Lost Passion

Browsing art on deviantART I am suddenly reminded of the anime I own and once so cherished. I am still a great lover of anime and manga but where I once loved anime the most I now love manga more it seems, I guess because it's the original source for most anime, there seems to be more of it and in some cases it's more detailed, more adult and more graphic. I'm sure there are arguments for both cases. Anime is after all more colourful and vibrant, you do not require the effort to follow it that you do with manga, you can take great pleasure in the voice casts and marvel as scenes play out before whilst with manga it's flicking through black and white pages, some beautifully illustrated, others more crudely due to issues with time and space.

I have many favourites in both cases but the ones I consider now are Magic Knights of Rayearth and Fushigi Yugi. Magic Knights of Rayearth consists of six manga split in two series, created by the famous team CLAMP, two anime series which loosely follow the manga series only they are much longer with many filler episodes, and an apocalyptic three-part OVA that seemed in part to be inspired by CLAMP's apocalyptic X/1999 series. (Both X's movie and Rayearth's OVA came out around a similar time).

For more detail of course you can check Google or one of the many fansites. I loved Rayearth for its fantasy oriented plot and I did come to enjoy the mecha side of things that seems very popular in anime, certainly it helped me open up to the well-known Neon Genesis and the lesser known Kannazuki no Miko. Rayearth had a very likeable collection of characters, a decent plot and a sufficient amount of romance.

I came to Rayearth through the mostly disliked OVA, which I guess is why I ironically like it. I found in a dvd shop and mistook it for part of the series, it was only later that I realised it was the OVA but I loved it for its gritty atmosphere, action and fantastic animation. When I got the boxset of series one, for quite a price, it was almost a disappointment in comparison. I did enjoy it but there were too many filler episodes with monsters of the day. Series 2 was the crowning glory of the series even with the sloppy introduction of Presea's twin and the addition of Nova (both characters absent from the manga), it had a lot of fantastic supporting characters in the form of rivals from other worlds, it added a new poignant romance for Hikaru and it was more dramatic.

I have only just finished reading the manga, I started with an Omnibus of the first 3 volumes, which was easy to obtain but struggled to get the next 3 volumes as they are hard to locate and not exactly cheap. I did enjoy the manga, it reminded me of the love I once had for the anime and seemed the best version lacking the boring fillers and having a more adult atmosphere to it.

Now I wonder could I go back to series 1 and still enjoy it when it mostly it seems silly and childish now with little drama and a lack of real threat to the characters? Perhaps but I don't know.



Now to Fushigi Yugi, an anime I loved before I even knew what it really was. My friend introduced it to me before I even had the internet, she herself had not seen it but had come across it through browsing and shared pictures with me, this one of Suzaku, which was her desktop background, struck me the most and stuck with me. When I got the internet I researched it obsessively, drawn into it by its fantasy elements, glorious, colourful pictures and loveable sounding characters. I even started writing a fanfic on it before I had actually watched an episode. Then I finally got it, series 1 as a gift from my dad off Amazon, rapidly followed by series 2. I fell in love immediately as I had known I would and it became not just my favourite anime but my favourite show.

When I was finished with series 1 I was sad to be halfway through and delighted to have another boxset to go and when I finished series 2 I was so sad for it to be over. I obtained the OVAs not long after but they were nowhere near as good and not enough to satisfy my grief, though they are watchable.

I joined the world of fangirls and became a fanatic, one of my walls was a shrine to it with pictures from the anime and manga stuck up all over it, I drew fanart of it constantly and returned to typing a fanfic. I of course got the entire manga series as well and all of Genbu Kaiden so far.

After I stripped my walls of other pictures Fushigi Yugi's still remained but the fanart and fanfic ceased, my love not gone but definitely simmered down. I do not think I have outgrown Fushigi Yugi yet and I fear the day I do, saying goodbye to something I loved so well in my youth. Like Sailor Moon and Pokemon I think some part of me will always obsess over it. When I tested it on my PS3 I got a spark to find that the PS3 was all region and that Fushigi Yugi would work fine and I still look forward to watching it all over again. I admit though that a part of me fears it will not excite me as it once did and that my love for it will have deflated for good even if I do always like it.

I know it is growing up, moving on and letting go but it seems strange in a way to not care for something as you once did when it was once your biggest passion. Still, there are always new things to fill the void.

