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Goshogun the time Etranger
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Title Info
- type: movie
- grade: worthy
- Other elements of this title:
- This title may offend the sensitive.
- made: unknown
- Review created: Mon Oct 9 15:00:04 EST 2000
- mod: none
Strange stuff, and difficult to rate...but this, combined with some interesting moments makes it worthwhile to consider. The first thing that must be mentioned is that this is clearly announced as originating in an older TV series. As a result there will be some confusion as new characters, who we are clearly meant to know, come into the story. Fortunately they're fairly obvious in their appearances and personalities, so it doesn't take too long. Still, those who don't like seeing stories without knowing the origin (and I suspect the original is pretty rare) should be warned. In addition, this is pretty old animation in itself.
Then again, the story is pretty weird too. I strongly suspect that the style and content is safely seperate from the origin material. The important fact is that there were three pilots of a giant mecha that fought against an evil space empire. In time these three so impressed the enemy generals, that they came to be companions in seeking, and acheiving, the defeat of their enemy. Many years have passed and the single female on the team, Remy Shimada, has called them together once more. For various reasons she ends up in a critical condition, and the rest of the team can do little more than gather around her bed (and fight with the hospital authorities). But in her mind we follow a far more complex story. This story includes scenes of her childhood, but the main part focuses on a strange, dark and horrible city. The occupants, and strange god of this city, have decided when and how she and the other's will die. In other words fate, and many forces, are actively against her...but will her will to live, and the support of her comrades, overcome both this challenge and the real world threat to her life?
In other words, the setting is an internal dreamscape where reality is subservient to allegory and dark fantasy. However the `feel' of the dream is very real, very dangerous, and occasionally quite intense. The air is of threat and nightmare, and some of the scenes are quite disturbing. This includes quite a lot of violence, some by Remy and her team (who are all pretty gung ho) and even more from the seemingly deranged, arabic inspired, occupants of this city. Some of the nightmare components, such as remy getting to foresee her own death (along with `symbolic' torment) are well into the realm of horror, a genre under represented in anime. There are also some good scenes of the characters interacting, fighting as a team and dealing with being presented with their destined `fate'. It takes quite a while to get into it, in addition to working out who is who, so patience and tolerance (it doesn't always succeed) will be required. The handling, in story, dialog and production is quite skilled and mature in its handling. It is an interesting enough piece, although the ending is fairly strange and perhaps less meaningful than expected. In simpler terms, while there is some action, if you can't cope with something a bit arty while being dark and dramatic, don't bother with this. In any case, it is probably more something to experience than to own.
As mentioned the animation is older, which takes some tolerance. Then again this was once movie quality animation and it has dated fairly well. It looks weakest in an opening car chase, and some of the action scenes, but the character stuff is actually done very well. And considering this is a dramatic character centered piece the animation is sufficient for the story. The spooky atmosphere of the city and its actions is done really well. The combat, and actions of the characters, is logical and believable. These are all pretty tough people, they aren't going to take fate lying down and they can plan and act intelligently. They're also pretty cool at times. There are no mecha in it by the way, it's all small unit stuff in an urban environment. The voices were good, fitting the characters quite well, and I didn't particularly notice the music but I imagine it was doing its thing in the background.
I have no idea what the title means either. The tape I found was also mislabeled, although I guess `go shogun' is an interesting title too. Sadly none of the sites I source from have a review of this title, so it might be fairly rare.
Words by Andrew Shelton, Web by Ticti, Last Compile: Wed Aug 5 12:39:19 WST 2009