The Other Side of Animation 205: Kid Cosmic Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com/camseyeview. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

HEADS UP: I was able to review this show early thanks to a screener.

It’s a brand new year, and that means brand new cartoons! It’s always exciting, worrying, and stressful to encounter new shows every year. You don’t know what they might unfold into, but you can also get excited for them because you are traversing into a new world made by creative individuals. I am always pumped when I see a new show from a creator I have been a fan of since I was a kid. It’s fun to watch their careers evolve and what shows they come up with. For example, one of my favorite creators, Craig McCraken, the brains behind some of the best cartoons of the past few decades, has a new show on Netflix called Kid Cosmic!

Created by Craig McCraken, Kid Cosmic is his and his team’s brand new venture into the world of animation that hit Netflix with a cool retro art style, out of this world adventures, and a cat with psychic powers. Anytime a creator I have a lot of respect for comes up with a new cartoon, it’s always worth being pumped for. It’s especially true when you have one heck of a team making the show, and a stellar voice cast. Any show that has a distinct look from the other shows coming out always gets more attention from me. Let’s stop wasting time and jump right in with Kid Cosmic! 

Our story plops us right down in the middle of nowhere. I’m assuming somewhere like New Mexico/Nevada desert location. Maybe West Texas if we want to extend it. Our main character is Kid, voiced by Jack Fisher. He lives with his grandfather Papa G, voiced by Keith Ferguson. The kid has a wild imagination that is filled with comic books and sci-fi. He lives with a small group of people that include a teen named Jo, voiced by Amanda C. Miller, a little girl named Rosa, voiced by Lily Rose Silver, and a few others. We also must make sure to include the best character of the show, Tuna Sandwich, a chunky cat voiced by Fred Tatasciore. One night, an alien ship crashes in the mountains near the small town, and a couple of space rocks fall out of the ship. Kid gets his hands on them and finds out that each of the stones has special powers. They include multiplying clones, portals, growing giant, being psychic, and telekinesis. The kid then gets the idea to make a superhero team to protect the town from alien invasions and maybe an unknown force you will meet later on. 

So, let’s start with this review talking about the animation. This is easily one of the strongest looking visual looks for a cartoon this year. It has a strong retro comic book style that matches the tone from Dennis the Mennis and Richie Rich, and that should be no shock since that is where a lot of the inspiration came from. It looks distinct from many shows that are coming out, and the fact that a still frame of this show looks like it came right out of a comic book illustrates how fantastic this art direction is. I know some may find the limited movements distracting since this is kind of the same style we see in shows like Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, but for me, it still looks great because of the posing and movements. They aren’t limited, they are more snappy, and each character has distinct movements. This would be a great show to study in an animation class to teach character design and character animation. Each design is so lively, and I just adore the looks of everyone. The aliens, the townsfolks, and the characters we see later on are all memorable. When the action does begin, the animation kicks a lot of tail as it’s wildly creative. 

The music has a cool underground rock sound to it. The voice cast is also stellar all around. You have your usual quality performances from the likes of Tom Kenny and Keith Ferguson, but I also really enjoyed Fred Tatasciore and Amanda C. Miller. Jack Fisher was also a strong performer when Kid needed to be whimsical, but grounded. I shouldn’t expect anything less from Craig and his team, but they always do a fantastic job at casting their shows. As for the writing, as a comedy, it has some of the typical jokes and gags you would find in this kind of show, but it also has a lot of fun with the different powers and the situations the characters find them in. When Papa G gets the stone that makes him able to clone himself, it leads to some of the most gruesome dark comedy in a cartoon aimed at a kids audience. Quite a few of the jokes have a sharper edge to them that adults will enjoy, but the overall show has a vibe and energy to its writing that anyone can enjoy. I admire that the show does slip in little details and story beats that offer a more substantial story, but even when we get into the second half, you never feel like the story halts in its tracks to stop all of the fun comedy and action just to focus on the story. I like these characters and the fact that they weave story beats into the foreground and background while keeping up the same energy throughout the entire story. They all feel fleshed out and realized. 

