Naruto Shippuuden Movie 4

Full title: Naruto Shippuuden: The Lost Tower
Japanese title: NARUTO-ナルト-疾風伝 ザ・ロストタワー

Some info:
1) Wikipedia
2) ANN
3) Official Site (Japanese)

The 7th movie under the Naruto franchise, and the fourth in the Shippuuden series, I wasn’t exactly expecting very much from this movie, perhaps just a little bit to see how the Naruto/Minato interaction would go. It would be difficult to place this in the timeline of the original plot, but the only thing that can be sure is that Naruto has not found out the real deal Minato is to him.

So how do they actually meet? Well, this ‘lost tower’ brings Captain Yamato and his team back to the past while pursuing after some wanted criminal and there would be where almost everything else takes place. The timeline of the past would be during a time before Minato became the 4th, but I suppose that’s not so relevant here. The sad thing is that Naruto still gets most of the limelight, despite having much more skilled ninjas around. I wasn’t expecting much from the movie plot so that factor didn’t affect very much, so it’s pretty okay for a spin off movie feature like this one.

There’s also a young Kakashi present in the ‘past’, and it’s also prior to him getting a Sharingan. In fact his involvement and screen time is rather little, so I’m guessing he’s placed there as an appreciation for fans or something. If anything that’s special, it would be the combination of Rasengans at the very end which looks really overpowered. Lol, oh well, kind of a ‘fitting move’ to kill of the baddie in his final form, speaking of which changes a few forms just to provide more fight sequences I suppose, though it’s not like the fight scenes were impressive or anything. =X

Overall, this movie feature isn’t very great plot wise, rather mediocre action wise and I was certainly expecting something a little more interesting about the interaction of Naruto and Minato. Despite having lowered my expectations for a spin off movie, it still failed to entertain me much. Lol, I think you get the drift.

Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie

Full title: Mobile Suit Gundam 00 the Movie: A wakening of the Trailblazer
Japanese title: 劇場版 機動戦士ガンダム00 -A wakening of the Trailblazer-

Some info:
1) Wikipedia
2) ANN
3) Official Site (Japanese)

A full film feature continuing from the Gundam 00 universe, in particular some 2 years after the end of the 2nd season. Given the title, I was expecting some new conflict being sparked off by someone who has an ulterior motive of some sort and that would invite some ‘awakening’ to happen or something. Turns out this movie to be very different from all the Gundam titles I have watched thus far, in which there’s the invasion of an alien (foreign) life form on Earth.

As far as my experience with Gundam is concerned, it involves conflicts and wars etc between different groups of humans, but this time I suppose they were trying to experiment with the idea of having a foreign life form visiting Earth, and seems to be rather menacing and aggressive. While this is a ‘good way’ to unite different groups of people and organisations, somehow the special touch is lost in this far less than impressive plot. I must say this attempt did not turn out to be a good one.

Also, it also features the return of many characters we are familiar from the previous season. I can sort of recognise most of them but I have mostly forgotten some of their special relationships etc since it has been quite a while since I last came into contact with the 00 series. The movie doesn’t exactly help you a lot in the remembering ritual though. Well, if it’s any consolation, there is a lot of gundam action (what better way to make use of the many, many characters!) later on, though it is mostly against the ‘minions’ so it might not be as spectacular and epic as some might be expecting. But nonetheless, there’s quite a lot of effects and animation put into those portions so I suppose it’s better than nothing =P

You can read more about the summary of the plot in the wikipedia article but I must say that the ending is really kind of disappointing. Well, it might be nice that our main character gets to be the hero and stop the massive clash between the 2 forces, I don’t see why it had to end in that manner with him having to become a hybrid of sorts. With all the learning capabilities of the foreign life form to be able to adapt so quickly to the various weapons and destruction etc, they couldn’t pick up a common language that could be used in diplomatic negotiations since they seem to be not entirely a warmonger type of existence. Ah well, seeing the ending post credits, I suppose this is a wrap up to the 00 series and it didn’t end beautifully, and in fact I felt that having it ending at the 2nd season was probably a better choice.

Star Driver

Japanese title: STAR DRIVER 輝きのタクト
Number of episodes: 25

Some info:
1) Wikipedia
2) ANN
3) Official Site (Japanese)

From the picture, and perhaps the title, it is not hard to make an intelligent guess that it will involve mecha. And indeed, lots of high school students are involved here, practically all the main ones are high school students in fact. Well, it’s not so much intergalactic battles and travels here, but rather there’s this Cybody thing that can only operate in a space-time dimension known as Zero Time, which as the name suggests, a time where the normal world’s time stops.

So, there’s a trio who forms the ‘good side’, stopping the Glittering Crux, a group which wishes to break all the seals holding the Cybodies back in the Zero Time. Well, the Crux is made up of students in the school on this small island, and it is rather easily recognisable who is which Crux member (they wear masks and have code names) from their hair colour/style etc, without having the anime ‘officially’ revealing who plays which member.

There’s not really that much mech action in each episode actually, and it also sort of follows a certain ‘formula’ so the flow is somewhat predictable. I suppose these are the major minus parts. However, there is some storytelling which in a way reflects certain similarities with the current characters, but at the same time not totally a full reflection. It is interesting to see how the story pans out I guess, not so much how the action scenes go. And for those who likes songs to go along with such genre of anime, there’s songs for you here too. Heh.

I didn’t quite like how the ending turned out to be. A little too predictable and sadly, not very fitting to the flow I think. Although given the same kind of development and pace, I don’t see how to end it in a better way. Oh well, at least some parts are fun and funny. Kind of have mixed feelings towards how I should rate this series. Heh.