Sup! Status Update Entry!

Hey yalls! Guess you didn’t expect my absent for about two or so weeks did you? Well around the holiday seasons, working at a store, and being a cashier goes hand in hand with…time consumption overload. There’s also my mother, and little brother having visited me recently. They live in Kansas so of course I opted to spend as much time as I could with them over seeing movies, anime, and writing while they were visiting. 

Besides my movie review of the live action Attack On Titan film I really didn’t plan anything ahead. There’s also a promised random list on haunted roads that turned out awful to be honest. I still plan on posting it as something I scrapped. I mean, I did some research, and might as well post it. I also got some other promises to fulfill since I did after all announce them. 

I’m currently redoing a year old review of Persona 3 The Movie: No. 1, Spring of Birth because I want to review the films, and I got inspired from viewing the myanimelist page for the movie seeing the lack of criticism from fans towards the film. I knew not everything I wanted, or everything that made the games great would fit together seamlessly in film format. However, I didn’t the films to not only be bad as stand alone films, but also make one of my favorite video game storyline so boring to see onscreen. Can’t really say when I’ll come back, and post stuff. It should soon, if customers don’t come attacking me during black Friday that is. I’ll wait and see.

Here’s some quick impressions on things I saw to let you know what I could possibly write a review on in the future.

Strike Back: Season 1 – It’s an okay series. On a scale, it would get a 6 since the characters don’t develop beyond the first two episodes. Some of the writing is standard action film formula from go foreign place to save someone, a rescue mission gone wrong, or go to prison in foreign prison to rescue an assassin. It’s formulaic in its first season, but the action scenes are surprisingly good for a tv series. So for an action junkie it’s satisfactory.

Rurouni Kenshin (2012 Live Action Movie) – I’ve never the seen the anime series, or read the manga of the same name. I went into this live action film completely blind, and got to say for someone who has no knowledge of the series it was a great film. It had a good pace, the writing was solid, and while it had too many characters, and unequal screen time they all felt purposeful. Not to forget the excellent score for the film is worth noting. The action scenes while in short supply are expertly filmed, and well choreographed. I got my money’s worth as a fan of Samurai films, and would suggest anyone to see it regardless of experience with the series. It’s final rating I can confirm is a 9/10.

Rurouni Kenshin Kyoto Inferno (2013) – I still haven’t gotten around to seeing the film in the trilogy, but so far this was the weakest film in the series. One thing that wasn’t addressed were the many characters that disappeared for large portions of the film. While the balancing is better than expected when the film piles up more characters there are still instances of characters disappearing, and reappearing out of nowhere. There were a couple, but one in particular goes out to help the protagonist in the first act, and in the climax finally appears again in the film. Characterization is excellent, as well as the acting, music, and fight choreography carry over from the previous film. I still don’t know what the final rating will be, but rest assured it’ll get a positive 7 or 8 once I collected my entire thoughts on it.
Zero Hour – I only saw one episode of this docudrama series, and honestly don’t plan on reviewing it since my weakest point of writing is critically analyzing documentaries. However, I did see the episode that focus on Columbine, and I felt given the sensitive nature of the subject matter I felt the events portrayal of the event was done right. It gave me a good idea of what actually happened that day, and what I appreciated was there was no single reason for why the incident happen. Given the nature of news outlet I’m rather thankful the episode didn’t attempt to minimize a serious, and growing issue of school violence.

Owari of the End – It currently sitting at a 4, and nothing was special about this shounen series. It was repetitive in hammering the point the lead character lost his family. There’s also a large number of “just because” logic behind the writing, and lack of detail on a number of things regarding the world presented. We follow newbie recruits in the series, and yet, they are able to hold their own better than the experience Anti-Vamp Team (my name for them). Also, the intro of the series pretty much shows everything that happens in the first season. There is literally no progression of shown pass that in the series. The only way I kept making myself see this anime was pretending it wanted to be a Yaoi. With this mindset, it became more watchable since the writing unintentionally gives that impression, but doesn’t make the series any better. At least the music is good.

