June 21st, 2008
Vanilla, knowing his days are somewhat numbered now he is continually flouting the regulations of the police force, takes “Chroniko” to the planet Nene, and shows her to the ghostly submerged moon of Rivera where memories are kept alive only through the use of a computer. Kaiba sneaks away to look through the copied memories of Gel and discovers that it was indeed Neiro inside his body - except that all her memories of Kaiba in the Warp body, and most of her other memories, have had Popo’s face painted over them. All except the memory of Warp killing Neiro, that is. There is little time to reflect, however, as Vanilla’s clumsiness (and a little meddling from HyoHyo) destroys the system keeping Rivera submerged, and the police are hot on Vanilla’s trail in a tragic chase back to Nene…
Kaiba makes me sad. Sad that I don’t really have any creativity left in me. Sad that I don’t have the kind of brain that can dream up planets encased in water projected by a computer with strange musical instrumets, or giant yellow cats with permanent smiles and cohorts of evil creatures. I am consistently and constantly amazed at the stuff dreamt up for this show, and even when the writing’s not so hot or the animation gets a bit too idiosyncratic for me it still elevates the show above virtually everything else that’s on at the moment - Macross Frontier comes close to the same levels of creativity but in a slightly artificial manner. Without wishing to denigrate Satelight in any way at all, they achieve so many wonderful things with computer trickery and sophistication (with a healthy dose of fan-pandering), whereas Yuasa and his team just seem to let their pencils and brains go crazy.
Back to the episode, which leaves me emotionally conflicted. It’s hard to know what to feel for Vanilla - it really depends on how old Chroniko’s supposed to be I think, and whether or not you sympathise with his delusions (as the end of the episode shows he’s clearly not of sound mind!). This episode is deliberately manipulative to make you feel sorry for him, and gives him a beautiful send-off, but he’s still a bit creepy if you ask me.
I’m loathe to discuss anything plotwise because there’s still so much to ask - and more questions being raised, like what exactly Popo’s motives are. Those of you up to date on the show probably have all the answers, damn you - at least there’s another three week break for me to get caught up in…
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June 19th, 2008
We visit the planet Lolo, where Vanilla plans to take Chroniko to a newly opened theme park which not only features theme park rides but allows its visitors to use the clusters of memory eggs around the planet to call up the spirits of those long dead. However, Kaiba himself is distracted by the appearance of a mysterious, ham-fisted man named Gel, to whom he is strangely drawn, and the two bond further once Kaiba finds out that there is a woman inside Gel (who also seems to know who Warp is…). After eating dinner with a kindly old man and his wife, a travelling singer, the two of them grow even closer and almost act on their mutual attraction - however, a legendary Kaiba plant appears and devours the old woman’s memories, regurgitating the fact that she’s been having an affair behind her husband’s back. The old man and his now comatose wife leave Lolo, and Gel departs too - and turns out to be someone very familiar. And need I mention that the police force are tracking Vanilla’s somewhat unorthodox activities - and aren’t very happy about them?
I went to work this morning thinking about Kaiba. I spent part of my lunch break mulling over what exactly could be going on. I’ve been trying to think constructively how to write this entry without going on and on and on. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I think with this episode Kaiba really hits a high point - it’s the perfect blend of the somewhat simplistic morality tales that have driven the show for a couple of episodes with hints about the rather intriguing overarching plot, all wrapped up in delicious animation goodness. Yum.
Speaking of animation, I suspect it’s just my brain retroactively trying to find something to comment about but I felt that this episode came across more “Western” than some of the previous ones. I know that the animation was directed by an American, Jamie Vickers, and I’m not sure whether I’m just trying to look for things that aren’t there, but the movement (particularly of Vanilla) in this episode felt very much more “cartoon-like” than, say, episode 5’s clearly Oriental style. As I say, though, I’m probably making stuff up to fit the facts.
I’ll have more to talk about once I write up the next episode (which is a real doozy).
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June 16th, 2008
Vanilla and Chroniko-Kaiba make another stop, this time on the planet Adipa where food is free and designer bodies are available on a whim - including, it seems, multiple copies of the Neiro body, an issue which I’d have liked to linger on for a while (but more on that later…) Kaiba ducks away from Vanilla for a while and makes as if to transfer into the Kaba body to go exploring, but Kaba gets picked up by trash collectors and taken away. An immensely rich CEO (in the body of a toddler) offers to help Kaiba find Kaba, but aside from being unable to save Kaba from its nutritious fate he also gets introduced to Patch, the robotic cat that created the bio-engineering technology that causes Adipa to flourish, and his clockwork dog assistant Quilt.
