[Scroll to the bottom for a summarized "verdict", or read ahead for my full thoughts.]
I struggled for a long time to write this, my first video game review for this blog. After four or five fresh starts ended up as long, rambling non-reviews, I decided to try a different tactic:
Persona 3: FES (hereafter P3) is one of my favorite games of all time -- just so you have a frame of reference, some others, in no order at all, are Psychonauts, Portal (both games), Ogre Battle: Person of Lordly Caliber, and Mass Effect 2. When I began playing P3, I skipped the instruction manual (which I recommend doing), turned on the Playstation 2, and watched the teaser trailer that played while the game waited for me to press start. By the time that glorified music video had concluded, I was caught. I simply had to know what this game was about, and how the video I had just seen reflected that.
I’m going to guess that an average reader, if I had one, would not be as fascinated by weirdness and inexplicability as I am, so I obviously need to find another way to justify my love of this game. The problem is that I don’t wish to say anything about the game, other than that you should play it right away, by any means necessary. In order to make this a meaningful review despite that reluctance, this is what I’ll do: first, I’m going to lay out all the reasons why a person might not enjoy P3, then I’m going to list all the reasons you should play it anyway as best I can without revealing anything.
Topping the list of drawbacks, then, is pace. Depending on your play style and thoroughness, P3’s progresses at a pace that falls somewhere between “deliberate” and “glacial”. On top of that, a good portion of the playtime is spent either in semi-interactive conversation with a large cast of NPCs, or navigating the many, many randomly-generated, enemy-patrolled dungeons.
Another potential sticking-point: P3 has an odd relationship with the storytelling tropes of anime. I don’t want to say too much about it, and I argue that these tropes are handled intelligently and used to great effect, but if such things are prone to annoy you, be warned that they’re present.
The last major problem that an imaginary average player might have with P3 is a combination of two things: grind and progress-saving system. It’s not World of Warcraft grind, nor even Final Fantasy grind, but this is a turn-based-combat JRPG (Japanese roleplaying game), and there will be times when you have to hang back and build up your strength for a bit in order to progress. The progress-saving system ties in in that it can be hard to make enough progress in a brief (hour or so) play session to make it to the “next” stopping-point. If your play-time is not unlimited, there will be times when you feel like you weren’t able to accomplish anything in a given session with the game, and there are enough lengthy, conversation-and-plot-heavy stretches without a save-point that they could become an annoyance to busier players.
The reasons why you should play this game anyway, right now if you can, are harder to separate out into list items, but I’ll try to make as much sense as possible. I’ll start with the characters. How many games, especially Japanese games, have improbably-awesome teenagers for protagonists? Maybe even making up the whole cast? Well, P3 subverts that trope by making the cast up of mostly thoroughly ordinary, believable teenagers doing mostly ordinary, believable things in an ordinary believable way. Sound boring? Well, it’s really not, but the reasons why would require quite a bit of revealing explanation, so suffice it to say that a lot of the initial impetus for the plot comes from the tension between all this ordinary believability and the frankly insane situations these characters find themselves in. On top of it, in a stroke of genius, most of the ordinary, believable stuff the characters get up to actually has a direct effect on the insane goings-on.
Which segues nicely into the other big strength P3 has: narrative. Here is a game with a compelling, utterly central narrative that really feels character-driven. And the characters, as mentioned above, are so well-realized and well-defined that you almost can’t help but care -- and in my case, care deeply -- about what happens to them. On top of that, I use the word “narrative” instead of “story” or “plot” very intentionally. The narrative unfolds in a number of subtle, not-entirely-explicit ways, and covers an astonishing number of thematic and symbolic bases, managing to be at once episodic and epic without ever losing sight of the personal tales it’s built on -- story and plot are only two facets of the narrative (albeit large, important ones). Gameplay, combat, soundtrack and sound design, character design and animation -- everything in this game is expressive of the central narrative.
All of that leads me in turn to the large umbrella of “production”. As is usually the case in Atlus’ games, P3’s production is top-notch, and in the way I described above, this strengthens the core of the game rather than just acting as polish. Dialogue, localization, voice-acting, artwork, animation, design, soundtrack, sound effects, color palettes -- nothing is neglected. With the highly-debatable exception of the frequent use of randomized levels, every aspect of P3 is carefully crafted to augment every other aspect.