Knights of Sidonia Season 2 – Like the first season it would also a get a 2. The reason being it’s the most trite sci-fi series possibly ever written. It’s first season was entirely telegraphed, and predictable. That carried to season two, but made worse when lingering issues remained unsolved. There’s an episode showing a parasitic creature controlling a power person in Sidonia, and the series ends without addressing this issue. It goes unresolved. Then there’s a talking Bear who a nurse, and a cook that also never gets explained. One achievement this series will get from me is that it’s the first sci-fi, first anime, and first 3D animated series to ever make me fall asleep. That how bored I was seeing this series. I would rename it sci-fi since it has allot tropes associated with the genres without subversion.

Corpse Bride – It’s not as good as Tim Burton other animated films like The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Frankenweenie. It’s mostly because of its runtime being 78 minutes. So, things feel rushed, and there’s uneven length between musical numbers. I liked the animation, the story was okay, and the music was okay. The voice acting was adequate. I liked it, though on a rating scale it would probably fall into a 7 or 6.

Take care, and I’ll be back soon. As usuals, insert catchphrase here.

Cinema-Maniac: Attack On Titan Part 1 (2015) Review

For those not well verse in the anime medium (myself included to a degree) Attack On Titan is one of the biggest phenomena in the anime medium. The series popularity is virtually known by everyone in the anime fandom, and even if they haven’t seen it they have at least heard about it. In the west, it’s not quite as big compare to Japan, but even those not well verse into the medium will have at least heard about it. I would say it’s a polarizing series, but more than likely anyone who sees will find it entertaining while complaining about certain leap of logic in the writing. It’s reputation is what’s mostly polarizing, and certainly my biggest source of criticism besides the series actual writing. It’s frequently overly hated by detractors, and overly praised by the fans that usually creates a rabid atmosphere when brought into discussions. As usual, the ones that are very vocal paint a bad picture for those who enjoy the series. I would recommend the anime series to anyone, even if the person in question never seen anime since at times it can be addicting to watch, and is an entertaining gateway into anime. However, I can’t say the same for the live action film which I wouldn’t recommend even to the most hardcore of Attack On Titan fans.

Attack on Titan is set in a world where giant humanoid Titans prey on humans, Eren joins the scouting legion to get revenge on the monsters who killed everyone in his town. Now the biggest problem in the film lies within the first twelve minutes which can be sum up with “Let’s talk about these walls”. These initial twelve minutes are important because that’s all the time it has on establishing anything before the first titan appears on-screen. Our leading characters Eren (Haruma Miura), Mikasa (Kiko Mizuhara), and Armin (Kanata Hongo) have “interesting” discussions on the walls construction, wondering what outside the walls, desiring to see what’s outside the walls, how the walls makes the world a hellish paradise, how the walls protect what’s remaining of humanity, people being discontent about living within the walls, and passing a law that let people finally go outside of the walls. On paper, nor in the film do characters spending twelve minutes talking about walls sound interesting. The only thing that would have made these twelve minutes wall discussion go on longer would be if these walls could talk.

“See those walls! Lets keep talking about them”

As for anything not wall related in the first twelve-minute it fails to set up the world. It’s a mishmash of technology with the mentions of aircraft, a decaying tank on the wall can be seen, and the main three leads Eren, Mikasa, and Armin hanging around missile a didn’t explode. This later breaks the immersion in the film when questioning the civilization itself. Almost as if it’s selective of its own technology to fit a specific quota. The anime series also shared the same problem on the selective technology. However, in the anime series humanity wasn’t technologically advance where the people had airplanes as oppose in the movies where it formerly was advance. Bringing to mind why aren’t the people who are meant to protect the citizens, the scout Regiment, from these Titans using heat signature technology to spot such creatures? It would have been extremely effective when traveling at night, and would it made been nearly impossible for such device to not pick up the heat signature of a Titan.

While I’m discussing the selective technology, it is the clear absence of camera makes little to no sense in this adaptation. Eren states in the film he doesn’t believe in Titans, and that there hasn’t been a sighting of one in 100 years. What this film is basically telling me is that there is no form of surviving media of these Titans existence. Apparently, it just wants me to assume that all cameras, pictures, the internet, and video recording documenting the existence of these creatures was destroyed. That’s just too much to accept, especially when taking into accounts it expects me to believe the Titans must have done this because the humans certainly wouldn’t delete information if it would help them against such a threat. What the film tells the viewer about the Titans make this oversight in the writing too much to accept. This aspect of the story wasn’t thought out enough to explain away issues such as these.

