Welcome to the Space Show Review — B

Reviews,

Welcome to the Space Show is about a group of children who meet an alien dog while at summer camp and travel across the universe, smuggling wasabi to fund their travels.

If that sounds silly, it’s because it is: still, the movie comes together surprisingly well. It’s action-packed and doesn’t leave time to be bored. There’s something for everyone: action scenes, some light comedy, creative new worlds and some drama. This movie is targeted for families and children, so it’s not my usual cup of tea, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

The movie’s strongest points are its fantastic setting and gorgeous animation. The setting here is very creative: there’s a huge variety of interesting kinds of aliens. Many of these only show up in the background, and it looks like the creators put effort even into them. The children travel to multiple planets, and each has its own idiosyncrasies. They have to go through customs and acquire a passport to travel in space. They travel on a faster than light caterpillar train where furniture grows out of the walls. In general, there’s just a tremendous attention to detail in the setting.

And this attention to detail is brought out by the animation. The backgrounds are beautiful, drawn in tremendous detail, whether they’re showing Earth, another planet, the inside of a ship or the dark side of the moon. But the strongest point is that there’s a fluidity to the animation: everything is in motion. Exotic aliens walk past in the background, lights flash, vehicles drive by. There’s just so much going on in every scene, that the world feels full and chaotic. It isn’t just the main characters out there. I wasn’t surprised to discover that the production team was also responsible for Kamichu, and this is the movie budget version of that same style, which was great even in a TV show.

Welcome to the Space Show’s biggest weakness is its villains. Their motivations never make much sense. At the end (spoiler alert) their goal turns out to be to acquire the wasabi as fuel for the “Pet King” to combine the little sister and the bunny rabbit into a new artificial being. But this is wrong because only the strong should survive. I’m not sure this is the best message to be teaching kids.

On a side note, this movie motivated me to look up wasabi on wikipedia. I didn’t know this, but apparently it’s really hard to grow, so much so that in the West what we call wasabi is usually a mixture of horseradish, mustard and green food coloring. I love the fake wasabi, so now I really want to try the actual thing. I guess the difficulty of growing wasabi is why it became extinct in the rest of the universe.

  • Plot / Script – 8  / 10 – A fun adventure story, with an excellent setting.
  • Characters – 8 / 10 – The main characters are solid, but the villains are weak.
  • Production – 10 / 10 – Great visuals and attention to detail.
  • Overall – B

Recommendations – Kamichu, Summer Wars, Spirited Away

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control 10 — Overheated Economy!

C: The Money of Soul and Possibility Control,

Now economic trends can be reflected by the power of clowns and North American super entrepreneurs.

C still has its issues— mainly, that the economic mumbo-jumbo, the entire setting and the fighting for the future / present debate make no sense whatsoever— but this episode was a turn for the better with a focus on the battles again. Even if the battles don’t make any sense either, at least they’re entertaining. “Overheated economy!” “Mergers and acquisitions!” “Cannibalization!” The attack names are one part where the economics mumbo jumbo actually kind of works. It’s certainly preferable to the usual attack names. And yes, I realize that one of those three attack names doesn’t fit.

I don't know, you definitely should have.

Still, I can’t follow the story. The greedy guy who sells information betrays Mikuni for some reason, but I couldn’t figure out why. IMF girl’s plan is to save the future by destroying the Japanese currency so they can stop losing their future and get wiped off the map by the [C] waves (which still don’t make any sense either). Kimimaro fights a side kick from the guild who I’m not even sure had a name. The clown gives a black card to Kimimaro because he heard voices from the clouds telling him to. Now Kimimaro and Mikuni are prepped to fight the ultimate showdown of ultimate destiny.

Tree of life cameo - even less relevant here than it was in Evangelion.

On a more positive note, I did enjoy the part where the information broker robbed the guild and started tossing money out of helicopters, even if little motivation was given for him to do so. And Mikuni’s asset, Q, is pretty awesome. She looks like a gentler version of Mashu but eats people and assets instead of ramen. Definitely my kind of girl. Wish they’d made more use of her.

Hidan no Aria 10 — Repeat After Me

Hidan no Aria,

I will not reflexively hide and peek on girls changing. I will not reflexively hide and peek on girls changing.

This episode was mostly the usual fanservice, but it came across as uninspired even by Hidan no Aria’s standards. The main problem with this episode though isn’t the fanservice: it’s a complete lack of logical coherence and focus.

They’re going to infiltrate Vlad’s house? Ok, sure, waste time having Aria dress up as a maid and look embarrassed calling Kinji master, I’d be more surprised if they didn’t at this point. Riko tells them that they are recovering her dead mother’s heirloom, and everyone is sad. Everyone knows that cute girls only do bad things because of their tragic pasts.

Then Kinji runs into Jeanne D’Arc playing piano. It turns out she made a deal with the judge to become a student- no explanation needed, cute girls always join the good guys eventually. This short conversation had some extremely awkward voice acting. Jeanne, harem glasses girl with poor drawing skills, GET-O.