I could go on (and on and on), but instead, I’ll just give you...
THE VERDICT: Persona 3 is perhaps the only “M for Mature”-rated game I’ve ever played on a console that was actually mature, rather than just graphic or explicit. It is powerful, thoughtful, compelling, stylish, nuanced, and fun. It doesn’t really have any weak points; it just has some things in it that won’t appeal to everyone. Regardless of your own tastes, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t at least give Persona 3 a try, especially since it’s old enough to be pretty cheap! Play it.
[Scroll to the bottom for a summarized "verdict", or read ahead for my full thoughts.]
DO NOT IGNORE THIS REVIEW JUST BECAUSE IT'S ABOUT ANIME!!!! Is that out of the way? Good. I'll have to have that rant some other time, but for now, all you need to know is that, unless you just hate animation in general, there is no excuse for dismissing anime just "because it's anime." View it as a medium, not a genre. That's what I do anyway.
Now, a few background bits to cover. First, I am not an anime nut, I just take the recommendations that come to me (see above). To me, the most important things in any series are the quality of the story and how well all the elements -- the story, the medium, the soundtrack, etc, etc. -- work together. And, to get on to this review's actual topic, Gunslinger Girl (hereafter GG) hits all the nails on their respective heads.
Now, I dismissed GG for a long time based on the name alone, despite my experience with (mis)judging books (and DVDs, and games...) by their covers. You see, I had seen clips of an anime a long time ago, wherein a blonde and a brunette in cowgirl-stripper outfits were running around in an improbable and over-stylized Old-West-meets-John-Woo shootout. Both characters had the kind of laughably massive breasts that should logically leave them totally immobilized, and what did they use them for? Reloading their revolvers, of course (use your imagination). While running along the saloon's walls. So in short, it was the kind of tired, boring, overly-stereotypical show that turned many of my peers off of all anime for good back in high school, and I just assumed, based on the name, that that was the show called Gunslinger Girl. How wrong I was.
I don't know what the literal translation of the Japanese title of GG is, but I know this: from time immemorial, American anime publishers and/or marketers have bought into the US's stereotypes about anime -- and the people who like it -- wholesale. I would be completely unsurprised to learn that this title was their idea. What sounds like a show about scantily-clad cowgirls pulling wire-fu stunts in between soaping each other up turned out to be a moving drama about children used as weapons in a very nearly contemporary setting.
Despite its title, GG belongs to a category that I call (in my own head, anyway) "anime noir." It's got little to do with American film noir, but I think of "dark anime" as being shows like Lady Death, Hellsing, Vampire Hunter D, or even Deathnote, that have elements of gothic, occult, and dark fantasy fiction in them. [Just to be up front, I have not actually watched any of the examples I just named; rather, I have come across clips, reviews, descriptions, etc.] These shows tend to be visually, tonally, and thematically dark, but focused around violence, damnation/redemption, the corruption/misuse of power, and other similarly grand and/or "loud" topics. To be clear: I don't think there is anything at all wrong with such an approach.
The works that I tend to think of as belonging to "anime noir," though, tend to be somewhat lower-key. I would include the sci-fi action/comedy Cowboy Bebop in this category despite its loud moments, irreverent tone, and futuristic setting because, at its core, Cowboy Bebop is an almost solemn character-driven tale, concerned more with the private hurts of its main cast than with the grand battle between good guys and bad. Over the course of its 26 episodes and 1 movie, Cowboy Bebop's protagonists do quite a bit of good (and bad!), but there's no saving the galaxy from evil, nor any overrunning of the universe by evil empires or hell-demons. Instead we follow our protagonists' trials and learn about them (and ourselves) along the way. Elfen Lied -- despite its soft-science premise, extreme violence, and misanthropy -- also falls into this category for similar reasons of tone, character, and focus. Yes, there is an amoral government agency doing unspeakable things in the pursuit of power; yes, there are high-powered mutants on the loose; and yes, the series is almost obsessively dark (in contrast to the art style). But for all of that, Elfen Lied is essentially about humanity and the lack thereof, and the different ways that its characters are affected by the evils they've suffered at the hands of everyday human beings.