Now since this is an adaptation of the anime/manga series of the same name changes were expected. The ones made in this movie weren’t the correct ones. For instance, Eren witnessing one of these Titans killing someone close to him is what causes his fueled anger towards the Titans. When that aspect of his character gets taken away from Eren he just comes across as an angsty teenager. One resolution would have been Eren seeing his family getting killed by the Titans, but such a thing is nowhere to be seen in the movie. He’s not an interesting character as he has minimal interactions with characters being more of a commenting bystander of the events instead of an active participant. Any viewer of the anime series who felt Eren was pathetic leading character will hate him in this live action film more so.

“I got no idea what we taught you for two years, but go out there and die!”

After the Titans breakdown a wall, and causes havoc in the inner city it cuts to two years later in the future. Our main characters have graduated from a military academy. So the film missed two opportunities now to developed characters, and proper world building. By glancing over the training process viewers will not understand the harsh training required to fight such massive creatures. This decision is made more questionable when it’s revealed during the Scout Regiment graduation that the Omni-directional Mobility Gear (3D Maneuvering Device) has been developed, and is introduced to the Scout Regiment for the first time. So this begs the question what did the Scout Regiment spent two entire years for if it wasn’t to learn how to use the ODMGs. Just about the only thing that gets mentioned about those two years is Eren getting into confrontations with another Scout Regiment graduate by the name of Jean during those two years. A fodder character who is only in the story so Eren could do something when he’s not angsty. By skipping the two-year training in the Scout Regiment it’s easier to side with Jean who’s barely in the film when he complaints about Eren being a spoiled brat.

Armin, and Mikasa aren’t compelling characters either. Mikasa as a character doesn’t have much to her beside mentioning she’s good friends with Eren. She disappears for a large portion of the film with no bearing on how the story plays out. At most, all she does is cause Eren to think like a emo. Armin wants to become an inventor, and create technology similar to modern-day devices before the titans came into the world. It is implied that Armin, and some girl who like Potatoes might end up together since they are on-screen together frequently. He’s shown in more scenes with Potato girl than with Eren. This also goes against the information given to the viewer that Eren, and Armin are good friends.

Then there’s the whole force romance with Eren, and character Hiana who’s barely in the film. In one of the few scenes Hiana is in, Eren is walking around camp, and seeing characters deliver exposition to love ones. There’s a scene before the climax of the film shared between Eren, and Hiana in which Hiana exposition dump her backstory, and motivation onto Eren. It’s an unintentionally hilarious scene, and what occurs in it caused uncontrollable laughter from me because I was meant to take such a scene seriously. It’s the equivalent of a Titan being a cockblocker for Eren specifically preventing him from getting any action in this one scene. All the characters are written more realistically which makes none of them stand out. The only character that’ll stand out is a chubby character who flips over a Titan with his bare hands. Not only that, but also takes down a couple of Titan with an effective axe, until the story demands it doesn’t work anymore.

The writing in general is sloppy establishing its own logic, and rules which don’t make sense. In the film, a characters says that Titans can hear people talk, but these same people travel in large motorized trucks. It’s not established the Titans have selected hearing, but are told they eyes don’t work at night. Something that gets contradicted in a later scene of a Titan killing a human at night. In one scene, the Scout Regiment is told that the Titans don’t have reproductive organ. Yet, there is a baby Titan in the film that doesn’t get explained. It doesn’t help matter the film is separated into two parts so any answers, if there are any, is probably in the second film. However, the unexplained questions will come across as plot breaking on what gets established, and especially one character trait towards the end without any foreshadowing will be a dues ex machina in the context of the film no matter the viewer familiarity with the source material.

