Let's begin...

Perfect Blue
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Mima Kirigoe (who we like) is a pop star in the trio Cham, but she quits to become a serious actress- though she isn't entirely happy with this career change. She just always does whatever she thinks is expected of her, whether she wants to or not. Anyway, she gets a role in a murder mystery called "Double Bind." She also finds that there is a website called "Mima's Room," which seems to have entries written by her, even though she's an internet novice and doesn't know anything about the site. The scary thing is that the entries are surprisingly accurate, as if the site's owner (who seems to be an obsessed fan named Mr. Me-Mania) is either watching her every move, or somehow inside her head.

As if that wasn't spooky enough, her ever-expanding role in the drama seems to mirror what's going on in her life. Many of the people connected to her are being murdered, and meanwhile Mima is having a serious identity crisis, having apparent hallucinations of her former pop idol self, who says she's the real Mima, and Mima... well, she's really an imposter, a traitor, not the real Mima... Mr. Me-Mania seems to be visited by the same hallucination of this phantom Mima, and wants to eliminate the real Mima, believing her to be an imposter.

As Mima is less and less able to tell what is reality, what is fiction, and what may be hallucination, so are we, the audience. Ultimately there seems to be a sensible explanation for all of this, however. But up till that point- and I'd say to an extent, even after it all ends- everything is in question, and the movie is a pretty intense psychological thriller.

Pokémon Ranger and the Temple of the Sea
ANN; Pokemon.com; Serebii.net; Wikipedia

This is the 9th movie based on the Pokémon TV series (see anime shows 4), but I think it's the fifth one I saw, so I still have a few more I need to see. Plus one of the ones I watched I wasn't paying close enough attention to, and should see again sometime. But the ones I have seen I reviewed here. But now about this movie....

It all begins with an egg. You know, just blissfully floating around under the sea with all the water pokemon. And then the egg is captured by a group of pirates, led by a man called the Phantom. However, one of the pirates in his crew turns out to actually be a Pokemon Ranger, Jack "Jackie" Walker, who grabs the egg and makes a totally cool and daring get-away.

Later we see Ash walking with his friends May (who we kinda like), Brock, and Max. They're lost, and thirsty. Then they come across a young woman named Lizabeth (who we like), who is performing with a group of water and psychic pokemon, doing really neat tricks that kinda resembles waterbending (as in Avatar: The Last Airbender). Ash and company are happy to get some water from Lizabeth, and they end up joining her and her family (we also like her mother, Meredith) and watching their "Marina Underwater Pokemon Show." Oh, and in a way Lizabeth's granddad kind of vaguely reminded me of Iroh from Avatar. But not really.

Anyway, it turns out that the family are in possession of the egg. And a clown who seems to be part of the show turns out to be none other than Ranger Jackie, who is protecting the egg from the Phantom, who's still looking for it. And of course, soon enough he attacks, and in the midst of a chase to capture the egg, it hatches into a Manaphy, a very rare pokemon known as the Prince of the Sea. Since May is the one holding the egg when it hatches, Manaphy thinks of her as its mother, and the two quickly form an unbreakable bond. But Phantom isn't ready to give up yet. He needs that Manaphy to guide him to the hidden Temple of the Sea, which is constantly drifting around the world, underwater. It was built long ago by the People of the Sea, of whom Lizabeth's family- and apparently May's- are descendants. The Temple contains a crown, the wearer of which will be known as the King of the Sea, and the Phantom is desperate to find that crown. He's already gone to great lengths in its pursuit, and I get the feeling there'd be another really interesting movie just seeing what he's done to get to this point, but I don't suppose we'll ever see anything like that....

Well... what to say? Lots of stuff happens. Um, Team Rocket got involved with Phantom for awhile, though their part was relatively minor. Funny, though (loved the "diamonds and pearls" joke). Well, there was lots more chasing, lots of bonding between May and Manaphy, lots of beautiful imagery... Oh yes, I loved the animation (alot of it seemed to be computer generated, but it meshed perfectly with the traditional animation). And it was all very dramatic and emotional, and it had a great story. Anyway, the whole movie was really pretty cool, I thought. Okay, there was one part near the end that I thought was kind of over-the-top, but acceptable, I guess. And definitely fun. And of course Ash gets to be the big hero, as usual, but really, May totally owned this movie. If it doesn't tug at your heartstrings, then I'd say that's because you haven't got any. Yep, I'd say this is my favorite Pokemon movie I've seen so far (though to be fair, there are several I haven't seen yet). Well, I feel like I should say more, but I can't think what, right now...

R.O.D. - Read or Die
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Okay. The Royal British Library has a Division of Special Operations. Okay? There are these James Bond type spies whose mission it is to retrieve rare books. The person in charge is called Joker, though he seems to report to someone called the Gentleman. Joker has a cute and competent, if somewhat bumbling, secretary, named Wendy. But enough of that. Some of these spies have super powers. The main one is Yomiko Readman (who we quite like), codenamed "the Paper." Her power is... well, basically, she can turn paper into pretty much anything. She is also seriously addicted to books, nothing seems more important to her than reading as many books as she can get her hands on. She's rarely aware of anything around her when reading. I mean anything.

Anyway, when some villain makes a bunch of clones of great historical figures (none of whom I seem to have ever heard of, except Beethoven; and btw, his "Death Symphony" is going to cause all humans to kill themselves- though the piece played in the movie sounds like "Ode to Joy" to me, and suicide is rather the opposite of the effect it normally has on me) and starts stealing rare books for a reason that eludes me, Yomiko gets teamed up with an American commando (with no super powers) named Drake Anderson, and another agent named Nancy Makuhari, codenamed "Miss Deep," whose power is to phase through solid objects (we like her). At first I guess they're just supposed to prevent these clones- which are called I-Jin, and also have super powers- from stealing books, but then it turns out they want to destroy all humans and leave behind a new Paradise, because we've all messed the world up so bad, or whatever. So now our heroes have to stop them from doing that. I still have no idea how the book stealing figured into that, unless they just wanted to have some decent reading material for after the human race was eliminated.

But anyway, there's an evil clone of Nancy, too, and um... well, things get complicated. I dunno what else to tell you, except it was all pretty damn cool, and the animation was very clean, I liked it. And the story really isn't very strange, by anime standards, but just strange enough. There's a series, too, but I dunno when or if I may get a chance to see it.... And oh yeah, this isn't really a movie. It's a 3 episode OVA, separate from the TV series. But I saw it on TV in movie form, so this is where I put it. Okay?