Cellphone Investigator 7 (2008)

directed by Takashi Miike, Takeshi Watanabe, Hiroyuki Tsuji, Manabu Asō, Kazuya Konaka et al

Japan

4.5 stars out of 5

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As a tokusatsu fan, I should probably know better than to judge by appearances at this point, but I have to be honest: I did not expect the television show about a walking, talking cell phone who solves cyber crimes with a 16-year-old boy as its partner to be one of the best things I've watched in recent memory.

The show basically gives you everything you need to know about it within its opening credits. Keita, a high school student, suddenly finds the whole course of his life changed when he witnesses a man killed by a rogue construction crane in front of him, and discovers that the man was secretly an agent for Under Anchor, an organization developing special AI-powered cell phones to combat cyber crimes. Keita is reluctant at the beginning of the show but becomes a full-fledged Anchor agent soon enough, and by the end, god damn, that high schooler is the best agent they ever had. (Okay, maybe not the best, but probably the most emotionally invested.)

This show has pacing issues. I will say that up front because I think that what constitutes "issues" for any other show is instead, for CPI7, something it wears with pride. One of the things this show does that I really admire, and that I wish more series would do, is bring in different directors and let them keep their directorial style. Every so often there will be an episode that's so wildly different that you think "wow, who did that one?" and you look it up and surprise! It's Mamoru Oshii (for example), and you can tell it's Mamoru Oshii, because instead of keeping to a baseline throughout the entire series, some episodes are allowed to just be these wonderful little one-off capsules of weird that don't develop the plot but feel instead like a movie starring the characters of the show you've been watching.

For a show ostensibly about cyber crimes, there's really not a lot of cyber crime-solving going on. Most of what happens is very self-contained and usually the stakes aren't that high: Keita and some random guy almost get killed by gun smugglers, a little girl finds Seven (the phone) and he helps her get over feeling alienated by her parents' impending divorce, a really bad comedian makes it his mission in life to court Touko, and, like, literally just The Ring, to name a few. Like I said, the double episode that Oshii directed is one of the most astonishing things I've seen in the context of a television series, and it has absolutely nothing to do with solving crime. It just lets us meditate with the characters for a while in a world that is wholly a fantasy and is more real for it.

"Life is just saying goodbye."

"Then what is the spring that always returns?"

I think by far the crowning achievement of CPI7 is how much it got me to care about the phones. When we begin the series' storyline, Anchor had been developing cell phones called Phone Bravers with the ability to walk and talk and learn from their partners, seven of which were created but only three remain functional (we learn about the others as the show progresses). The phones are partnered with human agents who are referred to as their "Buddy", and develop a bond with them where each influences the other, as the phones provide tactical and logistical support that a human couldn't, and the human provides, for lack of a better term, life skills for the Phone Bravers. And let me tell you, they are doing some kind of magic with how well the Bravers are integrated into the cast. By the end of the show I was 1000% invested in the phones and 1000% forgetting they were little CGI phones and not actual human cast members. It's just absolutely perfect at making you care about the Bravers and feel for them as they respond to - and develop - emotions in their own flawed, weird, nonlinear, very human way.

To discuss the story in-universe a little bit: the bond between the Bravers and their buddies is integral to the overarching plot of the show. The ultimate villain is a rogue AI named Gene created by Ultraman Agul a shady tech CEO that evolves to come to the conclusion that humans are making the world a worse place and should be eliminated. Gene becomes a villain precisely because it's let loose without the ability to learn from an individual human the way the Phone Bravers are. Gene's creator failed to provide the kind of care, attention, and empathy that the Under Anchor agents did for their phones, and instead he just mass-produced them as quickly as possible with a childlike brain intended for rapid growth and self-sufficiency rather than emotional reasoning and understanding. The Phone Braver program works because the phones are treated like people, because they functionally are. The relationship between the Bravers and their buddies is a friendship between equals. Gene is a feral child left to fend for itself, with nobody else to learn from but other feral children.

