsaw Man is exclusively limited to the genre as there is nothing else in common at all (at least from what I can see). Additionally, Mappa has made several other anime's that have kind of "blown up" into a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon, the most obvious of which is Attack on Titan. Chainsaw Man is blowing up in a similar fashion, being talked about in local game and hobby stores enthusiastically by nerds to the point that I had to watch it.

Chainsaw Man is set in an alternate version of Earth where monstrous beings called "Devils" exist. The originality of these creatures was kind of breathtaking, as I saw everything from a huge ball of hands to a gargantuan and horrifying leech with luscious human hair and multiple boobs. People who live in this world make bargains with these devils, and in return for whatever they have to offer, they receive supernatural powers. The story of Chainsaw Man then is one that begins with a teenager named Denji, who is forced into a lifestyle of being a "Devil Hunter," which is a very dangerous occupation, by the Yakuza who came to collect on his father's massive debt to them. Denji spends years living in abject and horrifying poverty with a pet devil named Pochita, who has a chainsaw on his head (but is otherwise identical to a cute dog). And then in a horrifyingly bad sequence of events, Denji gets ripped apart by zombies in one of the most gruesome displays of animated carnage I've ever seen. But his pet devil somehow combines with his body and by doing so, Denji basically pulls himself back together, and now he has all the strength of a Devil when he needs it, and can transform into a terrifying monstrous abomination with a chainsaw for a head and two chainsaws sprouting from his arms. Needless to say, this anime is gory, gory, gory.

One of the things I'm getting used to in watching and consuming anime is how unabashedly sexual and lust-filled the characters are. But even though I'm "expecting this kind of thing," it still catches me by surprise when it is so "in your face." For example, teenage Denji spends a lot of time thinking about girls and getting laid, which oftentimes seemed distracting to the actual violent and dark storyline. And there were these really unsettling moments of pure grotesque, which I wasn't used to, but it was kinda like watching a trainwreck. I mean...you just couldn't pull your eyes away.

Denji is obsessed with breasts, and you see in this animated show what (in America) would be very casual sexual assault (the boob graze, the feel up, etc.) at least once an episode. And when he gets his first kiss from a girl he finds attractive, she does so in a state of intense drunkenness. Here's where it gets really vile: while she is kissing him, she literally throws up into his mouth, ruining the experience for Denji as now he has this vomit taste in his mouth. It's awful, and I wonder why some author even thought of this as something they wanted to capture.

And then this girl drags Denji home, and he's essentially incapacitated by alcohol, and she date rapes him. I gotta say...I've never seen anything like this in a cartoon. It's complicated by the fact that Denji has legit feelings for this girl, but he's having difficulty processing what she does/is doing to him. But there aren't any real consequences (unless you count being murdered a consequence), because the girl is literally killed by a devil in the next episode and her soul is then sent to hell where she will suffer for all eternity. It is an awful death. In that violent outcome, Denji also loses most of his "friend" devil hunters as they too are just ripped to pieces by the monsters and horrors of this world apparently overrun by these supernatural creatures. It also becomes painfully apparent that the devils that grant these hunters power are insufficient to deal with what's coming at them. So, it is kind of like watching a show where characters who have likeable traits (and are physically attractive) get repeatedly violated in unspeakable ways, and then they get murdered in short order. It's honestly kind of crazy.

Another thing about this anime that strikes a chord with me is the loneliness of the characters. It is primarily a male-oriented anime. However, it is for this very reason that I recall a weird statistic I read online that indicated some 60 percent of young men in America are single, which is nearly twice the rate of unattached young women. So men in their 20's (in modern America) are more than twice as likely as women in their 20's to be romantically involved, sexually dormant, friendless, and lonely. There seems to be this underlying meta-commentary on modern life that goes something like this: "these days with books and tv, you can have one-sided, parasocial relationships, and the solitary life is less risky." Then, the whole "parasocial relationship dynamic" neatly describes fandoms (by extent) from obsessed k-pop fans to manga to twitch and to instagram and the legions of people who follow thirsty celebrities like Tom Holland, but who remain single because no man who isn't Tom Holland is good enough for them (or they don't want to move on from their comfortable obsession). It's also another reason why these fandoms become so harmful.

