August 05, 2014

Random Anime Picture #87: Say Hi, Jiro!


I just finished watching The Wind Rises, Ghibli's fictionalized account of the life of Jiro Horikoshi, designer of both the A5M "Claude" and A6M "Zero" fighters.  I have mixed reactions.  As far as Ghibli films go, it's far and away my favorite of all of them.  Its no coincidence that it's also the least preachy of all of Miyazaki's films: the two go hand-in-hand. 

IJN Nagato in background
It should come as absolutely no surprise that it's a gorgeous film.  Again, it's a Ghibli.  That's to be expected.  There's just something about The Wind Rises that doesn't sit right with me, and I think it's the main character.  Jiro Horikoshi in this movie comes across as a completely dispassionate, yet heroic, leading man.  Brilliant, relatively athletic, a leader of men, and he does it all with the same nearly blank expression on his face.  Only when he's discussing airplanes does he begin to show some emotion... not much, but some.  His wife is dying of tuberculosis?  Blank look.  Tokyo destroyed by an earthquake?  Blank look.  In Germany?  Blank.  The voice acting of Hideaki Anno, who sounds like he has a stuffed nose, doesn't help a whole lot, either.

Still, it's got the Hosho in it.  Which is always nice.

All in all, it's certainly worth watching.  I'll give it 3.5 stars.  It just could have been so much more.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:02 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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August 03, 2014

Random Anime Picture #87: Say Hi, Tony!

For the most part, I really don't much care for Leiji Matsumoto's WWII OVA entitled The Cockpit.  Of the three parts, only the middle one, "Sonic Boom Squadron", is any good.  Which doesn't mean that the other two don't have a bit of eye candy.

This is from part 3, "Knight of the Iron Dragon," and that's a Kawasaki Ki-61 Army Type 3 Fighter, better known as the "Tony".  It was the only Japanese fighter in WWII to use a liquid-cooled inline engine and proved to be pretty good, all in all.  Over 3000 were built, and served all the way until the end of the war.

I still don't recommend The Cockpit, but it's not all that often planes like the Ki-61 get any love.

Posted by: Wonderduck at 10:42 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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