Memories (1997)

Kanojo no omoide 4/10 - Some great music, the rest is only okay"Kanojo no omoide" is a Japanese science fiction animated movie from 20 years ago. A couple astronauts hear strange singing from a place they considered deserted. So they go on a journey to find out who or what is the reason for this strange occurrence. The director here is Kôji Morimoto, who is probably a name to animation fans these days as he also worked on a segment of the Animatrix movie. However, I must say that even if I liked the animation in here, I cannot say that i found the story too interesting. The whole tragedy plot in terms of love, fatherhood etc. was a bit over the top the longer the film went and it was also some weird contrast to the horror elements in here. All in all, I can recommend this film only for the beautiful music used in several parts. I think it would not have been the worst decision to keep this at 30 minutes max instead of 45. Not recommended.Taiho no Machi 4/10 - Never tries to make a statement on (anti-)war, but the storytelling perspective is fairly mediocre"Taiho no Machi" or "Cannon Fodder" is a Japanese animated short film from 1995, so this one is also already over 20 years old. At slightly over 20 minutes, it is the shortest by far from the trilogy of films included on Memorîzu and Katsuhiro Ôtomo is not just the writer as usual this time, but also the director. At the beginning and end, the focus is on a boy and his family and how they deal with life in a place that is vastly influenced by the military. In-between there are tons of war action and army references and we even see a character on one occasion who through his beard may have a bit too much resemblance with Adolf Hitler. Anyway, it's not a Nazi film or anything, but it is much more about the mystery who they are fighting and why, which is an idea I like. Still the exact execution here did not seem too memorable to me and the animation style wasn't really to m,y liking either I must admit, but that's just personal preference and not really because it looks older than mid-1990s. The exact plot and attention to detail, especially about the story rather than the animation could have been a bit better too and as a consequence I found most characters really forgettable, even the key players. About the voice acting I cannot say too much as I focused on the English subtitles, but I guess it wasn't too bad. Still all in all, this is not my favorite from the Ôtomo trilogy. But it's also definitely not bad enough to be a negative deal-breaker that may keep you from watching the entire thing. Nonetheless I give it a thumbs-down as a whole, this one here at least. Not recommended.Saishu Heiki 6/10 - What a difference the wrong medication makes"Saishu Heiki" or "Stink Bomb" is a Japanese anime short film from 1995 that runs for 40 minutes and was written by Katsuhiro Ôtomo and directed by Tensai Okamura, both pretty prolific in their fields. This film is easily over 20 years old already now and the story is about a young man who takes the wrong pills and eventually ends up as an environmental and military catastrophe. It is an extremely bizarre story indeed, but somehow it is actually working. Maybe my preference for this one is that I also liked the animation style here and that most of the characters were interesting enough by just being there and without really in-depth exploration and background elaboration. The twists and how a seemingly harmless story initially becomes more and more dramatic by the minute were both well-handled. You actually get curious about what happens next, to the protagonist and in general. This is not typical anime style, but still successful from my perspective. The voice actors did an okay job as well as much as I can be a judge of that as my focus was mostly on the subtitles which yours should be too unless you actually are fluent in Japanese. I am generally not that big actually on anime that isn't particularly recent, but this felt like a well-rounded effort that never drags and succeeds from all production value perspectives. A little film that is as bizarre as it is entertaining. Go see it.

I found this flick to be quite interesting visual show. Though the characters weren't developed and the stories followed the traditional clichés of film. For instance, the first part, which was the highest quality one in terms of animation, looks good but the story has been told a thousand times before, though it has some interesting twists. The other two films are shorter and contain less plot and characterization.Not that this is a bad film, quite to the contrary, I am very rigorous in my ratings: 6/10 is for a very good film, 7/10 is for an excellent film, 8/10 is for a great film, 9/10 is for a masterpiece and 10/10, well, that's reserved for the REAL STUFF.I am still searching for a non-Ghibli anime films that can even approach the level of quality achieved by Miyazaki and Co., but it appears that they are simply on another level of quality.