Creature Features

A guilty pleasure of mine, I recently bought Tobe Hooper's Crocodile, and The Host on dvd at the bargain store. Crocodile was laughably bad whilst The Host was surprisingly good with a surprising taste of originality. Crocodile makes yout think Stephen Spielberg must have been the force between Poltergeist because it's hard to believe that the same guy who directed such a renowned movie went on to direct an obvious B movie. Crocodile has absurd CGI with a crocodile of ridiculous size that moves at the same speed of a speedboat. It attacks in a quick blur, often swallowing people whole, reminding me of an equally appalling movie- The Evil Beneath Loch Ness.

Of course what can one expect from a movie called Crocodile lol? Needless to say like so many bad horror movies it has a sequel, which is yet to be seen in my case. I have to say I preferred Alligator, it's choice of animatronics over CGI is much preferable and it had more memorable scenes.

Crocodile's biggest problem is, and beware for spoilers here, that it leaves the three characters alive, three highly annoying characters who you are longing to see die. Most horror movies only leave one character alive and even that character doesn't necessarily make it through the end credits, why couldn't Crocodile follow this pattern? The lead guy is an empty pervert, his best friend a typical goon who thinks he's funny when he never once cracks even one humorous line, and the lead girl is an empty vessel whose only trait seems to be that she is easy to walk over.



Moving on to The Host, a subtle work of genius, a nice mix of humour, horror, shock and sorrow it centres around a seemingly idiotic bland man whose daughter is taken by a mutant that springs up from the ocean and attacks all nearby people. The man's family- his marginally successful and optimistic father, his mildly successive archer sister who's major fault is being slow, and his alcoholic brother- are all brought together in the wake of this horrific tragedy.

The Host has an number of hidden messages in it, some of the subtle and some of them not so subtle such as the fact that 2 of the 3 Americans in it are villains, one of them starts the whole thing effectively, and the third proves to be a dumb hero. However, the director does say this movie is not anti-American, it seems to be more about the little guy's struggle against all governments and overpowers.



The best thing about The Host is that unlike most creature features it happily shows its monster and not only does it not wait until halfway through the movie to do it but there are plenty of full bodied shots in daylight. It does not try to get away with keeping it mostly in the shadows or by only showing part of it or mainly focusing on parasite ala Cloverfield. The monster looks pretty good for CGI and seems more believable than most due to a decent size, somewhere around the size of a bus, and looking like a mutant fish, which in this day and age could be plausible.

The highest grossing movie of all time in South Korea it is no surprise that it's already up for getting a sequel and a remake. Pity about the remake though, since most American remakes suck and are completely unnecessary, let's face it it's just because Hollywood has long run out of ideas, which is why we are to expect a Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, a Lone Ranger movie screen adaptation, and a Tin Tin movie. One wonders what Hollywood will do when sequels are done to death, all the television shows have been remade into movies and all comic books and books have been put on the silver screen.

The Host is not to be taken too seriously mind, it has its moments of terror, drama and tragedy but there's a good bit of strange and dark humour in there too. It's a loveable movie overall with a pretty good cast.

My Top Ten Creature Features


1. Cloverfield

Cloverfield has many flaws including a lack of originality, a highly annoying, underdeveloped group of characters and a sadly, mostly unseen creature. It is still an exciting creature feature, that keeps you hooked despite the shaky camera and the monster is good enough in terms of appearance and nastiness. The fact that is just a lost baby adds a bit of pity for the monster even as it takes buildings apart and causes the death of thousands. The addition of parasites was clever, giving the protagonists foes to properly face but it was not enough to make up for the lack of monster scenes. I quite enjoyed the trek through the city as it fell apart around them, particularly the climb up to a building knocked on its side.

2. Jaws

One of the best creature features of all time, setting the standard for creature features for years to come, particularly those involving the monsters lurking beneath the waters. With an excellent theme song and a foe who sent chills through you with just a glimpse of part of its body, that telltale fin, Jaws has lasted through the years. Personally it never scared, I was hooked as a child and I got all four of the movies as presents, Jaws 2 isn't bad, Jaws 3 is but it's watchable and Jaws the Revenge...well it's a good reminder of Michael Caine's lowest moment. However, it did give sharks an undeserved bad rep sadly.

