Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle (1993)

Set about a year after the events of Fatal Fury, Terry Bogard (Kazukiyo Nishikiori) has moved on to find work and continue his training, as have Joe and Andy. As this is happening, a man named Wolfgang Krauser (voiced by the great Hirotaka Suzuoki) has learned of Terry’s victory over Geese Howard (Hideatsu Shibata) and seeks to challenge him. They fight early on and Krauser defeats him easily. The loss hurts Terry’s pride as much as his body and he chooses to combat his depression and feelings of self worthlessness with alcohol, much to the disappointment and horror of his friends. The OVA follows two storylines; one is of Terry’s friends, being Joe and Andy in their separate attempts to avenge him and Terry’s own struggle to crawl out of his despair and rise to challenge Krauser once again.

This is a case of the sequel being superior to its predecessor in virtually every way. I’ll begin with the characters. All of the central protagonists have added depth and character development. This has a lot to due with the extended run time and the pacing of the plot. The first OVA was a mere 46 minutes while this one has 75 to tell its story. Terry’s obliterated pride mixed with his alcohol dependency adds for some dark (and at times a little clichéd) scenes. But it manages to provide something that should have been in the first OVA: a scene that reveals some of Terry’s training as a boy. In this story, a young boy named Tony (Masami Kikuchi), who dreams of being a fighter like Terry, follows him around and in one scene reminds Terry of his own violent past. It’s a short scene, but it provides a lot of information about who Terry is and paves the way for his eventual recovery and personal strength through determination. Joe Higashi, this time voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama (who's a voice actor much better suited to the character), is also given not only more relevance to the story but more to do. He even gets a brutal and one-sided fight sequence against Krauser. Andy Bogard (Keiichi Nanba) is another character who's allowed for more development as well as an animation correction (this time his hair is blonde as it’s supposed to be). In the first OVA, likely due to time constraints, all that can be determined from Andy as a character is that he's brash, headstrong, and overly eager. Here, he shows another aspect of his character when he's paired up with Mai Shirinui (Kotono Mitsuishi), a scantily clad ninja girl who has a crush on him. Even Geese feels more developed through the addition of only one flashback sequence expanding on his relationship with Krauser. It adds a certain level of depth to him that was sorely missing in the first OVA. But the most intriguing character in this OVA by far is Wolfgang Krauser. He was raised with brutality and indifference by his father, whose only interest in him was to make him the most powerful being on earth. The reason for his personal interest in Terry Bogard is only due to his desire to fight someone worthy of his own skill. He desperately desires to fight someone that will make him feel something. He's not a mere crime lord nor does he even have plans that resemble anything criminal or could be conceived as evil. I would not consider him a villain, and in some ways his story is very tragic. One of the strong points of this OVA is the scope of the story. Instead of being about stopping something or defeating a great evil, it stays small in scale and instead focuses on character development and personal demons, as well as the idea of fighting for a living, of which particular emphasis is placed through the violence and aftermath of even a sparring match.

Wolfgang Krauser (Hirotaka Suzuoki)

Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle is directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi, a more experienced and talented director more known for his work on Rurouni Kenshin and Get Backers. Krauser resides in a large castle in the middle of a lake in Germany and opens the OVA by playing the organ. As he plays, we are shown through cross cutting certain events that occurred which led Krauser to Geese’s hiding place in the mountains. The scene is connected to his organ playing through the music that he produces which acts as a sound bridge for the different events. It is a very stylish and interesting opening, the inclusion of which already makes the OVA much better than the first. The music (this time composed by the great Toshihiko Sahashi) used throughout the OVA is much more varied and just better than that of the first. The animation is the most notable improvement as the character designs seem more detailed and polished. This is even more evident in the action sequences which are not only longer but much more fluid. The first OVA utilized a lot of stills in their action scenes which only made me question just how small the animation budget was. Even the big finale left something to be desired. Now, every action scene is carefully planned out and more meaningful to the story, thanks to the better developed characters. Each fight scene has added weight since more is at stake emotionally. It certainly helps that the battles are much longer and more entertaining. The fight between Krauser and Terry is a major highlight of this story. Fatal Fury 2: The New Battle is a very well thought out and entertaining martial arts story. I would also argue that it's one of the best videogame adaptations to date, ranking alongside Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

Fatal Fury (1992)

Fatal Fury is an OVA based on the fighting game series by SNK that was often featured on the NEO GEO videogame systems and in arcades. The series was a product of the 90s, and today is much lesser known. It was popular enough in Japan at the time to earn itself a few anime adaptations. The first attempts to cover the story of the first game in the series. It was directed by Hiroshi Fukutomi, who also adapted another of SNK’s fighting game frachises, Art of Fighting.

Two children named Terry (Kazukiyo Nishikiori) and Andy Bogard (Keiichi Nanba) watch helplessly as their adopted father is killed by an evil martial artist named Geese Howard (Hidekatsu Shibata). Their father’s martial arts teacher explains to them that in order avenge their father they both need to become powerful fighters themselves. In ten years, he will teach the better of the two the most sacred technique of his school, the one that Geese killed their father for. Ten years pass and both brothers return as powerful martial artists. Coincidentally, Geese is setting up his King of Fighters tournament. With the help of Andy’s friend Joe Higashi (Masaaki Satake), the three of them decide to enter and see who is the strongest to take down Geese.