This is not a still from the movie. It’s the aftermath of Dragon Ball Evolution release in Japan

The only time the film is entertaining to any degree are when the Titans show up. Whenever the Titans are on-screen it’s a burst of energy after scenes, upon scenes of boring human characters. These Titans kill people, and cause destruction to their environment. They provide a sense of danger lacking from the human interaction. On screen, the Titans come across as a presence of danger, but off-screen they don’t come off as a threat. They’re more like writing tools instead of an actual character in the world. What never comes across strongly in the film is the Titans influence on the characters. Instead of being a focal point of defining how characters live in the world it’s instead treated like a pesky inconvenient in this adaptation. Nothing about the Titans is interesting as characters beside they look like huge humans.

Lastly, an under utilize element of the film is the quasi-Nazi-ish portrayal of the government. It’s a story element that’s only mentioned in the film without receiving any focus. The moment the higher-ups of the Scout Regiment do appear the film imagery alludes to a dictatorship depiction. Sadly, that is about all it does with this plot point. It simply shows something dictatory, not confirm it. With the knowledge of a second film it’s easy to see where it would take this element, and how childish the portrayal of a corrupt government will be. It’ll be one-sided, with the heroes likely spouting things that all human life is important, and the corrupt officials get what coming to them. This is only speculation since I’ve yet to see the second film.

Anyone who is familiar with the source material know the all Japanese cast is a red flag for how much the film deviate from its source material. However, without that piece knowledge for newcomers the acting leaves plenty to be desired. Haruma Miura plays Eren in the with his interpretation of the character being bland. Since the film aimed to be more realistic Miura serious looking, but emotionless performance makes him as forgettable as the other cast member. He doesn’t have any star power either; not to be racist, but I actually manage to get Miura confused with actor Kanata Hongo (who plays a black-haired Armin) who not only look similar, but are in roles with neither given a character trait to stand out. This same issue applies to Kiko Mizuhara who plays Mikasa. Much her other two costar Mizuhara isn’t given anything character trait to stand out. In the end, all the performances mesh together.

The only actor who stands out in the film is Satoru Matsuo only because he flips a Titan with just his bare hands. Unlike the Titans, Matsuo is the only actor in the film who is fat, and easily distinguishable because of it. Also, since his screen time is usually used for fun he ends up being the best actor in the film. Another actor who stands out is Jun Kunimura, but that’ll likely because the viewer might have seen him in other movies. Kunimura can delivery a good performance, but in this instance he’s on autopilot. Aesthetically he’s a perfect it for his character. Like the rest of the cast, he’s not given much to portray from the material given to him.

The film special effect are weak to the point the film needed a grey color filter to make the Titans look convincing. Everything in the film looks like color got drain out of it simply for the purpose to make the Titans look convincing. In live action the Titans look awkward, and certain actor portraying Titans can be laughable. It usually looks awkward, and the only time the Titans look convincing is when it’s entirely CG. In the beginning of the film, there’s a Titan that attacks the wall that is skinless. This particular Titan plasticky look doesn’t detract from the aesthetics. During the scenes where characters use the 3D Maneuvering Device the green screen effects don’t mesh against the actors. The movements are jittery which is acceptable. What’s not are the moments when actors are shown flying towards the camera coming across as an unfinished render for a cheap video game. In any other direction it looks silly, though better pulled off given Japan film industry isn’t quite on par with Hollywood in the CG department. One praise I will give to the film are the costumes design, and some of the sets are excellent. Replicating in detail the look of the series, even if in this adaptation there are filtered in place to remove the colors from certain scenes.

Just look that face. It sends shiver up my spine!

The most disappointing aspect of the film, for me specifically, is the music composed by Shiro Sagisu. Unlike Sawano score which was mixture of different genres Sagisu is more in line sounding like generic fantasy music. One of the tracks on the OST, “Rise Up Rhythmetal”, sounds similar to Sawano composed track “Megata Kyojin Kuchiku” from the anime. Not surprisingly, this is only track in the movie that perfectly suits what’s going on-screen. By itself, Sagisu collection of epic scores, with modern techno mixture does not capture the same emotion, or feeling like Sawano music does. Sawano score was cinematic in its structure, and could be compared against good movie scores. However, Sagisu score won’t receive the same praise as when it used in the film the sound mixture prevents it from being heard. There’s nothing commanding from the score of the live action film. Though, the anime OST for “Attack On Titan” is one of my favorite collection of original music for a series so I guess my high expectation for the film itself to reach the same heights was too much to ask from it.