Now Patch and Quilt are odd little characters, and they highlight the main weakness of the series so far. Kaiba (the series) is filled to the brim with rich ideas; it’s a mind philosopher’s wet dream, really, in the way it explores the concepts of memories and personalities and their co-existence with physical forms. However, most of this has been shunted into the background for the past few episodes to better or worse effect - although Chroniko’s Boots was beautifully executed, the main stories of episodes 3 through 5 have been very simplistic, slightly unengaging tales. Patch and Quilt are fascinating characters if you come at them from an artistic viewpoint, and that’s clearly how they’ve been designed (this is, after all, a Masaaki Yuasa show), but their story essentially amounts to nothing - it just ends, rather abruptly, before we get a moment that brings us back to the issue of Kaiba’s identity to round off the episode.
Putting aside my continued reservations about aspects of these stand alone episodes, let’s return briefly to the Neiro bodies. We know she’s a wanted criminal for the memory tank sabotages (interesting that Warp is reportedly the creator of those memory tanks, yet Neiro is supposedly in love with him…) - why would anyone want to buy a body of a known criminal? The police force seems to have intergalactic jurisdiction (otherwise Vanilla wouldn’t have gone hunting Kaba-Kaiba on Chroniko’s planet, surely) so you’d have thought there would be some kind of embargo on creating bodies that are for all intents and purposes identical to that of a wanted woman.
Anyway, that’s not really important. The show continues to impress visually - the characters are a bit more spindly and less fluidly animated than they have been in the past, although this is essentially a one-man job. The almost childishly scribbled inhabitants of Adipa have the requisit impact both visually and narratively, although they perhaps verge a little on the ugly side for my liking. Most importantly, Quilt is utterly adorable for being a disturbing Frankenweenie-esque monster crossed with Rude Dog…
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June 14th, 2008
The next planet that Chroniko-Kaiba and Vanilla land on is the planet Baba (methinks the names were an afterthought…) home to an old lady and her greedy, layabout sons. The old lady is totally in denial about the tragic death of her husband, who was trying to pick her favourite flower; Kaiba, back in Kaba’s body, goes inside her memories to try and unlock the whereabouts of her husband’s “treasure”, with fairly predictable results.
Predictable results, however, doesn’t have to mean in a predictable manner. Each episode of Kaiba makes me feel guilty for falling behind on my anime blogging, and even though the story told in this episode is rather conventional the breadth of visual ideas never feels to astound me. The “memory gun” concept is a brilliant way to explore the central theme of memories/personalities in a way that can be so visually diverse, regardless of how pedestrian the story of the episode may be…
I’ll stop there. There’s only so many ways you can say “Crap story, great visuals”, and that’s how this episode really played out to be blunt. Not that I disliked the characters or anything, but the whole thing felt rather trite and obvious and didn’t really serve much of a point - not a problem in itself, but there’s only so far surrealistic interspecies snogging and metaphorical room layouts can carry a Message Of The Week, and 22 minutes was enough.
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June 14th, 2008
Kaba and Hyo-Hyo stop off on a planet (this is a running theme for the next few episodes - I’m not quite sure why they stop at these planets, although I presume the shuttle is a passenger liner) - this one’s named Toto. There they are saved from Vanilla’s clutches by Chroniko, a young girl looking to have one last memorable day before her body is sold off by her aunt so her aunt can buy back her memories (which she had to sell to pay for bionic arms after a mining accident). After Chroniko’s body is sold and her “mind” disposed of instead of being stored, Kaiba transfers himself from Kaba (whom Chroniko has made miniaturisable) into Chroniko to remain undetected; however, the body merchants who her body was being sold to give chase when they discover their meal ticket missing, and it is a slightly paedophiliac Vanilla who ends up coming to Kaiba’s rescue as Chroniko’s aunt realises that having her memories back makes selling Chroniko off all the more painful.
Whilst this episode is very unlike the two that precede it, in that it tells a fairly predictable, almost “moral” story that’s fairly self-contained and sets a pattern for the next few episodes, the execution is utterly marvellous. The visual flair of the show comes back to the fore as we escape the confines of the space shuttle for some nice open vistas (the purple landscape that Chroniko sits and watches with Kaba and Hyo-Hyo springs immediately to mind) and enlivens what might otherwise be a slightly pedestrian script. It’s enthralling, but for very different reasons than the mysteries presented in the first episode for instance.
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