Anyway, our world is a mess. It's obvious that Chainsaw Man got me to think a lot about what I was actually watching, and its overall story. I will watch season 2 whenever it becomes available. I also do kinda wonder why foreign stuff is where you get the really visceral and depressing stories, and why America seems uninterested (for the most part) in this kind of storytelling. I also kinda wonder why I found this depressing and grotesque and oftentimes vile story so mesmerizing. But I did. What does that say about me?

Netflix's Cyberpunk Edgerunners is filled with static frames and recycled backgrounds.

I recently watched Netflix's Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and I just want to say that the word on the internet for this show was really (and strangely) overhyped. For example, I had friends who (once they learned I was watching Gundam and its backlog of hundreds of episodes) tried to give me another recommendation in Edgerunners. They'd say things like, "I really enjoyed this," and "I recommend you give it a watch." So...I did. And even though the story was "decent," the animation in it was really really bad.

Most of it is just single art panels being slid from left to right or slowly turning. When you see a person talk, it's obvious that the studio saved a bunch of money by just looping one piece of animation. In several scenes, there was just no animation at all for like 14 seconds as you just stared at a still scene with no movement. I was like..."Why did anyone think that this is good?" When I get critical about the animation, some people like to jump to its defense. "Well, Mike, this is just a style of animation, and you're obviously not a fan." And then I retort, "No, this isn't a 'style,' it's the utter lack of animation except for the fact that the camera movies or they're sliding a frame on top of another frame to make it look like something is happening.

Really, the only animation you get that's decent is when there's combat. So 80% of the show is just static frames, recycled backgrounds, or wideshots with only the lip flaps moving. About the only thing I can say that is positive regarding this show is that the art is great. 

Anyway, that's just my two cents on this thing. Anyone else watch the show and notice the same thing? I kinda wish that Netflix had spent a little more money on Edgerunners, because as it stands, it looks like a cheap piece of garbage.

Seeing non-human cartoon characters depicted as human is an interesting social experiment with regard to race and culture

Over on a website called Dorkly, there's a series of pictures done by an artist who draws with a very "anime"-esque style of popular "non-human" cartoon characters depicted as humans. Other than the fact that this was very effective "click bait" as I started scrolling through them, I realized that not only were these not matching up with what I would envision these characters to look like but how many of them were caucasian/white (when I thought they might be otherwise). You can go and inspect the full slide show yourself by following this link. Some are drawn by the same artist and you can get the artist name from the website in a link under the picture to find out more about them.

This is artist Chacckco's vision of Lightning McQueen from "Cars"

Here's Wall-E and Eve from Pixar's "Wall-E"

A very "Christian Grey" Bugs Bunny. So weird.

Anyway, I'd be interested to see what you think. If you have the time, go check out the link and tell me if the characters depicted match up with what you envision these characters to look like in your head. If anything, it's an interesting social experiment with regards to race and culture.

Attack on Titan has got me hooked and I really do like to root for the little guy.

I started watching Attack on Titan because of a review I read on David Power's King's website. I have to say, I'm very impressed with this anime. As you may know, I love kaiju films and things that are in the kaiju genre. Well, Attack on Titan delivers all the fun, the horror, and the awe I get from these films in spades. I'm about halfway through the first season, and for those of you who have never heard of Attack on Titan, the premise is pretty simple: mankind is facing an apocalypse brought on by the appearance of gargantuan sexless humanoids with huge mouths that roam the planes in search of people to eat. It's all that chomping, chewing, and blood spitting that brings out the real horror of Attack on Titan. And the resourcefulness of the people who came together in a time of great need to build three huge walls is also pretty cool. And when I say huge...I mean walls that are hundreds of feet high and half again as thick.