So, to rope this discussion back on topic once again, Gunslinger Girl falls into this anime noir category for many of the same reasons. It has graphically violent gunfights, yes, but even these are depicted in terms of realistic tactical combat. It has sci-fi technology, yes, but it's presented as being astonishing to most of the characters, and also as being so imperfect that you wonder whether it's really worth using. And most of all, at its most basic, GG is a story about love, growing up, and how people relate to one another -- or fail to.
[As a quick note before I continue, I watched GG in Japanese with fan-translated subtitles, so I can't speak to the quality of English voice-acting.]
To expand upon my brief description a few paragraphs back: the Public Corporation for Social Welfare in near-future Italy is known to pay for the medical care of terminally ill patients, perhaps sometimes allowing experimental treatments. In reality, it is used to "recruit" soldiers into a government black-ops anti-terrorism organization. The story in the series follows the "soldiers" in Section 2 of the P.C.f.S.W.: young girls found dying in hospitals whose bodies have been mechanically/cybernetically enhanced. These child-operatives are each under the tutelage and command of an adult male (non-combat) operative, and these pairs are known as "Fratellos" (the English translation given in the fansub I watched was "Siblings").
Now, this description made me uneasy when I first read it, as it seemed to hint at pedophilia. Well, no worries on that front - the "sibling" descriptor is indicative of the kinds of familial relationships that these Fratellos have, including both healthy and dysfunctional relationships. The next obvious question is: why adolescent girls? The explanation given is that younger subjects are to only ones capable of successfully incorporating the mechanical bodies used by Section 2, and it is subtly implied that girls are easier to find, "adopt", train, and control than boys would be. So the premise does raise a few question marks, but it works surprisingly well in practice.
So then, what is it about GG that I like so much? The first thing that struck me is that the visual presentation and the sound design combine to give the whole show a rather lyrical quality. In addition to stunningly effective use of the Italy as a backdrop, the quality of the animation itself is generally good, if not jaw-dropping. Perhaps my only complaint about it is that it is obvious in a few places that they skimped on the dialogue-driven scenes in order to animate the action scenes more impressively, but really, the payoff is pretty well worth it.
Another high point is the deliberate, almost elegiac way in which the story unfolds. There really is no strong central conflict, and the show focuses instead on scenes that show us the characters and their strengths and struggles, as well as some illustrations of how something as unsettling as Section 2 happens. GG often gives the viewer multiple perspectives on a given event, including a "behind-the-scenes" look at the people bankrolling the operation - as well as opposing it. These additional shots can seem like unnecessary complications, especially since the cast is quite large, but in the end, they enhance the believability of the whole set-up, as well as the viewer's understanding. So the shifts in focus can be jarring or confusing at first, but it soon becomes apparent that the makers of GG know exactly what they are doing.
You've probably noticed by now that I haven't mentioned any individual characters yet. This is because the cast is very much an ensemble. The first Fratello we're introduced to -- Henrietta and Jose -- do serve as our emotional anchors as the story progresses, but there are at least 4 other central Fratellos, plus a multitude of supporting characters: scientists, bureaucrats, terrorists, legislators, and so on. The show's habit of introducing a new set of characters in one episode and basically finishing with them entirely in 26 minutes can be off-putting, but it means that they accomplish an astonishing amount of storytelling and character-building in 13 episodes.
I fear that if I go into anymore detail, I risk spoiling the pleasure of discovering the uncomfortably familiar world and movingly rendered characters of Gunslinger Girl for oneself. So without further ado:
THE VERDICT: Gunslinger Girl combines compelling character drama, deft storytelling, and outstanding artistry with bursts of real-world violence and flashes of insight into love, humanity, and growing up. The result is entertaining, affecting, and thought-provoking in all the best ways. Some of the storytelling and presentation techniques may frustrate a few viewers, but most audiences should find a lot to love about this moving anime saddled with a tragically misleading title.
[Scroll to the bottom for a summarized "verdict", or read ahead for my full thoughts.]
If you liked Evanescence, you at least have a chance of liking After Forever on their 2007 self-titled album (which, I must confess, is the only one I've heard so far). Think of a numerical system of describing a rock band, where the full range of possible descriptors are given a score from 0 to 10. For example, Creed might have a 2 in Musical Complexity and Limp Bizkit might have a 0 in Lyrical Quality, but Green Day might get an 8 in catchiness. If you were to add 5 to all of Evanescence's scores, you'd have some idea of what this album sounds like.
