Godzilla: Planet of The Monsters Review

Godzilla: Planet of The Monsters is the latest installment of the popular giant monster franchise. It is also the first time in its history that a Godzilla movie is produced in an anime format. Animated versions of Godzilla were produced before, most notably two from America - one  by Hannah Barbera in the late 70's, and the animated sequel to the Roland Emmerich film in 1998.

Gen Urobochi, the man behind the successful Madoka Magica series, as well as the puppet theatre hit Thunderbolt Fantasy, wrote the screenplay for Planet of The Monsters. Animation is co-produced by Polygon Pictures, who worked on other anime projects like Knights of Sidonia and Ajin: Demi-Fiend. Planet of The Monsters is a first in a trilogy of Godzilla anime films.

The movie begins with a very long prologue. Earth was in a constant state of conflict between the human race and the various Kaiju or giant monsters that keep popping up here and there. The turning point came when Godzilla came along and is shown to be unstoppable, even when the humans have advanced technological support from two alien races - the Exif and the Bilusaludo. As a result, the three races are forced to leave Earth to find a new home somewhere in the cosmos.

Fast forward to our main story, taking place 20 years later. Tensions rose within the survivors as they have yet to find a habitable planet and with supplies and rations being extremely low. In a last ditch effort for their survival, the three races travel back to Earth, where 20,000 years have passed on that planet. Despite the huge time skip, Godzilla is apparently still alive. But Haruo Sakazaki, a human who witnessed Godzilla's rampage when he left Earth 20 years earlier, has a plan to destroy the King of The Monsters once and for all.....

I have been a Godzilla fan for many years now, with  2004's Final Wars being my most favorite Godzilla film, as it shows him being a virtually unstoppable force. So when I heard that this trilogy of anime films will be written by the man behind Thunderbolt Fantasy, and developed by the team behind Knights of Sidonia, there's pretty much hype on this one. To be honest, I was left with a bit of a mixed taste by the end of the film. But I'm not really that surprised, either.

Urobochi's writing results in the film being like something taken from the 90's upscaled to modern times. There has been a number of Godzilla stories where the humans interact with aliens for good or bad. So there is nothing new in this alliance of the three races. And like other Godzilla films, a conspiracy is brewing from behind the scenes that will likely be explored in the sequels. Nevertheless, Godzilla is the prime antatonist, which places the alliance as the good guys.

One of the biggest issues with the Godzilla franchsie is that much of the human characters are pretty much forgettable, save two - Miki Saegusa, played by Megumi Odaka in the Godzilla films from 1984-1995; and Captain Douglas Gordon, played by Don Frye in Final Wars. Like every other film, Planet of The Monsters features a number of human and alien characters that, the audience really wouldn't care for. This is most especially with the film's protagonist Sakazaki, who I can best describe as being its version of Captain Ahab from Moby-Dick. Sakazaki is so obsessed in killing Godzilla that he would take extreme measures to do so, even if it means nearly endangering his comrades. While we have seen protagonists who do questionable and even immoral acts, like Code Geass's Lelouch aka Zero, they still retain enough charm to be likable by the audience. Sakazaki lacks such charm.

Another issue I have is that in nearly every movie, Godzilla tends to get bigger in size, used as a marketing ploy. Next thing you know Godzilla would be so gigantic he could swallow all of Earth if he wants to. It's ridiculous. I'd rather see Godzilla just cause mindless mayhem than see him get bigger. It's what makes him a nearly unstoppable force. While there is a story element that explains Godzilla's enormous size in Planet of The Monsters, it still leaves me with a sour taste. While you do get to hear the iconic roar, it's not as often and the famous Godzilla theme is totally absent. This is the third film in which the Godzilla theme is never played and the last movie to have done so was Final Wars - that's a staggering 18 years back.

Godzilla obviously is the one that truly carries the film around and he does deliver. His design is more akin to the 2014 film version, only a bit more aggressive. You can't help but cheer for him when he starts squashing Sakazaki and his troops, even though he's technically the bad guy here. So it's a given that Godzilla is bound to lose to Sakazaki, until the twist that leads to the second film. There are also some Easter Eggs found for die-hard Godzilla fans.

So the only reason one should watch Planet of The Monsters is because of Godzilla himself, and he does show why he is deemed the King of The Monsters. Everything else is subpar, but that is to be expected in virtually every Godzilla film. It's a B-Monster Movie after all, just that in anime format. Not the best Godzilla out there, but it leaves room to check back the sequels which out of curiosity, will leave you to look forward to it at least. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Godzila: Planet of The Monsters, a 3 out of 5.

Mazinger Z INFINITY Film Review

In my last MPX review, I talked about Go Nagai and how he made his mark in anime and manga history with Devilman, and now with the remade Devilman Crybaby on Netflix. I also talked a bit about his other work, Mazinger Z, which made the mecha genre we now know today. This review will tackle the latter, more specifically the film "Mazinger Z Infinity", which came out in Europe in late 2017, and the past several weeks has been made available in Japan and the US. The film is to celebrate the series's 45th anniversary, having first aired in 1972.