Walls in fiction have always kind of fascinated me. The first wall that captured my imagination revealed itself in King Kong. Why did the natives of this island build such a huge wall? What was out there that they feared so much? The second wall that drew me in came from George R.R. Martin. Again...why the hell is there an 800-foot wall dividing the North? Theories abound but my bet is that the wall wasn't constructed by humans but by the White Walkers, who forged an uneasy truce with the Night's King to keep people from out of the North. But I digress. In short, walls are interesting.

Attack on Titan is a smart anime. Its characters are fully developed, and it doesn't hold back its punches. Furthermore (just like The Walking Dead) no character is safe and that just serves to heighten the tension. Additionally, it's got all the bravado of Pacific Rim. In Guillermo del Toro's robot vs. kaiju fantasy, men piloted huge robots to great effect vs. huge beasts from another world. In Attack on Titan, a boy finds a way to mind meld with a titan by pressing his body into its spine, and therefore control it so he can destroy other titans. That's clever, and I wonder if Guillermo should take a page from the manga of Attack on Titan and have people mind-melding with kaiju in the follow-up to Pacific Rim (which has been greenlit).

But my admiration for the show doesn't stop there. I also like the smart trappings of Attack on Titan. The warrior characters use gas-propelled jet packs to launch themselves into the air, and each has a pair of cables that can be slung into the sides of buildings like spider-man swinging his way between the skyscrapers of New York City. And the titans aren't just run of the mill giant people. There's one that is especially colossal and he doesn't have any skin. There are big ones and small ones and ones with terrifying overbites. All that chomping and chewing really does strip away the humanity from these monsters (and I say humanity because they look like giant humans). In some ways, it makes me ask this question: is this what we look like when we're eating? Good lord I hope not.

But ya know, it's kind of interesting that the actual humans in the show spend so little time eating. Maybe this is a subliminal message from the producers of the show: that all of us need to be mindful of gluttony because when we eat too much we end up as a horrifying caricature of our former selves. But even if I'm wrong about that, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that Attack on Titan has got me hooked, and it's apparent to me that I really do like to root for the little guy.

Are any of you watching Attack on Titan? If so, what did you (or do you) think of it?

I can't understand a word in Captain Harlock but I feel oddly compelled to watch it.

I really have no idea what's going on in this movie trailer. Nor do I understand more than half the words, yet I feel oddly compelled to watch the film and pay full price (especially if it's in IMAX). Does that make me weird?

Well I kind of/sorta can figure it out. There's obviously a bad guy flying the spaceship with the skull on it. And the protagonist looks like he's very capable with weapons, is drawn beautiful, and might be a cross between "emo-kid" and a steampunk version of Han Solo. Oh and there's a white elf girl who is the epitome of grace (maybe she's a Princess Leia who's crossed with an elf and who's allowed to eat one cube of cheese a day to stay so small?). The world of Asian anime is so filled with idealistically perfect and emo young white people that it seems somehow wrong, but it may be a part of their culture (not quite sure). I do like all that fabulous hair flowing around though. I'll say it again. THE GUYS HAVE FABULOUS HAIR.

Oh and did I mention that they have a boy band singing the romance music in the background? Guys, it's like all the marketing in the world is converging into a singularity of something that should be so terrible, it just might be the best sci-fi movie of 2013. And even if you disagree, the event horizon created by combining 1) Asian boy band with horrible English pronunciation with 2) anime elves for diversity and 3) lots of beautifully drawn young white boys with incredible hair, and 4) explosions to get your mind off what may be a terrible plot and 5) what may be some of the finest computer animated sex that we'll ever see, will make it impossible for you to avoid.

I hope that after it releases in Japan someone licenses it for America and makes it available here. It gives me chills the same way that Akira gave me chills the first time I saw previews for it decades ago. So yeah, you should watch the video and see if this sci-fi offering from across the Pacific will jiggle your mojo. For the record, my mojo is still jigglin'.

UPDATE: My new friend "AnimeKritik" uploaded this trailer to YouTube with subtitles! So you can now go and read what's going on in English. Thank you so much AnimeKritic. You are amazing :) And a note to my followers: Please go visit their blog in the embedded links.