In the most general of terms, After Forever is similar to any female-fronted, goth-and-metal-tinged rock band. On certain songs, you can almost hear them reaching for the poppy accessibility of mainstream rock and nu-metal, but it's almost like they can't bring themselves to do that to their music. The closest they ever come to the Evanescence mainstream is flirting with the sound of popular genre comrades Nightwish, though their sound always manages to remain distinct.
As my initial scoring-system description may have implied, After Forever plays pretty complicated music, but that's a little deceptive. They aren't like Opeth, with nary a song under 10 minutes and no recognizable structure to their songs. After Forever seems to start off by writing basic-but-solid symphonic metal songs, then spending lots of time dressing them up with an endless supply of progressive flourishes and nice touches. Even their most relentlessly driving songs -- "Transitory" comes to mind -- manage to incorporate rhythmic surprises and musical flourishes seemingly with each alternate step. These touches are mostly kept under control, though, and don't generally make the music overly busy.
Admittedly, I am a fan of a lot of busy music, but part of what I find appealing about After Forever is their lack of pretense. For all their drama (in addition to their inherently dramatic style, song titles include "Cry With a Smile," "Empty Memories," and "Dreamflight"), After Forever are surprisingly down-to-earth. Most of the songs on this album are fairly straightforwardly about relationships, romantic and perhaps otherwise, as opposed to other genre staples like fantastic creatures, epic adventures, or graveyard imagery. I personally have a weakness for all three of those more typical categories, and one could certainly point out that most recorded music deals with relationships in one way or another, but After Forever's approach struck me as honest, refreshing, and -- most importantly -- sincere.
If you've listened to any other music in the very broad category of "symphonic rock" -- heavy rock with at least string accompaniment -- what you've likely heard are nu-metal, black metal, or power metal songs with some orchestral flourishes to add atmosphere. If you've listened to Therion (one of my all-time favorite bands), on the other hand, you've heard a metal band essentially fitting seamlessly into an opera performance, often treating the the rock instruments as somewhat louder members of the larger orchestra. After Forever seems to take an opposite approach, using both live and synthesized symphonic instruments as though they were another guitarist or keyboard player. Lead vocalist Floor Jansen obviously has operatic training, but for the most part she sings plainly and completely in line with the mood of the song, avoiding the samey showboating that sometimes hamstrung former Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen.
On the subject of vocals, one thing worth noting is the occasional use of a growling male vocalist, which helps to place After Forever firmly in the metal camp to which they rightfully belong. I know several people who despise growled vocals, particularly when used to offset a beautiful female voice, but I think that After Forever's relatively sparing use of them helps to add punch to songs like the aforementioned "Transitory". After Forever are already treading a thin line between mainstream accessibility and metal cred, and the smart placement of the growls helps (in my opinion) to keep them from falling to one side or the other.
THE VERDICT: After Forever's self-titled album is an accomplished, focused symphonic metal product that has the potential to win over fans of Evanescence, In Flames, Cerberus, and most other bands on that continuum. Clever and creative use of genre elements like orchestral instruments and growled vocals help keep their sound intense while still maintaining this broad appeal. Highly recommended, and if you don't like the first track you sample, try another few before you write them off. As for me, I can't wait to delve further into their catalog!
[Scroll to the bottom for a summarized "verdict", or read ahead for my full thoughts.]
If you've seen any of the Coen brothers' films, especially their older stuff, then you'll know exactly what you don't know is going to happen in their most recent effort, Burn After Reading. I have to confess that I haven't seen all of the Coens' films, only Blood Simple; Raising Arizona; Barton Fink; Fargo; The Big Lebowski; O Brother Where Art Thou?;The Man Who Wasn't There; and now Burn After Reading. Still, despite my incomplete viewing catalog, I expected every unexpected (and almost always unfortunate) twist of BAR's blackly humorous plot. That is to say, I had no idea what the details of the plot were going to be, but I was definitely not surprised by anything that took place on screen.
