Customer Reviews

Essence of Anime: Read Or Die

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
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Read or Die's main objective is to entertain you for about an hour and a half. It's not gonna change the world and it isn't going to fall into your top ten picks for anime. But it will be good for a Friday night viewing or just one of the Sunday's where you wanna pop something in that has a nice combination of fast paced action, plenty of cleavage and lots of explosions. In a way it's a bit of a throwback to 80's style anime where the story didn't really matter - it was just an excuse for the animators to go wild.

The animation and sound are excellent. You've got some pleasing character design for your female leads of Agent Paper and Nancy (you like cute and nerdy or sexy with a leather fetish, you're in luck). There is a strange steampunk meets modern day feeling going on. This crazy mix actually works to keep you guessing what new form the villains will take. The animation is very fluid in the action scenes, with my favorite being Agent Paper and Nancy going after a crazed fiend in a glider around the Statue of Liberty. Visually this series is a treat. Sound follows the same boat with a nice 5.1 mix for the English and Japanese track. Dialogue is clear and action scenes sound great in surround.

The music is pretty distinctive with a nice 60's spy movie sound (John Barry, what have you done?). If you enjoyed the work on "Cowboy Bebop" or "Gunsmith Cats" it's pretty similar. The title theme stands out and is used pretty effectively in key action scenes as well. The rest of the supporting score does a good job, nothing too spectacular but it helps build tension or heighten emotion.

The story isn't anything too earth shattering. Evil forces are out to destroy the earth's population with some kind of crazy scheme (using clones of famous people to create a symphony of suicide). It's up to Agent Paper and her team to discover the plot and stop it. There's a double-cross, there's lots of action, there's some crazy attacks and over the top dialogue. For the most part the script is easy to follow, never once descending into complete bedlam (unlike some 80's anime adventures). The characters get enough background that you understand them and actually like Agent Paper. There's enough for the actors to work with and they do a good job. Again Agent Paper and Nancy seem to be the best of the English voice actors (and mighty familiar if you've watched "Gunsmith Cats"). There are some pretty goofy attempts at various accents and that caused me to giggle a bit, especially when I don't think it was supposed to be funny. Overall not a bad dubbing job, above average.

As for entertainment, Read or Die delivers. It's loud and splashy but that's it's intent. I wants you to thrill to the imagination of the animators and just have a good time. For the most part it succeeds. The three episodes are paced well and kept my interest. There was a mix of humor with the action. For me the mix worked best in the first episode. The second and third episode are good, but they go more for dramatics than humor and are a little less effective. At three episodes it doesn't overstay it's welcome at all. I definitely recommend Read or Die for a rental, and if you need to fill in a fun little spot in your collection, it makes a decent purchase.

The movie itself is a four star, with good quality in the animation, character designs, and loads of flashy, silly fun. Just park your brain and enjoy the ride. Look up the reviews for the version listed below and you will see lots of people happy with the production values and story.

However, like other titles in this deceivingly repacked "Essence of Anime" line, you are not getting what you are paying for. The packaging clearly says that this is widescreen and it is not. It is only the full screen version (product 660200413927 if you want to look it up; the ISBN is right on the actual video case under the silver wrapper)hidden by new packaging with false aspect ratio information. If you have an old style tube TV it won't matter, but if you have a modern widescreen TV it is very annoying, as you will either have to lose picture quality or put up with a distorted aspect ratio to actually make it fill the wide screen. Or you can just forget trying and put up with big black bars on the sides. I would recommend the latter, as at least then you have sharper picture quality and everyone doesn't look like they have been squished.

There seems to have been a tremendous fuss raised over this when it was first issued. ( See original title for TONS of additional rave reviews. ) Since I had missed it then, I looked forward with great anticipation when Manga decided to reissue it as part of their "Essence of Anime" series; I couldn't have been more disappointed. It has been justifiably praised for its art and animation, and even the music ( which I personally didn't much care for ); but all that is for nothing, in the service of horrible writing and a non-existant plot. All the focus is on the admittedly different and ultimately interesting character of Yomiko Readman, an agent known as "The Paper" for her telekinitec power over that substance. But all the other characters are sketchy at best, and the "villians" absolutely ludicrous.

Once again we have a bare handful of super-villians who are out to - what else? - destroy mankind. Ah, but these are no ordinary people, but the CLONES of some of the minor luminaries of world civilization. ( Never mind that many of the previous reviewers had never heard of most of them; they WERE great in their day. ) Why not use clones of actual villians from history? ( Hitler's always a favorite for this, but there are plenty of others! ) And how DID they get their DNA?

My real question though is HOW did these few people manage to not only solve the mysteries of cloning; but also construct their HUGE and apparantly steam-powered fortress with its own guided missle, which rises from the sea reminiscient of something out of Super Atragon? Also, the motivation for this unhappy change of character from enlightened ( one is the monk who originally brought Buddhism from India to Japan ) to psychopathic is never really explained. Nor is why the super-attractive and suave Mata Hari would fall for such an unsavoury character as the leader, an unshaven, unwashed-looking former philosopher.

The problem with this OVA series is that in only 90 minutes, its creators have chosen to concentrate on a few main characters and loads of impressive high-tech action scenes to the detriment of an overall scenario that is far too vast. Oddly enough, LESS action and more development of a somewhat scaled-down storyline with better-defined characters could have resulted in a true Anime classic. Instead we have a pretty-to-look-at mish-mosh that confuses far more than it enlightens.