Next, Riko tells Kinji to meet her in a medical room. He hears people coming, and instead of going to greet them, he hides in the nearest locker. Why he would do this is completely beyond human understanding. And why Riko expects him to do this is even more incomprehensible. But it turns out his perverted friend is hiding in the locker as well. Then we confirm that Kinji is a lolicon, the male teacher enters, and Reki discovers Kinji hiding in the locker.

Up until this point, the episode was stupid but at least made some vague sort of sense. I guess. But now, a giant rabid wolf jumps through the window and attacks the changing girls. It runs away after Kinji tries to tackle it, and he and Reki chase it on the perverted friend’s motorcycle which was hiding in the bushes for a getaway.

Now Kinji starts to feel sorry for the rabid wolf, and worries that Reki will kill it because she’s “heartless”. He’s more worried about the wolf than he was about Aria, Riko, Shirayuki and Jeanne D’Arc combined. * The producers of Hidan no Aria proudly support animal rights. * Kinji must have only been worried because the wolf wasn’t wearing body armor.

Reki shoots the wolf and temporarily paralyzes it. * Warning: do not try this at home. * She then tames it and makes it her pet. That was her plan all along. Its old master was mean to it. Now it is cute and shakes hands. Ok. I am truly shocked by this development.

We have forgotten all about recovering Riko’s heirloom, but we have a new pet wolf. The episode ends with Aria beating up Kinji once again. I guess as random as this episode was, it still beats having to spend more time listening to Aria talk.

Ano Hana 10 — Tamaya!

Ano Hana,

This episode was quite the tear jerker, and by far the strongest episode of Ano Hana yet. It makes you cry, but it’s not the kind of thing where there are a couple especially sad moments: the creators took their time to wring out every last tear from every single character and pile all the emotions together into a bundle of fireworks for a spectacular climax. Yukiatsu’s replaying of the day of Menma’s death worked brilliantly, just like blasting a hole in a dam. They didn’t let up on the tension at all after this, following up with a breakdown from Anaru, a conversation between Jinta and Menma, Yukiatsu’s talk with his wig, Menma’s hug with her brother, and culminating with the fireworks launch. Rather than having a few cry-worthy moments, as in earlier episodes, this episode had me right on the border of breaking down and sobbing for the majority of the time. It made for a much more intense and memorable experience.

The way they dealt with Menma’s mother was quite nice (I’m going to guess that the part for her parents to play is mostly over). In any other show I would have expected Menma’s mother to end up coming to the fireworks launching, to forgive everyone and to finally let go of Menma. Unfortunately it’s never quite that easy. But you can tell that, with the help of her husband and son, Menma’s mother has come a few small steps closer to accepting her death, as she cries to see the fireworks launching in the distance.

Poppo and Mysterious Girl Tsurumi even get some time in the spotlight as well. Tsurumi, as we’d guessed, is in love with Yukiatsu, and it turns out that she can actually be rather jealous, although she doesn’t seem to blame Anaru. Poppo’s cheery exterior does serve to hide some scars from Menma’s death, it turns out: it seems that he blames himself for being able to “only watch”. I wonder if he was actually there and knows what happened when Menma died.

The biggest surprise of the episode came when Poppo began pressuring Jinta to reenact that day, joining in with Yukiatsu and Anaru. I haven’t really been able to figure out why. Perhaps he knew what Jinta would say, and wanted to help him say it? I kind of doubt it though, considering how downright scared he looked as he was chanting. My guess is he was trying to confront his own regrets, and I think that the final episode will probably have the answers.

To feel truly human, characters need to be flawed, and this is another area where Ano Hana truly shines. Take, for example, Jinta, who wants to keep Menma to himself even though he knows it’s best for her to be reincarnated. I already mentioned the case of Menma’s mother; there’s also the different jealousies of Anaru, Tsurumi and Yukiatsu. All of the characters have experienced growth, but it’s gradual: it isn’t easy for them to overcome their flaws. Yukiatsu tries to force Jinta to overcome the same problems he has, but still talks to his wig at night. Anaru wants Jinta to love her, but cannot help feeling somewhat glad that Menma is gone. Tsurumi believes that her love for Yukiatsu is hopeless, but can’t let go. Jinta wants to set Menma free, but calls her back at the last moment.

This episode was sad, but Menma knocking herself on the head and looking sheepish helped to cheer me up at the end.

Dog Days 11 — Angry / Blushing Eclair = Win

Dog Days,

The end of the demon sword was anti-climatic even by this show’s standards. It separates from the host like it’s going to be the final final boss form, causes an earthquake, and is put down in short order like it was nothing. Generally your latter forms should be stronger than your initial forms. Learn this well, demon swords.

In general, this episode had way too much talking and very little going on. The two minute “date” with Shinku and Eclair was probably the highlight. And it seems like there’s a problem with Shinku going home. All the touchy-feely stuff between Leo-sama and the princess is more or less a waste of time. Even more so for the crappy J-Pop concert and montage. And all the characters need to stop being so polite! I feel like so much time is wasted just with people saying “excuse me, I’m off!” and “hello”. Same thing with Leo’s apology: you don’t have to make half the show about people apologizing and exchanging pleasantries.

Anyway, have some more Eclair. She’s pretty much the only thing I’m still enjoying about this show.