Andy Bogard (Keiichi Nanba)

The story is interesting enough, but some of the biggest problems with this film are the pacing and the length. The film is incredibly short, the total run time being 46 minutes, and they attempt to force a lot of storylines into this brief period. For instance, I neglected to mention in the summary the romance subplot. Terry falls for Lilly (Kikuko Inoue), the “Queen of Southtown.” She's a sort of captive of Geese and though it’s never really clear what services she provides for him, it's evident that he pays her for whatever it is she does. Terry and Lily share very little screen time together, but they have a strong romantic connection apparently. It feels very tacked on and could have greatly benefited from a few extra scenes. The same could also be said for nearly every aspect about this film. The fight scenes are brief and really unimpressive. They contain a lot of still images set to sound effects and music. The tournament is reduced to not much more than a montage of this. Even the bigger fights, such as Terry fighting Geese in the finale, only last about one minute.

The film opens with Terry and Andy as children and after they are told to become great fighters and return to the city in ten years, we are immediately taken to ten years later. This provides no look into how they became such great fighters and it’s a large portion of the story where a lot happened to the protagonists. The villain Geese Howard is the best example of the films lack of character development and depth. As a gang lord referred to as the “King of Southtown,” Geese is an evil bastard who manages to find dark humor in everything he does. He forces out an evil laugh every single time he does or implies something sinister, and it gets old. But the biggest problem with him is his general disinterest in the main characters who are desperately trying to defeat him. He's curious when they show up into town, but since he basically rules the entire city, anyone new who entered the city would likely get similar attention. He makes no attempt to fight them himself because he's so far out of their league. Even when Joe and Andy are literally storming his castle, when told of this information, his response is complete indifference.

The animation is mediocre at best. It's a very typical style of the time period especially seen in lower budget productions. At times it looks good, but often it seems rushed and unpolished. The fight scenes, which in a film based on a fighting game series should be the highlight, are uninteresting. The music is also a bland mixture of guitar riffs and synthesizers that sound at times like it would be better suited to an elevator. There are also some oddities in the characters. Andy Bogard has blue hair in this film for some reason (in the games he's blonde), and Joe’s voice never seems like it suits the character or his mannerisms. Unfortunately, Fatal Fury as an animated film is merely a bland and forgettable adaptation.

Toy Story 3 (2010)

When the first Toy Story was released in 1995, I was about seven years old. I saw it with my family in theaters three times and there are few films that match the impact that this one had on my childhood. For years my favorite toy was a Woody doll and I would bring it with me everywhere, thinking that when I wasn’t looking, it would come to life. When Toy Story 2 was released in 1999, like Andy I was older, and this next film had the toys accepting the inevitability of the child outgrowing them. It's a strange thing to see an animated character age along with yourself. It’s been eleven years since the last film and now Andy is heading off to college. Many of the toys that Andy used to own are now lost to the passed years including characters like Bo Peep, R.C., and the Etch A Sketch. The core remaining characters spend most of their time waiting in a toy box desperately wanting to be played with. The plot follows Andy putting all of them except Woody in a bag meant for the attic that his mom mistakes for a trash bag. As Woody tries to rescue them, the toys allow themselves to be taken to the neighborhood daycare; a place which seems like a toy’s paradise but is actually more of a prison. The rest of the story follows the form of a prison break film, and the humor found in the previous installments is still very strong here.

Jessie, Buzz & Woody

All the jokes work incredibly well and what helps them even more are the characters. Nearly all the characters maintain their original voice actors and each character feels consistent with how they were portrayed from the previous films. Everything they’ve ever been through adds weight to what the characters say and do here, which makes their relationships more believable and easy to care about, the camaraderie between Buzz and Woody in particular. There are some great new additions as well. Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty) is the leader of the toys at the daycare and he seems like this harmless southern gentleman, though he has a past. Of all the new toys, Ken is probably the most memorable. He's the butt of many jokes, focusing on the idea of a Ken doll being both a girl’s toy and merely an accessory to Barbie. Michael Keaton clearly has a lot of fun voicing him.

The animation is flawless as usual for a Pixar film, and the attention to detail can be found in every frame. The incredible animation never overshadows the story or the characters, however. This is another reason that this and all of the other films in their library are great. The animation and technical aspects of each film are merely the means in which to tell a story. The characters and plot come first. There isn’t one scene in this entire film that feels forced or sappy, which could have very easily been the case, given the content. Andy going off to college and leaving his toys behind serves as a visual representation of his rise to adulthood, leaving his childhood behind. This is made more touching because of the associations people have with this film and its characters.