The previous Coen film that I was most reminded of was Fargo; BAR is more humorous and overtly satirical, but both indulge (perhaps to excess) in the Coens' trademark violent, bordering-on-absurd, darker-than-dark sense of humor. However, the brothers' stamp on this film is simply unmistakable, and if you've seen any of their films, you'll be able to see some similarities.
So it probably goes without saying that if you're a fan of the Coens' other work, you'll like this movie too. Then again, if you're a Coen Bros. fan, you've probably already seen BAR, so you're rather unlikely to be reading this. If you're going into this as your first Coen film, though, you should be warned: it is (like most of their other films) very dark.
The premise, as given by trailers and box summaries and the like, is that there is an ex-CIA analyst, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) who is writing his memoirs. These memoirs are found by two not-too-bright gym employees played by Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand, and they mistake them for intercepted intelligence. In pretty typical Coen brothers fashion, though, that's really only the coincidence that starts the plot rolling. Also pretty typically, the characters and plot twist and weave with little or no regard for viewer expectation, and things generally go from silly to bad to worse to worst for everyone. Not that I, watching the characters, particularly wanted happy endings from any of them.
None of that is to say, however, that I disliked the movie; quite the opposite, in fact. BAR was a very amusing, well-made film, but whether or not you should see it depends largely on how you feel about black comedy, and even about humanity in general. If you are prone to get depressed by misfortune or by despicable and/or ridiculous people, then you may want to give this one a pass. You see, some movies are downers but must be seen anyway because of the way they effect you, or because they're staggeringly powerful achievements, or they reach some fundamental truth of human life. But BAR is not one of those movies. It is well-made, to be sure; after all this time, the Coens certainly know what they're doing. The acting is very solid, so that you believe the characters without always seeing the high-profile actors portraying them. It's also entertaining, in the Coens' trademark way. It's even got solid social and political satire running through a lot of it. But it didn't have an effect on me in the same way as movies like Pan's Labyrinth, Princess Mononoke, Children of Men, Forrest Gump, or Amelie, to name a few.
My last critisim of Burn After Reading is that, like many of the Coen brothers' films that I've seen, I'm left wondering what the point of it all was. Some movies never make you ask the question at all (Spaceballs is obviously just supposed to be fun to watch, and it is), but for some reason, I always get to the end of a Coen film and wonder what they were trying to say. Perhaps its because I have a black humor threshhold, or because I generally look for some sort of emotional anchor in a story in order to really get into it, but Coen films are never entertaining enough to convince me that wry, witty fun is the whole point. So I cast about after the inevitable anticlimax in their films looking for some sort of theme, message, meaning, or thought, often in vain. Certainly, that was the case with BAR; the satire is unmistakable but vague, and slips into the background a lot, and I couldn't find anything to be learned from the characters or their stories.
So in the end...
THE VERDICT: I respect BAR more than I like it. The film is well-made, well-acted, clever, satirical, and entertaining, but the Coens' dark, near-nihilistic stamp is unmistakable, and in the end it felt kind of soulless. I'm glad I saw Burn After Reading, but I won't be buying it anytime soon.
[Scroll to the bottom for a summarized "verdict", or read ahead for my full thoughts.]
I'll begin by saying that I have always liked fantasy novels, even pretty cheesy ones. When I was growing up, anything with a dragon or a knight on the front was appealing, and wizards or witches were also a plus. These books are almost always written in a sensational, action-packed style ("...as pain burned through her body, Kaylira tightened her grip on her magic sword Gryphonizer, and heaved herself out of the rubble through sheer force of heroic will. The Bloodwitch cackled as dark energies danced around her claws..."), and generally feature an Ancient Evil, a Chosen One, a Beautiful-but-Dangerous Love Interest, and a Doom Prophecy. Some are stylistically more accomplished than others, some are even subtle and expressive, many turn into suspiciously lengthy series, but almost all are written in a very modern, straightforward style that brings to mind most readily a Hollywood film. Bookstore Sci-Fi/Fantasy shelves are packed with multitudes of such nearly-interchangeable Tolkein retreads, and I've always loved them.