While we might be early in the year, I think Kid Cosmic is a frontrunner for one of the best new cartoons of 2021. It’s full of fantastic humor, incredible designs, vibrant animation, a pitch-perfect cast, and an overall delightful and entertaining experience. It’s a show that hits all of the right notes for me, and I can’t recommend it enough. If you have Netflix and have been craving some new original cartoons, then please watch this show. Well, this was a great show to write a review for, and I can’t wait to see what Craig does next and what a second season will bring. Next time, we will talk about a new film by the director of Long Way North. That’s right, we will be talking about Calamity! 

Thanks for reading the review! I hope you all enjoyed reading it! If you would like to support my work, make sure to share it out, and if you want to become a Patreon supporter, then you can go to patreon.com/camseyeview. I will see you all next time!

Rating: Criterion/Essentials 

The Other Side of Animation 134: Metropolis Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

Ambition feels like such a double-edged sword. You can be respected and admired for how far you take your project, but if it doesn’t entirely work out, all of that ambition will fall flat, due to execution. I’ve seen a lot of Japanese animated films, and that tends to happen to many of them. They might have great visuals, a grand scale in their themes, and so on, but due to either not a good director or writer, you end up with a films that feels clunky in their presentation. This is something I heard a lot about with Osamu Tezuka’s Metropolis. Directed by Rintaro, and written by Katsuhiro Otomo, this film was based on the late creator’s manga that was inspired by the famous sci-fi film of the same name. It’s noteworthy as well for being one of the first animated features to be submitted to the Oscars for Best Animated Feature in 2001, but didn’t make it, Instead, that awful Jimmy Neutron movie got nominated. With a list of talent like Rintaro directing, Tezuka’s original manga, and Otomo’s writing, this should be a slam dunk. It did get rave reviews, calling it one of the best animated films from Japan, and I do agree with that. However, let’s dive in and see what else we can find.

Our story takes place in, where else, Metropolis! It’s a high tech city, filled to the brim with humans, rich and poor, having to live with robots that do a mass majority of “lower-class” work. The city is in a bit of a complicated moment in time, as the President, dubbed by Steve McGowan, is presenting a new massive tower, along with Duke Red, dubbed by Jamieson Price, who might have an alterior motive other than just showing how rich he is. At the same time, a detective named Shunsaku Ban, dubbed by Tony Pope, and his nephew Kenichi, dubbed by Brianne Siddall, arrive in the city to bring in a scientist named Dr. Laughton, dubbed by Simon Prescott. The scientist also happens to be working for Duke Red to make a special project for him. On the day that Shunsaku and Kenichi arrive in the city, and with the help of a robot detective named Pero, dubbed by Dave Mallow, they end up getting caught in a much bigger scheme. Dr. Laughton is then shot by an underling working for Duke Red named Rock, dubbed by Michael Relsz, and his lab is destroyed, with only a mysterious young girl named Tima, dubbed by Rebecca Forstadt, surviving. Why does Duke want her? Will the robots and humans find a way to not get into a revolution against one another? What motives does the President have in terms of the massive tower?

The major complaint I heard about this movie is that the film is very busy. You not only have Tima and Kenichi, the mystery of Tima’s purpose, the lower class revolution, the discrimination against robots, Duke Red wanting to be a God, Babylon references, government corruption, and yeah, when I list all of that, so the film is busy. I don’t know if they wanted to adapt the entire story of Tezuka’s manga, since Tezuka wasn’t alive anymore when this film was made, but it does come off like that. There are different points in the second half where it seems like time skipped ahead, and nothing is filled in. You see the beginning of the revolution, but then it cuts to the end of it a few minutes later. It definitely feels like they could have cut some characters, because some of the motivations for how certain characters, like Rock and Duke Red, act are not fully explained to the audience. It definitely could have used some fine tuning in the writing, as the huge philosophical elements come off as wonky in the final product. Nothing wrong with combining religion and philosophy on what makes you human, but it does make the film overly complicated. It should have stuck with the story focusing on Tima and Kenichi, because while I do think their bond is strong, I wish there were more scenes with the two.

