Shelf Life

Back in Black

Seriously, though, I was pretty sad when Geneon stopped releasing Higurashi: When They Cry the first time around. I wouldn't necessarily call myself a fan of the show, but it is deliciously grotesque. Sure, we've all seen gorier torture scenes in movies like Saw (1 through 5), but when some little child is stabbing herself in the head with a knife—you pay attention.

The series is sectioned into different chapters. It's paced so that the first two episodes are fairly innocuous, and set up something tragic, like a murder or a disappearance. Then inevitably, one of the kids goes crazy and starts killing people. The characters often take different paths towards death, but the emotional outcome is usually the same. Regardless of who's doing the stabbing or tazing or hammering, there's plenty of wild-eyed stares, hungry grins, and mild viewer trauma.

Needless to say, this series isn't for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It also may not hold viewers' attentions for that long, because once you've seen a couple chapters, you've really seen them all, but it's always interesting watching how each character's descent into madness takes place. That's really the focal point of the show. Everything else—animation, character design, music—that's just a vehicle for the insanity, and they play together very nicely. Things wouldn't be the same without the maniacal looks that the kids get when they're trying to kill each other, and there wouldn't be as much fear in the air were it not for the shivering and whimpering. I don't think a show like this has much repeat-viewing value, but sometimes, it's worth watching something just to see how utterly messed up it is.[TOP]

The story takes place in the distant future, where Japan has decided to seal itself off with a technological barrier. Nothing's been able to get in or out of Japan, not even radio waves or surveillance images. Eventually, the UN gets a little suspicious and sets up an operation to break into the barrier and figure out what's going on. Turns out, that barrier's hiding a lot more than they thought, and the reason why the country put up the wall in the first place is more than just wanting privacy.

Although the movie starts off as your typical crack-team-breaks-into-X-Place action flick, it ends up as something entirely different. A few metal-eating worms and resistance groups later, it becomes more of a post-apocalyptic tale of human survival and clinging onto society. By the time the movie ends, it doesn't accomplish the original mission and leaves that story line open-ended, but what it spirals into is interesting enough. As with many films of this nature, Vexille takes a very deep look at the human vs. technology contrast, and that alone makes the movie worth watching, evn if it's not perfectly executed.

In the end, I think I like the idea of Vexille more than I like the actual movie. The themes that it wanted to portray give plenty of food for thought, but the storytelling didn't live up to its full potential. There are still unanswered questions by the end of the movie, and had those been answered, maybe I would've liked it more. Still, it was almost just as enjoyable the second time around, though most of it's because it just looks pretty on Blu-Ray. I've always been a little skeptical of the idea of old cartoons in high-def (like Dragon Ball Z), but when it comes to this new computer-generated stuff, a few extra pixels can be really nice.[TOP]

From what I can tell, the world was irreversibly changed when a mysterious wall popped up overnight in Tokyo. How it got there and who built it is a mystery, but everything changed that night. All the stars in the sky were replaced with fake ones, and people with special powers started popping up all over the world. Amongst them are spirit mediums known as Dolls, special ability users called Contractors, and moratoriums, which are kind of like Contractors, except they can't control when they use their powers. Each Contractor is linked to a single fake star, which vibrates every time that person uses their abilities, so various astronomers can figure out what's going on.

Here's the ridiculous part about Contractors. The reason they're given that name is because every time they use an ability, they have to pay for it, and each person has his/her method of payment. Some have to break their fingers, some have to drink the blood of children—and some of them get to do really trivial stuff like drink beer or eat flowers. It seems like the blood-drinkers really got shafted on this one. If all I had to do to whip out some energy beams was chug some MGD, I'd be using my powers all the time.

The main character also happens to be a Contractor named Hei, who's able to create electricity. He's masquerading as a foreign exchange student, but he's actually on a mission to find his long lost sister. He's helped out by a Doll who can see people's whereabouts through water, some Chinese guy named Huang, and a Contractor who's stuck in the body of a cat. Together they… kill bad guys? I'm not really sure what they do, actually. Like I said, the story doesn't really make sense to me right now. I'm not sure why they're killing the people they're killing, and I'm not really sure how they're involved with half the people they end up chasing. I don't even know what's up with the wall, and how, with all our technology, we couldn't pull up some satellite images or 7-11 security tapes to figure out when or how that wall was constructed. Also, how is following all these random targets around going to help Hei find his sister? I have no idea! Hell, it took me an entire episode to figure out that “moratoriums” were another class of people, because for some reason they're not capitalized in the subtitles.

I'm sure if I kept watching this show, everything would eventually be revealed to me. Right now, though, I barely know what's going on. Also, all the blonde characters look the same, so I keep seeing people running around whom I thought were dead.

My track record for keeping up with this show is so far not very good.

On the upside, it's so damned confusing that I'm almost 100% sure I'll keep watching it. I'd really like to know what's inside that wall, and I'm kind of curious why they found it necessary to shove a prostitute into a suitcase. I hate to recommend (or not) any show based on my lack of understanding, but in this case, all I can say is that your mileage may vary. Storyline aside (huge caveat!), I was entertained by everyone's powers and my burning desire to figure out what was going on. So based on that assessment alone, sure, I think people should check it out. But don't expect to get any eye-opening revelations this early in the game.[TOP]