To be fair. No amount of good music could make this moment any less goofy looking.

Attack On Titan Part 1 is a poor adaptation of an entertaining series. Having seen the anime series this live action film is based on the writing shares similar traits, but has the execution greatly differs. The anime series was over top, and bombastic in its presentation on everything feeling at times like a blockbuster film just in television format. While the film goes for a more realistic route making everything seems normal leading to a forgettable movie where nothing stands out. The changes that were made to the source material didn’t improve, nor fixed existing problems, but rather made them worse. It’s a film that will please no one. Newcomers to the franchise will be dumbfounded by the logic while bored by the poor story, and characters. Fans will likely complain about the same things too, just probably in more details relating how it changes things from the original source material. Regardless of what spectrum of media you prefer Attack On Titan Part 1 is a bad film.

2/10

Anime-Breakdown: Rakuen Tsuihou: Expelled From Paradise (2014) Movie Review

Gen Urobuchi is a writer I like, but even with that thrown out there he’s very repetitive in his writing. At times, he creates fascinating worlds, and characters, but then make them speak by info dumping, and reiterating the same topics as if viewers missed them the first time. They speak like plot devices instead of like people. So Gen Urobuchi opted to create a world that was formerly filled with humans, and now are just data. Here is story written in that kind of world. A world without consistency, nor intelligent life forms. Just a strings of badly written events.

The opening sequence of the film is confusing. We’re shown a beach, our main character in a swimsuit relaxing, someone hacks the beach, our protagonist throws her drink, and stops this hacking by being naked. Don’t worry, the event turns out to be pointless. I eventually found out by the end of the film that it lead up to nothing. Absolutely nothing. A conflictless story that forces in conflict in its final act just because. No logical reasons behind it besides the fact it wasted more than half of its duration on nothing related to the main story, and might as well try to end things with some action no matter how nonsensical it seems.

Minutes after failing to stop the hack it is established that Deva, this spaceship where 98% of humans resides, has been hacked by this same hacker, Frontier Setter, 184 times. So Deva has push aside the notion of improving their security, but it took them approximately 184 times of being hacked to finally decide to send one of their own agent to Earth to capture the hacker. So we got an advance system/civilization run entirely by super advance computers whom all take the appearances of Gods contradicting the notion this is an advance, smart, intelligence system when it reacts this slow. At this point (seven minutes in), you begin to question if the system got hacked that many times by a single entity how come a large amount of people are still living in Deva?

Not only that, but instead of assigning one of Deva best agents on the assignment Deva assigns 3rd class agent Angela Balzsac. There’s obviously much better agents that can accomplish the task. They (the computers Gods of Deva) established Deva already has an S ranking Deva agent on Earth. It would speed up the process by giving this assignment to Zarik Kajiwara, the S rank agent on Earth, who’s familiar with Earth, and despite being told he has a bad reputation is clearly reliable due to the fact he is an S rank Deva agent. Why Deva uses numbers, and letters to determine an agent ranking is beyond me. Seriously, is the number 1 or 0 much higher in ranking than S rank agents?

Our main characters is named Angela Balzac, which is the most respectable thing about her. She’s a stupid character who for some inexplicable reason knows to hack which would require understanding of simple terms like Script Kiddies, Black Hats, and words like Daemon for simple function. Yet, this same character does not understand people don’t eat sand which is the first thing she does when landing on Earth. These two things don’t belong to the same character. Ballsack (as I am referring to her out of the lack respect I, and writer Gen Urobuchi do not share for her) is introduce in a beach scene in a bikini saying it’s because of work? Wouldn’t it make more sense to be in a place that can overlook CPU, servers, hotspots, you know any area that’ll actively help you better spot when there’s a hacker in the system. I would wouldn’t be questioning this if the film itself provided decent world building. With that absent, there’s no understanding on the status quo of this world at all.