Yet wedged onto those same shelves is a misleadingly compact book by British writer Susanna Clarke. To me, it was the book's cover that immediately distinguished itself from its neighbors. Amid thousands of brightly colored, highly detailed, completely fantastical illustrations, this one boasted a nearly blank matte red cover with silvery lettering and a single embossed emblem of some kind of bird. I was intrigued enough to investigate, and I must say that I am glad that I did. As it turns out, this contrast of being in the Fantasy section but also apart from it is representative of many aspects of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (hereafter JS&MN) appears to be of only slightly thicker-than-average paperback size, but is actually 1,006 pages long, and presented in unusually tiny typeface to boot. Not that this is an inherently bad thing. Across its considerable length, JS&MN is incredibly consistent in both style and quality. Whether the characters are having tea or rearranging the geography of Spain, the voice of the unidentified narrator remains satirically straight-faced, proper, superior, and credulous. The book is even littered with somewhat high-handed footnotes, many of which outline an entire fictional body of scholarship. There is definitely a lot of information to digest here, but it tends to be presented in such a way as to be both manageable and enjoyable.
As suggested above, the story covers quite a few scenes both exceedingly mundane and entirely fantastic, but to its credit, the everyday bits and the fantasy pieces are intermingled fairly well. The basic premise is this: In England during the Napoleonic Wars, a reclusive man named Mr. Norrell comes forward as a "practical magician" (as opposed to a "theoretical magician") and offers to use his magic to aid the British war effort on the Continent. Not long after, a younger, more outgoing man named Jonathan Strange discovers a talent for practical magic, and it isn't long before he apprentices himself to Mr. Norrell. (There's obviously a lot more to it than that, but I don't want to give too much away.) Built atop this foundation is a tale that mixes dry, tongue-in-cheek satire of Victorian England with old-time fairy tale fantasy.
I can't stress the "old-time" part of that description enough; this isn't going to remind anyone of a Disney fairy tale. This is much more in the vein of the original Little Mermaid, where she turns into seafoam at the end, the version of Cinderella that involves peoples' feet being sliced up, and Hansel and Gretel where the witch is going to cook the children but gets cooked herself. Basically, this is an understanding of fantasy that has no place for Tinkerbell, fairy godparents, or kindly dwarves, and it makes the story all the more interesting. Which is fortunate, considering that, like the Victorian novels it emulates, the plot develops very slowly, often in episodes.
Perhaps it's just because I'm such a fan of Tad Williams' series, in which plots spin out over thousands of pages yet pretty much every detail along the way contributes to the denouement, but many of the individual scenes in JS&MN seem pretty extraneous. Some characters are included and developed early on, and then are simply never revisited after a while. Some things are purely extra, others eventually come back, and still others contribute in much smaller ways than I expected. While all of this does give the book a very strong, singular voice that successfully echoes both the early novel and old European fairy tales and adventure stories, it also made it very hard for me to get into.
Usually when I like a book, I don't just read it, I devour it, losing myself in the story and the need to know how it turns out. Previously, a difficult writing style has occasionally slowed me down some, but this is the first time I've encountered a book in which the plot itself just won't let me all the way in. The formal style, the arrangement of the numerous minor events in the story, and even the chapter breaks and perspective shifts in JS&MN seem deliberately calculated to keep the pace of the story well below "stately" for the majority of the book. Every time I was really getting into a particular sequence, I was jarred out of the experience in one manner or another, and as a result I picked it up and put it down an awful lot.The payoff when the story reaches its climax is breathtaking, but my raves about it are subdued quite a bit because the process of getting to it is so inexplicably laborious. To put it another way, reading this book is a lot like canoeing down an extremely sedate river for days, until you become convinced that you're actually on an unusually long, narrow lake, only to find yourself suddenly plunging over a beautiful 300-foot waterfall.
In the end, despite my tepid enthusiasm, I have to give Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell a strong recommendation. It is interesting, original, very stylistically accomplished, and can be enjoyed on a number of levels by any reader with the patience to get into it. Though it borrows heavily from two relatively well-known traditions, I doubt you'll encounter anything else quite like Susanna Clarke's debut novel.
THE VERDICT: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell would probably be equally at home on a shelf next to Northanger Abbey or next to Sword of Truth books, and fans of either will likely find something to enjoy about this very original, interesting read. Just don't expect to finish it in a flash, and don't be surprised if it proves a little hard to get into. Definitely recommended.
[Scroll to the bottom for a summarized "verdict", or read ahead for my full thoughts.]