 |
| From https://cdn.myanimelist.net/ images/anime/7/68855l.jpg |
Skelter+Heaven
Director: Yoshiaki Sato
Screenplay: Yoshiaki Sato and Toshihiro
Sugiyama
Based on a video game by Idea
Factory
Voice Cast: Megumi Nasu as Rin
Ichikawa; Yukitugu Miyoshi as Otsuya Hunagai; Hideyuki Tanaka as CEO Mishima;
Kaori Nazuka as Konomi Tamura; Minori Chihara as Ayaka Matsumoto; Naoko Suzuki
as Misaki Kashima; Shizuka Itou as Midori Matsumura
Mars of Destruction
Director: Yoshiaki Sato
Screenplay: Kouji Takeuchi and
Tsunekiyo Fujisawa
Based on a video game by Idea
Factory
Voice Cast: Nozomu Taiga as
Takeru Hinata; Erina Nakayama as Tomoe Nakahara; Asuka Aizawa as Yamabuki Unno;
Minori Chihara as Aoi Kurita; Kaori Nazuka as Shizuka Isono; Yukari Kawabuchi
as Kyouko Kawagoe
Both viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
Let us plummet to the
bottom...though in terms of titles on the bottom of bottom lists for anime, is
it really constructive to pick on two obscurities like this that, as I'll get
onto, were made by a company in their infant period when there are probably
worst higher produced creations in existence to rag on? It's a subject to get
to later, but less than twenty minutes each, these aren't as painful as anime I
have suffered through that are much longer. Don't get me wrong, in the history
of anime viewing, these are two are among the most technically flawed and messy
productions I have sat through, so on a technical level they are the worst you
can find, but twenty minutes a pop can be endured, whilst I can only wonder in
an alternative reality if a thirteen episode series of this production quality
each might be a greater hell. That doesn't suggest a defence of these Idea Factory properties, but in terms of
notoriety there's also the irony that their infamy has brought more people to
watching them as I have than when they were first released, a la the Gun-dou Musashi effect (that 2006
series is for another time). This is ultimately a victory particularly as the
case for me comes off as picking on a minority in terms of the anime industry.
Mainly because Idea Factory, the creators of both, have
made some notorious anime (Diabolik
Lovers (2013/15) is possibly a bigger concern as that's a two season series),
but they're predominantly a video game company. Mars of Destruction and Skelter+Heaven,
ordered here by level of notoriety between the two, are tie-ins to video games
and, honestly with a little research, are from a time when Idea Factory were a very different company to how they look now.
Nowadays, their material on Steam
worldwide, is a lot more boosted in style and production even if their JRPGs
and visual novels do look the stereotype of anime. Mars of Destruction and Skelter+Heaven
as video games, seeing clips, are mainly still screens of text with an occasional
scene of interaction where you move a crosshair to shoot things. This was a
period where, and I will be incredibly careful in my words, they belonged to a
type of a budget videogame that was imported to Europe and Britain on consoles
like the Playstation 2 in the early 2000s. Now there were some highly regarded
budget priced or obscure cult imports from Japan in this era, including for the
Playstation One, and I am being specific in console choice as this denotes a
period in my life and that these games were for that console, but there were
likely a lot of small companies who work struggled against technical issues. Sometimes
they still created unconventional games admired today, sometimes for ironic
reasons, but there was likely also incredibly minimal work like Mars of Destruction and Skelter+Heaven which, if you can see
clips of online, are as minimal as games as you can get. Hell, I suspect
animation from Mars of Destruction the
video game was used for the anime tie-in at least as a template.
So this comes from a very
different place as a review. They have come up in the world in terms of the
time that has past, so I seriously doubt anyone would be offended by a review
like this. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't laughing to the bank,
as they now have a much bigger boost in production, a lot of titles sold around
the world, and a shitton of merchandising (including for titles not their own)
to sell. It would be interesting to see them revisit Mars of Destruction and Skelter+Heaven
even if it was just to screw with the Western anime viewers who talk about
these shorts still.
 |
| From https://s3.narvii.com/image/zbhuf2djx2tjbqykrapvr2qqnudkt67z_hq.jpg |
Befittingly, I watched the duo in wrong chronological order, but Mars of Destruction is the most well know of the pair. The story's simple, a mere slither like a dream of a half remembered anime, beginning with a crudely depicted space expedition to Mars crashing on the way back with entities terrorising parks at night in Japan, only a super group of young female (teenage) soldiers and the son of the head honcho in super armour to stop them. Notably someone was taking notes from Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995), as this is a tale of humans versus Martians that is muddier than this, whilst the son is forced by his father to wear the armour against his will whilst being moody. This may present a bigger issue for Idea Factory in terms of the originality of their content, which I will get into.