In case you don't know Mazinger Z, it is the first work of its kind that feature the concept of a giant robot with a human pilot. It's why we had Voltron, Gundam, Sym-Bionic Titan, and pretty much every other giant robot show that you know of. Mazinger Z did came out in English under the name "Tranzor Z", but it's a heavily butchered version of the original series.

The plot of Mazinger Z goes like this: A young teenager named Koji Kabuto pilots his late grandfather's invention - the giant robot Mazinger Z, to do battle against the mad scientist Dr. Hell, who plans to conquer the world with his army of giant robots called the "Kikaiju", which translates to 'Mechanical Beasts', or for a more literal term 'Robot Beasts' or 'Ro-Beasts', just like the ones in Voltron.

92 episodes later (plus an additional 56 more episodes from the sequel series Great Mazinger), Koji successfully takes out Dr. Hell for good. Mazinger Z Infinity takes place 10 years after the fall of Dr. Hell and the world experienced a moment of peace. Koji follows his grandfather's footsteps and becomes a science researcher. When Dr. Hell suddenly comes back from the dead and attacks the world, a new Mazinger discovered in Mt. Fuji, and a mysterious woman named Lisa being the key to all of this, Koji must pilot Mazinger Z for one final mission to save the world once again.

 First off, let it be known that the film is made specifically for fans of the original Mazinger Z series from 1972, as well as its sequel Great Mazinger. This is mainly because the movie has zero time to provide a quickstart on the franchise's lore and just puts everything there, assuming the audience already knows what they are. So this is not, in any shape or form, an entry point for newcomers to the Mazinger franchise.

And that's actually quite the downer with this movie because unless you're knowledgeable about the franchise, you'll be almost out of the loop with the movie's plot. I due recommend before going into this film that, if you do not have the time or access to watch the orignal Mazinger Z series, then watch either MazinKaiser from 2001, or Mazinger Edition Z: The Impact from 2009. Both follow the same basic premise of the original Mazinger Z series, though taken to different directions, but it at least gives you the basic idea of the show's lore.

I have grown up watching Mazinger Z as it's one of the earliest anime I've gotten into. So yes, Mazinger Z Infinity does bring up a lot of nostalgia of my love for the franchise. But it's not without its problems.

I personally have a negative look towards CG animation because as cool looking as they are, come back a decade or so and they won't look as good anymore. 2D animation has a better chance of aging well than 3D animation. With that being said, the CG animation in the film is cool looking and makes the action sequences very appealing, but I don't think it will age well many years down the line. It doesn't help either that there were moments the CG scenes tend to get choppy, it's as though I was watching the 2011 version of the Thundercats, where it had that very issue back then. It is 2018 and I expect 3D animation to be better looking and more fluid.

Hiroya Iijima serves as character designer for Mazinger Z Infinity, and in his interview, he wants his own interpretation of the characters, and not trying to be too close to the original designs made by Go Nagai. Iijima previously did character designs for Afro Samurai, but is better known in providing Key Animation sequences for Bleach, Dragon Ball Z, Iron-Blooded Orphans, and Saint Seiya. The latter more especially because the characters in Mazinger Z Infinity do look a lot more like Saint Seiya characters than Mazinger characters. I don't blame Iijima for his designs, but imagine if Akira Toriyama does the character design instead and you can see how awkward it's going to be given that Toriyama's style is more associated with Dragon Ball than anything else.

If there is one thing that I really disliked most of the movie, is in the middle part, when the action stops and the plot has slowed to a crawl in favor of social commentary. Thing is, Devilman Crybaby already tackled that subject and did it 100 times better than Mazinger Z Infinity. Having to tackle to it again in Mazinger for 20+ minutes got me so bloody bored I nearly dozed off! I also don't like the idea of putting in characters that have absolutely nothing to do with the movie's plot and is only there as mere fan-service.

Without putting in any spoilers, the explanation as to what is going on ends up adding a number of plot holes as far as overall lore of the franchise is concerned. Mazinger Z has a complicated history behind the scenes of which I will not elaborate in this review. But the best I could say is that Mazinger Z Infinity is Toei's attempt to "set the record straight" in a sense.

During the interview segment at the beginning of the film, when asked what the theme of the movie is, director Junji Shimizu (who previously worked on One Piece and Dragon Ball Super) stated the theme is "entertainment". Well, if a 20-minute soap opera on social commentary is part of their definition of "entertainment", he and the rest of the staff have gone mental.

That being said, the action sequences of the movie are its true highlights. Seeing Mazinger Z (and Great Mazinger) decimate hordes of enemy mechs got my blood heating up with excitement. This is essentially what made Mazinger Z a groundbreaking series back in the day that would spawn every other mecha show since. And this is what I really want out of this sequel film. The movie doesn't need social commentary or anyhting like that. Just throw in all the action in there and I'd be really happy about it. But that is not the case.

Don't get me wrong, though. Mazinger Z Infinity is by no means a bad film and I do enjoy it in part due to nostalgia. It's just that the drama and whatnot thrown in is not only unnecessary, it also drags it down from being a really great film to watch. Nevertheless, the movie is to celebrate franchise's mark in history in what made giant robots cool like we know now today, and it deserves to receive that credit and respect. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Mazinger Z Infinity, 3 Rocket Punches out of 5