I want to nominate Masataka Kubota, who plays Keita, for every award retroactively. The way he handles the massive tonal shifts from episode to episode is admirable. He does at times feel authentically like a 16-year-old boy, but he doesn't play Keita like a parody of himself. And he always sells his interactions with Seven and the other Bravers. The whole cast does, but Keita has more direct interaction with the phones than anyone else. I was so fully invested in the final episode due to how Kubota was nailing it and how the writing team was managing to make these phones feel like real living characters that it was honestly a little overwhelming.

So, yeah. I watched the cell phone detective show and it got me really emotional. I wish there were more shows like this, but this one is a special, rare thing, and maybe that's how it should be.

Guyver: The Bioboosted Armor (2005)

directed by Katsuhito Akiyama

Japan

780 minutes

4 stars out of 5

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Another review for a TV series today. I held off watching this for a long time because all I ever heard about it was that it was less gory than and generally inferior to the '89 series - which I hold dear in my heart - but after finally watching it, I have no idea what everybody was talking about. This show rules.

I think you should listen to the absolute ripper of an op while reading this for maximum effect.

It would be an understatement to say that a lot of anime and manga focus on high school students stumbling into a dangerous or bizarre situation and ending up gaining (or finding out that they've always had) special powers. It's probably impossible to reckon the number of series that use that trope. But Bioboosted Armor feels like it does it differently. The story begins with a high school boy, Sho, and his friend Tetsuro coming across a Control Medal (the device that allows a wearer to bond with and activate a Guyver suit) in the woods. Sho touches it and it immediately and forcibly equips him with the Guyver suit, leading him on accident down a path that will entangle his life with the destiny of the entire planet. Pure chance - not fate, not destiny; unless you want to headcanon it that way.

Sho himself doesn't get a lot of characterization, he's just sort of A Guy, but the people around him are presented in really interesting, faceted ways that I want to explore before getting further into the review. One of the standout characters to me is Mizuki, Sho's classmate and maybe-girlfriend, who is dragged into the chaos by virtue of being Tetsuro's sister. I will never forget a YouTube comment I read when I was watching the '89 series that said something like "I feel so bad for Mizuki, she's just a little girl and her entire life got turned upside-down". Mizuki is in a lot of ways the exact opposite of the traditional anime schoolgirl: she's clearly immature, not equipped to handle everything that's being thrown at her, constantly depressed and anxious, etc - basically, she's the only person in the show who acts realistically given the situation. I love how when everyone around her talks about fighting and dying and giving one's life to protect the greater good, Mizuki is there essentially saying "What THE HELL are you people talking about, you guys are my FRIENDS and you're GOING TO DIE. That is NOT NORMAL and why are you acting like it is."

Tetsuro is also cool because they never shoehorn him into either being the funny fat guy comic relief or the funny smart guy comic relief. He is clearly very smart but he has his own issues and deals with the ongoing trauma of the series in his own way.

The thing about watching this after having already seen the original series was that I knew I was eventually going to get to the part where Sho's dad (Fumio) dies. I swear, man, I've seen NGE, and Sho's dad dying bothers me almost as much as anything that goes on in that show. Fumio is one of the most normal anime dads I've ever seen: he loves his son very, very much; when we get to read his diary, he talks about how he's concerned for Sho (who has acquired the Guyver suit, but keeps it secret), but he trusts that he'll open up to him sooner or later. The set-up of Fumio as a caring, kind father who believes in his son makes it incredibly painful when - and this is a big SPOILER, but I want to elaborate the whole scenario for emphasis - it seems like both of them finally escape from Cronos, but Fumio has secretly been processed into a Zoanoid, and because Sho refuses to fight him after both of them transform, Fumio as Zoanoid crushes Sho's skull and activates the Guyver suit's incredibly aggressive autopilot mode, rendering Sho into a passenger within his body as he literally vaporizes his own father.

I knew it was coming and it still hit hard.

