6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A traveler is confronted by spirits in an abandoned shrine; a story of honor and firefighting in ancient Japan; a white bear defends the royal family from a monstrous red demon; ragtag soldiers battle a robotic force in futuristic Japan.
Starring: Mutsumi Tamura, Saori Hayami, Masakazu Morita, Aoi Yûki, Takeshi KusaoForeign | 100% |
Anime | 97% |
Sci-Fi | 18% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1, 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Japanese: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Slipcover in original pressing
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Katsuhiro Otomo—you’ve created arguably the single most influential anime of all time, Akira. What are you going to do now?”Of course, there usually aren’t “post-game” interviews with iconic anime and manga artists that seek to promote a certain mouse filled amusement park, but Otomo’s legendary reputation is a big part of Short Peace’s marketing push. This fascinating, if necessarily kind of hodgepodge, compilation of, yes, short animated projects includes one by Otomo himself, but he also served as the guiding force behind the project, bringing together a handful of disparate animators to create an eye popping and occasionally even thought provoking assemblage of material. Short Peace begins with a brief homage to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, with a young girl getting sucked down a kind of virtual rabbit hole, one where all sorts of wonders await (this segment may be one of the links to a simultaneously released videogame, but since I have neither seen nor played the game, I can’t state for certain). After this odd but charming prelude, four shorts of various lengths then simply follow each other. There’s next to no linking material, other than a reliance on Japanese folklore and myth for at least a couple of the entries.
Short Peace is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. (It may appear that Combustible is in a wider aspect ratio, but closer examination reveals that the supposed letterboxes are in fact subtly changing graphical elements that resemble old wood block carvings). This is one stunning looking set of animated features, filled with bright, vivid colors, gorgeously sharp and distinct line detail, and just an amazing variety of styles and techniques. It's a bit hard to discuss qualities like "sharpness" since each of the animating teams is going for different stylistic qualities. But taking the wide variety of styles and techniques in stride, the good news here is that there are no issues like banding, macroblocking or aliasing that show up, offering a really enticing visual experience that should certainly delight animation fans of all stripes, whether or not they're particularly interested in the Japanese idiom.
Short Peace features lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mixes in both Japanese and English. None of these shorts is what might be termed dialogue heavy, though A Farewell to Weapons does have quite a bit of walkie talkie contact between the fighting forces. There are great ambient environmental effects, though, from the cloistered environs of the shrine in Possessions to the wide open snowy plains of Gambo. Dialogue (such as it is) and effects are both rendered effortlessly, with good immersive qualities in at least moments of all four shorts (with A Farewell to Weapons probably providing the most traditionally bombastic aural experience).
Short Peace may not have a whale of a lot of continuity going for it, but each of the shorts is so fascinating in their own regard that any lack of a through line becomes less of an issue than it might otherwise be. While Possessions will be the go-to piece for Oscar junkies, Otomo's own beautiful contribution (which was short-listed for the Oscars itself) and the charming (if violent) Gambo provide brilliant examples of style supporting good storytelling techniques. A Farewell to Weapons is admittedly exciting, but feels like the most trite of the four here, something exacerbated by the fact that it also feels like it's been lifted whole cloth from another, longer and more developed, property. On the whole though, Short Peace is a thrilling compilation and boasts solid technical merits. Highly recommended.
レドライン
2009
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1995
Evangerion shin gekijôban: Jo
2007
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2005
1987-1991
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2002
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1998
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2006-2009
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アップルシード
1988