This third installment was made eleven years after the second and that gap is present in the lives of the audience as well as the film’s story. Watching this film I became highly aware of my own childhood, now gone. The opening of the film includes a series of video recordings of Andy as a child playing with his toys and gradually we see him age. Much like Up, the opening is filled with the bittersweet emotion that comes with watching time go by. This affected me strongly since these characters are as much a part of my generations’ childhood as they are of Andy’s fictional one. One of the strongest aspects of this film is the clear awareness and respect that it has for its audience, both current and past. Given that many of the people who saw the original film as children are now around Andy’s age in this film, it adds a significant degree of nostalgia and sentimentality. More so than for children who see this film today. While this film can be enjoyed by everyone, young and old, when I watch it, it feels as though it was meant for me and for everyone like me, who can still remember what it was like watching the first film in theaters and thinking that maybe my toys were real.

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

Made 15 years after the original, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is the sequel to the 1985 cult film Vampire Hunter D. The story is adapted from Demon Deathchase, the third novel in Hideyuki Kikuchi's long-running series. The plot follows D as he's hired to rescue (or kill if she was bitten) the daughter of a rich man. She was abducted by a vampire named Meier Link during the night. As it turns out, they are in love and are trying to escape to a place where they can live alone and in peace. As he hunts them, D and his left hand find themelves racing against another group of hunters called the Marcus Brothers. All of this eventually leads both teams of hunters to the Castle of Chaythe, where Carmilla, a powerful demon vampire, resides.

To begin with, the animation in this film is fantastic. It’s the most notable improvement over the original. The film was directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri (Wicked City, Ninja Scroll), and his style perfectly suits the dark and gothic tone of the D series. D has never looked better, and everything within the film is more reminiscent of Yoshitaka Amano's designs. The environments are incredibly detailed and varied. The film's plot covers quite a bit of ground, so we get to see a lot of the landscape of the world of the franchise. There are many fascinating locations depicted in this film. The mutant city of the Barbarois is one of the first memorable settings; surrounded by giant walls and literally crawling with bizarre and grotesque creatures, it's a prime example of the strange world of the series. There are also beautiful and colorful locations too, like the forest next to the ruins covered in water where D battles one of the mutants. Both of these locations are literally dwarfed by the Castle of Chaythe, however. This place is a gothic nightmare and the inside is a mixture of beauty and illusions on a massive scale. The imagery is both mesmerizing and fascinating at the same time.

D (Andrew Philpot)

Despite the superb animation and style, the film suffers from a few problems. First of all, the voice acting is a bit of a mixed bag. This film was originally dubbed in English, which is an odd choice for a Japanese series. Andrew Philpot does a good job voicing D, providing just enough emotion to keep from sounding robotic. Meier Link, voiced by John Rafter Lee, is also one of the better actors, though I can’t place the accent he uses. Some other highlights include Julia Fletcher as Carmilla and a few of the extras. The worst of the voice acting comes from Matt McKenzie as Borgoff Marcus, whose voice never really matches the character or the animations. I just couldn't buy that this huge beefy guy talked like this. Another weaker performance comes from Pamela Adlon as Leila, which is a shame since she's such a major character. She voices her to have little emotion, but it comes across as sounding off-key. This is particularly noticeable when she and D have a quiet moment together in the rain. She sounds tolerable at best and like she's reading at worst. Speaking of audio and perhaps this is just a problem with the U.S. version, but a lot of the voice acting is significantly less audible than the sound effects. This sort of disrupts the flow of the film when the audio needs to be adjusted based on whether or not it’s an action scene.

I have another issue with this film. D is a half-human, half-vampire which in the first film and in the novels is referred to as a Dhampir, but in this film they call it a “Dunpeal.” I’m not sure which is the correct term, but this little inconsistency is fairly annoying and I personally prefer the former.

Another problem is the romance. The romance between Meier Link and Charlotte is kind of uninteresting. Aside from knowing that each would be willing to die for the other (because they say it a few times), their romance is basically just presented very directly. It’s more to explain and move along the plot than evoke actually sympathy. This eventually leads to some serious melodrama and a fairly sappy ending. What it does do well however, is blur the line between heroes and villains. D is ruthless and being paid to save Charlotte against her will while Meier Link is genuinely in love with her. This is also an interesting twist in the vampire character, placing Meier Link at odds with not only the audience's preconceptions, but with those of the characters in this setting as well. One of the strong points of this film is D himself. This time around, there's a much more somber tone added to the way he views the world and what he does. Though he remains mostly expressionless, there's a clear sense of depression attached to the character, and this is particularly clear when he explains why does what he does. Everyone hates him, human and noble alike, but to him, he feels as though there's no choice for the way he must live his life and pursue his goals. And he's uncompromising in this.

This film is definitely a case of style over substance, but I must admit the style is pretty impressive and I genuinely enjoyed this film. There are some truly great moments, especially with D when he's traveling and fighting. The fight scenes in this film are very well staged. The action is big when it needs to be, but also concise and to the point. They never feel like they go on for too long and the visuals make nearly every scene captivating. Overall, I would recommend this film, particularly to fans of the series. I will say that it helps to have seen the first film, or to at least to be familiar with the series. If you're not, while this film could serve as a good introduction, it may be a bit bizarre for some. It combines several styles into one, seamlessly integrating sci-fi, western, gothic horror and action.