Chanbara Beauty (aka Oneechanbara: Movie)

Title

Chanbara Beauty (aka Oneechanbara: Movie)

Language - Japenese

Genre -  fighting, Zombie, Chanbara, Video game

 

Chanbara Beauty is the first of 2 films based on the Oneechanbara & Zombie hunter video games and follows Aya as she hunts for her sister Saki who killed there farther.

Chanbara Beauty is set in the near future; about 10 years after the D3 company has released Zombies upon the world, It’s not fully explained why D3 released the zombies but Dr Sugita, the man who is creating them (and the only person we ever see working for D3) hints that they are looking for Aya.  At the opening of the film we see Zombies attacking a small settlement of humans, just as the Zombies seem to be winning Aya and her sidekick Katsuji enter the fray and Aya kills most of the Zombies, shedding the coat she was wearing to revel her trademark look from the games, a bikini, cowboy boots and hat and a feather bower. A mysterious woman on a motorbike who shoots a zombie that Aya is about to interrogate also joins the fight, I’m not sure what Aya hopes to gain from interrogating the zombie as there is no other point in the film where any of them speak.  Aya and the woman start to fight but Katsuji, who has come out of hiding now all the zombies are dead, breaks this up, the woman introduces herself as Reiko and tells Aya that her sister is with Dr Sugita and she will take her the Doctor if she will help kill him.  The party of three then set off to find Dr Sugita and Saki, apparently leaving the motorbike behind.

The imagery in Chanbara Beauty stays close to the game, you have Aya in her bikini and cowboy boots, Saki in her schoolgirl uniform and Reiko in her cleavage revealing biker leathers and shotgun that never needs to be reloaded.  The journey that the characters take is also like the games, they are in on place and then the next without actual travelling and most of the action takes place in abandoned buildings that soon fill up with hordes of zombies.  The film also uses other imagery form the games, during big fight scenes the camera becomes covered in blood and we get aerial views of Zombies limbs flying through the air.  There is also a ‘boss’ zombie in the form of another girl in a schoolgirl uniform wheedling a ball and chain, possibly a symbolic weapon due to her relationship to one of the other characters is what is chaining them down.  (I could just be seeing too much into this though, I’m not sure that the movie is quite that intelligent)

  The one problem with the film is that it seems to rely on some knowledge of the games, when fighting the zombies Aya pulls off some pretty good moves which could be put down to theatrical license but, as the film progresses she (and Saki) start to blast the area around them with energy from their swords and, at the end of the film they become surrounded with energy and gain super speed and flight.  In the games this is because the two sisters have cursed blood, which enables them to activate their powers, the more they fight and the more they get covered in blood.  The cursed blood is mentioned in the film, indeed it is why Dr Sugita needs Aya as he believes that it is needed to bring the dead back to life without them being total zombies although it’s not explained why Saki’s blood isn’t good enough, but there is never anything mentioned about the blood giving either sister any powers.

Over all I found Chanbara Beauty an enjoyable movie, it’s not high on scares but if you like zombies, action and scantily clad women then it is a good way to kill an hour and a half.

Red Garden

Title - Red Garden
Language - Japenese
Genre - anime, horror, mystery

Red Garden

Four high school girls (Kate, Rachel, Rose & Claire) wake up with only fleeting memories of the night before and the feeling that something is not right.  Latter that day the police visit their school to investigate the mysteries death of their friend, Lise, Matters are further complicated when, later that night, the four girls each see a number of butterflies that no one else can see.  After following the butterflies they meet Lula who tells them that they are all dead and, unless they want to disappear they must fight monsters that prow the night.  The monsters look like men but walk on all fours and have glowing eyes.

 The girls spend the nights fighting the monsters and the days trying to find the truth to their situation, the only leads they have are the memories of a mansion and the missing diary that belonged to Lise.

 Red Garden is a bit different to the anime I’m used to watching, even though the majority of the cast is female the show does not rely on fan service in the same way as shows like Sekirei, non of the girls have overly large breast, the clothes they wear (including the school uniforms) all fit and don’t get too damaged/ripped/removed during the fights and, even though there is plenty of opportunity there is a distinct lack of ‘panty shots’.

In the same way the series is not a Shonen type show like Bleach or Naruto.  Even though the girls do gain a couple of extra abilities after they die there is no exponential power growth for them or for the monsters.  In fact, after the first few episodes the fights with the monsters take second seat to the investigation on to what happened the night they died.  That is not to say that they don’t happen they just pay a part for the character development.

Instead of the action and fan service Red Garden relies on the story and character growth as the girls try to find out what happened the night they died, what the monsters are and how it all ties in with Lise’s death and this can lead to the series being a bit slow, some of the major plot points are not picked up until episode 14 and some of the plot lines just seem to fizzle out.  In one episode the girls are given a seed by Lula who tells them that if they plant it will prove that they are dead, the seed grows and the girls get a couple of memories back, when they go to flower it is guarded by a couple of the monsters, hinting that the flower is meant to something but it doesn’t make another appearance.  The girls relationship with Lula also seems to change quiet easily and quickly, the go from hating her as she is the person who has put them in the situation they are in to sympathizing and forgiving her once they know what is going on, I’m not going to elaborate much more on that point to avoid spoilers but there are other characters who do less to them and who only get more hated.

As I have stated, Red Garden is slow in places, it chose’s to grow the characters personalities instead of their power’s and so the amount of action is minimal until after episode 14 when the girls find out what the monsters are and why they are fighting them.  Even then the show concentrates on the story more than the fighting, with the final battle leading to a large number of deaths but only a few are seen on screen, most of the ones we do see are still there to push the story to it’s end. 

Oh and there’s crying, lots of crying.  Some one cries in every episode and in the pivotal 14^th episode I think every main character cry’s at least once.

Saying all of that, red garden is worth a watch, each episode gives a bit more information as to what is going on and a lot of the secondary characters play different parts in the mystery and, although it could possible be a couple episodes shorter it did hold my interest to the end without having to rely on fan-service.

The ADV box set also contains an OVA which is worth mentioning but this part will CONTAIN SPOILERS. 

The OVA is a two part episode called ‘dead Girls’ and is set in the distant future Kate, Rachel, Rose & Claire have no memory of the events in Red Garden, which is, with eternal life the side effect of uniting the two parts of the books of curse’s at the end of the series.  The four girls have been travailing around the world but are currently back in New York working as bounty hunters, as cover they are back in school.  The girls are type off that there are weapons dealers who are planning something big and the meeting is supposed to take place in the ‘red Garden’ that was created at the end of the series.  The girls are both intrigued and scared to go back into the garden as the first thing any of them remember is waking up there and they are worried what they may discover about the 17 years they cant remember.

Dead girls is a lot more light hearted than red garden with each of the girls playing a different role in the group (a deliberate set up to help stop them getting board) and sees the return of some of the other characters all be it in different roles (except the two policemen, they are always policemen).  The Four girls travel on hover boards, which look like butterflies and Rachel has even built a Mecha, which she calls her baby to help in the fight.

Dead girls has potential and I think it could make an entertain series but as it stands it only exists as the OVA.