Birth - Denkyu.Com
- Denkyu.Com
- Tcov
- 10/01/04
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Birth: DVD Review
Written by tcov
I have to give credit to ADV for getting their hands on older anime. They are among the only anime DVD companies who are willing and able to license classical anime and obtain their masters.
Birth was created in 1984 by a veteran team who has done work in many of the current animes nowadays, including people such as director Shinya Sadamitsu (director of Blue Seed), mecha designer Makoto Kobayashi (mecha designer of the newest GONZO series still on airwaves Samurai 7) and musical score by Joe Hisaishi (musical score for Spirited Away and other Studio Ghibli films).
Aqualoid was once a beautiful planet until a group called the Inorganics left it with nothing but sand dunes. You see some sort of gooey ball with eyes running away from some strange huge balled monster. Then we meet Rasa and Nam on the planet on their motor bikes, or whatever they were. Rasa rescues the gooey ball and goes about her business. Next scene, we see two men in a ship patrolling a part of space. They have a mission to complete, yet it was really hard to determine why they are on this mission. So the whole scene basically focuses on one of the crewman to talk and glorify himself.
If this is a dull review so far, I don't know what to say. I really did not understand what was going on for a good 1/3 of the movie. The other 2/3 (or maybe even more, in case I am miscalculating) are chase scenes.
The Inorganics are powerful machines. One thing that can stop them is a sword that Nam finds while scouring near a mountain. The mysterious light that surrounds him is used to his advantage later on. He was still chased after.
I love when there is more exposure to older anime which is why I give props to ADV. They have the money to do this. They pick whatever they can get their hands on as long as it looks like it will sell, and not all of them are going to be good shows/movies. Especially this one. I feel like I wasted my time with Birth. It wasn't overly bad or anything, I just didn't want to continue on. The beginning of the movie does not grip me in any way. Oooohh, a weird looking ball running away from a monster. It seems funny, but I just yawned a bit. When the scene changed, I'm thinking 'Ok, now what?' You have to be extremely patient with this anime, plus have a high level of tolerance to get through this.
ADV will have a lot more to offer to us fans. Birth is something I can honestly say you might want to skip. Though it may be too late, the DVD has been out for 3 months now.
Posted on Friday, October 01, 2004 (Archive on Monday, November 01, 2004)