Ballsack goes from one scene to another completely inept in her abilities. Her human partner, Zarik Kajiwara, has to explain to her how using her mecha from Deva would expose her spot to Frontier Setter. Why Ballsack didn’t think of this is inconsistent with the claim she’s a 3rd class rank agent close to being promoted to a high ranking position. If that’s a high position in this world it further question her abilities to do this job, and Deva security too. She needed to be told by S rank agent Zarik Kajiwara to do this instead of her doing it on her own. After being told using this Mecha would reveal her position to this intelligent hacker the next logical step would be for Ballsack to put on some different pieces of clothing to blend into Earth crowd, and not stick out. However, she wears a leotard, garter, elbow-length gloves, and knee boots for the entire film. Everyone else on Earth else wear normal pieces of clothing, but this doesn’t matter in the long run either since this does not catch the attention of Frontier Setter at any point.

I’m meant to believe Frontier Setter singlehandedly hacked into this super advance ship called Deva, which apparently has high security, yet the fact Frontier Setter is unable to detect Ballsack who is looking for him in this city without changing her appearance goes against what’s established. Frontier Setter has other robots he could control, and taking into account he hacked into Deva 184 times this is also inconsistent with said intelligent of the character. As far as characterization goes he received nothing substantial besides questioning if human traits can be found in machines. This often used plot point in sci-fi would have been fine if the film actually explored it.

Another annoying trait of Ballsack character is her bragging how life is better on Deva, and how life on Earth pales in comparison. Ballsack mentions that old rock music wasn’t considered worth keeping by Deva. Meaning Deva intentionally didn’t keep information on simple stuff like sand does not taste good, but kept the information that made Ballsack be naked when stopping a hacker in cyberspace? The same information that does not tell her human body can get tired, and sick. If Deva was a such a great place to live at than it should have preserve as much information as possible not just be selective about it. Say, if somebody on Deva like rock, and Deva didn’t have it that person is out of like. However, on Earth you can find rock music if you like. If not, simply ignore it not discard it like Deva does. As I mentioned earlier, due to poor world building Anglea claims of Deva being better than Earth don’t add much to the film when the bare minimal about the world is not established.

Zarik Kajiwara is the most likable character, but even he has inconsistency in his character. He says himself in the movie he’s  afraid of heights, yet there is a scene where he’s on top of an abandon building stringing his guitar. Unlike tsundere Ballsack, Kajiwara is competent at his job to the point he should have been the protagonist of the film. For starter, he blends into the crowd unlike Ballsack who sticks out. Another thing is he knows the area, can collect information on Frontier Setter location, all while being off Frontier Setter radar. This guy, is basically babysitting this deadweight agent named Ballsack to make sure she doesn’t kill herself. This allows me to sympathize with Kajiwara because not only does he have to do most of Ballsack job for her, but also make sure Ballsack doesn’t end up killing herself. Sadly, there’s not much to his character either besides he likes rock music, and living on Earth. This about as close as the film gets to producing anything resembling good quality.

Our final character is Frontier Setter himself. The film sets him up as this intelligent hacker which does make you wonder why is he attacking Deva. Unfortunately the answer essentially amounts to “you want to go on this road trip bro?” for his motivation. It’s a letdown when this is reveal because the hour building up to this were spent on characters talking about nothing related to the plot. It was either debating where it’s better to live rendered into a pointless argument because of terrible world building, or being all philosophical with subjects on eating till you’re full, liking a specific brand of rock music, and being sick like a human. Frontier Setter is falsely presented as the antagonist in this story, and when there’s no ill attention from it then there should have been something the characters learned from their journey. Ballsack does eventually learn the value of being human, and having a human body just because. There’s not a single good experience she had on her journey before finally finding Frontier Setter. She has her mecha destroyed, and sold for parts, was nearly raped, got sick while on Earth, became very tired, hungry, and talked to Zarik Kajiwara discussing the current affair of their job. Somehow all of this made Ballsack change over a new perception of human living.

It’s explained later on in the film that human consciousness was transferred into data. How exactly that happened, when it happened, and how long it’s been going on for is up to anyone imagination. They (Deva) could have used “Bipolar Magnetic Reversal Theory” to accomplish that as far as anyone is concerned. These simple questions needed to understand the setting are never answered. After the opening credits, Angela Ballsack crashes on Earth, and fights giant Centipede like aliens with a giant robot. These bugs appear in this one, and only scene throughout the film. Are these bugs a common issue on Earth? Is there any other species on Earth that make people fearful to live on Earth? If so, then the idea of 98% of Earth population living in a computer would make sense. Except, there is no world building on Earth either!