3. Jurassic Park

The best of the dinosaur movies with a superb cast and amazing special effects combining animatronics and CGI, you really could believe the dinosaurs were there. I'm actually thankful that they were inaccurate as scientists keep informing us, the raptors of Jurassic Park seem like they would be a lot scarier than real Velociraptors, which would have been much smaller than humans and had feathers. Jurassic Park basically turns a theme park into a nightmare with the unique twist being that this theme park's popular attractions can now attack the visitors. It's fun, exciting and was very original for the time

4. The Host

Recently watched and it's straight in the top five, it's entertaining, easily watched again with a realistic monster who is frequently seen. Add some political undertones, dark humour and an amusing collection of cast members and you've got a pretty watchable movie.

5. Brotherhood of the Wolf

This French flick came to me quite by chance as a gift from my brother. Best to watch the sub version I can tell you that now. A brilliant cast heads this mysterious movie based upon the many strange wolf attacks France suffered around the 18th century, particularly The Beast of Gévaudan. With a cast including Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci you know it's going to be good. It's exciting, sufficiently gory, more original that most creature features with enough mystery and shock attacks to keep you interested.,

6. Godzilla

This should be higher because I own it and I don't own Deep Blue Sea but even though it's a nice flick the CGI irritates me, it is very poor and Godzilla, btw I mean the American version, is just now how I remember it. Never mind the cruel comparisons to Japan's hugely popular Godzilla/Gojira, which I have only ever seen clips of. I will agree the monsters are very different and it's no surprise this Godzilla is known as Zilla. I've heard that, surprise, surprise, there's going to be an American reboot of the franchise soon. Probably hoping to achieve the success of Cloverfield that this movie was meant to.
Still, Matthew Broderick and Jean Reno make a good team with a nice appearance by Hank Azaria, less said about the female lead the better, she was annoying and stupid. The cinema scene is quite memorable and the ending poignant and almost sad.


7. Alligator

Complete with a tragic scene of kids playing pirate in the pool with a terrible and yet funny walking the plank scene and a beautiful wedding crash, this movie rises above your average B horror with plenty of fun, gory and humorous scenes and a not too bad looking mutant gator, got to love those surprisingly plentiful mutants.

8. Deep Blue Sea

A highly annoying female lead, a Jaws oriented plot complete with the stereotypical man messes with animals and creates a monster he, or in this case she, can't handle. The CGI is alright, and the cast watchable but it is a pretty tame shark movie and whilst it beats the Shark Attack saga amongst others, it's no Jaws and it never will be. Still watching a group of sharks take out ironically dense scientists is still amusing.

9. The Beast

From Jaws' creator Peter Benchley, it was never going to be as good or big as Jaws. Still it is an amusing animal revenge movie as a mother squid torments the town that she blames for the death of her child. Made for tv it has an obviously limited budget but it's not bad.

10. Orca

Starring the late, great Richard Harris it's another animal revenge movie. A killer whale seeks revenge on a crew after the death of its pregnant mate. It includes a dramatic take down of a sea-front house and some empathy with the whale from the lead guy due to the death of his pregnant wife thanks to a drunk driver. This flopped due to coming out shortly after Jaws, which everyone seems to think owns the water horror theme. It's more like Moby Dick gone wrong but again, it's not bad, it's pretty good actually and Richard Harris is as good as ever.

Red, red, lots of red

So my love for Red Riding Hood is obvious and naturally I am intrigued by the new Red Riding Hood movie that is out soon, starring Amanda Seyfried as Valerie, the titular Red Riding Hood who falls in love with an orphaned woodcutter whilst her village is plagued by a werewolf. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke of Twilight and Thirteen fame, it's already being criticised as another Twilight effectively, though time will tell.

I hope not but the trailers imply it is less of a horror and more of the all too familiar 'forbidden romance' with a supernatural backdrop much like Twilight. I am quite happy to give it a chance though I suspect it won't be all I'm hoping for.


I do love the poster but it is very familiar to another Red Riding Hood poster of a movie I was more hopeful about that I very much doubt is happening now as this seems to have eclipsed it. Joseph Bat's A Tale of Red Riding Hood promised to very much be the horror I hoped for and it seemed to be in the works long before Red Riding Hood with a planned 2009 release. Whether Amanda Seyfried's version was hatched based on this or it is just a coincidence is unknown but it is unlikely that two Red Riding Hood movies will happen so close to each other.



A pity really as this one had a lot of promise. Continuing in the vein of the sudden Red Riding Hood love, American McGee of Alice fame is supposedly creating a game based around the popular fairytale, naturally named American McGee's Little Red Riding Hood. Hopefully it will be just as good as Alice but who knows when it will happen as he is working on the Alice sequel- Alice: Madness Returns.