The concept of the series is premium juicy sci-fi, although the pacing suffers at points due to repeated exposition dumps that bring the show to a halt for several episodes in a row. I love stories where humans are left to infer information about an alien species through their technology because the aliens themselves are absent. We know the Creators' basic goal - engineering humans as perfect living weapons - but we don't know why, or how they operated on Earth. The Guyver suits were never meant for human use, and seeing Sho and the others wear them and eventually even pilot an abandoned Creator ship feels like this almost Rendezvous with Rama scenario where something beyond our imagination is left to us with no explanation.

Unfortunately, most Guyver series seem to have "non-ending" syndrome. After building up a ton of momentum Bioboosted Armor fizzles out into a final three episodes that halfheartedly introduce a future where Cronos rules the world and Zoanoids are integrated into human society. This could have been interesting if it was given the proper time to be fleshed out, but as it is, it feels like an afterthought. The fight between final-form Guyot and Makishima while Sho is desperately trying to pilot the Creator ship out of a volcano and get everyone to safety is more riveting than anything the final few episodes contained, and that's a shame. For a series that had been so epic before, we should have gotten an ending that felt more cathartic than this.

I'm going to stop here, because I've gone on way too long, but I want to go to bat for this series that seems to be dismissed in favor of the earlier one. I do think that I like the '89 series better, but it was so hamstrung by budget constraints and other production issues that it never felt like it achieved its full potential. This series gets closer - but again, the rushed ending does it a disservice.

Juukou B-Fighter (1995-96)

directed by Shinichirō Sawai, Kaneharu Mitsumura, Tarō Sakamoto, Hidenori Ishida, Katsuya Watanabe, Osamu Kaneda 

Japan

1272 minutes (52 episodes, 1 movie)

4 stars out of 5

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The first handful of episodes of Juukou B-Fighter did not do much to endear it to me. Some toku series hit it out of the park right away and then stagnate in the middle, but others - like B-Fighter - take a minute to get into their groove. It's particularly egregious here for some reason, though - it almost feels like the series was rushed to get on the air, and the characters were written with a total lack of personality until the show had a more solid footing. I doubt that this was actually what happened, but for a few episodes you really do get the vibe that the show is just kind of putting itself out there unfinished. Fortunately, this wears off. 

The main cast of characters is made up of three partners, Takuya, Daisaku, and Mai (played by Daisuke Tsuchiya, Shigeru Kanai, and Chigusa Tomoe, respectively), who are gifted the ability to transform into armor-plated heroes by the collective power of the world's insect population, and their leader Professor Mukai (played by Takashi Sasano). There is a cast change after episode 19, when Reina Hazuki leaves and Tomoe Chigusa takes over the role of Reddle. What's interesting here is that even though Reddle's suit actress is the same for both characters, she develops an entirely new set of mannerisms and body language when it's supposed to be Mai in the suit.

As with the vast majority of tokusatsu, the villains are way cooler than the good guys, although the balance here is a lot more even than in, say, Super Sentai, where nearly every team (at least in the Showa series, which is mostly what I've seen) is, and I apologize for saying this, boring as hell. B-Fighter uses the typical setup of an extremely powerful leader - Gaohm - and their generals, in this case Schwartz, Jera, and Gigaro. Gigaro's a nothingburger, but Jera and Schwartz make up for it by being super cool in terms of design and personality, and I personally liked Schwartz a lot because I thought it was interesting that he's a computer virus ported into a humanoid body. (Schwartz' VA also puts in a little extra effort the way Reddle's suit actress does when Schwartz is upgraded mid-series and from that point on his voice fluctuates between deep and gravelly and his previous maniacal cackle.)

Far and away the best thing about this show is the character and creature design. Everything here looks so perfect. Some episodes are like a non-stop parade of incredibly awesome costumes. Unusually for a tokusatsu series, the "monster of the week" format is more like "monster of every couple of weeks", and this makes the ones we do get feel that much more special. Gaohm's generals deploy monsters regularly at first (and, like everything else, they are visually stunning to a one) but then that kinda dies off and B-Fighter is mostly either fighting the generals themselves or foiling various plots they've put into motion. I didn't realize immediately that the show had shifted away from the monster-focused format I've been so used to, and I enjoyed it a lot.