The proper first scene sets up
the infamy, as three high school girls in battle armour and rifles approach
three aliens in an empty park at night. With no helmets on, one of them wearing
military approved bows in her hair, you realise how absurd the common trope in
anime of teenagers in combat scenarios truly is, even Neon Genesis Evangelion until I revisit it having to explain why
hormone driven and usually emotionally confused teenagers were the wisest idea
to save the world and handle military equipment, something entirely blameable
on Mars of Destruction in bursting
the illusion of. Mars of Destruction
rubs the salt in, as unlike Evangelion
where despair and psychological breakdowns were common, these girls can see
their colleague get her head blown off in a gravity defying burst of blood
rain, the most infamous gif of the series, and not bat an eyelid until one
scene later of mourning.
Skelter+Heaven takes this common anime trope and makes it even more
absurd now as, set in a world where a large Christmas tree decoration/Christmas
tree/beige CGI octopus hovers menacingly over a Japanese metropolis, the
soldiers are again young teen girls or barely into adulthood, this time similar
to Sakura Wars1,
originally a dating sim crossed with a period diesel punk tactical combat video
game where a squad of women commanded machines with one male as their captain
who was clearly the player stand-in. That premise itself is problematic in how
there has to be a male form organising what could've been an already strong
matriarchal combat squad, but the least of issues in Skelter+Heaven's take. The bigger issue that, even though these are
meant to be artificially created super soldiers, to debate whether still human
or not as it's vague and blood is still bled, one of the main female pilots has
a crush on their male captain and this compromises the mission to save the
city. Alongside being sexist, the example suggests that no sane military
commander should leave the fate of the world in the hands of hormone driven teenagers
of any age, regardless of super soldier abilities, unless you really were stuck
or the screenwriter could make it more fleshed out.
 |
| From https://i.imgur.com/ZqU3hLV.jpg |
Mars of Destruction in general is a lot more subdued than its notoriety suggests. The huge gaping flaws don't lead to any real insanity, barring that the only other main action scene has no one else barring cops to be dismembered on the streets in a metropolis. There's not as much unintentional humour as you'd hope, the one exception in how the major plot twist, that Earthlings are the real aliens on Earth, is disclosed so abruptly, cutting to two older men in a corridor, leading to another bad habit (copying the Americans in Hollywood) of anime where all major events happen in Japan first, just to annoy one of these characters who is actually American.
Beyond this, Mars of Destruction is actually disappointing for me in terms of if
I wanted a hellish car crash. Skelter+Heaven
on the other hand is that though and through. Crowbarring even a title
sequence, Minori Chihara who sang the
themes for the Melancholy of Haruhi
Suzumiya franchise of all people providing songs to both shorts, Skelter+Heaven comes with a knowledge
of it being a short tie-in to a low budget game, but is still more than what
everyone presumed these two to be notorious for, having the greater issues. It's
too peculiar to hate, but good Lord, those abrupt flashback cuts, lunging into
them, are enough to knock the viewer out briefly. The training montage
including girls strapped to vibrating chairs that look uncomfortably sexual due
to how the actresses have been asked to moan in distress, or suggesting that
blowing up balloons is adequate military training. The voice acting, and even
the echoing sound effects especially for footsteps, is rougher. (Also embarrassing,
per both shorts, as they have actors who have gone on with further work). The
mouth movements on a particular female staff member in the control centre where
it looks like they've superimposed a person's mouth moving over her face
crudely than animate lips. Cheating fan service where, crudely, they put in a
shower scene but with the greater sense of exploitation of there being no
actual nudity, or that the CGI, for the giant robots and the alien squid
they're meant to fight, look definitely low budget to the point they enter a
particular pleasure of mine of obsolete digital animation.
Together I view these titles as a
company in very early days of their career, technically in the middle of their
existence but still at the point, this project would be them biting more off
than they could chew. Arguably what is a bigger concern for me, but with the
two too slight to be painful to sit through, is the sexist gender aspects,
which are frankly an issue for the whole of anime and manga in general in their
clichés, where having cute schoolgirls welding military grade equipment is
obviously meant to appeal to otaku, but can also lead to a curious fetish which
can also be demeaning to their portrayals depending on how its handled. As a
result, I cannot call Mars of
Destruction or Skelter+Heaven
the worst in my books. They are among some of the worst in terms of technical
achievement, but my own personal criterion is very different. In fact, Skelter+Heaven's too amusing in its
failures to really hate.
Besides, the director also helmed
Spectral Force (1998), another OVA
based on a video game of Idea Factory's
but also one hour long. An hour a slightly different scale to work in and to
fail miserably within...
 |
| From https://i2.wp.com/www.weebswire.com/wp-content/uploads /2019/07/Mars-of-destruction.png?fit=641%2C412&ssl=1 |
========
1) Sakura Wars is actually an incredibly good premise with many
virtues. Unfortunately, up to the 2000 TV series, none of the initial OVAs and
that series tell the tale of the video games, instead set between events or
side stories instead of telling the video game story; the series itself is a
prologue, right on the cusp of the transition to digitally assisted animation
which looks ropey, which unless anything changed is frankly one of the biggest
missed chances in terms of creating a super hit anime.
No comments:
Post a Comment