I know it sounds like I might hate this movie, and I know some people do, but I really love it. I actually love quite a lot about this film, and I do still agree it’s one of the best and most important animated films from Japan. If you watch any clip of this film, you can tell that the combination of 2D animation and CGI is gorgeous. I love seeing Tezuka’s retro designs on a film budget. This entire film is brimming with beautiful animation, a lot of detail, and personality that makes the city of Metropolis thrive and feel alive. It definitely stands out among the animation seen in more modern day Japanese-animated films.

I also love its jazzy New Orleans-style soundtrack and orchestrated score by Toshiyuki Honda and Atsuki Kimura. However, the best song in this entire film is the Ray Charles version of I Can’t Stop Loving You. It makes the ending so much more emotionally powerful as you see what happens with everyone. It’s a song that always sticks in my mind, and I am actually addicted to it right now as I type this. As for the English dub, it’s pretty sweet, and they have a powerhouse of voice actors for the English dub. You have Brianne Siddall, Rebecca Forstadt, Tony Pope, Jamieson Price, Michael Reisz, Steve Blum, Dave Mallow, Simon Prescott, Dan Woren, Doug Stone, William Frederick Knight, and Barbara Goodson to name some of the best talent you can find in anime. Even though some characters could have been fleshed out more, I still felt for them, and was invested in the overall story. The main heart of the film is definitely when Kenichi and Tima are together. They have some of the best scenes and interactions together. Even if I think this film doesn’t handle philosophical themes well, I still admire that it wanted to be more than just another animated film. It’s at the very least, more than you can say about studios like Blue Sky and Illumination, which I would argue have no ambition to be more than just animated features.

I find myself constantly coming back to Metropolis. I have seen it probably five or so times now, and I still love it despite its flaws. Unfortunately the original DVD release of this film is entering the $30 range, and I don’t think I would recommend doing that when Mill Creek Entertainment is about to put out a new steel book Blu-ray release of it. If you love animation, the works of Osamu Tezuka, and Japanese-animation history, you should definitely check out this film. For now, let’s take a break from Japanese animation, and move on over to what might be Netflix’s best animated feature since The Little Prince with White Fang. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the review, and I will see you all next time!

Rating: Go See It!

The Other Side of Animation 84: Japanese Animation Month 2 Part 2: Patema Inverted Review

(If you like what you see, you can go to camseyeview.biz to see more of my work on video game reviews, editorials, lists, Kickstarters, developer interviews, and review/talk about animated films. If you would like, consider contributing to my Patreon at patreon.com. It would help support my work, and keeps the website up. Thanks for checking out my work, and I hope you like this review!)

When watching a film, you should be able to get into the world without spending time away from focusing on the story and characters, and wondering how everything works. It becomes more distracting as time goes on when they introduce elements that don’t’ get a lot of explanations in terms of how it works, and adds to the universe as a whole. This is the fate of GKids’ release of Patema Inverted. This sci-fi Japanese animated film was originally released in 2013, and was brought over to the states by GKids in 2014. The film was written and directed by Yasuhiro Yoshiura, a director who worked on the one-off OVA Pale Cocoon, a designer for Evangelion 2.0, the director, creator, and screenwriter of the web series Time of Eve, and the director of Bureau of Proto Society. It went on to get solid reviews, but is definitely one of the weaker films from GKids’ library in terms of critical reception. So, do I agree that it’s one of the weaker films from the awesome distributor? Well, let’s find out.

In the far future, mankind decided to try to harness energy from gravity. Of course, by doing so, mankind basically screwed over the earth and caused a rather large mass of the population to die due to the now messed-up gravity. This has led to a certain group of people having to live underground, and some forced to live above ground due to how the gravity is inverted. We follow one of our leads, Patema, voiced by Cassandra Morris, as she dreams of seeing the above world and its inhabitants, despite the multiple warnings she has been given to not do so. After escaping a threat, she ends up flying upwards from her world to the outside world, where the other side of civilization lives. She ends up meeting a young man named Age, voiced by Michael Sinterniklaas, who is a student that lives under the tyrannical rule of a crazed priest named Izamura, voiced by Richard Epcar. Can our two young heroes survive Izamura’s grasp, and find out what exactly happened to the world?

