DVD Review - Voices of a Distant Star

Definitely a very different type of mecha piece - and sadly just a one-off 25 min OVA project.....But ohhhhhh, what a project it was!

With technology being what it is today, a solo anime project may not be quite the extreme oddity - but in 2003....That's right, I'm talking about Makoto Shinkai's "Voices of a Distant Star."

DVD Review - Patlabor: The Movie and Patlabor 2

I wouldn't normally do a review like this - but as I watched both Patlabor: The Movie and Patlabor 2 back to back again this weekend, it seemed to make sense.  This time around, I'm really interested in reviewing these more as police procedural movies that include mechs.  To be perfectly honest, as far as this month goes - I'm just too lazy busy to watch a whole season of a mecha show - so my selection of mecha feature films to choose from is a little more limited.

I'd heard references to these movies for quite a while before I finally got around to picking them up on DVD a number of years ago.  Of course, I don't believe the full series was available at that time on DVD, but might have been an out-of-print issue or something similar (see also the original Vampire Hunter D).  Sometimes I also hold out on picking something up if the reviews bring up issues like the lack of a Japanese audio track or very poor audio/video quality.

New Year - New Reviews

As I mentioned in the Pacific Rim review - this review was requested by another reader.  I always open to suggestions for reviews from titles in my collection.

My goal right now is a review a week - so four reviews a month or thereabouts.  With this in mind, I'm going to simplify things by going with themed months.  Since we started with Pacific Rim...this is going to be Mecha January!

I've got a few ideas for future thematic/genre months (mercenaries, non-western westerns, neo-noirs) - but if you've got ideas, feel free to drop me a line here as well.

Thanks!

Blu-Ray Review - Pacific Rim

Time for the first review of the year.  And by request of Solios, it's Guillermo Del Toro's 2013 effects extravaganza "Pacific Rim".

Now, as Solios suggested, I'm going to try and approach this review with a slightly different perspective.  In my opinion, it's a very fun movie in general - giant robots fighting giant monsters - bright, colorful, generally smooth combat well presented.  The plotting isn't deep, the characterizations aren't wonderful - but it's not that type of movie necessarily.  This isn't exactly "The Devil's Backbone" or "Pan's Labyrinth" - and it's not an adaptation like "Blade 2" or "Hellboy" - it's just a straight up popcorn flick - done very well!