A big part of the plot towards the latter quarter of the show is Takuya's rivalry with his artificially-created twin, Black Beet. Gaohm uses Takuya's DNA to create a fighter who is a perfect clone of him, and Black Beet, being possessed of a fully-formed intelligence, struggles with his existence as a being inherently dependent on another being. He becomes obsessed with killing Takuya even though they are so closely linked that pain inflicted on Takuya becomes Black Beet's pain as well. In the end his pursuit of independence costs him his life, but really, that was the point - freedom in death, because freedom in life was impossible.

If there's anything I don't like about the show, it actually involves Takuya's fight with Black Beet. When Takuya first finds out Black Beet is his clone, he feels unworthy to be a B-Fighter and leaves the team for a while. The team is framed as being unable to continue without him; since they're not all together, they can't fight at full power. But in the finale, when the stakes are considerably higher (like, "Earth is actively being swallowed by a black hole" higher), Mai and Daisaku tell Takuya to go finish his battle with Black Beet while they save the entire Earth. If B-Fighter can't battle a bunch of monsters without having all its members assembled, how is it that they manage to destroy a black hole when they're one man down?

But that's the smallest of nitpicks for a show that is otherwise really stellar. I could go on much further about specific things that stuck out to me - Gaohm's existence as essentially a sentient cancer and his bitterness over being ignored fueling his apocalyptic rage, Guru's stunning suit acting, the villain infighting towards the end, the... uh... the mpreg episode... but I'll end my review here with a hearty recommendation that you check the series out. The whole thing is worth getting invested in just for the last two episodes, which constitute one of the best toku series finales I've seen thus far.

Some Miscellaneous Thoughts About the Zatoichi TV Series

For the past couple of months, I've been watching an episode of Zatoichi every morning right after I wake up. I genuinely believe that half if not more of the episodes of this series are better than the majority of the Zatoichi movies, although it's not quite fair to compare the two since the films and the series are very different tonally. Yesterday morning I watched my last morning Zatoichi episode and I want to get some of my thoughts out about this incredible series.

This will be long.

It's difficult to talk about the series as a whole because every episode is scripted and/or directed by a different person. Some episodes are long and talky and feel like not very much was accomplished in their 45-minute runtime, but others are exceptionally good. These stand-out episodes aren't really confined to one season, and are spread out pretty evenly throughout the whole of the show, making watching it in order a very rewarding experience. Letting a variety of people handle Ichi is immensely beneficial to his character development - I don't think Zatoichi as a media phenomenon would be as popular and lasting if the version of him presented in The Tale of Zatoichi, or even in the original story, was all we ever saw of him. Ichi has many facets, developed continuously from the early '60s through to the present day.

Every episode contains guest stars, many of them appearing a handful of times - Renji Ishibashi and Shin Kishida both have at least five appearances across the series, and several other notables have two or three episodes - and the directors are some of the biggest names in jidaigeki. The episodes directed by Shintarō Katsu himself are consistently some of the best (and most experimental).

Because the series doesn't adhere to a chronological timeline - episodes seem to take place at various points during Ichi's life - it doesn't make sense to say that Ichi evolves as a character over the course of the show. The bulk of the show does not see him follow a linear path of character development, changing in response to the weight of everything he endured thus far. That being said, though, Ichi does seem markedly different by the fourth and final season. He talks less. He feels more physically guarded, wearing a headscarf and his cloak wrapped tightly around him. It seems like everything is starting to get to him. He struggles with himself, and the show itself struggles with him too.

The fourth season turns inward and begins to look at itself, to examine Ichi on an existential level. At this point the series feels like it's allowing itself to rest now that it's so well-established, resulting in several episodes that have remarkably spare plots. The swordfighting is more and more like an obligation - often, the insertion of some group or another of shady crims who want Ichi's head for whatever reason is laughably formulaic. Although it does interesting things with the format of the series, the fourth season is not my favorite, as I feel that many of the episodes just do not land; however, it also contains some of the most stunning stand-alone episodes of the series, culminating in an unbelievably avant-garde two-part finale scripted and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara.