Sadly, one of the biggest problems of the film is, like I alluded to at the beginning of the review, the world and setting. Besides being yet another story of “man is stupid for screwing over the world”, some elements are never explained. For example, later on in the film, Age and Patema end up both flying upward into the sky. They find a massive metal contraption is in the sky in Age’s side of the world. We never really find out if the metal piece was man-made or not. I did learn what it was, but I don’t think I should consider it a good thing that I had to learn something about the film after going to the internet. I mean, isn’t that the power of filmmaking that you can show the viewer what’s going on and not tell them? There were times when I felt like the film was not telling me enough about the setting, and the huge twist at the end was less “oh golly gee wow, that’s a shocker that I didn’t see coming!” and more like “So, did they appear on the other side of the world? What is going on?” To be honest, I don’t personally think it’s my fault for not catching what the film was throwing. I even looked it up to see if I was the only one who was confused by the setting and the twist. Luckily, I was not the only one looking for answers, and even though I found the answers to be helpful and did help shape the world of the film more, I still felt like it was unsatisfying. Again, the film should have done a better job at its story and setting, so I don’t feel like I’m missing something.

Sadly, that’s not the only problem this film has. Besides the main two characters the story follows, no one else is really that interesting. It’s a shame, since you would think a film with a rather interesting setting would have more intriguing characters, but it doesn’t. Most of them are traditional anime tropes or are completely pointless to the story. Seriously, from time to time, they would cut to this red-headed girl who doesn’t do anything, and has no real character. It’s distracting, and I don’t know if she was meant to have more time on-screen, but she feels like an idea that was forgotten to be taken out in the editing process. Even the villain, who is usually the most entertaining character in these types of films, is such a bore. Richard Epcar does a fantastic job as usual, but the villain has no layers to him. He isn’t even good enough to be one of those really intimidating, if one-note, villains. He’s one of those stereotypical high priest characters who went crazy with power, and anyone who doesn’t agree with him dies. I mean, how many times have we seen these types of villains in animation? They are almost as boring as the villains from films like Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Disney’s Tarzan.

In terms of animation, it is good. It moves well, and the idea of how the gravity works can lead to some great visuals and mind-bending moments on whether the side Patema is on or Age’s side is the accurate side of the earth. However, I found the character designs to be fairly bland. They don’t really stand out to me. I guess the only one that stands out is Patema, but everyone else? I think it’s fairly cookie-cutter. I think why it’s bothersome to me is because, once again, the world is interesting, but everyone looks so bland, and made to make animation easier. It doesn’t have a distinct style to it.

After all that complaining, is there something I like about the movie? Of course, there is. Even if the designs look bland, the world itself is still visually interesting. Maybe a bit generic by sci-fi standards, but the scene and background you see when the “twist” happens is very pretty. I also like the chemistry between Patema and Age. Sure, you probably have seen these two types of characters before in other films, but I found them cute together. Like I said earlier, the idea that the gravity is messed up can and will lead to some mind-bending moments. It also leads to reinventing the whole “villain dies by falling” trope with the gravity situation. I also like how it does bring an interesting twist to the whole “why can’t we get along with each other” kind of story. There was a scene in the film that almost felt out of place, but was really funny. It was when Patema and Age first meet, and Age takes her to a safe shed-like building, leading to a rather funny joke. You don’t see this style of humor in the rest of the film, but it was humorous to see it.

While I do agree Patema Inverted is probably one of the weaker films to be brought over by GKids, I still enjoyed watching it. It’s like saying Hayao Miyazaki has a “bad” film because even the weaker films from that guy are way better than the best from mediocre directors. Patema Inverted still has some great visuals, a cute set of protagonists, and a setting that is fairly admirable. I would definitely recommend checking this film out. Well, that was fun talking about a hidden gem, but next time, how about we talk about one of the best films based on anime’s favorite thief? That’s right, we shall finally talk about Lupin the III: Dead or Alive. Thanks for reading, I hope you all enjoyed the article, and I will see you all next time.

Rating: Go see it!