While seeing the film I assumed it was created by A1-Pictures because of various ass shots, but nope I was wrong. This film was brought to us by Toei Animation, and Nitroplus who really wanted to outdo them with ass shots. All the budget for the film clearly didn’t go into the animation. Whenever character speak it’s only up, and down motion which looks unnatural. I’m guessing the budget likely went into developing bouncing boob technology for Ballsack character before abandoning the idea when realizing Toei, nor Nitroplus had the technology to make it happen. So they opted for ass shots just incase the audience forgets Ballsack has an ass. When the characters are still the models don’t look bad, but the low-framerate in motion makes everything look disjointed, and delayed. Possibly making you wonder if whatever device you’re watching it on is laggy. The only time the animation looks natural is when the framerate is bumped up in the action scenes. In these action scenes the motion is fast, and whatever moving looks somewhat natural. These moments don’t last long, nor are they very flashy in their presentation. Most of the film best moments of competent animation is in the climax, but given how pointless the climax is it undermines what happening on-screen, and ultimately would have been pointless if the writing wasn’t so awful. The only thing about the animation I wouldn’t complain about are the backgrounds are decent looking since they don’t move. That would be it as far praises go.

Voice acting in both Japanese, and English languages are competent while virtually sharing the same traits. For starter, both Rie Kugimiya in Japanese, and Wendee Lee in the English voiced Angela Balzac are equally annoying. Wendee Lee is higher pitched in her portrayal which makes her more grating when listening to her brag about how better life is on Deva. She doesn’t change her tone regardless what her character is meant to feel in any scene either. Rie Kugimiya doesn’t fare any better in the leading role. Instead of being grating her portrayal ends up being bland. At least Wendee Lee portrayal made me feel something about the character. Sure it is mostly hatred, but it’s certainly better than Rie Kugimiya who leaves no impression when having played other tsunderes. Nothing about Rie Kugimiya performance stands out besides she sounds no different from a bland tsundere character.

Zarik Kajiwara is played by Shinichiro Miki in Japanese, and Steve Blum in the English dub. On both audio tracks these two actors are easily best actors. Steve Blum especially operating on autopilot with his cool, laid back voice. Blum voice goes hand in hand with Zarik Kajiwara personality for an easy cool portrayal. Miki also does the same so not of a much difference in performances. Frontier Setter is voice by Hiroshi Kamiya in Japanese, and Johnny Yong Bosch in the English dub. None of them end up being better than the other voice actor. Johnny Yong Bosch is simply wasted in the role that demand nothing of him. The character has no complex emotions, or personality so it’s more disappointing seeing Johnny Yong Bosch in the role than it is a bad performance. He doesn’t sound robotic at all in the role. Whereas Hiroshi Kamiya does sound robotic in his portrayal. Fitting the role, but nothing demanding about.

The script is different in both languages. I wouldn’t advise seeing the film in any language given how bad it is. Reading the subs draws more issues to its writing while the English dub has some bad audio mixture. In English, some wording are changed to make the story appears less idiotic than it already is, but also end changing the meaning in the film in general. Hearing 98% of humans have “cyber personality” doesn’t seem like a big deal compare in Japanese where it says 98% of humans are “artificial intelligence”. Creating different problems for itself. At best, it’s most tolerable to mute the film, and read subtitles. Not the even soundtrack composed by Narasaki is noticeable in the film. It’s heavy on electronics, techno, and rock, but all equally forgettable.

Rakuen Tsuihou: Expelled From Paradise will leave you with many philosophical questions. The most important one being “What did I just watch?”. Don’t let Gen Urobuchi, and Seiji Mizushima (director of the original Fullmetal Alchemist anime) names trick you into seeing this film. If this is the standard Japan wants to set for every 3D animated film that come out of their country they’re in serious trouble. The general low-framerate in animation, lack of any thought into the writing, and nothing substantial to remember is inexcusable in an era where the likes of Pixar, and Dreamworks Animation have made better 3D animated movies. If the animation isn’t flashy enough to make it entertaining to watch than it should at least contain good writing to keep viewers engaged. When you got neither, this film here stands as an example of that.

2/10