In part one, The Rainbow Journey, Ichi is allowed to experience sensuality for the first time in the entire series. But for him, the joy is taken out of this encounter by a group who essentially turns it into a ransom demand: they get Ichi to admit he slept with a nobleman's concubine, then threaten her family with the exposure of this transgression unless they're given a chest full of money. The experience was completely consensual and wanted by both parties, but Ichi doesn't get to have things like that - not without complications.

In part two, The Dream Journey, the encounter with the concubine continues to haunt Ichi. Most of the episode takes place in a dream sequence. To attempt to unpack the symbolism fully would take me years, so instead I'm going to focus on one element of it. I hope you'll forgive me if it seems like I'm going off into the weeds for a bit here, but I have a confession to make: from very early on in the series I began viewing it with a deep and unshakable headcanon that Ichi is gay. I would - and I will, if you're still listening - argue that the entire series is rife with homoerotic undertones, and it all comes to a head in the final episode.

Ichi can't let go of the only time, as far as we the viewers know, that he's slept with a woman in most of his life. His feelings about it are complex and tortured. This was something he wanted in the moment - but the memory lingers uncomfortably. In his dreams, Ichi sees himself as a normal man: sighted, desiring of women, dressed in fine clothing. He has fantasies of interacting with women in sexual and sensual ways, something that he never did up until this point. These interactions feel less like something he wants and more like something he feels he should want - he has never demonstrated a desire for a sexual relationship with a woman, and in fact, due to his blindness, he is able to interact with women in friendly, commensurate ways that transcend traditional gender roles.

During the dream, Ichi finds himself in an onsen with a group of other men. This is where things start going wrong. One of the men has the remnants of white facepaint and lipstick on, and leers at Ichi sensually before standing up and revealing that he has a woman's breasts. As Ichi watches another man toweling off, he reaches up - touches him - and then it all ends. Ichi is chased by laughing men until he runs out of land and plunges into the sea. He is pursued by ugly, malformed manifestations of maleness: he is confronted by his own desires and, further, his own status in society as a man, and it terrifies him.

Zatoichi as a series is about a man who never gets to have anything he wants. Because of his position as an outsider, Ichi is never able to form lasting relationships. He always has to leave. In his travels through film and television he's rescued many, brought joy to even more, been an enemy to the unrighteous and a savior of justice. But he never gets to hold on to anything. He doesn't get to marry or have children - whether you believe that this is due to his disability and outsider status or due to his own deeply repressed sexuality is up to you. He has no real reason to save money; whatever he earns just goes towards food and lodging; since he doesn't have anyone to support besides himself and he lives on the road, wealth is useless to him.

Ichi is a complicated and fascinating character. To criminals and evildoers all across the land, he's almost a bogeyman; this shadow figure they all fear because they know that to encounter him and be on his bad side means sure death. But he's also really good at skipping rope. He loves children. He's a little afraid of dogs. In one episode he guides a woman through a dense fog bank, warning her to watch her step, and then immediately falls down a hill. There's a minute of silence, the woman he's with isn't sure if he's even alive or not. But then he climbs back up and he's clutching a bunch of flowers he found down there. That's Ichi in a nutshell, I think: falling to - one might even say continuously existing in - the lowest possible depths, and still finding flowers. His life is hard, and he's often deprived of the most basic human pleasures for no real reason other than the childhood illness that left him blind. But he does, throughout all of it, always find flowers.

Some more stand-out episodes: The Winter Sea, Ichi Hears a Lullaby, Spring Arrives for the Eyeless Daruma, Here Comes the Amazing Masseur, The Naked Crybaby Assassin, The Song of a Traveler, The Ghost That Called To Ichi, A Drunken River, Suicide Song of Lovers, A Long Time Ago, The Woman Who Betrayed Cbuji, An Unforgettable Flower, and of course the two-part finale.