I saw this some years before it got it's official US release. Sadly, under Sony/Columbia, this never got an on time decent US release, so will often get ignored by the usual anime aficionados.It's a bit of a shame, really, because Memories is a bit meatier than your usual anime. Besides the a-list anime directors behind this project, the stories have a lot more worth than your regular violent anime with bikini clad buxom heroines. It's also got one of anime's foremost geniuses behind it - Katsuhiro Otomo.Memories begins with the haunting Magnetic Rose, which has three travelers exploring a mysterious spaceship haunted a woman's memories. The idea of isolation, abandonment and long lost memories come together in a chilling work that is made all the more beautiful by the accompanying score incorporating Madame Butterfly.The next two stories showcase something that Otomo has a flare for, but is somewhat forgotten when Otomo's name is uttered. That is the fact that Otomo has no shame in doing satire in a grand tradition that questions such things as how a government would foul up in trying to avert a potential disaster and then how to cover it up and the universal topic of war.The first of the satiric pieces is Stink Bomb. It has a dark sense of humor about it, as people die so nonchalantly after merely smelling the everyman "hero" of the story. What makes it so funny is how the government handles this situation, often with ineffective violent force or laughable meetings with all the government leaders. The look of this piece is also to be lauded as there are often contrasts with beautiful flowers and trees contrasted with with all this death and destruction. Again, the soundtrack is humorous, upbeat, and utilizes jazz to evoke a light tone.This segues into the Otomo directed "Cannon Fodder," a more direct piece of satire which obviously targets the world's obsession with war and its use of force to solve a lot of problems. It's a cautionary tale where people fire canons at each other and a child is seen taking pride in what his father does and there is no denying what he wants to do when he grows up. Otomo uses a different style than we are accustomed to seeing. It's dark, and the drawings are rough and crude in comparison with Otomo's other work. This chaotic look seems intentional as it sits well with the story's theme. The look owes a bit to Fritz Lang as he separated different groups and classes, something Otomo would become more familiar with when he did Metropolis. The poignancy of the piece hits home though when the boy does asks his father who it is they are fighting. This exemplifies the wonderful ability of Otomo to not only be a great master in animation, but a relevant storyteller as well.

Memories conveys three of the best anime segments ever done, even if so many anime fans don't know about it. The first time I saw Memories in a film festival in 1998 left me with such an impression that I never forgot about it. Now that finally I own the DVD, I can say that it's the same as I remembered: magnificent.The "Magnetic Rose" segment feels at times like an homage to Kubrick's "2001 : Space Odissey", and now I could say it's a straight antecedent of the sci-fi tendency about the human mind in a simulated space which we have seen in "Dark City", "Matrix", etc. How a simulation program triggers the memories of the explorers and gets mixed with synthetic memories is done in a very intriguing form. The opera music plays a most important role, since it's the soundtrack what gives depth to the happenings here told."Stink Bomb" is funny as hell, taking the typical idiot hero in the Nintendo kind of plot (thhink Koji in Mazzinger, or Seya in Knigths of the Zodiac) as for what he should be (an idiot, every day man with the flu) , the story revolves around on the accidental creation of a human stinking bomb who treat hens the whole island of Japan. Real funny in a way most kid's animes aren't.Finally, "Cannon Fodder" is the segment which I feel is the true masterpiece in this little anthology. A metaphorical world where a country is in a war against an unknown (and probably inexistent) enemy, and how the cannons are not only weapons, but the complete essence of the cultural, economical and social layers of this surreal "totalitarian" country. Some reminiscence of Orwell's 1984 is present, but the execution is really like anything I have ever seen or read before. It's a one shot segment, so I can hardly imagine the size of some background panels and the animation logistics of this. The music accentuates this strange feeling (very much like in Aeon Flux), and the unusual rendering style makes this a little strange jewel, not only from anime, but from all styles of animation.As I said before, most movie and anime fans don't seem to know, or don't have any memories about this surreal collection of animated storied. I'm glad I'll never forget them.